Simply Stakeholders vs Tractivity: Which is best for stakeholder engagement in Ireland?

In this section, we provide a head-to-head comparison of Simply Stakeholders vs Tractivity: the leading stakeholder management system. We explore how each software addresses the unique stakeholder management requirements of Irish organisations, including compliance and security, user experience, support, communication management, data analysis, and more.

1.  Track stakeholder complaints and issues

Tractivity's Enquiry and Commitment Tracking module lets teams log every commitment, agreement, mitigation, action or regulatory obligation, assign an owner and monitor it through to completion, with reminders set against each item.

The Engagement and Issues Timeline holds a dated, auditable record of interactions, concerns and decisions, supporting Freedom of Information requests under the FOI Act 2014, scrutiny panels and internal governance reviews. Reports can be produced for Oireachtas committee briefings, public consultations, regulatory submissions and senior leadership updates, drawing on more than 150 pre-built and configurable formats.

Simply Stakeholders publishes a complaints and grievance module that logs complaints centrally, applies issue tags automatically, tracks custom resolution steps, sends overdue notifications and can be embedded as a grievance portal on a website. On their published pricing page, both complaints management and commitments tracking start at the Plus plan.

The difference for a public sector buyer is scope: Tractivity logs activity across every topic, project and policy area in one system with no feature tiers, so the audit trail does not depend on which plan was bought.

2. Communication and outreach

Both platforms provide native communication tools. Tractivity includes newsletters and mailshots, consultation surveys, and event and workshop management in one place. The newsletter tool lets teams create, send and track communications without exporting data to a third-party email system, and sends are logged against the stakeholder record. Event management covers RSVP and attendance tracking, Microsoft Teams meeting creation, and Outlook and Google Calendar sync.

Simply Stakeholders publishes native email outreach, SMS messaging, and webforms and surveys, with open and click tracking and built-in unsubscribe handling. Two things are worth checking against your requirements. On their published pricing page, bulk email and SMS outreach, webforms and surveys start at the Plus plan rather than the entry Core plan. And as at August 2026 they publish no event management module or calendar sync.

Because these tools are native to Tractivity, survey, newsletter and event activity can run inside the platform rather than in separate subscriptions, which means fewer suppliers to contract with and one place where engagement records sit. Integrations with Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Zapier, Dotdigital and Google Places are available where you want them rather than required to complete the picture.

3. Security, permissions and governance

Security is a core requirement for Irish government bodies and large organisations. Tractivity provides user activity logging, Single Sign-On and MFA, and granular role-based access control, so departments can collaborate while contractors and third-party partners get only the access they need. Tractivity holds ISO 27001:2022 certification and Cyber Essentials Plus, commissions yearly penetration testing by a CREST-approved organisation, and is hosted on Microsoft Azure with EU regions available for Irish clients on request.

Simply Stakeholders publishes a strong security position: ISO 27001 certification, a SOC 2 Type II report, AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit, and SSO and MFA on every plan, including Okta login, with advanced role-based permissions on Pro. Two differences matter for Irish public sector buyers. First, the detail available for due diligence: Simply Stakeholders states it conducts "regular third party penetration tests" without publishing a cadence, a tester or an attestation. Second, its published assurance work is framed against Australian law, with its AI privacy impact assessment stated against the Australian Privacy Act 1988.

Ask both suppliers for their most recent penetration test summary, the date it was carried out and who performed it, and for the governing law of the licence agreement.

4. Platform accessibility compliance

The platform interface is in English. Tractivity allows Irish organisations to publish stakeholder-facing content — surveys, newsletters, event invitations and consultation materials — in Irish (Gaeilge) alongside the English version. Your team supplies the Irish-language content and adds it within the platform, and it goes out alongside the English. This supports the Official Languages Act 2003 (as amended by the Official Languages (Amendment) Act 2021), which sets statutory requirements on Irish public bodies for the provision of services through Irish.

Tractivity currently meets WCAG 2.2 Level A, with Level AA on track for autumn 2026, and publishes an accessibility statement setting out both. The European Union (Accessibility of Websites and Mobile Applications of Public Sector Bodies) Regulations 2020 (S.I. 358/2020) require Irish public sector bodies to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, so ask any vendor for its published conformance level and roadmap in writing. That conformance level applies across the platform, including surveys, newsletters and event invitations.

Tractivity is built for national, regional and local government bodies, semi-state organisations and regulated industries, and is aligned with EU GDPR, which for Irish public bodies is enforced by the Data Protection Commission. Email opt-ins and privacy preferences are managed in the same system as the stakeholder record.

Simply Stakeholders hosts in Microsoft Azure, including UK and EU regions, and states it is compliant with GDPR. On accessibility, its published position is that WCAG compliance is in progress, with no version or conformance level stated, and there is no accessibility statement or VPAT on its site. Since S.I. 358/2020 requires Irish public sector bodies to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA, a published conformance position is normally needed at procurement stage rather than after it. On language, its own comparison page names English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and it publishes nothing about Irish.

5. AI data privacy and model training

Tractivity's AI features are built to support engagement workflows without changing how stakeholder data is handled. Sentiment analysis classifies communications as positive, negative or neutral, and AI-generated summaries condense lengthy engagement notes into a form a team can act on. All AI tools are opt-in.

Simply Stakeholders also uses AI in its platform, including sentiment analysis and AI-generated summaries of engagement records. Its AI Policy, published 6 July 2026, states that customer data is not used to train Simply Stakeholders, Microsoft, OpenAI or any third-party models, contractually enforced through Microsoft's Data Processing Addendum. Two points worth checking in an Irish procurement: their published privacy impact assessment is stated against the Australian Privacy Act 1988 rather than EU GDPR, and the contracting entity is Darzin Software Pty Ltd, an Australian company.

Tractivity's position is the same on model training, and set out under EU GDPR: customer data is never used to train or fine-tune AI models, AI runs in Tractivity's own Microsoft Azure environment, and Azure OpenAI acts solely as a data processor. Ask both suppliers for their AI policy and their data processing terms in writing, including which region AI processing takes place in.

6. Reporting and deep analysis

Irish organisations get a pre-built library of more than 150 reports, covering issue trends, stakeholder sentiment, engagement activity, consultation outcomes and stakeholder mapping, with exports to Word, Excel and PDF on every subscription.

The Microsoft Power BI integration, shipping autumn 2026, will give teams access to their full raw dataset, so they can build their own dashboards, charts and data tables and share them with colleagues. Between the two, a team can produce operational reports, governance packs for Oireachtas committees and evidence for Public Spending Code business cases.

Simply Stakeholders publishes pre-built and custom dashboards, named templates such as a Regulatory Report, and scheduled report delivery, with exports to CSV and PDF. It publishes no report count.

Two differences are checkable. Simply Stakeholders publishes no named Power BI or business intelligence connector, and its documented route to raw data is its API, which is listed on the Pro plan. Ask both suppliers how you get at your raw data, in which format, and on which plan.

7. Customer support, onboarding and ongoing development

Every Irish organisation gets a named Client Success Manager and a managed SLA on every subscription. The customer success team includes certified practitioners through the UK Consultation Institute, with experience advising public bodies and regulated organisations on consultation strategy, compliance requirements and data governance. Onboarding is hands-on and typically completed in four to six weeks, covering configuration, data migration and role-based training, with a minimum of 20 hours included and no cap on support after that.

Tractivity's client success and technical teams are UK-based and work Irish, UK and EU hours. Tractivity also hosts events and workshops open to all clients, where clients meet other users and feed into product development, and publishes a knowledge hub of past webinars, guidance articles and answers to common questions.

Simply Stakeholders provides onboarding and customer success support, and states there is no cap on the amount of support customers receive. It is headquartered in Chatswood, New South Wales, and publishes a London address and a UK and EU phone number. It publishes no support hours, time zones or service level for any region, and a Service SLA appears only on its Pro plan.

The practical difference is what is contracted rather than what is offered. Ask both suppliers which hours their support is contracted in, what the response targets are, and on which plan a service level applies.

8. Transparent pricing for subscriptions

Tractivity publishes a single subscription from €10,995 a year, covering all core functionality and future upgrades, with no paid add-ons within the SRM licence and no limits on storage or communication volume. Time with your Client Success Manager is unmetered. The subscription scales on the number of user licences and projects, and the Engage-360 public portal is priced separately.

Surveys, newsletters, event management and reporting are included as standard, so survey, newsletter and event activity can run in one platform rather than in separate subscriptions. Published pricing also makes a Public Spending Code business case easier to build.

Simply Stakeholders publishes three plans, Core, Plus and Pro, but no prices. Pricing is per user, billed annually, with add-on modules charged separately, so the total depends on plan, modules and user count. Several capabilities Irish engagement teams treat as core start above the entry tier: geographic mapping, complaints management, commitments tracking, webforms and surveys, and SMS and email outreach begin at Plus, while API access, advanced role-based permissions, a named account manager, quarterly account reviews and a Service SLA sit on Pro. For a Public Spending Code business case, that means the total cost of ownership takes a conversation rather than a page visit.

Where Tractivity stands apart for Irish organisations

Tractivity brings engagement activity for Irish organisations into one system. It includes communications and newsletters, consultation surveys, event and workshop management, stakeholder mapping, sentiment analysis and more than 150 pre-built and configurable reports, with a Microsoft Power BI integration shipping autumn 2026; outbound stakeholder communications can be published in Irish (Gaeilge). The platform currently meets WCAG 2.2 Level A with Level AA on track for 2026, is aligned with EU GDPR, which for Irish public bodies is enforced by the Data Protection Commission, is hosted on Microsoft Azure with EU regions available for Irish clients on request, and is priced from €10,995 a year with no paid add-ons within the SRM licence. Because these tools are native to the platform, survey, newsletter and event activity can run inside Tractivity rather than in separate subscriptions, with integrations available where you want them rather than required to complete the picture.

In comparison, Simply Stakeholders is a capable platform, with ISO 27001 certification, a SOC 2 Type II report, native communications and a published AI policy. Where the two differ for Irish public sector buyers is the compliance evidence and the commercial model: Simply Stakeholders publishes no accessibility statement and describes its WCAG compliance as in progress, publishes nothing about Irish-language communications, frames its AI privacy assessment against Australian law, tiers capability across three plans, and prices per user but publishes no figures for any plan.

Tractivity's client success and technical teams are UK-based and work Irish, UK and EU hours, with certified practitioners through the UK Consultation Institute, onboarding included in the subscription and an existing Irish client base including the Institute of Bankers in Ireland. If you are weighing the two, ask both suppliers for their published accessibility conformance level, their support hours in your time zone, and which capabilities sit in which plan.