Feature
Performance review software for small business
Performance review software for a small business has one job: make the review happen every month without becoming anyone's second job. MARS runs a monthly cycle — score the goals, write a few sentences, hold a short conversation — that takes a manager about 1–2 hours a month, with no HR team and no implementation project.
How reviews work in MARS
Goals first, so reviews score themselves
Every review in MARS is built on goals that were agreed in advance and visible all month — to the employee, their manager, and the owner. When the cycle closes, the manager scores each goal and adds a short note. There is no blank "describe this employee's year" box, because blank boxes are where reviews go to die. The scoring is the same little-and-often rhythm we recommend in our guide to performance management for small business — twelve honest data points a year instead of one rushed essay.
Monthly by design
MARS is built around a monthly review cycle. A month is long enough for real results and short enough that nobody is reconstructing what happened from memory. Miss a conversation and the next one is thirty days away, not a year. Annual summaries, if you need a formal record for pay decisions, assemble themselves from the twelve cycles already scored.
Dashboards that compile themselves
Every score lands on a live dashboard the moment it is saved: each employee's trend over time, each team at a glance, the whole company for the owner. Nobody builds a spreadsheet the night before a board meeting, and a strong month is visible without anyone remembering to mention it — send the congrats email, or better, say it in person.
No surprises in the room
Because goals, scores, and feedback accumulate in the open all month, the review conversation contains nothing the employee has not already seen. The meeting is about the next period, not a verdict on the last one — which is the difference between reviews people dread and reviews people use.
Built to be run by an owner, not an HR team
Setup is measured in hours: add your people, agree the first goals, pick the cycle date. You can do it on your own for free in a simple environment with a DIY setup guide, or pay a small setup fee to get it done faster with expert guidance — and beta members get that hands-on setup help free through January 2027. There are no competency libraries to configure and no rating calibration to administer, because those exist to coordinate dozens of managers who do not know each other's teams — a problem you do not have at this size.
Not sure you need software yet? Genuinely, start on paper: our free performance review template is the same structure, costs nothing, and needs no sign-up. Run one cycle by hand first — MARS is for when compiling the paper starts costing real time.
What it costs
$50 a month for the company account plus $10 a month per active user, billed monthly, with no minimum* and no yearly contract — a ten-person company pays $150 a month. Every number is on the pricing page. For how that compares with tools built for bigger companies, see our Lattice comparison and 15Five comparison.
What MARS reviews do not include at this time
So you know before you sign up: no 360° review collection from external raters, no rating calibration workflows, no succession planning, and no compensation cycles tied to review outcomes. Those serve organizations with many layers of management. We are constantly working to improve the platform and add features, so your feedback will be appreciated.
Run next month's reviews in MARS
Goals, scores, dashboards, and a monthly rhythm a busy manager keeps — $50 a month plus $10 per person, billed monthly, no yearly contract. Built for companies with 2–100 people and no HR department.