Head-to-head

CLEAR Talent vs Lattice

Both run reviews, goals and feedback. They diverge on how a rating is evidenced, how far the platform reaches beyond performance, and how much of your existing HR stack you keep.

See the Comparison Book a Tailored Demo

Lattice and CLEAR Talent turn up on the same shortlist because they answer the same first question — how do we run reviews and goals without a spreadsheet — and then answer the second one very differently. Lattice has grown outwards, adding engagement and core HR alongside the performance product. CLEAR Talent has grown downwards, into the evidence behind a rating.

That is the decision this page is really about. If you want one vendor covering performance, engagement and increasingly the employee record, that argues for breadth. If your problem is that ratings are not defensible and the competency model lives in a document nobody is actually assessed against, that argues for depth. Neither is the better product in the abstract, and a demo that only shows review cycles will not tell you which you need.

How Lattice describes itself

Lattice positions itself as a people platform: performance reviews, goals and OKRs, 1:1s, engagement surveys, career and development tracks and analytics — and it has extended beyond performance into core HR. It is widely adopted by fast-growing companies that want one supplier across those areas. Module packaging changes, so confirm what your quoted tier actually includes directly with Lattice.

The short answer

Which one fits the problem you actually have.

Most shortlists are decided by one requirement, not twenty. These are the requirements that point to CLEAR Talent, and the ones that point to Lattice.

Choose CLEAR Talent when

A rating has to hold up to a sceptical reader later. Self, assessor and final ratings are stored separately with their own comments, and competency ratings can require written evidence at the point of assessment.
Competencies are the framework, not a tag. Scales are configurable from three to seven levels, can differ by job family, and every competency carries behavioural indicators at each level.
You want the parts of a rating to stay separable — goals and KPIs as one stream, competency assessment as another, with the weighting between them configurable per level.
The workforce is global, deskless or not English-first: 16 languages, native iOS and Android with biometric sign-in, push notifications and offline support.
You are keeping your HRIS and payroll. CLEAR Talent is designed to sit alongside them, which is what keeps the rollout to weeks rather than a programme.

Consider Lattice when

Employee engagement surveys are part of the purchase. CLEAR Talent has no survey product at all — if you need one, that is a genuine gap and Lattice covers it.
You want the shortest possible vendor list and are willing to consolidate performance, engagement and parts of core HR with one supplier.
Your competency model is deliberately light, and gating ratings behind written evidence would be more process than your organisation wants.
Your managers have used Lattice before. Familiarity is a legitimate adoption advantage, and evaluations that discount it tend to overstate how quickly any new tool lands.

Capability comparison

What we do, and what to ask them.

Requirement by requirement, with the specific question that settles each one in a demo.

We can describe CLEAR Talent precisely, because we build it. We cannot describe another vendor’s current packaging with the same authority, and pretending otherwise would make this page useless to you. So the CLEAR Talent column states what the platform does today, and the other column gives you the question to put to them — never a claim about a gap.

CLEAR Talent and Lattice compared requirement by requirement
Requirement	CLEAR Talent	LatticeWhat to ask them
Performance depth
Organisation goals, OKRs and weighted KPIs	Strong / native Strategic Linked Goals cascades organisation objectives to team and individual level and requires every individual goal to connect to a parent, so orphaned goals cannot quietly accumulate. A KPI library holds reusable, role-aware metric templates with performance bands, weightings and guardrails.	Strong / native Goals and OKRs are a headline Lattice capability. Ask how an individual goal is tied to a parent objective, whether that link can be enforced rather than encouraged, and how weighted KPIs with performance bands are modelled.
Review cycles and configuration	Strong / native Configurable self, manager, peer and multi-stage cycles, with configurable review templates and rating scales. Each stage carries its own deadline and automated reminders, quarterly and annual cadences can run side by side, and a closed period stays closed.	Strong / native Review cycles are core to the product. Ask to see a multi-stage cycle built with your own stages, templates and rating scale, and confirm how much of that an administrator can change without vendor support.
Competency frameworks and evidence	Strong / native A central library with behavioural indicators at every proficiency level, scales configurable from three to seven levels that can differ by job family, and role profiles carrying required competencies and target levels. Ratings can be configured to require written evidence before submission.	Confirm Ask how a competency is defined, whether behavioural indicators exist at each level, how many levels a scale can carry, whether scales can differ by job family, and whether a rating can be blocked until written evidence is attached.
360° multi-rater feedback	Strong / native Rater groups are configurable across managers, peers, direct reports and cross-functional stakeholders, raters are anonymised within their group and minimum-rater thresholds apply. Input is structured against the competencies in the role profile rather than collected as open text.	Strong / native Multi-rater input is part of Lattice review cycles. Ask how rater groups are configured, what the anonymity and minimum-rater rules are, and whether input is structured against a competency model or gathered as open text.
Development, calibration and succession	Strong / native Skills-gap analysis feeds individual development plans, calibration runs before ratings go final, and 9-box, readiness and succession workflows sit on the same record. Individual, team and organisation reports export to PDF or Excel in one click.	Confirm Ask which of development planning, calibration, 9-box and succession are in your tier, which are licensed separately, and what the export looks like for a remuneration or talent committee.
Reach and governance
AI assistance and its governance controls	Strong / native Ava drafts review narrative, summarises multi-rater input into themes, generates competency frameworks and prompts reviewers on possible rating patterns. Output is labelled, editable and approved by a person, every edit is logged, and it can be disabled per cycle, team or module.	Confirm Ask what the AI writes, what it reads to write it, whether the output is labelled as AI-generated, whether it can be switched off for a cycle or a team, and what is recorded when a manager edits it.
Mobile and multilingual participation	Strong / native Web plus native iOS and Android apps with biometric sign-in, push notifications and offline support for sites where the signal drops, and 16 languages — with AI-generated summaries and recommendations delivered in each employee’s preferred language.	Confirm Ask which languages are supported and have them demonstrate one full review completed on a phone, by someone who has no desk and no company laptop.
Scope boundaries
Employee engagement surveys	Not core Not a CLEAR Talent capability. If engagement or pulse surveys are a required part of this purchase, CLEAR Talent does not cover it and you would need a second tool.	Strong / native Engagement surveys are a core part of the Lattice platform. Confirm question libraries, benchmarking, reporting depth and how survey results connect to the performance record.
Payroll, attendance and applicant tracking	Not core Not a CLEAR Talent capability, deliberately. The platform is built to run alongside the HRIS or payroll system you already have rather than replace it, which is what keeps the implementation narrow.	Confirm Lattice has extended beyond performance into core HR. Confirm what its current HRIS scope covers, what it does not, and how that would sit with the system of record you already run.

Performance depth

Organisation goals, OKRs and weighted KPIs

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: Strategic Linked Goals cascades organisation objectives to team and individual level and requires every individual goal to connect to a parent, so orphaned goals cannot quietly accumulate. A KPI library holds reusable, role-aware metric templates with performance bands, weightings and guardrails.
LatticeStrong / native: Goals and OKRs are a headline Lattice capability. Ask how an individual goal is tied to a parent objective, whether that link can be enforced rather than encouraged, and how weighted KPIs with performance bands are modelled.

Review cycles and configuration

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: Configurable self, manager, peer and multi-stage cycles, with configurable review templates and rating scales. Each stage carries its own deadline and automated reminders, quarterly and annual cadences can run side by side, and a closed period stays closed.
LatticeStrong / native: Review cycles are core to the product. Ask to see a multi-stage cycle built with your own stages, templates and rating scale, and confirm how much of that an administrator can change without vendor support.

Competency frameworks and evidence

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: A central library with behavioural indicators at every proficiency level, scales configurable from three to seven levels that can differ by job family, and role profiles carrying required competencies and target levels. Ratings can be configured to require written evidence before submission.
LatticeConfirm: Ask how a competency is defined, whether behavioural indicators exist at each level, how many levels a scale can carry, whether scales can differ by job family, and whether a rating can be blocked until written evidence is attached.

360° multi-rater feedback

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: Rater groups are configurable across managers, peers, direct reports and cross-functional stakeholders, raters are anonymised within their group and minimum-rater thresholds apply. Input is structured against the competencies in the role profile rather than collected as open text.
LatticeStrong / native: Multi-rater input is part of Lattice review cycles. Ask how rater groups are configured, what the anonymity and minimum-rater rules are, and whether input is structured against a competency model or gathered as open text.

Development, calibration and succession

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: Skills-gap analysis feeds individual development plans, calibration runs before ratings go final, and 9-box, readiness and succession workflows sit on the same record. Individual, team and organisation reports export to PDF or Excel in one click.
LatticeConfirm: Ask which of development planning, calibration, 9-box and succession are in your tier, which are licensed separately, and what the export looks like for a remuneration or talent committee.

Reach and governance

AI assistance and its governance controls

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: Ava drafts review narrative, summarises multi-rater input into themes, generates competency frameworks and prompts reviewers on possible rating patterns. Output is labelled, editable and approved by a person, every edit is logged, and it can be disabled per cycle, team or module.
LatticeConfirm: Ask what the AI writes, what it reads to write it, whether the output is labelled as AI-generated, whether it can be switched off for a cycle or a team, and what is recorded when a manager edits it.

Mobile and multilingual participation

CLEAR TalentStrong / native: Web plus native iOS and Android apps with biometric sign-in, push notifications and offline support for sites where the signal drops, and 16 languages — with AI-generated summaries and recommendations delivered in each employee’s preferred language.
LatticeConfirm: Ask which languages are supported and have them demonstrate one full review completed on a phone, by someone who has no desk and no company laptop.

Scope boundaries

Employee engagement surveys

CLEAR TalentNot core: Not a CLEAR Talent capability. If engagement or pulse surveys are a required part of this purchase, CLEAR Talent does not cover it and you would need a second tool.
LatticeStrong / native: Engagement surveys are a core part of the Lattice platform. Confirm question libraries, benchmarking, reporting depth and how survey results connect to the performance record.

Payroll, attendance and applicant tracking

CLEAR TalentNot core: Not a CLEAR Talent capability, deliberately. The platform is built to run alongside the HRIS or payroll system you already have rather than replace it, which is what keeps the implementation narrow.
LatticeConfirm: Lattice has extended beyond performance into core HR. Confirm what its current HRIS scope covers, what it does not, and how that would sit with the system of record you already run.

Status legend

Strong / nativeA clearly positioned core or native capability.

Not coreNot currently positioned as a core capability.

ConfirmScope, module, localization, or availability should be confirmed with the vendor.

Price and commercials

Compare quotes, not headline prices.

Per-seat figures are only comparable once both quotes cover the same modules, the same headcount and the same term.

CLEAR Talent

$39per month, Basic plan

CLEAR Talent publishes a list price rather than quoting from scratch: the Basic plan is USD 39 per month and covers 1 admin user and 10 staff users, with each additional staff user at USD 3 per month and each additional admin user at USD 9, up to the maximums stated on the plan. The Pro plan is USD 295 per month and covers 3 admin users and 50 staff users. Past those limits the Enterprise plan is quoted. A final quote is confirmed at demo; modules, localisation, implementation scope, taxes and commercial terms all move the number.

Lattice

Check directwith the vendor

Read Lattice’s current pricing page, then confirm exactly which modules the tier you are quoted includes before comparing per-seat figures. An unmatched module list is the usual reason a price comparison misleads.

Put these questions to every vendor

Which modules are inside the quoted price, and which are licensed separately?
Is the price per employee, per active user, or per licence — and how are leavers treated mid-term?
What is the minimum seat count, and what happens to it if headcount falls?
What is the implementation fee, what does it cover, and what is billed hourly afterwards?
What is the contract term, and what is the uplift at renewal?

CLEAR Talent’s figure is the published list price of its entry plan, not a quote for your headcount — the plan covers a fixed allocation of users and adds a published per-user rate above it. No competitor price is stated on this page, because published vendor pricing changes and a figure repeated here would be out of date before you read it.

Where we stop

What CLEAR Talent does not do.

A comparison page that lists no limits is a brochure. These are the boundaries most likely to matter in this particular decision.

Employee engagement or pulse surveys.
Payroll, time and attendance, or leave administration.
Recruitment and applicant tracking.
A learning management system. Development plans link to learning; delivering courses is not a CLEAR Talent capability.

CLEAR Talent is a performance and development layer. It is designed to run alongside the HRIS or payroll platform you already have, and that boundary is what keeps the rollout measured in weeks.

Buyer questions

Questions buyers ask about Lattice.

The answers a shortlist actually turns on, rather than the ones a feature grid covers.

Is CLEAR Talent a direct replacement for Lattice?

Only for the performance side. CLEAR Talent covers goals and KPIs, review cycles, 360° feedback, competency assessment, development, calibration and succession, with analytics across all of it. It does not include employee engagement surveys, and it is not a core HR system — it is built to run alongside the HRIS and payroll platform you already have. Map your current usage against those boundaries before assuming a like-for-like swap.

What is the main functional difference between them?

How a rating is built and evidenced. CLEAR Talent holds goals and KPIs as one stream and competency assessment as another, applies a weighting between them that is configurable per level, and stores self-rating, assessor rating and final rating separately with their own comments. Competency ratings can be configured to require written evidence before submission, so a rating can be decomposed years later rather than read as a single number.

Can we migrate our existing review data?

CLEAR Talent supports API access plus CSV and Excel bulk import for structured data such as goals, ratings, and organisation structure including departments, locations, roles and reporting lines. What transfers cleanly depends on how your current data is shaped, so migration scope is confirmed during discovery rather than promised up front.

How do the two compare on price?

CLEAR Talent publishes a list price you can plan against before the first sales conversation: USD 39 per month for the Basic plan, covering 1 admin user and 10 staff users, with each additional staff user at USD 3 per month, and USD 295 per month for Pro. Past what those plans cover, the Enterprise plan is quoted. For Lattice, read their current pricing page and then write down exactly what the tier you are quoted includes. Note that the two are not priced the same way — ours is a plan fee with per-user add-ons, theirs is quoted per seat — so convert both to a monthly cost for your own headcount before comparing. Comparing headline prices without matching the module list, the headcount and the term is the most common way a software price comparison goes wrong.

How should we run the evaluation fairly?

Write your scenarios first — a full review cycle with your stages, a competency assessment with evidence attached, a calibration session, a 360° with your own rater rules — and make every vendor demonstrate the same ones live rather than presenting their standard demo. Score against the outcomes you need instead of feature-list length, and put the managers who will actually complete the cycle in the room.