Revolut People pricing estimator

The complete guide to budgeting for performance management software

The estimator above shows indicative Revolut People list pricing for your headcount and package. This guide explains how to turn that number into a budget your Finance team will accept: why software price is only part of the cost, how to use the estimator, how to read the result, a worked example at two company sizes, common budgeting mistakes, and how to build the business case. It is written for People leaders preparing a budget request and for Finance or Operations leaders reviewing one.

Disclosure: Ash works for Revolut People, and this estimator shows Revolut People list pricing. The budgeting method below applies to any vendor; check other vendors’ pricing with them directly.

Why the licence price is only half the budget

Performance management software is usually priced per employee per month. That makes the licence easy to estimate and easy to compare. It also makes it easy to forget the other side of the ledger: the time your current process consumes, and the cost of decisions made on ratings people do not trust.

The time side can be large. In Harvard Business Review, Buckingham and Goodall describe how Deloitte counted the hours spent completing forms, holding meetings and creating ratings and found close to 2 million hours a year. A growing company will be orders of magnitude smaller, but the same question applies: what does today’s process cost in hours, and what would change?

McKinsey’s 2024 article “In the spotlight: Performance management that puts people first” suggests leaders ask whether they are getting the expected returns from the time invested in performance management. A budget that shows both the licence and the time cost answers that question directly; a budget that shows only the licence invites the reply “we do this in spreadsheets for free”.

There are also costs that do not appear in either number: implementation time from your People team, data migration, manager training, and any overlap where you pay for old and new systems at once. Budget for them explicitly, even if the figure is small.

How to use the estimator

• Number of employees. Enter everyone who would use the platform, not only people who are reviewed. Managers, leaders and the People team count.
• Package. Choose the modules you would actually use in the first year:
  • Performance (£10 per employee per month): goals, 360 reviews, calibration, skills and values scorecards, feedback, 1:1s and growth plans.
  • Performance + HR (£12): adds employee records, org chart, time off, documents, onboarding, a compensation dashboard and surveys.
  • Performance + HR + Recruitment (£14): adds requisitions, job postings, candidate pipelines, interview scheduling and scorecards, and a careers site.

Pricing is charged annually with a £5,000 minimum annual spend. The estimator shows the annual figure straight away; the full breakdown (the per-employee maths, the minimum-spend check and a monthly equivalent for budgeting, though invoicing is annual) is free with your work email.

How to interpret the result

The result is indicative list pricing: headcount × per-employee price × 12 months, or £5,000 if that comes to less. Your actual price is confirmed in a written quote. Three things to check when you read it:

1. Is the minimum applying? Below a certain headcount the £5,000 minimum sets the price. For the Performance package that is up to about 41 employees (41 × £10 × 12 = £4,920). If you are close to the threshold, the minimum may cover planned hiring.
2. Which modules replace something you already pay for? If the HR package would replace an existing HRIS, net the old cost off the new one.
3. What is the per-manager view? Divide the annual price by your number of managers and compare it with the hours each manager spends on reviews today. That is often the clearest way to explain value.

Worked examples: 30 and 200 employees

A 30-person start-up on Performance. 30 × £10 × 12 = £3,600, which is below the minimum, so the indicative annual price is £5,000. The founders’ real question is whether a structured process is worth that at their size. The framework’s worked examples suggest a light quarterly review at around 50 people; buying earlier makes sense if the team will grow past that within a year, or if calibration is already causing disputes.

A 200-person scale-up on Performance + HR. 200 × £12 × 12 = £28,800 a year, or a £2,400 monthly equivalent. The company currently pays for a separate HRIS, which this package would replace, so the net figure is lower. On the time side, the company runs the review cost calculator and finds its two annual cycles take about 2,300 hours, around 60 hours per manager per year. The budget request now shows the licence, the HRIS it replaces, one-off implementation time, and the hours the team expects to release. The figures in these examples are illustrative.

Building the business case

Finance teams tend to respond to a short, honest case more than a long one. A structure that works:

A simple total cost of ownership model

For a first-year budget, four lines are usually enough. Keep each one honest and labelled, so nobody has to guess what is included.

1. Licence. From the estimator for an early view, then from a written quote. Note the billing basis (annual) and any minimum.
2. What it replaces. Existing tools you can retire once the new system is live, such as a separate HRIS, a survey tool or a goal-tracking add-on. Only count a tool if you are confident you will switch it off, and note the date its contract ends.
3. One-off effort. People team time for set-up, data migration and building your review templates, plus a short training session for every manager. Estimate it in hours; it is the line most often missing from budgets.
4. Running time. Hours per cycle for managers and employees, today and after the change. The cost calculator produces the “today” figure from your own inputs.

Present lines one to three as cost and line four as capacity. Finance will usually accept the first three quickly and challenge the fourth, which is fine: the point of the fourth line is to show that the current process is not free, not to claim a cash saving.

Questions to ask any vendor about pricing

• Who counts as a billable employee: everyone, or only people in review cycles?
• Is there a minimum annual spend, and how does pricing change as we hire through the year?
• Which features are in each package, and which are add-ons?
• What does implementation include, and who does the data migration?
• What are the payment terms, and what happens at renewal?

Timing the budget request

The best time to ask for budget is usually straight after a review cycle, while the pain is fresh and you have real numbers from the cost calculator. Ask early enough to implement between cycles: a decision taken just before the next cycle opens leaves no time for set-up, data migration or manager training. If your company sets budgets annually, attach the request to the planning round and include the date by which you need a decision to start before your next cycle. Present the hours and the problem statement first and the licence figure second; leaders who agree on the problem are more willing to discuss the price.

Common mistakes

• Budgeting only for people who are reviewed. Platform pricing usually counts everyone who uses it.
• Buying every module on day one. Start with what you will roll out in the first year; add modules when you are ready to use them.
• Presenting released hours as cash savings. They are capacity. Say what managers will do with the time.
• Treating list price as final. The estimator shows indicative list pricing; your price is confirmed in a written quote.
• Ignoring timing. Starting implementation in the middle of a review cycle adds risk. Work back from the next cycle date.

Next steps

Run the cost calculator for the time side, the health check for the problem statement, and the HRIS switch checker if the HR package would replace an existing system. The buyer’s guide covers how to compare vendors, and switching from spreadsheets covers the migration itself.

Sources: Buckingham & Goodall, Reinventing Performance Management, HBR (2015); McKinsey, In the spotlight: Performance management that puts people first (2024). Pricing figures are Revolut People list prices as shown in the estimator.