How to switch from BambooHR to Rippling

When it's worth the switch from BambooHR to Rippling

BambooHR keeps the employee record clean, but it stays inside HR: onboarding, time off, performance, US payroll. Rippling runs HR, payroll, device management, and app provisioning off that same record, so a new hire's laptop, Slack account, and Google Workspace access get set up the moment HR approves the hire, no second system involved. The switch from BambooHR to Rippling starts making sense once IT and finance want a stake in the employee record HR already owns. BambooHR isn't broken. It just was never built to run IT and finance too.

That expansion isn't free, and the pricing model changes shape along with it. BambooHR publishes its prices. Rippling doesn't.

What each one actually costs

BambooHR lists three tiers on its pricing page, all billed per employee per month: Core at $10, Pro at $17, and Elite at $25. Companies with 25 or fewer employees pay a flat $250/month minimum instead of the per-seat rate. There's no free tier and no free trial, and every plan still routes through a quote request to sign up, but at least you know the number before you talk to sales.

Rippling gives you no number at all. Its pricing page is a demo-request form. Rippling bills per employee per month for a base platform plus each module you turn on, Payroll, Benefits, Device Management, Expenses, and more, and the total depends entirely on which modules a company picks. Vendr, a pricing-intelligence firm that tracks real contract data, reported in February 2026 that Rippling's base platform starts near $8 per employee per month, with modules adding roughly $4 to $12 each and blended totals commonly landing between $15 and $50 per employee per month. Rippling doesn't confirm these figures itself, so treat them as a planning range, not a quote.

The practical takeaway: if your BambooHR bill today is close to the Core or Pro rate, a comparably scoped Rippling deployment (HR plus payroll plus one or two extra modules) will likely land higher once modules stack, based on Vendr's contract data. Get a real quote before you assume the switch pays for itself.

The module sprawl to watch

Rippling's pricing is per module, and that's the part that catches people off guard. The base platform is one line item. Payroll is another. Benefits administration, device management, spend management, time and attendance, recruiting, and the learning management system are each priced and licensed separately. A company that only needs what BambooHR's Pro tier already covers, HR records, time off, performance, and hiring, can end up buying four or five Rippling modules to replicate it, and each one adds its own per-employee rate.

Before you sign, write down the exact list of BambooHR features you use today and map each one to a specific Rippling module. If IT device management and app provisioning aren't on that list, you're paying for scope BambooHR never offered and you didn't ask for. That's fine if you actually need it. It's a waste if you don't.

What employee data ports over

BambooHR's native export path is custom reports: go to Reports, build a new custom report, choose the employee fields you want, filter by employee segment, and export as CSV. Coefficient's guide to BambooHR data export confirms custom reports cover virtually any employee field, standard fields, custom fields, personal details, job information, compensation, and time-off history, while full activity history and detailed payroll records are only reachable through BambooHR's API rather than a CSV export.

That matters for a migration. Plan on three separate pulls: one custom report for the core employee record (names, roles, departments, compensation, time-off balances), one payroll-specific export from the Payroll tab if you use BambooHR's US payroll add-on, and an API pull if you need full historical activity rather than a point-in-time snapshot. Expect Rippling's onboarding to map these fields into its own employee record, but the cleaner your BambooHR export, the less manual cleanup you'll do on the other side.

What a real switch looks like

Most of the timeline isn't Rippling's software, it's your own data and decisions. Start by exporting the three BambooHR pulls above and cleaning them before anything goes near Rippling. Duplicate departments, old job titles, and stale time-off balances are easier to fix in a spreadsheet than after import.

Next, decide your module list before the sales call, not during it. Write down what you use in BambooHR today (HR records, hiring, time off, US payroll) and what you'd actually add (device management, spend management, benefits). Bring that list to the demo so the quote reflects your real scope instead of a default bundle.

Run payroll in parallel for at least one cycle once Rippling is configured. Compare a full pay run against what BambooHR or your current payroll provider produced for the same period before you cut over completely. Tax filings, benefits deductions, and any off-cycle bonuses are the details that surface problems, and catching them on a parallel run costs a lot less than fixing a bad live payroll.

Finally, sequence the IT rollout separately from HR. Device management and app provisioning are the parts of Rippling BambooHR never offered, so give IT time to test deprovisioning and app-access rules on a handful of test accounts before every hire or termination routes through the new system.

When BambooHR is still the right call

Not every team should make this switch. If your BambooHR bill sits in the $10-$25/employee/month range and covers what you actually need, HR records, hiring, onboarding, time off, and US payroll, moving to a quote-only, modular platform adds complexity without solving a problem you have. Rippling's own pricing notes state plainly that its products are billed per module, and a company that only wants BambooHR's scope typically ends up paying more for parts of Rippling it won't use.

Stay on BambooHR if you're a small or mid-sized US company that doesn't need IT device management or app provisioning tied to HR events, and if you'd rather see a real price on a page than sit through a sales demo to find one. If neither of those describes you, and you're already juggling a separate device management tool or a manual offboarding checklist that IT keeps missing, Rippling's single employee record is built to solve exactly that. Our full BambooHR alternatives guide covers the other five options worth cross-shopping, including Gusto for teams whose only real complaint is payroll and Deel for teams hiring outside the US.

FAQ

Does Rippling cost more than BambooHR? Usually, once you match scope. BambooHR's published tiers run $10 to $25 per employee per month. Rippling doesn't publish prices, but Vendr's contract-data tracking puts a base platform near $8 per employee per month with blended totals of $15 to $50 once payroll, benefits, and IT modules are active. A side-by-side quote is the only way to know for your headcount and module mix.

Can I try Rippling before committing? Only partly. Rippling doesn't offer a general free trial for its core HR and payroll platform. The standalone Rippling IT product has its own 14-day free trial, but testing the full HR and payroll experience requires a sales demo.

What BambooHR data can I export before switching? Build a custom report in BambooHR's Reports tab and export it as CSV. Custom reports cover most employee fields, personal details, job information, compensation, and time off. Full activity history and detailed payroll records require BambooHR's API rather than a CSV export, according to Coefficient's export guide.

Does BambooHR require a sales call to sign up? Yes, for both companies. BambooHR publishes its three tier prices but still requires a quote request to buy. Rippling doesn't publish prices at all and requires a demo to get any number.