The corporate intranet has changed. What used to be a static page on SharePoint that nobody visited has become a branded mobile app that frontline workers open every shift. For Australian organisations with dispersed teams — across venues, centres, stores or sites — the intranet is no longer an IT project. It is the digital front door to your organisation.
This guide covers what intranet software does, which features genuinely matter, how fourteen platforms available to Australian buyers compare, what it costs, and how to choose without regretting the decision eighteen months later.
What intranet software is · How the platforms compare · The fourteen platforms · Features that matter · What it costs · Intranets for frontline teams · Enterprise and custom requirements · How to select a provider · What good adoption looks like · FAQs
What is intranet software?
Intranet software is a private, secure platform giving employees one place to find company news, policies, documents, procedures and the people they need to reach. Access is restricted to your own workforce.
Modern intranet software differs from the traditional model in one decisive respect: it assumes employees will use a phone. Traditional intranets sat behind a firewall, required a desktop browser and a corporate login, and were maintained by IT. They served head office adequately and everyone else barely at all.
A modern platform is cloud-hosted, mobile-first, and designed to reach every employee — including the majority in frontline organisations who have never had a company email address.
Traditional vs modern intranets
| Traditional intranet | Modern intranet | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Desk-based staff | Every employee |
| Primary device | Desktop | Mobile |
| Access | Corporate login, often VPN | Personal phone, often no company email |
| Content owner | IT | Communications, HR, site managers |
| Delivery | Employee must visit | Push notification |
| Evidence of receipt | Rarely | Read receipts and acknowledgement |
| Typical adoption | Low | Measured as daily active users |
| Setup | Months | Weeks |
How the leading platforms compare
Fourteen platforms available to Australian buyers, compared on the criteria that most often decide the outcome. Pricing checked August 2026. Most enterprise intranet vendors do not publish pricing; where that is the case the table says so rather than estimating. Always confirm current pricing directly with the vendor.
| Platform | Pricing model | Best for | Key differentiator | Frontline suitability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prosper | See pricing | 50–5,000 staff, frontline and multi-site | Intranet inside a wider employee experience platform; no company email required | High |
| Microsoft SharePoint | Included in most Microsoft 365 plans | Organisations already on Microsoft 365 | Document management depth and Microsoft integration | Low without licences |
| Elcom | Custom quote | Australian mid-market and government | Australian-built, unlimited user licensing, local hosting and support | Moderate |
| GreenOrbit | Custom quote | Australian government and enterprise | Melbourne-based; document management with intranet | Moderate |
| Blink | Custom quote | Deskless and field workforces | Mobile-first employee app built for frontline | High |
| Connecteam | Free to 10 users; paid from US$29/mo per hub (first 30 users, billed annually) | Small to mid-sized deskless teams | Operations, communication and HR in one mobile app | High |
| Staffbase | Custom quote | Large enterprise internal comms | Employee app, email and intranet unified | High |
| MangoApps | Custom quote | Mixed desk and frontline workforces | Intranet, messaging, training and workflows combined | High |
| Workvivo (Zoom) | Custom quote | Enterprise employee engagement | Social-style activity feed and engagement analytics | Moderate |
| Simpplr | Custom quote | Enterprise employee experience | AI-driven personalisation and content governance | Moderate |
| Unily | Custom quote | Large enterprise (1,000+) | Deep Microsoft 365 integration at enterprise scale | Moderate |
| Interact | Custom quote | Mid-market to enterprise | Content targeting and analytics | Moderate |
| Happeo | Custom quote | Google Workspace organisations | Built around Google Workspace | Low |
| ThoughtFarmer | Custom quote | Mid-market knowledge management | Search and social knowledge sharing | Moderate |
“Frontline suitability” here means one specific thing: can an employee with no company email address, no company device and a few minutes between tasks actually use it? It is not a judgement of overall platform quality. Several platforms rated moderate or low are excellent for desk-based organisations.
The best intranet software in Australia
Fourteen platforms, each assessed on the same four criteria. Listed with Australian-built and frontline-capable options first, since those are the two considerations most often decisive for the organisations this guide is written for.
Prosper
Best for: Australian organisations of 50–5,000 employees with frontline, shift-based or multi-site workforces — hospitality, retail, early education, aged care, leisure and facilities.
Key features:
- Branded company hub with news targeted by site, role or team
- Document library with version control and mandatory acknowledgement tracking
- Team and direct messaging without exposing personal phone numbers
- Peer recognition tied to company values
- Automated onboarding checklists assigned by role and location
- Employee directory synced from payroll
- Read rates and daily active users reported by site
Pricing: See Prosper pricing. Priced per employee per month; the intranet sits within a wider platform including engagement surveys, recognition, onboarding and performance.
Frontline suitability: High. Employees sign in with a code on a personal phone. No company email address, no company device and no Microsoft licence required. Integrates with foundU, Employment Hero, Tanda and ADP so new starters appear automatically and leavers are removed.
More: Prosper
Microsoft SharePoint
Best for: Organisations already running Microsoft 365 with licensed accounts for most employees.
Key features:
- Mature document management with version control and retention
- Deep integration with Teams, Outlook and OneDrive
- Extensive customisation via Power Automate and Power Apps
- Granular permissions and compliance controls
Pricing: Included in most Microsoft 365 business plans. The practical cost question is whether frontline employees hold licences.
Frontline suitability: Low without licences. SharePoint assumes a Microsoft account. Microsoft offers frontline worker plans, but the question remains whether every casual at every site has an account before their first shift. We cover this in detail in our guide to SharePoint for frontline teams.
More: Microsoft SharePoint
Elcom
Best for: Australian mid-market, government and education organisations wanting local hosting and hands-on implementation support.
Key features:
- Australian-built with local hosting and support
- Unlimited user licensing model
- Role-based content and modular architecture
- Integrations with Microsoft 365, SharePoint and Salesforce
- Long-term implementation partnership approach
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Reaches remote and frontline workers, and the unlimited-user licensing removes the per-seat barrier for casual workforces. Positioned more as a full digital workplace than a phone-first app.
More: Elcom
GreenOrbit
Best for: Australian government and enterprise organisations wanting document management with an intranet layer.
Key features:
- Melbourne-based with local support
- Document management and workflow automation
- Personalisation and targeted content
- Built-in analytics
- Cloud or on-premise hosting
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Capable and locally supported, but designed around a desktop working session rather than a phone between tasks.
More: GreenOrbit
Blink
Best for: Organisations whose workforce is overwhelmingly deskless — healthcare, transport, logistics, retail.
Key features:
- Mobile-first employee app with personalised feed
- Group and one-to-one chat
- Single sign-on to workplace tools from the app
- Customisable by industry
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: High. Built specifically for frontline workers rather than adapted for them. One of the few genuine alternatives in this category.
More: Blink
Connecteam
Best for: Smaller deskless teams wanting communication, scheduling and HR in one place.
Key features:
- Mobile-first communication and updates
- Shift scheduling and GPS time clock
- Checklists, forms and task management
- Knowledge base and document sharing
Pricing: Free for up to 10 users. Paid plans from US$29 per month for the first 30 users, billed annually, per hub — Operations, Communications and HR are sold separately, so the full product costs more than the headline figure. Additional users are charged beyond 30. Checked August 2026.
Frontline suitability: High. Genuinely mobile-first. Worth understanding the hub pricing structure before committing, as buyers often need more than one.
More: Connecteam
Staffbase
Best for: Large enterprises with dedicated internal communications teams and distributed workforces.
Key features:
- Branded employee app
- Unified employee app, email and intranet publishing
- Cross-channel publishing with push alerts
- Personalised navigation and content targeting
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: High. Strong for large distributed workforces. Generally aimed at organisations well above the mid-market.
More: Staffbase
MangoApps
Best for: Organisations with a genuine mix of desk-based and frontline employees.
Key features:
- Unified hub with dashboards
- Document libraries and wikis
- Messaging, alerts and surveys
- Onboarding and workflow tools
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: High. Explicitly designed to serve both office and frontline staff in one platform.
More: MangoApps
Workvivo (Zoom)
Best for: Enterprises prioritising employee engagement and internal culture.
Key features: Social-style activity feed, livestream and video channels, recognition, engagement analytics, multi-language auto-translation.
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Mobile app available and widely used, though the product centres on engagement and communication rather than the operational needs of shift-based teams.
More: Workvivo (Zoom)
Simpplr
Best for: Enterprise organisations wanting a low-maintenance, well-governed intranet.
Key features: AI-driven personalisation, auto-governance and content lifecycle management, low-training interface, adoption analytics.
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Strong employee experience platform, primarily oriented to knowledge workers.
More: Simpplr
Unily
Best for: Large enterprises, typically 1,000+ employees, wanting a full digital workplace.
Key features: Deep Microsoft 365 integration, enterprise personalisation, multi-brand and multi-region support, extensive integration library.
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Enterprise-focused. Scale and configurability are the strengths; frontline simplicity is not the primary design goal.
More: Unily
Interact
Best for: Mid-market to enterprise organisations wanting targeted internal communication.
Key features: Audience content targeting, personalisation and dashboards, reach and readership analytics, onboarding tools.
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Communications-led platform with mobile access.
More: Interact
Happeo
Best for: Organisations built around Google Workspace.
Key features: Native Google Workspace integration, channels and pages, federated search, template-based page builder.
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Low. Assumes a Google Workspace account, which most frontline employees do not have.
More: Happeo
ThoughtFarmer
Best for: Mid-market organisations where knowledge management is the primary driver.
Key features: Strong content search, social and collaborative features, news targeting, integrations with Slack, Microsoft and Google.
Pricing: Custom quote.
Frontline suitability: Moderate. Well regarded for knowledge sharing; oriented to desk-based collaboration.
More: ThoughtFarmer
Key features to look for
Ordered by how much they matter in practice, not by how prominently they are marketed.
Mobile app and access without a company email address
For frontline organisations this is the first filter, not a nice-to-have. If sign-in requires a corporate account, the platform excludes most of the workforce before you begin. Test it with an actual casual employee: can they get in, on their own phone, in under ninety seconds? Our guide to reaching employees without company email covers why this constraint defines everything else.
News feed with targeted publishing
Publishing to everyone trains people to ignore notifications. Look for targeting by site, role, team and employment type, so a kitchen procedure update reaches kitchen staff and nobody else.
Document management with acknowledgement
The value of a document library is not that documents exist — it is that the version people find is the version they should be following. For compliance-critical material you need explicit acknowledgement and an exportable record of who read what and when. This is covered further in intranet compliance for frontline teams.
Push notifications
The only reliable way to reach someone between shifts without holding their personal number. Check whether notifications can be targeted, or whether every message goes to everyone.
Employee directory
Searchable by name, role, site and team. In multi-site organisations this quietly solves a problem people rarely name: not knowing who does what at the location down the road.
Search
An intranet people cannot search is an archive. Test search against real documents, not demo content — particularly whether it searches inside PDFs.
Integrations and single sign-on
Payroll or HRIS integration is the one that matters most. Without automatic provisioning, the employee list drifts out of date within a quarter in a workforce turning over 30% a year. See our integrations page for what Prosper connects to.
Analytics and adoption reporting
Most platforms tell you what was published. Few tell you what was received. Daily active users as a percentage of the rostered workforce is the metric that reveals whether the platform is genuinely useful — covered in intranet adoption.
Prosper Intranet & Hub See a modern intranet built for frontline teams Company news, policies with acknowledgement tracking, chat and recognition in one branded app — reaching employees who have never had a company email address. Explore Prosper Intranet & HubWhat intranet software costs in Australia
Most enterprise intranet vendors do not publish pricing. Of the fourteen platforms above, only Connecteam publishes figures openly and SharePoint is bundled into Microsoft 365. Everything else is quoted on application, which makes comparison harder than it should be.
Rather than quote market-wide figures we cannot verify, here is what actually drives the number you will be quoted.
What affects the price
- Employee numbers — and the definition of “user”. Some vendors count every employee, others only active users or administrators. On a 500-person workforce that distinction can change the annual cost several times over. Ask explicitly.
- Modules included. Platforms selling the intranet as one component of several may price it attractively alone and less so once communication, recognition or surveys are added.
- Implementation and configuration. Sometimes included, often not. Ask whether configuration, data migration and manager training are inside the quoted figure.
- Integrations. Standard payroll connectors are usually included. Anything custom is usually not.
- Support level. Australian-based support during business hours is not always standard.
- Minimum seat counts. Some vendors have a floor that makes smaller deployments uneconomic.
- Annual uplift. Ask what happens at renewal. A few percent compounding over a three-year term is material.
Comparing headline prices without comparing what is being counted. Connecteam’s advertised figure covers one hub for thirty users; the full product across three hubs costs considerably more. SharePoint appears free until you count how many frontline employees would need a licence. The quoted number is rarely the comparable number.
For Prosper’s own figures, see our pricing page.
Intranet software for frontline and deskless teams
Of the fourteen platforms above, four are genuinely built for workforces where most people do not sit at a desk. The rest assume a laptop, a corporate account and time to work in a browser. If your workforce is mostly frontline, that single distinction narrows the field faster than any feature comparison.
Employees without a company email address
Most frontline employees never receive one, and providing accounts for a workforce turning over 30% a year is cost with no operational return. But nearly every enterprise system assumes an inbox exists. The practical requirement is sign-in by a code sent to a personal mobile — no corporate credential, no company device.
Multi-site targeting
What reaches one venue must reach all of them, consistently, without depending on whether a particular manager passed it on. Content targeted by site, role and team is what makes that possible without flooding everyone.
Compliance and acknowledgement
In childcare, aged care, food service and anywhere with WHS obligations, reaching people is only half the requirement. You need to demonstrate it — per-person read receipts, timestamped acknowledgement, and version control so you can show which version was acknowledged.
By industry
- Hospitality. Casuals across multiple venues on irregular rosters. Allergen and food safety updates need confirmed delivery. See Prosper for hospitality teams.
- Early education and childcare. Educators are in rooms, not at a shared office computer. NQF documentation needs acknowledgement across centres. See Prosper for early education.
- Retail. Store-level targeting for promotions and procedure changes, plus seasonal intakes needing access immediately. See Prosper for retail teams.
- Aged care and healthcare. Rotating rosters and clinical policy distribution where evidence of receipt matters.
- Leisure and aquatics. Certification currency and incident procedures need to be reachable poolside. See Prosper for leisure and aquatics.
- Facilities and services. Teams rarely at a fixed site, with procedures needed in the field. See Prosper for facilities teams.
Enterprise and custom requirements
Two questions come up repeatedly at the larger end of the market.
Do we need enterprise intranet software?
“Enterprise” in this category usually means three things: single sign-on and directory integration, granular permission models across regions or brands, and formal security review documentation. Unily, Simpplr, Interact and SharePoint are built around these requirements. If you have a security team that will run a formal assessment, start there.
Worth testing honestly, though: if the majority of your workforce is frontline, enterprise configurability solves a problem you may not have while leaving the access problem untouched.
Should we build a custom intranet?
Custom builds are commissioned for genuine reasons — unusual compliance requirements, deep integration with a proprietary system, or a workflow no platform supports. They are also the most common source of intranet projects that stall.
The trade-off is maintenance. A custom intranet needs someone to own it indefinitely, and the cost lands after launch rather than before it. Before commissioning one, confirm that no configured platform meets the requirement — that conclusion is reached far less often than it is assumed.
Prosper is a configurable platform, not a development agency. We do not build custom intranets.
How to select the right intranet provider
Every platform above will do the job for somebody. Selecting the right one for your organisation is a different question, and it is mostly answered before you see a single demo.
Selection checklist
Access
- Can a new casual sign in within 90 seconds?
- Does it require a company email address or corporate account?
- Does it work on a personal phone?
- What happens to access when someone leaves?
Communication
- Can you target a message to one site or role?
- Do push notifications work natively?
- Can you see who read a specific post?
- Can you require acknowledgement on mandatory documents?
Commercial
- What is the user definition in the pricing?
- Is implementation included?
- What is the annual uplift at renewal?
- What is the contract term and exit process?
Evidence
- Three reference customers in your sector and size range?
- Where is data hosted?
- Is support Australian-based?
- What is the documented implementation timeline?
What good adoption looks like
The best platform your workforce does not open is the most expensive option available. Adoption is measured by daily active users as a percentage of the rostered workforce — not downloads, not registrations.
| Daily active users | Interpretation | Usual cause |
|---|---|---|
| Above 70% | Excellent | Something essential lives in the app |
| 60–70% | Strong | Regularly useful, well-maintained content |
| 40–60% | Moderate | Useful sometimes; competing channels still running |
| Below 25% | Failed | No reason to return, or access is too hard |
The single strongest predictor is whether something people genuinely need lives in the app. In most frontline businesses that is the roster. Our guides to launching an intranet people actually use and what to put on your intranet cover this in depth.
Australian organisations using Prosper
Prosper is used by organisations across hospitality, early education, leisure, retail and facilities, including AppleJack Hospitality, Harmony Early Education, City Venue Management, Brisbane Racing Club, NightOwl and Royal Life Saving.
Published customer stories covering how each organisation rolled out and what changed are available on our customer stories page, including Harmony Early Education, AppleJack Hospitality and City Venue Management.
Frequently asked questions
Intranet software is a private, secure platform giving employees one place to find company news, policies, documents and colleagues. Access is restricted to your own workforce. Modern platforms are cloud-hosted and mobile-first, reaching every employee including those without a company email address.
A modern intranet is mobile-first and cloud-hosted, designed for every employee rather than only desk-based staff. Content is targeted by site, role and team, delivered by push notification, and read rates are measurable. Traditional intranets required a desktop browser and a corporate login.
Most vendors quote on application rather than publishing pricing. Of the platforms in this guide, only Connecteam publishes figures openly and SharePoint is bundled into Microsoft 365. Cost depends on employee numbers, how the vendor defines a user, which modules are included, implementation, integrations and support level. Always confirm the user definition before comparing quotes.
It depends on your workforce. If most employees are desk-based and already on Microsoft 365, SharePoint is often the practical answer. If most are frontline without company email addresses, Prosper, Blink, Connecteam, Staffbase or MangoApps will reach more of your organisation. Australian-built options including Elcom and GreenOrbit offer local hosting and support.
Yes, and arguably more than office staff. Frontline employees are usually the least informed group in an organisation because email, desktop portals and noticeboards do not reach them reliably. A mobile intranet is often the first time they receive the same information as head office.
With the right platform, yes. Employees sign in on their own phone using a code — no corporate email address, no company device. This single requirement excludes a large share of frontline workforces from most traditional intranet platforms, so test it before shortlisting.
It works well where every employee has a licensed Microsoft account, your organisation already runs Microsoft 365, and you have internal capability to configure and maintain it. It is less effective where employees have no Microsoft account, no company device and only minutes between tasks.
The categories have largely converged. A traditional intranet is desktop-first and document-focused; an employee app is mobile-first and typically adds chat, recognition and push notifications. Most modern platforms now do both — the practical question is which device the product was designed around.
Put something in it they genuinely need — usually the roster — then remove the competing channel. Adoption follows necessity rather than enthusiasm. Reminder campaigns address awareness, and awareness is almost never the actual problem.
Cloud platforms designed for frontline workforces are typically live in two to four weeks. Enterprise deployments with custom integration and security review commonly take three to six months. Platforms that sync employees automatically from payroll go live faster because the user list does not need manual import.
Whether it works on a personal phone without a company email address, whether content can be targeted by site and role, whether it reports read and acknowledgement rates, whether it syncs employees from your payroll system, and whether there is a reason to open it daily.
Yes, and it addresses the problems WhatsApp creates: exposed personal numbers, no admin oversight, no compliance record, no ability to target messages, and former employees remaining in groups after they leave.
Prosper Intranet & Company Hub
Company news, policies with acknowledgement tracking, chat and recognition in one branded app — reaching employees who have never had a company email address.