jollygig vs 15five
15five is a performance-management platform that started as a weekly check-in tool and expanded into goals, reviews, 1:1s, and engagement surveys. its origin product — a short, recurring employee check-in — overlaps with what jollygig does, but the surrounding context is very different.
the most important thing to know up front: 15five is, by design, a tool where engagement signals and performance management live in the same product. jollygig is, by design, a tool where they don't. this isn't a feature gap. it's a deliberate disagreement about how pulse surveys should work.
what 15five does well
- weekly check-ins as a habit. the original 15five practice — 15 minutes to write, 5 minutes for the manager to read — is genuinely useful. it builds a regular communication surface between manager and report.
- goals and okrs. 15five lets you set, track, and review goals in the same place where check-ins happen. for teams that work in this kind of structured way, the integration is valuable.
- 1:1 agendas. shared, recurring 1:1 docs that pull in the latest check-in, open agenda items, and follow-ups. a real workflow improvement over an unmanaged google doc.
- performance reviews. a full review cycle including self-review, manager review, calibration, and feedback. integrated with the rest of the platform so prior context flows in.
- recognition (high-fives). peer recognition flows that show up in feeds and in reviews.
- career growth conversations. structured prompts around career trajectory, development, and goals.
if you're a manager who wants a single tool to run weekly check-ins, 1:1s, goals, and reviews, 15five is one of the best answers on the market.
where jollygig is different
the deliberate separation of pulse and performance
this is the central difference, and it's worth understanding before any other comparison.
in 15five, engagement data and performance data live in the same system. a manager's view of their team includes the team's check-ins, the team's engagement scores, the team's goal progress, and ultimately the team's review outcomes. the data is unified by design.
we think this is a mistake for pulse surveys specifically. the moment engagement signals can influence — or even appear adjacent to — performance decisions, the incentive structure of answering honestly breaks. employees learn that what they say in a check-in or a survey may surface in a review context, and they adjust accordingly. the candor that makes pulse surveys useful is exactly what gets sanded off.
we cover this in more detail in the pulse-survey guide — under "survey-as-performance-metric" in the failure-modes section.
jollygig refuses to know who said what. it's not anonymous in name; it's anonymous at the data layer. that means it cannot be used as a performance management tool even if someone wanted to. that's the design.
check-ins vs anonymous surveys
a 15five check-in is identified. the manager knows who wrote it and reads it that way. that's fine — check-ins are not anonymous and they're not trying to be. they're a structured communication tool.
a jollygig survey is anonymous at the database. no user id is stored with the response. the manager sees population-level personas, not individual answers. it's not a communication tool; it's a signal-reading tool.
these are different jobs. 15five does the first one well. we do the second one.
the 5-person floor
15five surfaces some signals at the individual level by design (it's not anonymous). where they do offer engagement surveys with anonymity protections, the threshold and protections are policy-driven.
jollygig will not show a result on a team of fewer than 5 respondents, regardless of context, enforced at the database. there's more on why in a separate post.
flat per-team pricing
15five is priced per seat across tiers (engage / perform / total platform), generally in the $7-$15/employee/month range depending on what's included.
jollygig is $49/month for one team or $129/month for up to 10 managers. flat. for a 30-person team running pulse surveys, the per-employee math diverges meaningfully. (this is also covered in why per-seat pricing breaks pulse surveys.)
side-by-side
| 15five | jollygig | |
|---|---|---|
| core posture | performance + engagement, unified | pulse surveys only, deliberately separate from performance |
| weekly check-in (identified) | yes — flagship product | no |
| anonymous pulse surveys | yes (with engagement add-on) | yes, structurally |
| 1:1 tooling | yes | no |
| goals / okrs | yes | no |
| performance reviews | yes | no |
| recognition / high-fives | yes | no |
| can engagement data influence reviews | yes, in the same platform | no, separated by design |
| pricing | per seat, tier-based | flat per team / per group |
| good fit for | integrated performance + engagement workflow | anonymous pulse surveys, kept separate from performance |
when 15five is the right call
- you want a single tool that handles weekly check-ins, 1:1s, goals, recognition, and reviews in one place.
- your team's culture is fine with engagement signals living next to performance data, and you see the integration as a benefit.
- the original 15five check-in practice is something you specifically want to adopt.
- you need formal review cycles and want them connected to ongoing communication.
when jollygig is the right call
- you want anonymous pulse surveys, full stop, and you want them structurally separated from performance management.
- your team's culture needs a tool that cannot — by design — be used as a performance lens on individual employees.
- you're already handling 1:1s, goals, and reviews in other tools (or in google docs, which is fine) and don't want to consolidate.
- a stricter anonymity floor matters more to you than feature breadth.
using both
this is a sensible setup, and we've seen teams do it. 15five for identified communication — check-ins, 1:1s, goal tracking. jollygig for anonymous team-level signals. the two products don't share data and don't need to. you get integrated performance workflow on one side and structural anonymity on the other.
if that sounds like what your team needs, you can start a free 30-day trial alongside whatever you're already using.