Imagine the chaos that would ensue if your finance team failed to adopt your spendy accounting software.
Or if your sales reps simply decided to stop using the customer relationship management platform that your entire revenue team revolves around.
When using these examples, it’s easy to see how critical adoption is in the success of a business.
And this is just as true when it comes to the workplace management software that serves as the glue within hybrid teams.
When office booking tooling is fully adopted throughout your company, teams experience better collaboration and culture, leading to productivity and innovation.
And when they aren’t fully engaged with your office optimization tooling? You’re more likely to see overbooked rooms, sagging morale, misalignment between workers and managers, and business owners who are frustrated over the cost of real estate that no one seems to be using.
If you’re struggling getting your workforce to buy into the office booking and collaboration tooling you’ve invested in, we can help you figure out why — and show you how Officely’s simple yet deep integration with Slack and Microsoft Teams holds the key to adoption and success.
Get to Know Robin’s Workforce Management Platform
Robin is powerful software with the goal of helping office administrators and employees create a better workplace experience.
Most of its functionality focuses on desk and room booking features, as well as a mobile app that lets workers see what’s booked for the week and who’s coming in. Desk and space utilization metrics help office owners and managers understand how people are using the office and other resources, even providing insights for forecasting future workplace needs.
Integrations with the rest of your tech stack, office wayfinding, digital meeting room displays, and visitor management complete with automated sign in and notifications round out Robin’s robust functionality.
Robin’s messaging, breadth of features, security focus, and pricing that starts at $399 per month (billed annually) places the platform squarely in enterprise territory.
Why Look for Robin Alternatives?
There’s no doubt the Robin team has worked hard to create a solid system.
That said, there are a few key reasons many of our readers may be shopping for a Robin alternative: Adoption and pricing.
Adoption is everything when it comes to workplace management tools — which help power business productivity, engagement, culture, and even innovation.
The problem with Robin, and most other apps of its type, is they’re built to be totally separate platforms. Sure, they typically work with some of the other tech you use, but it’s not the same as them working right inside the tools you already use. Namely, Slack and Microsoft Teams — which is where Officely lives.
Without this level of seamless implementation, workplace tools typically aren’t adopted by workers fully. Firstly, this leads to desks, rooms, and other resources being overbooked — causing inefficiency and fallouts between employees and the managers who are supposed to enable them. Low adoption also makes for less visibility into who’s truly in the office, shrinking team morale and limiting how well office managers can understand and optimize resource utilization. All of this culminates in poor space management and upset business owners who need to scramble to make the most of their pricey real estate expenditures.
Then there’s one more thing that can’t be ignored: the cost.
Starting at $399 a month for up to 25 users — and that’s before add-ons like visitor management — Robin is one of the most expensive workforce management software offerings. It also requires you to lock in to an annual plan, so you better hope nothing changes as far as your budget goes!
7 Top Competitors and Alternatives to Robin for 2024
Looking for an option that’s more readily adoptable and much more affordable than Robin for controlling your office space?
We’ve got all the details you need to succeed in finding a great alternative.
1. Officely: The Top Robin Alternative for Hybrid Teams
First up, meet Officely, the top hybrid work software platform with office, room, and parking booking for today’s modern teams and offices.
What makes it a great fit for forward-thinking businesses and the future of work?
Let’s see what just one of our users has to say:
“The tool speaks for itself – not only is [Officely] so easy for me to use, but it’s also easy for employees to book in. And that means the decisions I’m making are based on reliable data, whereas I previously had no idea what attendance looked like for our international offices.” — Maria Fuster, Adaptavist’s Workplace Operations Lead
Looking for the specific features and benefits that set Officely apart? Let’s dive in.
Officely Pros
Deep Slack and Teams Integrations: With Officely, every piece of functionality is integrated into Slack or Microsoft Teams — desk and room booking, attendance visibility, parking management, and more. As we’ve discussed, the biggest challenge with office booking and management software is getting employees to consistently use it. Separate web and mobile apps make for tech overload and are hard for employees and office managers to use everyday. But because our tool works perfectly inside these collaboration apps, you can rest assured you’ll achieve maximum adoption, boosting office bookings, culture, productivity, and resource utilization.
Simple, Affordable Pricing: Pricing for Officely actually starts out with a free package, making it a perfect fit for small offices and businesses who are interested in a test run. Desk booking for unlimited users starts at just $3 for each user per month, with a plan that can be canceled or changed at any point. We’re also happy to work with teams on custom pricing.
SMB Friendly: Officely is designed with simplicity for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in mind. Unlike many competitors targeting larger companies with complex features and higher prices, Officely provides just the best the essentials — and at affordable rates — for SMBs with modern needs.
Flexibility First:We believe flexibility is key to productivity, morale, and the future of successful workplaces. That’s why we built the first flexible work enablement tool, to support adaptable workplaces and do away with office mandates.
Officely Cons
No Visitor Features: One feature we currently lack that many other Robin alternatives provide is visitor management. In hybrid work environments where people frequently come and go, an integrated visitor management system could be beneficial for receptionists and even boost the health and safety of office workers.
Try Officely Today
See who's in the office, organize socials and events, and increase your office attendance all within Slack.
WorkInSync is flexible workplace management focused on enterprise companies. Its specialties include desk booking, meeting room scheduling, employee shift scheduling, visitor management, parking management, and digital wayfinding.
WorkInSync Pros
Award Winning: WorkInSync has plenty of awards from software review sites in the enterprise hybrid work solutions space — indicating its users are generally happy with its performance.
Thorough Feature Set: WorkInSync has a full range of tooling for managing all things hybrid workplaces, which makes sense for its enterprise audience with more intense needs.
Integration Capabilities: The platform integrates well with popular workplace and human resources tools, though it’s still a freestanding application that workers and managers will need to learn and adopt.
WorkInSync Cons
Learning Curve: As we just touched on, WorkInSync is robust enough that it requires some training to fully utilize all features, which can be a barrier for lean businesses with a need for speed.
Performance Glitches: Despite the awards, some reviews document problems with performance that can slow down your team.
Not So SMB Friendly: The clear enterprise focus means small and medium businesses may not be able to make use of all the features, or afford the pricing that starts at 100 users minimum and is billed only quarterly or annually.
3. Condeco
Users can schedule meeting rooms, book desks and other spaces, and fully administer their workplaces with Condeco — a work space management platform with a focus on bringing flexibility even into enterprise businesses.
Condeco Pros
Flexibility and Customizability: Condeco is highly adaptable, so it can be customized to meet specific organizational needs — ideal for enterprises with a lot of spaces and specific requirements for each.
Cross-Platform Functionality: Condeco is built to work on mobile and web, and integrate with Microsoft Teams and Outlook calendar.
Good Customer Support: Some reviews praise the helpfulness of Condeco's customer service during initial setup and for ongoing support.
Condeco Cons
Pricing for Large Parties: Pricing details are not readily available, but the packages suggest it’s expensive, as plans start at a minimum of 250 employees.
Microsoft Focus: As a Microsoft partner, Condeco clearly integrates the most smoothly with Microsoft’s tech suite.
Limited Adoptability: Between the Microsoft focus and it being an independent tool, Condeco may not enjoy full adoption among your team.
4. Tactic
Tactic’s workplace software centers on empowering hybrid teams with features for desk and meeting room booking, visitor management, developing office insights, and more.
Tactic Pros
Collaborative: Tactic offers features to foster a positive work culture and collaboration through update sharing, accomplishment acknowledgement, etc.
High Customer Satisfaction: Ranks on G2 for having high customer happiness among hybrid workplace tools.
Integrates Well: Works alongside major workplace tools include Slack, Teams, and Googles’ suite of tooling.
Tactic Cons
Policy Requirements: Focus on policy enforcement does raise some questions about how well the platform supports employee autonomy
Complex Pricing: Desk and room booking as well as visitor management are all priced separately, which will really add up if you want to use all the features.
Standalone: Despite thoughtful integrations, at the end of the day Tactic is still a freestanding app that your team has to learn how to use and add to their already full workflows.
5. Kadence
Kadence was created to help organizations optimize their office space and manage hybrid work with capabilities like desk booking, meeting room scheduling, visitor management, and employee coordination to boost collaboration and morale in the office.
Kadence Pros
Artificial Intelligence: Interesting AI feature acts as a person assistant to help users with booking and visitor management.
Global Office Access: Kadence Flex opens up workers to office spaces around the globe, for more distributed teams.
Demo Available: We love to see tools that are proud enough of their experience to offer a helpful demo
Kadence Cons
Lots of Features: Between the AI and global office booking features, there’s a lot going on with Kadence that leaner teams may not want to deal with — or pay for.
Limited Pricing: The one pricing tier is reasonable, but if you want any additional features you have to jump all the way to the enterprise pricing package.
Integration Challenges: Difficulties around making Kadence work with other tools stand out in a few reviews.
6. Envoy
Envoy’s Workplace suite of features offers a lot of office management tooling, including desk and room booking, workplace mapping, employee scheduling, notifications and reminders, insights, delivery management, and even a ticketing platform for reporting work site issues.
Envoy Pros
Front Desk Focus: Delivery and visitor tracking (for an additional fee) take some of the stress out of the job for reception folks
Plenty of Features: Contains pretty much every feature under the sun for running and managing a workspace.
Experience: With existing products in the business visitor management space, Envoy already had a solid foundation on which to create the newer Workplace suite of tools.
Envoy Cons
Strange Pricing Breakdown: Visitor management isn’t included in the Envoy Workplace price, meaning if you want this feature you have to subscribe to two fully different packages.
Annual Contract: EnvoyWorkplace requires an annual subscription, so you’re still locked in even if your needs change.
Feature Overload: Yes, we mentioned the various features as a benefit. But if you’re a smaller company that doesn’t want or need that level of complexity, Envoy could quickly creep into overload territory and low adoption.
7. deskbird
deskbird strives to make desk booking simple. It also facilitates room booking, real-time attendance and event tracking, an admin portal, an insightful analytics dash, and integrations that can be added on to beef up functionality.
deskbird Pros
Admin Panel: deskbird’s admin panel looks pretty robust, making it easy for office managers to facilitate collaboration and monitor capacity and utilization.
Secure: Built to align with European GDPR standards, keeping data safe and private.
Integrations: The platform works with popular tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack, though it doesn’t fully operate within these platforms like Officely does.
deskbird Cons
Yearly Lock In: To enjoy deskbird’s pretty reasonable pricing, you have to sign up for a year of service.
User Experience: While overall reviews are positive, some users report booking usability issues when it comes to scheduling and viewing desk availability — features which are core to the app.
App Based: Speaking of apps, deskbird is one. It works well on its own, but that means it’s going to be a little more tricky for your team to fully incorporate into their everyday habits.
Which is the Best Robin Alternative for Your Team?
At the end of the day, the best Robin alternative is going to be the one that your team is most likely to actually use.
This knowledge is why we created Officely to be adopted seamlessly within Slack and Teams, bringing both smarts and simplicity to an otherwise overwhelming world of workplace tools. Plus, by keeping it to just the necessary features, we’ve ensured we can remain affordable for the small and medium-sized businesses that need our support the most.
And it’s not just easy for your team to use Officely, it’s also incredibly easy for you to add it to your systems and get started.
Want a little taste of what’s in store? Simply book a demo and take Officely for a test drive right now.
Try Officely Today
See who's in the office, organize socials and events, and increase your office attendance all within Slack.
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