- Originally published: December 18, 2023
- Last updated: December 18, 2024
Envoy is a workspace management platform designed to simplify desk and meeting room bookings while keeping office security a top priority. It offers a suite of high-quality products, but it’s also one of the more expensive options available.
With many companies offering similar tools, it’s worth exploring Envoy alternatives that better suit your needs and budget. The information provided is thoroughly researched and up-to-date for 2024.
💡 TL;DR
Archie is the best Envoy alternative for managing hybrid offices—it’s flexible, budget-friendly, and simple to use. If you’re looking for a straightforward and affordable solution, Tactic also makes booking office resources easy. Officely is a perfect fit for your business if you want a desk and meeting room booking system that integrates directly with Slack or Microsoft Teams.
In this guide:
What is Envoy?
Envoy is a versatile workplace management platform. Originally built as a visitor management system, it has expanded into a comprehensive solution that helps businesses manage desk and room bookings, track office occupancy, handle deliveries, and ensure workplace safety.
Envoy is especially popular with hybrid workplaces, which is hardly surprising. It offers tools for touchless check-ins, capacity management, and integration with other office systems, creating a smooth, connected experience for employees and visitors.
Is it worth looking for a better alternative to Envoy, then? Let’s have a closer look at it first.
Envoy — product overview
Instead of comparing dozens of vendors considered Envoy competitors, I focused on the top alternatives in Envoy’s main areas: visitor management and desk and room booking.
Envoy Visitors
Envoy offers a comprehensive platform for visitor management, offering a range of features to enhance efficiency, security, and compliance:
- Visitor check-in: Automates the check-in process, making it quick and easy for visitors while reducing manual tasks like writing name badges or managing agreements.
- Safety protocols: Supports health and safety compliance with entry criteria, emergency notifications, and health checks for employees and visitors.
- Capacity management: Prevents overcrowding and improves the visitor experience with pre-visit instructions and instant notifications for hosts or recruiters.
- Time tracking: Tracks in-and-out times for employees and contractors, helping to avoid payroll errors.
- Compliance: Captures and securely stores visitor data to meet regulatory requirements.
- Customization: Allows businesses to personalize sign-in workflows and send automatic notifications when guests arrive.
- Reporting & analytics: Provides insights into visitor and host activity with easy-to-export data for audits.
These features create a secure, streamlined, and welcoming experience for employees and visitors. Additionally, Envoy Connect, designed for property owners, offers specialized visitor management services, although it caters to a niche audience not widely covered by Envoy competitors.
Envoy Workplace
Envoy Workplace, on the other hand, simplifies desk and room reservations for employees and comes with a variety of advanced features:
- Interactive floor plans: Visual maps to help employees find and book desks, ensuring efficient use of office space.
- Reservation system: A simple way to reserve desks and rooms, complete with check-in and check-out options for better tracking.
- Flexible booking options: Employees can reserve desks from their mobile devices, desktops, kiosks, or tablets.
- Workflow automation: Automates key tasks like cleaning alerts, desk scheduling, and other notifications.
- Admin controls: Gives administrators the ability to set rules, like limiting bookings by team or capping reservations.
- Customizable workspaces: Add details like desk location, amenities, or equipment to improve transparency.
- API integration: Seamlessly connects with tools like Office365 to streamline workflows.
- Health and safety features: Supports contact tracing and social distancing to maintain workplace safety.
Compared to Envoy competitors like Archie, Envoy tends to be pricier while offering similar features. For example, Archie includes comprehensive desk and room booking tools at a fraction of the cost, making it a more cost-effective option for many companies. Speaking of…
Envoy pricing
Here’s a breakdown per month when billed annually:
- Envoy Visitor Management:
- Free Plan: Basic functionality, limited features like analytics and photos.
- Basic Plan: $109 per location/month; lacks advanced features like branding and analytics.
- Complete Plan: $329 per location/month; includes full visitor management tools.
- Envoy Workplace Management:
- Starts at $3 per user/month but doesn’t include desk & room booking.
- Plans with desk & room booking: from $5 per user/month.
- Enterprise Plans: Custom pricing for companies with advanced security, compliance, or complex requirements.
Envoy reviews
Envoy receives positive feedback for its user-friendly design and effective features, though there are areas for improvement:
➕ Strengths:
- Focus on office security: Touchless check-ins and visitor screening improve office safety.
- Data-driven insights: Comprehensive analytics help optimize office space and resources.
- Automated workflows: Automates check-ins and notifications, saving time and reducing the need for manual tasks.
➖ Weaknesses:
- Higher costs: The per-user pricing model can become expensive for large teams or businesses with fluctuating attendance.
- Integration challenges: Some users report issues with connecting Envoy to other tools.
- Learning curve: Some admins mention the need for better training materials to ease onboarding.
Despite these issues, it remains a highly rated and reliable solution for modern workplaces.
Why look for an Envoy alternative?
While Envoy offers excellent features like touchless check-ins, visitor screening, and detailed analytics to optimize office spaces, its higher cost can be a drawback for many businesses. The per-user pricing model makes it particularly expensive for larger teams or companies with fluctuating attendance, which can strain budgets over time.
Some Envoy alternatives, like Archie and Tactic, charge based on resources (desks, rooms, etc.), usually a better solution for larger companies with more employees than spaces.
For example, booking 100 desks for 300 employees costs $324/month with Archie but $1,500/month with Envoy—or even $2,100/month if you add features like emergency notifications. Archie offers robust desk booking features such as interactive floor plans, employee search tools, and desk usage analytics at a fraction of the cost, making it an excellent desk booking solution for most businesses.
Meeting room booking tools also vary in pricing, depending on whether the charges are based on the number of users or the number of rooms. For instance, booking 25 meeting rooms for 500 employees could cost 10 to 22 times more with Envoy than Archie.
If you’re looking for a more affordable hybrid office platform with comparable features, exploring alternatives could save you money while still meeting your workplace management needs.
Top 5 Envoy alternatives
- Archie: Best Envoy alternative for affordable, scalable hybrid workspace management
- Tactic: Envoy alternative for organizing hybrid team schedules.
- Skedda: Envoy alternative for custom booking workflows.
- Officely: Envoy alternative that works within Slack or Microsoft Teams.
- Kadence: Envoy alternative for AI-assisted resource booking.
Archie
Archie is a hybrid workspace management tool that simplifies booking desks, reserving meeting rooms, and managing visitors. Its cost-effective pricing charges per resource (such as desks or rooms) instead of per user, making it a smart choice for companies with flexible office attendance.
🔑 Key features
- Room and desk booking: Easily reserve desks, book meeting rooms, and set up recurring bookings. You can also assign permanent desks to specific employees.
- Interactive floor plans: View office maps and book your preferred desk or room with a single click.
- Employee lookup: Quickly find where coworkers are sitting or check if they’re in the office. This also helps track attendance.
- Neighborhood zoning: Create dedicated team zones to encourage collaboration while keeping the workspace flexible.
- Visitor management: Enable smooth, touchless check-ins with QR codes and maintain visitor records to boost security.
- Mobile access: Book and manage reservations anytime through a free mobile app, with optional branding available for an extra cost.
- Workspace analytics: Get detailed insights on desk and room usage to optimize layouts and reduce wasted space.
🔎 Pros & cons
➕ Easy to use: A user-friendly platform with excellent customer support to help teams get started quickly.
➕ Budget-friendly: Resource-based pricing keeps costs low, especially for growing teams.
➖ Better for larger teams: Smaller teams may find the 25-resource minimum less ideal.
💳 Pricing
Archie costs $159/month for 25 resources, mobile and room apps, in-app chat support, and setup assistance. Similarly to Envoy, visitor management features are priced separately:
Tactic
Tactic is an easy-to-use platform that helps hybrid teams seamlessly book desks and meeting rooms, whether they’re in the office or working remotely. It integrates smoothly with tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, making it a great option for businesses adjusting to hybrid work.
🔑 Key features
- Meeting room reservations: Book meeting spaces quickly and avoid scheduling conflicts.
- Desk booking: Employees can easily reserve desks, which is perfect for hot desking setups.
- Desk zones: Group desks by floors or departments so teams can sit together in specific areas.
- Seating assignments: Assign desks temporarily or permanently to fit individual needs.
- Future booking limits: Control how far in advance desks can be booked to ensure fair access.
🔎 Pros & cons
➕ Simple and intuitive: An easy-to-use interface makes it simple for employees to book spaces and helps managers track usage effectively.
➕ Flexible management: Customizable rules and automated desk assignments make it adaptable to different workplace needs.
➖ Minor technical issues: Some users experience login problems, especially on their first use.
💳 Pricing
Plans start at $3 per desk per month, with additional costs for room scheduling ($6 per room per month) and visitor management ($99 per location per month). A free trial is available so you can test the platform before making a decision.
Skedda
Skedda is a simple, user-friendly platform for booking desks and managing office spaces. It’s ideal for hybrid offices, coworking spaces, and event venues, offering easy-to-use tools like interactive maps and custom booking rules to help you make the most of your workspace.
🔑 Key features
- Desk & room booking: Use a drag-and-drop interface to reserve desks or meeting rooms with real-time availability quickly.
- Interactive floor plans: Customizable maps show the office layout, helping employees pick their preferred spot easily.
- Custom booking rules: Set rules like time limits, cancellation policies, and user permissions to manage resources efficiently.
- Neighborhood zones: Group desks into team zones for better collaboration while keeping flexibility.
- Integrations: Works seamlessly with tools like Slack, Google Workspace, and door access systems for smooth workflows.
🔎 Pros & cons
➕ Easy to use: The intuitive design makes it simple for employees to start using without much training.
➕ Flexible rules: Customizable settings let you tailor the system to fit your office needs.
➖ Basic reporting: The platform’s analytics are less advanced than some competitors.
💳 Pricing
Starts at $99/month for up to 15 spaces, with advanced plans available for larger needs. The visitor management module is an add-on and costs $99 per month. You can also try it for free to see if it’s the right fit for your team.
Officely
Officely is a desk booking tool that integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams. It allows employees to easily book desks, meeting rooms, and other office resources without switching apps. This user-friendly solution is ideal for hybrid teams seeking seamless scheduling.
🔑 Key features
- Slack-integrated bookings: Quickly reserve meeting rooms and desks directly in Slack.
- Resource management: Easily book desks, parking spaces, bike racks, and pet-friendly areas.
- Office visibility: See who’s coming to the office, helping teams plan and coordinate schedules.
- Event planning: Simplifies organizing office events, team lunches, and gatherings.
- Space usage insights: Tracks attendance and how office spaces are used to help improve layouts and resource management.
🔎 Pros & cons
➕ Seamless integration: Works directly in Slack or Teams, saving time and effort.
➕ Easy to use: Simple, intuitive design for quick bookings.
➖ Slack reliance: Some features, like room booking, only work in Slack, limiting its usefulness for businesses that don’t use it.
💳 Pricing
Starts at $2.49 per user per month and is free for teams with up to 10 users. There’s no visitor management module, though. You can explore all the features with a free trial.
Kadence
Kadence is an easy-to-use booking tool that helps hybrid teams efficiently manage office spaces. It simplifies desk and meeting room reservations, improving productivity and reducing office costs. Employees and managers appreciate its simple design and dependable customer support.
🔑 Key features
- Desk & room booking: Quickly reserve desks and meeting rooms with just a few clicks.
- Interactive maps: Color-coded office maps make finding available desks and popular spots easy.
- AI-assisted booking: Smart AI features help book multiple desks, handle changes, and notify teammates of updates.
- Real-time alerts: Employees get notified when teammates cancel bookings, or preferred desks become available.
- Mobile access: Book desks and rooms on the go with the user-friendly mobile app.
🔎 Pros & cons
➕ Easy to use: The clean interface helps teams get started without hassle.
➕ Excellent support: Responsive customer service gets high praise from users.
➖ Limited flexibility: May not fit teams with complex or specific booking needs.
💳 Pricing
Starts at $4 per active user per month, with visitor management features included. Custom pricing options for larger enterprises are available.
What’s the best Envoy alternative?
If you’re looking for a cost-effective alternative to Envoy, Archie is the top choice. It’s a flexible and easy-to-use platform designed for hybrid office management. Unlike Envoy’s per-user pricing, Archie charges per resource (like desks or meeting rooms), making it much more affordable for companies with larger teams or fluctuating attendance. It includes features like desk and meeting room booking, interactive floor plans, and visitor management, all at a fraction of Envoy’s cost.
Other strong alternatives include Tactic, a budget-friendly option ideal for booking office resources and managing hybrid schedules, and Officely, which integrates seamlessly with Slack and Microsoft Teams for easy desk and room reservations. Each alternative provides solid features that match Envoy but at a lower price, helping businesses manage hybrid work more efficiently.
Berenika Teter
Archie's Content Manager, fueled by filter coffee and a love for remote work. When she’s not writing about coworking spaces and hybrid workplaces, you can probably find her exploring one.
