Trainual Pricing: Full Cost Breakdown and What You'll Actually Pay

Trainual is one of the most popular tools for documenting SOPs, onboarding employees, and building a company knowledge base. But it's not cheap—and the pricing structure can be confusing if you're just looking at their website.

Here's exactly what Trainual costs, what you get at each tier, and whether it makes sense for your business.

Trainual Pricing Plans at a Glance

Trainual uses a tiered pricing model based on team size and features. All plans are billed annually and include 10 seats to start. Here's the current breakdown:

Quick math: The Core plan at $249/month works out to about $24.90 per user for the base 10 seats—which is notably higher than the $14 average for HR tools in this category.

What's Included in Every Plan

Unlike many SaaS tools that gate features behind higher tiers, Trainual includes most core functionality across all plans. The main difference between tiers is the number of employees supported and some advanced features.

Every Trainual plan includes:

• AI-powered content creation tools
• Unlimited documentation for SOPs, policies, and processes
• Customizable templates for onboarding and training
• Quizzes and tests to verify employee knowledge
• Progress tracking and completion reports
• Role-based training assignments
• Mobile app access (iOS and Android)
• Chrome extension for in-context help
• Integrations with HR tools like BambooHR, Gusto, and ADP

Higher tiers add features like custom branding, unlimited e-signatures, API access, and more storage.

The Real Cost: What They Don't Advertise

Here's where it gets tricky. The base prices look straightforward, but there are a few cost considerations most people miss:

Team Size Drives Your Bill

As your headcount increases, so does your monthly cost—even if your usage stays the same. Add 15 more employees to the Core plan and you're looking at an extra $45/month ($3 x 15).

Trainual+ Add-Ons

Some features are paywalled behind the "Trainual+" upgrade. If you need multilingual support, hosted videos, or advanced training paths, you'll pay extra on top of your base plan.

Compliance Courses

Trainual offers access to 390+ pre-built compliance courses starting at $600/year for 10 seats, with additional seats at $60/seat/year. This is separate from your main subscription.

Implementation Fees

For larger organizations, Trainual may require a one-time implementation fee that includes content migration and rollout support. This isn't always disclosed upfront.

Monthly vs. Annual Billing

Trainual's listed prices assume annual billing. If you want to pay month-to-month, expect to pay more. The Small plan jumps from $249/month (annual) to $299/month when billed monthly—a 20% premium for flexibility.

There's no free plan, but Trainual does offer a 7-day free trial that doesn't require a credit card. You get access to Premium-tier features during the trial, which is genuinely useful for testing.

Is Trainual Worth the Price?

Trainual isn't cheap, especially for small businesses. At nearly $3,000/year minimum, you need to be serious about systematizing your operations to justify the cost.

Trainual Makes Sense If:

• You're hiring frequently and need consistent onboarding
• Your team wastes time answering the same questions repeatedly
• You're scaling and need to document processes before the founder forgets how things work
• Compliance training is important for your industry
• You want to reduce the time it takes to get new hires productive

Trainual Might Be Overkill If:

• You have a small, stable team with low turnover
• You're not ready to invest time in actually documenting your processes
• You need live task tracking or checklist functionality (Trainual is documentation-focused, not execution-focused)
• Budget is tight and a free wiki tool would suffice

What Users Actually Say

Reviews across G2, Capterra, and other platforms are generally positive. Users consistently praise the intuitive interface, helpful templates, and the ability to embed multimedia content like videos and GIFs.

Common complaints include:

• Price is steep for small businesses
• Search functionality can be inconsistent
• Mobile navigation needs improvement
• Content categorization feels rigid at times
• No live task tracking or checklist execution

The platform integrates well with payroll systems like Gusto and ADP, automatically syncing employee data when you add new hires. This is a huge time-saver if you're already using one of these tools.

Trainual vs. Alternatives

Before committing to Trainual, consider how it stacks up against alternatives:

• Notion or Google Docs – Free or cheap, but no training tracking, quizzes, or role assignments
• Loom + Wiki – Good for video SOPs, but lacks structure and accountability features
• Lessonly/Seismic Learning – More enterprise-focused, potentially more expensive
• TalentLMS – More traditional LMS, better for formal courses but less SOP-focused

Trainual's sweet spot is small to mid-sized businesses that need more structure than a wiki but don't want a full enterprise LMS.

How to Save Money on Trainual

A few ways to reduce your Trainual costs:

• Start with the Core plan – You get all the essential features. Only upgrade when you actually hit the seat limit.
• Pay annually – The 20% savings over monthly billing adds up.
• Look for G2 discounts – Trainual sometimes offers 10% off through review site partnerships.
• Use the free trial strategically – Build out your content during the 7 days to see if it's actually worth the investment.

Bottom Line: Should You Buy Trainual?

Trainual is a solid tool for companies that are serious about documenting their operations and streamlining employee training. The pricing is on the higher end—especially for small teams—but the feature set justifies it if you'll actually use it.

If you're hiring 5+ people per year and want to stop repeating yourself, Trainual can pay for itself in time savings. If you're a stable 10-person team with low turnover, you might be better off with a simpler (and cheaper) solution.

Try Trainual free for 7 days and see if it fits how your team works. No credit card required.

Already using payroll software? Check out our Gusto reviews to see how it integrates with tools like Trainual, or compare payroll software options if you're still shopping.