Ashio - 2026 Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

Ashio is whistleblowing software for the internal reporting channel required by Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and by the national laws that implement it, namely Germany's HinSchG, Spain's Ley 2/2023, France's Loi Sapin II and Italy's D.Lgs. 24/2023, plus equivalents in the other member states.

Best for organizations that need a compliant channel without an implementation project: small and mid-sized companies, multi-country groups that want one channel in every language, and anyone below the 50-worker threshold who wants the channel anyway. It is bought by owners, HR, compliance and legal teams, and in Germany and France often by works councils.

Reporting channel: each organization gets its own branded web page, reachable without an account. Reporters pick their language (18 available, including Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Spanish and Swedish) and either write or speak. Voice reports are transcribed on the reporter's own device and the audio is deleted immediately, so nothing is stored. No IP addresses are logged and no cookies are set.

Case handling: every report becomes a case file with a status, an assigned owner and notes, tracked from submission to resolution. An encrypted two-way dialogue lets case handlers ask follow-up questions without learning who reported. Access is limited by role, and every action is written to an immutable, timestamped log.

What buyers get wrong:

• An external hotline is not required. Article 8 obliges an internal channel, which can be run in-house in software; outsourced intake is a choice, not a legal duty.

• The 3-month deadline is feedback, not closure. Article 9 requires the reporter to hear what action was taken, and why, within three months, even while the investigation continues; Ashio tracks it separately.

• 50 workers is a floor, not an assessment. Article 8 makes channels mandatory for private entities from 50 workers, and Article 8(6) lets those with 50 to 249 share resources.

• Anonymity is not a dead end. Ashio handles anonymous reports like named ones: a case file, a documented record and an encrypted way to follow up, without ever learning who reported.

Compliance: the acknowledgment (7 days) and feedback (3 months) periods set by the Directive are tracked automatically, with overdue items flagged. The audit log provides the documented record of each report that supervisory authorities ask for, and report data is kept separate from HR records.

Administration: unlimited team members with role-based permissions, so case handling can be shared across a team, a subsidiary or an external adviser without extra cost. Administrators control the form, its fields and its branding; case handlers only see the reports assigned to them.

Deployment: cloud-based and self-service. Configuration, team setup and publishing the reporting link take under 10 minutes, with no technical integration, no server to run and no onboarding project. There is no hardware, no installation and nothing for IT to maintain.

Hosting: ISO 27001-certified data centers in Vienna, Austria, Europe. Ashio cannot read report contents, because they are encrypted end to end, and reporter IP addresses are not logged.

Pricing: flat and per organization, not per employee. €23 per month with annual billing or €29 per month with monthly billing, whatever the headcount and however many team members are invited. No per-employee fee, no per-report fee and no implementation fee. Enterprise plans start at €99 per month. A 14-day trial requires no credit card.

What it is not: Ashio is not a GRC suite, a hotline outsourcing service or a general ethics case platform. It is the reporting channel, the case workflow and the audit trail, the part the Directive actually requires, which is why it costs a flat monthly fee instead of an enterprise licence and a consulting engagement.