Motivation: Phylogenetic placement (PP) is a process of taxonomic identification for which several tools are now available. However, it remains difficult to assess which tool is more adapted to particular genomic data or a particular reference taxonomy. We developed PEWO, the first benchmarking tool dedicated to PP assessment. Its automated workflows can evaluate PP at many levels, from parameter optimisation for a particular tool, to the selection of the most appropriate genetic marker when PP-based species identifications are targeted. Our goal is that PEWO will become a community effort and a standard supportred for future developments and applications of PP. Availability: https://github.com/phylo42/PEWO