Ease Vs Employee Navigator: Compare Feature, Pricing, And More

Benefits Administrations

Ease is built for quick setup and user-friendly workflows, making it especially helpful for brokers and General Agents (GAs). It includes tools like custom ACA rate libraries and allows GAs to manage multiple employer groups efficiently. One big advantage is that it comes with over 6,000 pre-mapped carrier forms, meaning brokers and HR teams can handle enrollments and changes without needing to upload or map forms manually. This saves a lot of time and reduces the chances of errors.

In contrast, Employee Navigator doesn’t specify a fixed number of mapped forms, which suggests that users might need to handle form setup themselves or rely on carrier-specific support. However, where Employee Navigator truly stands out is in its integration capabilities. It connects with over 400 partners, including insurance carriers, payroll providers, and third-party administrators (TPAs). This broad network makes it easier for larger businesses to sync systems and minimize manual work. While Ease also supports payroll integration, Employee Navigator offers greater flexibility through a wider range of connections.

HR Management

Ease helps manage time-off requests, holidays, and vacations. Employees can request PTO, and managers can approve it after checking the team’s schedule through a shared calendar. You also get a basic employee directory and org chart that shows job titles and connections across your company.

Onboarding and offboarding are handled directly inside the platform. You can also connect it to your payroll provider, but most of its HR functions mainly revolve around benefits and employee tracking. It’s limited in the sense that it doesn’t offer in-depth customization, automation, or detailed reporting—so it works best if you want a straightforward, benefits-focused HR setup that’s easy to run.

Employee Navigator, however, gives you more control over how your HR system works. It’s designed to centralize employee data, reduce double entry, and keep everything in sync. Employees can manage their profiles, request time off, access documents, and even make life event changes independently.

What makes it stronger is automation—if an employee updates their address or leaves the company, those changes automatically reflect across payroll, carriers, and other tools without manual updates. It also stores all your company documents and keeps an audit trail for every change. You can customize your org by setting up departments, locations, and classes, which makes it easier to pull reports or communicate with specific groups. Plus, the real-time reporting tool lets you quickly check open enrollment progress, pull employee data, or view termination reports.

Onboarding

With Ease, HR teams can have employees fill out not just the standard federal forms, but also any company-specific documents like employee handbooks or policy agreements—all within the system. These forms are electronically signed and saved securely in one spot for both the admin and employee to access later. This helps HR avoid juggling email threads or physical paperwork. It’s especially useful for businesses onboarding multiple employees at once, since it saves a lot of time and reduces errors.

Employee Navigator, on the other hand, takes onboarding a step further by offering more customization and automation. It lets you create custom onboarding checklists and assign tasks based on your industry or location. You can also track a complete audit trail of what forms were sent, signed, and completed—helping with compliance. New hires manage all their onboarding tasks, benefits enrollment, PTO setup, and company policies in one intuitive dashboard. This makes it more flexible for larger or more complex companies that want to tailor the onboarding experience based on different roles or regions.

Offboarding

Ease handles offboarding directly within its platform, focusing on the practical steps HR teams need. When an employee leaves, you can mark their status (terminated or retired), add a reason for leaving, and have their benefits automatically ended. If you're connected with a carrier, it also notifies them automatically. It supports COBRA too—if integrated with a TPA, Ease pushes the employee’s data and sends the COBRA notice without extra manual steps. This makes it efficient and ideal for compliance and benefits management.

Employee Navigator, in comparison, offers offboarding through its partner Kept, Inc., which focuses more on the employee’s emotional and financial transition. This ‘compassionate offboarding’ gives departing employees guidance, insurance options, and helps maintain a positive experience—possibly even encouraging rehires in the future. However, it doesn’t highlight built-in automation for COBRA, carrier notifications, or benefit termination the way Ease does.

ACA Reporting

Ease aims to simplify ACA (Affordable Care Act) filing by automating the entire process. Once the system determines an employer is required to file, HR teams only need to enable the ACA module, fill out employee templates, and connect payroll data. Ease then automatically tracks eligibility—especially for variable-hour employees—and calculates affordability using W-2s, rate of pay, or the federal poverty line. The platform verifies coding accuracy for 1094/1095 forms and prepares everything for e-signature and IRS submission. It’s designed for businesses that want ACA to run quietly in the background, with minimal hands-on setup.

Employee Navigator, meanwhile, also offers a robust ACA solution, but it gives users more control and flexibility. It lets you set up measurement, stability, and administrative periods to fit your company’s unique needs. You can track hours, import data easily, assign Safe Harbor codes, and generate/send all IRS-required forms directly from the platform. One standout feature is its transparent pricing structure, which breaks down costs based on company size. It also partners with Nelco for secure, high-volume filing and has earned certifications for its data accuracy and reliability. This makes it a strong choice for agencies and larger employers that want full visibility, precise control, and budget clarity.