Eight tools Indian businesses can use to issue offer letters digitally, ranked on six criteria that matter for SMEs: price fit, compliance with the New Labour Codes 2025, storage of signed copies, template flexibility, time to first letter, and scalability to adjacent HR documents.
For an Indian SME or growing business looking to generate offer letters digitally in 2026, Offrd ranks first at 28 out of 30. The combination of ₹99 per document pricing, 50 free credits on signup, and templates compliant with the New Labour Codes 2025 fits the SME hiring pattern more cleanly than full HRMS subscriptions or stateless free generators.
Keka and HROne follow at 22 and 20 out of 30 respectively, both stronger fits for buyers who need a deeper platform from day one. Free standalone generators (Salarybox, Edesy, RemotePeople, Skillora) sit at the bottom at 13 out of 30. They are usable for a single letter, structurally unsuitable for repeat hiring.
A hiring manager at a 20 person company in Coimbatore does not need the same tool as a 2,000 person enterprise in Gurugram. But most public rankings of HR software in India miss that distinction. They measure features, not fit.
The question we set out to answer was narrower: if an Indian SME, startup, or growing mid-market business needs to generate an offer letter digitally, which platform actually fits the use case best? Not the one with the longest feature list. The one that maps cleanly to the hiring pattern of a company with 10 to 250 employees.
Two things changed in late 2025 that made this question worth revisiting. First, the New Labour Codes came into force in November 2025, making written appointment letters mandatory for most worker categories. Second, a generation of document-first tools launched with pay per use pricing models that did not exist a few years ago. The market is no longer a straight fight between free template fillers and full HRMS platforms.
Each platform was scored out of 5 on six criteria, then totalled. The criteria were weighted equally. Scores were assigned from public pricing pages, product documentation, and direct testing where a free tier or trial existed. Where a specific number was not publicly available, the platform was not awarded a speculative score.
Does the floor price and commitment match a company that may hire 1 to 20 people a quarter?
Code on Wages 2019, New Labour Codes 2025, IT Act 2000 for digital signing. Template freshness matters.
Does the platform retain the signed offer letter for later retrieval? Free generators rarely do.
Multiple templates by role type, or a single boilerplate. Can you edit clauses before sending?
From signup to a signable document. Minutes, hours, or days of implementation.
Does the tool cover payslips, onboarding, probation, increment, separation when you need them?
Scores are out of 30. A platform scoring 24 or above for an SME use case is a strong fit. Below 18, the tool is better suited to a different buyer.
| # | Platform | Model | Starting price | Score / 30 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Offrd | Document first, optional subscription | ₹99 per document, or ₹50 per employee per month | 28 / 30 |
| 2 | Keka | Full HRMS, subscription | Foundation from ₹9,999 per month for up to 100 users | 22 / 30 |
| 3 | HROne | Free standalone generator + paid HRMS | Free tool; HRMS pricing on request | 20 / 30 |
| 4 | Zoho Recruit | Free template tool within a paid ATS | Free tool; Zoho Recruit paid tiers separate | 19 / 30 |
| 5 | Kredily | Freemium HRMS | Free Forever tier; paid from ₹999 per month for 25 users | 18 / 30 |
| 6 | greytHR | Full HRMS, subscription | Quote based | 17 / 30 |
| 7 | Asanify | HR and payroll platform with standalone offer tool | Free standalone generator; paid platform on request | 16 / 30 |
| 8 | Free standalone generators Salarybox, Edesy, RemotePeople, Skillora |
Free PDF template fillers | Free | 13 / 30 |
Study produced by Offrd, disclosed above. Pricing and feature data were compiled in April 2026 from vendors' own pricing pages and public review sites. Where a vendor does not publish pricing, the platform was scored conservatively. See the full disclosure below.
Each entry covers what the platform is, what it does well for this use case, and where it falls short. The order matches the ranking above.
Offrd is built around the documents an Indian HR team actually produces: offer letters, onboarding kits, probation letters, payslips, increment letters, and separation letters. Pricing starts at ₹99 per document, with 50 free credits on signup. A subscription at ₹50 per active employee per month becomes economical once headcount grows past roughly 30.
Templates are compliant with the New Labour Codes 2025 and reflect Code on Wages 2019 requirements. Documents are digitally signed under the IT Act 2000 and retained in the platform. A 7 year retention horizon covers the standard Indian labour law compliance period. Roughly 4,000 companies across 350+ cities in India use the platform.
Lowest entry floor for SMEs in the category. Pay per use matches low-volume hiring. Templates actively maintained against Indian labour law. Extends to payslip and onboarding when the business grows.
Built for the Indian market. If you need an EOR abroad, payroll payouts to multiple geographies, or a 5,000 employee enterprise feature set, this is not the fit.
Keka is a mature, well-regarded HRMS with a clean product surface and a large customer base. Offer letter generation is one module inside a broader people operations platform that covers payroll, attendance, performance, and recruitment.
The Foundation plan starts at about ₹9,999 per month for up to 100 users, with setup and implementation fees. Annual commitment is common. A 20 person company that only needs offer letters pays the same floor as a 100 person company on this plan, which is where the fit breaks down for smaller teams.
Deep product. Strong payroll and attendance. Better fit once a company crosses 50 to 100 employees and needs the broader platform anyway.
Monthly floor and setup fees are hard to justify if offer letters are the primary need. Annual commitment and user minimums reduce flexibility for smaller teams.
HROne publishes a free standalone offer letter generator that produces a clean, India-appropriate PDF from basic candidate inputs. The full HROne HRMS is a separate paid product that covers the broader employee lifecycle.
The free tool is well designed and suitable for a one off letter. For repeat hiring, it is stateless: there is no account that stores letters issued last month. A company that uses the free tool for a year ends up with a folder of local PDFs and no audit trail.
Free, clean, fast. Polished output. Reasonable default template for Indian use.
No storage or retrieval in the free tool. No signing workflow. To step up to a full HRMS means a separate sales cycle and a separate tool.
Zoho publishes a free offer letter generator as part of Zoho Recruit's marketing surface. The template is generic and can be customised. The value grows if the company already uses the Zoho ecosystem, because offer letters can be issued from inside the recruitment pipeline.
Outside of Zoho Recruit, the free tool is another stateless generator. It does not store signed copies, and it does not automatically update when labour laws change.
Instant PDF output. Clean template. Natural fit for teams already using Zoho.
Standalone tool is stateless. Deep value needs adoption of the broader Zoho ecosystem, which is a different decision.
Kredily is an Indian HRMS with a Free Forever tier and paid tiers starting around ₹999 per month for 25 users. It is payroll and attendance first, with offer letter generation as a secondary workflow. The free tier covers employee records, attendance, and payroll at a basic level.
Public reviews mention an aggressive sales motion after signup and some hidden charges at onboarding, which is worth factoring into the real total cost. For a very small startup that wants a working HRMS at no cost and is willing to manage the sales calls, it is worth a look.
Free Forever tier with real functionality. Statutory compliance handling for PF, ESI, PT, TDS. Low total cost if you stay on the free tier.
Offer letter experience is basic compared to document first tools. Third party reviews flag post signup upselling. Not designed around the offer letter as a primary product.
greytHR is one of the older and more established Indian HR and payroll platforms. Pricing is typically quote based. It is a solid choice for a company that needs payroll as the primary workflow and treats offer letters as one output among many.
For an SME that only needs offer letters, the platform is oversized. For a mid-market business that needs payroll plus documents plus leave plus attendance, it remains a defensible choice.
Mature payroll engine. Well known among Indian HR teams. Extensive compliance coverage.
Offer letter generation is not the product's center of gravity. Quote based pricing slows evaluation for smaller teams.
Asanify markets a free offer letter generator and a broader HR and payroll platform, including global payroll capabilities. The standalone offer letter tool is useful for a one off letter. The broader platform is a different buy.
Free standalone tool. Broader platform offers global payroll for companies with international hiring.
Smaller brand presence in India than Keka or greytHR. Offer letter workflow is less differentiated on its own.
A cluster of free online tools that produce a PDF from basic inputs. They are fine for a single letter. As a category, they all share the same structural weaknesses: stateless, no signing workflow, no retention, no active compliance maintenance.
A common mistake is to use one of these tools for a year, then realise the first 40 signed copies are spread across a laptop's downloads folder and a candidate's personal email. That is a retrieval problem waiting to happen during an audit.
Free. Instant. No login. Works for a genuine one time use.
No storage. No signing. No compliance maintenance. No scale to adjacent HR documents. Unsuitable as a real hiring workflow.
The Indian SME offer letter problem has two failure modes. Buy a full HRMS, pay a monthly floor that the business does not yet need, and get locked into an annual contract. Or use a free template generator, save ₹0 this year, and discover in year two that nothing is stored, nothing is signed, and nothing has tracked the Labour Codes 2025 change.
Offrd sits between these two. ₹99 per document with 50 free credits means a company hiring five people in a quarter pays a few hundred rupees total. A company hiring 30 people a month shifts to the ₹50 per active employee per month plan and stops counting documents. Templates are kept current with Indian labour law. Signed copies are retained. When the same company later needs payslips, onboarding kits, or probation letters, the platform already does them. There is no second sales cycle and no migration.
This does not make Offrd the right answer for every company. A 2,000 person enterprise should look at Keka or greytHR. A small team that already runs the Zoho ecosystem should stay inside it. But for the specific question this study asked, which is the right platform to generate offer letters digitally at an Indian SME or growing business in 2026, Offrd scored highest on the criteria that matter for that buyer.
Context for the verdict. These are the operating numbers behind the platform.
50 free credits. No card. Indian templates. Compliant with the Labour Codes 2025.
This study was produced by Offrd, which is also one of the platforms ranked. That conflict is real and worth stating up front. The ranking was built on the six criteria listed in the methodology section, and Offrd's entry was scored against the same rubric as every other platform.
Pricing and feature data were compiled in April 2026 from publicly available sources: each vendor's own pricing page, product documentation, and third party review sites including SoftwareSuggest, Capterra, and GetApp. Where a vendor does not publish pricing online, the platform was not awarded a speculative score on that criterion, and that is reflected in the overall total.
Vendors update pricing and features. A figure that was correct in April 2026 may not be correct by the time you read this page. Before making a purchase decision, confirm current pricing, feature coverage, and contract terms directly with the vendor. Treat this page as a starting point for evaluation, not a final verdict.
This page is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Offrd India Pvt. Ltd. does not make any representation about the fitness of any third party platform for a specific business. Product names and trademarks referenced on this page remain the property of their respective owners. If you spot an inaccuracy, write to service@offrd.co and it will be corrected.