Rise People (branded as Rise) is an all-in-one people management platform that combines HR, payroll, benefits, time, and recruiting in one cloud product. It offers an intuitive ATS, payroll automation, and onboarding tools for teams, especially Canadian businesses.
Rise is powerful, but it’s not the right fit for every company. Some buyers need deeper global payroll, specialty integrations, or an ultra-polished UI.
Our research team invested over 46 hours analyzing the product, features, verified user reviews, pricing, and integrations to give you an unbiased Rise People review.
Why Trust Our Rise People Review?
To ensure this Rise People review is honest, evidence-based, and relevant, our team evaluated Rise. Our research methodology includes:
- Official Product Analysis: Examined Rise's recruiting, onboarding, payroll, and people management features directly from its official website and product documentation.
- Verified User Reviews: Analyzed patterns from verified reviews on G2, Capterra, and others to identify real-world strengths and pain points.
- Role-Based Use Cases: Assessed value for HR leaders, recruiting teams, managers, and TA heads across hiring, onboarding, and performance workflows.
- Feature vs. Experience Validation: Cross-checked promised capabilities against actual user-reported performance and usability.
This review contains no affiliate links or paid placements. Our only goal is to help you make an informed decision.
Rise People Overview
Rise positions itself as Canada’s modern, all-in-one people platform. It combines applicant tracking, onboarding, payroll, benefits administration, time tracking, scheduling, and performance in one product.
The recruiting/ATS module focuses on simple pipelines, team collaboration, branded careers pages, and in-app offer letters that connect directly to onboarding and payroll. Moreover, Rise emphasizes ease of use and Canadian compliance.
Key Rise People Features
Below are the standout features we verified on the official platform:
- Branded Careers Page: Build a career site that updates automatically when jobs change. This improves the candidate experience and enhances your employer brand.
- Custom Hiring Pipelines: Use a drag-and-drop builder for multi-stage screening, phone interviews, and job offers. This keeps your workflow visual and quick.
- Team Collaboration (unlimited seats): Invite hiring managers and reviewers without limits. Share notes and history for quicker decisions.
- Custom Screening Questions & Prescreens: Turn application forms into automatic screens. This allows recruiters to focus on qualified candidates only.
- In-app Offer Letters: Create and send personalised offers within Rise. You can track when candidates view and sign them, linking recruiting to onboarding.
- Seamless Handoff to Onboarding & Payroll: Candidate data moves directly into onboarding and payroll. This prevents duplicate entry and speeds up time-to-productivity.
- Reporting & Recruiting Digest: Receive daily emails and pipeline-level reports. These keep teams aligned and help measure funnel health.
- Time Tracking & Scheduling Sync: Sync time and scheduling data to payroll for accurate pay runs and control of labour costs. This is especially helpful for hourly hiring.
- API & Zapier-ready Integrations: Rise provides a REST API and Zapier integration for custom automations and data exchange. This is great for teams needing tailored workflows.
Rise People Pricing
All prices are listed in Canadian dollars. The company publishes a clear entry price and asks buyers to contact sales for expanded plans. Below is a concise table that shows Rise’s pricing model:
Pros and Cons of Rise People
Based on verified user reviews, here are the standout benefits of Rise People:
- Unified Platform: Unified payroll, recruiting, and onboarding cut down duplicate data entry and admin work for small HR teams. This boosts operational efficiency.
- Payroll Automation & Compliance: Automated payroll processing and remittance features save time and reduce errors. They also help teams stay compliant with Canadian payroll rules.
- Good Value for Canadian SMBs: Reviewers often mention competitive pricing and bundled features. These offer strong value compared to legacy payroll vendors.
- Reporting and Analytics: Built-in reports provide clear visibility into payroll, time, and hiring metrics. This helps managers quickly spot trends and reconcile discrepancies.
- Simple Recruiting Workflows: Drag-and-drop pipelines, prescreens, and unlimited collaborators speed up hiring decisions. They also make cross-team coordination easier for recruiters.
While Rise People shines in various areas, verified users identified these limitations:
- Clunky Interface in Places: Several reviewers say the UI works well but can be hard to navigate. This results in small inefficiencies and a steep learning curve.
- Module Sync Issues: Users sometimes face delays where changes in one module don’t show up in recruiting, onboarding, or payroll. This means manual fixes are often needed.
- Lengthy Initial Setup/Migration: Setting up and migrating data can take a long time. Smaller teams often require extra help to complete onboarding.
- Advanced Features Behind Sales Tiers: Some advanced analytics, automations, and enterprise features are only available on higher-priced plans or through custom quotes.
- Limited Multi-country Payroll: Rise is strong in Canadian payroll. For full global payroll needs, organizations should look at other vendors or add specific solutions.
How Can Integrating Skima AI Handle Rise People Limitations?
Rise People's unified HR platform excels in onboarding and payroll, but its recruiting module lacks the intelligent screening and matching capabilities that modern hiring teams need.
Skima AI bridges this gap, bringing AI-powered candidate intelligence directly into Rise's ATS without requiring a parallel system.
Your team continues using Rise as usual, with no new logins, no data exports, and no workflow disruption. Skima AI simply adds an intelligence layer that makes screening faster and smarter.
Key benefits of Rise People integration with Skima AI:
- AI Match Scores (0-100) on Every Candidate: Every applicant gets a score that shows how well they fit the job. Recruiters can quickly identify top candidates and focus on shortlisting instead of filtering.
- Candidate Rediscovery: Bring forward candidates from Rise's database who applied for different roles. They may now be a good fit for current openings. Find hidden talent without resourcing.
- Real-Time Scoring and Reasons: As new applicants enter Rise, Skima AI scores them automatically. It provides brief reasons for the match. No manual checks are required.
- Shortlist Collaboration Loop: It generates a shortlist link for hiring managers to review. They can give feedback (👍/👎/Maybe). Skima AI captures these decisions in Rise as activity notes, ensuring a clear feedback history.
Who Should Consider Rise People?
Rise People is the right choice for:
- Canadian SMBs that need payroll + HR + recruiting in one vendor. Rise’s Canadian compliance features are a big plus.
- Companies that want fewer vendors. If you prefer consolidated billing and a single system of record for people, Rise fits well.
- Teams that value guided onboarding. Rise offers project managers and onboarding specialists, which help smaller HR teams move faster.
Who Should Avoid Rise People?
Rise People is not ideal for:
- Global employers with complex multi-country payrolls. Rise focuses on Canadian payroll and benefits. For global payroll, evaluate specialists.
- Teams that need custom ATS solutions. Check if Rise's functionality or add-ons meet your workflow and sourcing needs.
- Buyers seeking an ultra-polished UX with minimal setup. Some reviewers report a learning curve and initial manual setup steps.
Summary
Rise People is a solid option for payroll, benefits, HR, and recruiting, especially for operations in Canada. The ATS is user-friendly and promotes collaboration. Entry-level pricing is clear, and Rise’s compliance and payroll automation are strong benefits for Canadian companies.
However, be aware of a learning curve. If you’re transferring complex data or require advanced automations, some implementation work will be needed.
If you value recruiting speed and smarter screening, consider integrating Skima AI. It connects with ATS platforms or uses Rise’s API/Zapier. Skima AI offers match scores, clear explanations, shortlist workflows, and manager writebacks. This helps teams hire more quickly without replacing Rise.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Rise People?
Rise People is a Canadian all-in-one people platform combining HR, payroll, benefits, time, and recruiting. It centralizes employee data, automates payroll and onboarding, and provides an ATS for collaborative hiring.
2. Is Rise People legit?
Yes, Rise People is a reputable HR and payroll vendor used by many Canadian employers, with verified positive ratings on industry review sites and consistent user praise for payroll compliance and customer support.
3. How much does Rise People cost?
Rise’s public entry price is CAD $8 per employee per month for Essentials. Advanced modules and enterprise bundles require contacting Rise sales for custom quotes and additional module costs.
4. Does Rise People support global payroll?
Rise mainly focuses on Canadian payroll and benefits. It doesn’t offer full multi-country payroll. Global organizations should check with Rise sales for multi-country support or opt for specialised global payroll vendors.
5. Can Skima AI integrate with Rise People?
Skima AI supports integrations with many ATS and HR systems. If Rise isn’t prelisted, Skima can connect via API, Zapier, or a requested integration to exchange candidate data and screening insights.
6. How does Skima AI improve recruiting when paired with Rise People?
Skima AI adds explainable match scores, resume parsing, evidence bullets, and shortlist write-backs into an ATS workflow. That speeds up screening, resurfaces past candidates, and improves recruiter-to-hiring-manager alignment and decision speed.
