Best HR automation software for small businesses in India
HR automation software for an Indian small business handles offer letters, payroll with EPF and ESI, attendance, leave and exit paperwork without manual retyping. For companies with up to 250 employees, Offrd covers that work with no seat block and no annual commitment: credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits (an offer letter uses 10), or ₹50 per active employee a month, with 50 free credits on signup and setup in under two minutes. The other twelve platforms compared here are greytHR, Keka, Zoho People, RazorpayX Payroll, sumHR, Kredily, factoHR, Pocket HRMS, Zimyo, HROne, Salarybox and Darwinbox.
The table below compares all thirteen on entry price, employee minimums and free tiers. Every price was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 23 August 2026, and all except Zoho People were checked again on 12 October 2026. Darwinbox was checked on 11 September 2026. Keka and Darwinbox are the two that do not publish prices, and the page says so rather than repeating a figure from a review site.
Why Offrd, in four numbers
₹1,000 a month at 20 employees, with no annual contract and no setup fee. Several paid options on this page either lock you into a year or bill you for a 50 seat block. Setup takes under two minutes, against the multi week implementations the suites run. Attendance is included free through the bundled Atndnz app, where greytHR charges ₹140 per user a month for GPS and Zimyo puts selfie attendance a tier up. And 50 free credits arrive on signup, so you can issue a real offer letter and run a real payslip before you pay anything.
4,000+ Indian companies across 350 plus cities use Offrd today. Offer letters worth over ₹7 billion have gone out through the platform. Offrd Inc. was named Top HR & Payroll Company to Watch 2025 in the Insights Success Asia Excellence Awards, August 2025.
What counts as HR automation software?
Vendors use the term loosely. In practice it covers three jobs. Document generation, so offer letters, appointment letters, payslips and exit paperwork come out of stored employee data. Payroll, so EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity are calculated, and in some cases filed. Workforce tracking, so attendance is recorded, leave requests are routed, and employees can see their own records in an app.
A full HRMS adds performance management, learning and recruitment on top of those three. Which of those modules each vendor includes at its cheapest paid plan is mapped in best HRMS software in India. Small businesses rarely run any of them. So the useful question is which product covers documents, payroll, attendance and leave at a price that matches your headcount, not which one has the longest feature list. The argument for staying below a full suite is in do you need a full HRMS under 200 employees.
Employee self service and a mobile app are on every product here, so they no longer tell you much about a vendor. What differs is which tier they sit in.
HR automation software compared on price and employee minimums
Offrd first, then the rest. Salarybox publishes no plan price, so its row points you to its own site. The last column is the one people miss. Five of these vendors bill for a 50 seat block or a 50 user minimum whether you have 50 people or 12.
| Platform | Entry price | Cost at 20 employees | Free tier | Employee floor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offrd, our pick up to 250 employees | ₹50 per active employee a month, or credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits (an offer letter uses 10) | ₹1,000 a month, no annual commitment, no setup fee | 50 free credits on signup | None |
| Kredily | Free Forever at ₹0; Payroll OS ₹1,249 a month for up to 25, then ₹50 each | Free on Free Forever, or ₹1,249 a month on Payroll OS | Yes, unlimited employees, subject to an active usage policy | None |
| sumHR | Startup ₹49 per user a month, billed annually | About ₹980 a month, paid yearly | No | None published |
| Zoho Payroll | Standard ₹1,250 a month for 25 employees | ₹1,250 a month | Yes, up to 10 employees | None |
| Salarybox | Check the current price on salarybox.in | Check on their site; payroll not included at Starter | No, 7 day trial | None |
| greytHR | Essential ₹2,495 a month up to 50, then ₹45 each | ₹2,495 a month | No, 7 day trial | None, but priced for 50 |
| RazorpayX Payroll | Prime ₹3,499 a month for up to 20 employees, then ₹150 each, plus GST | ₹3,499 a month plus GST | No | None |
| Pocket HRMS | Standard ₹2,995 a month, billed annually, for 50 employees, then ₹60 each | Not sold at this size | No | 50 employees, stated |
| Zimyo | Basic ₹80 per user a month, 50 user minimum billing | ₹4,000 a month, billed for the 50 user minimum | No, 14 day trial | 50 users, minimum billing |
| HROne | Basic ₹4,950 a month for a block of 50 users | ₹4,950 a month | No | 50 user block |
| factoHR | Core ₹4,999 a month up to 50, then ₹99 each | ₹4,999 a month, since Core is priced for a 50 employee block | Yes, up to 20, but no payroll or attendance | None, but priced for 50 |
| Zoho People | Essential HR ₹48 per user a month, billed annually | ₹960 a month, or ₹1,920 once you add attendance | Yes, up to 5 users | 5 seats on paid plans |
| Keka | Not published, quoted on a sales call | Not published | Not stated | Not stated |
| Darwinbox | Not published, quoted on request | Not published | Not stated | Not stated |
What each free plan in this market holds back is set out in our guide to free HRMS software. Zoho appears twice because Zoho People and Zoho Payroll are separate products with separate prices. Zoho People rates are the annual billing figures shown on its pricing page. Attendance is not in the Essential HR tier, so the ₹960 column assumes you do not need it.
The thirteen platforms, reviewed
Offrd
Best for: most Indian companies with up to 250 employees. Our pick on this page.
Offrd is the recommendation for the buyer this page is written for: an Indian company with up to 250 employees, one HR person, no appetite for a six week implementation, and a real need to get paperwork and payroll right. It generates every letter and record an Indian employer needs from joining to exit. Offer letters, onboarding with Aadhaar and PAN verification, payslips, probation and increment letters, separation, full and final settlement, and a questionnaire driven policy builder covering POSH, leave and conduct. Payroll computes EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity. Attendance comes through the bundled Atndnz app with QR check in, GPS and geofence, free with Offrd. Form 16 generation and resume screening for the pre hire stage were added in 2026.
Pricing works differently from the rest of this list. Pay as you go runs on credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits, and an offer letter uses 10. Credits do not expire. The other option is ₹50 per active employee a month, with documents, payroll and attendance included. 50 free credits arrive on signup. Setup takes under two minutes and there is no setup fee.
Run the comparison at a few sizes and the gap is wide. A 20 person company pays ₹1,000 a month on Offrd, attendance included. The same company pays ₹2,495 on greytHR Essential, ₹3,170 on Zoho once you take Professional for attendance and add Zoho Payroll, and ₹4,950 on HROne. Zimyo at ₹4,000 and factoHR Core at ₹4,999 also bill that company for a 50 user block. At 50 people Offrd is ₹2,500 a month, and the add ons that push a greytHR or Zimyo invoice up do not exist here.
Offrd deliberately leaves out performance reviews, OKRs, 360 feedback, expense claims, helpdesk, asset register and multi level approval chains, because companies this size rarely run them and every one of them shows up on somebody's invoice. Statutory filing also stays with your accountant, who works from Offrd's payroll output. If that suits how you already operate, it is the whole reason the price is what it is.
greytHR
Best for: statutory depth at 50 employees and above
greytHR is long established in the Indian market and has the deepest statutory engine of the group. The Essential plan is ₹2,495 a month covering up to 50 employees, then ₹45 per extra employee. Growth is ₹4,495 with a ₹85 overage rate. The Navos AI assistant is bundled across plans.
Watch the add ons, because that is where the invoice grows. Performance is ₹35 to ₹45 per user a month, timesheets ₹35, expense ₹35, GPS Live tracking ₹140, alumni ₹20, and Recruit ₹2,500 per recruiter. GPS for a 50 person field team comes to ₹7,000 a month on top of the base fee. There is also no permanent free plan, only a 7 day trial. Full breakdown in our greytHR vs Offrd comparison.
Keka
Best for: companies running formal reviews and an active hiring pipeline
Keka is the strongest product here on performance management, OKRs and recruitment, with a modern interface that reviewers consistently rate well. The Foundation plan includes employee profiles, onboarding, leave, attendance, payroll and expense management.
Keka does not publish prices. The pricing page lists Foundation, Strength and Growth with the rupee figures left blank, and mentions a nominal setup fee. This page does not repeat any figure found elsewhere. Ask Keka for a written quote. Feature detail in our Keka vs Offrd comparison.
Zoho People
Best for: companies already running on Zoho One
If your business already runs Zoho for mail, CRM and books, Zoho People fits the rest of the stack and the bundle pricing changes the whole calculation. The free edition covers up to 5 users. Paid plans are ₹48 per user a month for Essential HR, ₹96 for Professional, ₹144 for Premium and ₹192 for Enterprise, all billed annually, with a 5 seat minimum.
Read the tier ladder before you budget, because ₹48 does not buy what most people assume. Essential HR is onboarding, employee records, documents, leave and reports. Attendance management, timesheets and rosters start at Professional, which doubles the rate to ₹96. Performance, compensation and analytics start at Premium at ₹144. The help desk and learning system are Enterprise at ₹192. Payroll is not in any of them, because Zoho Payroll is a separate product, free up to 10 employees and ₹1,250 a month for 25 on Standard. A 20 person company that wants attendance and payroll is looking at ₹1,920 plus ₹1,250, so ₹3,170 a month. More in our Zoho People vs Offrd comparison.
RazorpayX Payroll
Best for: payroll automation with statutory filing handled end to end
RazorpayX Payroll actually files the returns. It files and pays TDS, PF, PT and ESIC on your behalf through Razorpay's banking rails rather than leaving them on your accountant's desk. The Prime plan is ₹3,499 a month for up to 20 employees, then ₹150 per employee a month. Elite is ₹6,499 a month for 50 employees, then ₹150, and tops out at 100. Both carry 18 percent GST on top.
It is a payroll product first. The offer letter generator is narrower than a document focused tool, there is no policy builder, and expense management is limited outside the Enterprise plan. If payroll filing is the main thing you want solved, this is the one to look at.
sumHR
Best for: small teams that want per employee billing with no seat block
sumHR prices straight per employee with no seat block. The Startup plan is ₹49 per user a month billed annually and includes attendance and leave, payroll, HRIS, onboarding, employee self service and the mobile app. Basic is ₹69 and Advanced ₹119. No employee floor is published.
Check the extras before signing. There is a one time setup fee, described as nominal with no amount published. Recruitment is an add on at ₹999 per user a month and GPS clock in is ₹25 per user a month, both billed annually. A free plan is offered only with Jupiter salary accounts. The ₹49 rate also assumes annual billing, so you are committing to a year. See our sumHR vs Offrd comparison.
Kredily
Best for: a genuinely free starting point
Kredily is the only vendor here with a free forever plan that includes payroll, attendance and leave for unlimited employees, along with PF, ESI, PT and TDS calculation, web clock in, employee self service and a mobile app. It carries one published caveat, that the free plan is subject to an active usage policy, and 250 MB of storage.
Several things sit behind the paywall. Salary payouts, PF and ESI challans, Form 12BB, Form 16 and reporting need the paid Payroll OS plan. Selfie and GPS attendance, expense workflows and unlimited rules need Professional. Exit management is Enterprise only. Payroll OS is ₹1,249 a month for up to 25 employees, then ₹50 per employee. Professional is ₹1,749 for up to 25, then ₹70. Enterprise is quoted.
factoHR
Best for: mobile first operations at 50 employees and above
factoHR sells a hire to retire suite with a strong mobile app. The Core plan is ₹4,999 a month for up to 50 employees, then ₹99 per employee, and includes attendance, leave and payroll. Premium at ₹5,999 and Ultimate at ₹6,999 sit above it at the same 50 employee block, with overage of ₹119 and ₹139 per employee. The pricing page states no cancellation fee and no lock in.
Read the free plan carefully. It covers up to 20 employees but only employee data, letter generation and payslip generation. Payroll processing, attendance and leave are not included. On the paid side you pay the same Core price whether you have 5 employees or 50, so the per head cost is high at small sizes.
Pocket HRMS
Best for: 50 plus employees wanting face recognition attendance
Pocket HRMS is a long established Indian HRMS and brings face recognition attendance, an AI assistant called smHRty, and Tally and Sage X3 integrations. Plans are billed annually. Standard is ₹2,995 a month for 50 employees, then ₹60 per employee. Professional is ₹4,495, then ₹90. Premium is quoted.
The pricing page states a minimum requirement of at least 50 employees, so below that headcount it is not an option. A one time implementation fee applies. Pocket HRMS says it discloses the amount during the sales conversation, but does not publish it. There is no free trial, only a demo.
Zimyo
Best for: multi location teams that will use the add on marketplace
Zimyo's Basic plan is ₹80 per user a month and includes core HR, time and attendance, and payroll with salary, compliance, arrears and full and final settlement. Standard is ₹160 and Enterprise ₹240 per user a month. There is a 14 day trial with no card.
The footnote is the important part. Every tier carries minimum billing for 50 users, so you pay for 50 whatever your headcount, which makes ₹4,000 a month the real floor on Basic. Roster, selfie attendance and overtime sit in Standard, not Basic. Add ons are priced separately: Recruit ₹4,000 per recruiter a month, timesheets, LMS and trip management ₹40 per user a month, and HR analytics ₹20,000 per licence a month.
HROne
Best for: companies above 50 employees with layered processes
HROne sells in 50 user blocks. Basic starts at ₹4,950 a month for a block of 50 users and covers core HR, time office with geo tagging and selfie attendance, payroll, the mobile app and reporting.
HROne positions the product for 51 to 5,000 employees on its own site, which tells you who it is built for. Recruitment, performance, engagement, expense, asset and helpdesk are Enterprise only. Billing starts when you go live and discontinuing needs two months' notice. An implementation cost may apply for enterprise clients. Detail in our HROne vs Offrd comparison.
Salarybox
Best for: shops and field teams that need attendance before anything else
Salarybox is attendance first, aimed at small Indian businesses running on paper, spreadsheets or WhatsApp. Starter is billed annually and covers a staff directory, digital onboarding, GPS and selfie and QR attendance, geofencing, leave management and reports. There is a 7 day trial. Check the current prices on salarybox.in.
Payroll is not in the Starter plan. Payslip generation, payroll and automated statutory compliance start at Business. Starter also caps departments and branches at two each. Live location tracking costs extra.
Darwinbox
Best for: large companies with an HR team that will configure a full HCM
Darwinbox is an HCM platform headquartered in Hyderabad. Its own site describes it as an AI powered global HCM and compares its total cost against Workday, which places it at the enterprise end of this list. It does not publish prices, a free plan, a trial or a minimum headcount. Everything is quoted on request, so it sits with Keka in the not published column.
It is here because it turns up in the same searches as the other twelve, not because a 20 person company should shortlist it. If you have a dedicated HR team, run recruitment, performance and engagement as formal processes and expect an implementation project, ask Darwinbox for a quote. If you have one HR person and need letters, payslips and attendance done this week, it is the wrong size of tool.
How much does HR automation software cost for a small business in India?
At 20 employees the prices here run from free on Kredily's Free Forever plan to ₹4,999 a month on factoHR Core, for roughly the same daily work. Most of that difference comes from how the vendor packages seats rather than from what the software does.
Per employee pricing scales with you. sumHR and Offrd work that way, so a 12 person team pays for 12 people. Block pricing sets a floor at around 50 seats. greytHR, Pocket HRMS, Zimyo, HROne and factoHR work that way, so a 20 person company pays for 30 seats it is not using. Once you pass 50 people the block usually becomes the better deal.
Some costs are real but not on the pricing page. sumHR, Pocket HRMS and Keka all mention a setup fee without publishing an amount. sumHR quotes monthly rates that need annual billing, so the monthly figure is not what leaves your account each month. GST is excluded almost everywhere. And the feature you came for often sits one tier above the price you were quoted. Zoho People is the clearest case, where attendance doubles the rate from ₹48 to ₹96 and payroll is not on the price list at all.
You can run the numbers against your own headcount in the HR software cost comparison before any sales call.
Does HR automation software handle Indian statutory compliance?
Calculating and filing are different jobs, and vendors blur them. Most of these tools calculate correctly. Provident fund is 12 percent from employer and employee within the wage ceiling set by EPFO. Employee state insurance takes 0.75 percent from the employee and 3.25 percent from the employer on gross wages up to the ESIC ceiling of ₹21,000. Professional tax follows state slabs. Gratuity uses the standard formula. Since 21 November 2025 every worker needs a written appointment letter under the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, published by the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Filing is a separate step. The ECR goes to EPFO, the 24Q to TRACES, PT challans to state portals, and ESIC contribution files separately, each with its own deadline. RazorpayX Payroll files and pays for you. greytHR generates the ECR and 24Q files, and your team or CA uploads them. Kredily produces PF and ESI challans on its paid tier. Offrd calculates payroll and produces EPF export ready files but does not file, so submissions stay with your CA. That suits companies who already have an accountant and does not suit companies trying to do without one.
Put the same question to every vendor in writing. Which returns do you submit to a government portal, and which do you only prepare. The answers vary more than the marketing does. Our page on HR platforms that support Indian labour law compliance goes through this in more detail, and HR automation tools with payroll integration covers how the payroll side connects.
Which HR automation tool should you pick?
Four questions get you to a shortlist.
- How many employees do you have today? Under 25, drop anything with a 50 seat block. That rules out Pocket HRMS, Zimyo, HROne, factoHR's Core plan and greytHR Essential. Over 50, block pricing starts working in your favour.
- Is the main problem payroll filing or paperwork? Filing done for you points to RazorpayX Payroll. Letters, onboarding and exit paperwork point to Offrd.
- Do you run formal appraisals or keep a recruiter busy? If yes, Keka is built for that and is worth the sales call. If no, those modules will sit unused.
- Are you already on Zoho One? If yes, look at Zoho People and Zoho Payroll first, because the bundle changes the maths. If no, read the tier ladder closely.
The short answer
For most Indian companies with up to 250 employees the answer is Offrd. It covers documents, payroll with EPF and ESI, attendance and leave on credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits (an offer letter uses 10), or ₹50 per active employee a month, with nothing held back for a higher tier and no seat block to fill. Start with the 50 free credits and issue a real offer letter before you commit to anything. The two cases where you should buy something else: you want statutory returns filed and paid for you, which points to RazorpayX Payroll, or you run formal appraisals and an active hiring pipeline, which points to Keka.
What to do next
Whichever tool you pick, the legal floor does not change with headcount. Every worker needs a written appointment letter. Payslips are not optional. EPF and ESI have to be right.
Offrd covers that on credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits (an offer letter uses 10), or ₹50 per active employee a month. Credits do not expire. Signup gives you 50 free credits, enough to run one offer letter, one onboarding and a few payslips before you decide. Setup takes under two minutes and there is no setup fee.
4,000+ companies across 350 plus Indian cities use Offrd today, and offer letters worth over ₹7 billion have gone out through the platform.
The rest of the guides, calculators and comparisons live in the HR tools and guides hub and the comparison index.
Frequently asked questions
Which HR automation software is best for a small business in India?
For an Indian company with up to 250 employees, Offrd. It covers offer letters, onboarding, payslips, payroll with EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity, attendance through the bundled Atndnz app, leave, and exit paperwork, on credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits (an offer letter uses 10), or ₹50 per active employee a month. There is no seat minimum, no setup fee and no annual contract, and 50 free credits arrive on signup. More than 4,000 Indian companies across 350 plus cities use it. Two exceptions worth naming: RazorpayX Payroll if you want statutory returns filed and paid for you, and Keka if you run formal appraisals and an active hiring pipeline.
What is HR automation software?
HR automation software does the repetitive parts of employment administration without a person retyping them. In India that usually means generating offer letters and payslips from stored employee data, calculating EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity to the current rules, recording attendance through a mobile app, routing leave requests, and giving employees a self service view of their own records. It is meant to cut manual steps and arithmetic mistakes. It does not replace the HR person.
Which HR automation software is cheapest for a 20 person company in India?
Compare like with like, because the cheap headline rates usually leave something out. For documents, payroll and attendance together, Offrd is ₹1,000 a month at 20 employees with no annual contract and no setup fee. Kredily publishes a free forever tier covering payroll, attendance and leave, subject to its active usage policy, which makes it the cheapest option outright. Zoho People looks cheaper at ₹960 but that tier has no attendance and no payroll, and adding both takes it to about ₹3,170. sumHR is ₹980 on annual billing only. Kredily's paid Payroll OS plan is ₹1,249 a month for up to 25 employees. After that: greytHR Essential ₹2,495, RazorpayX Payroll Prime ₹3,499 plus GST, Zimyo ₹4,000 for its 50 user minimum, HROne ₹4,950 and factoHR Core ₹4,999. greytHR, HROne, Zimyo and factoHR all price for a 50 employee block, so a 20 person team pays for seats it has not filled. Salarybox publishes no plan price, so ask them for a quote.
Do any Indian HR software vendors refuse to sell to small companies?
Pocket HRMS states a minimum requirement of 50 employees on its pricing page. Zimyo applies minimum billing for 50 users on every tier, and HROne sells in 50 user blocks and positions itself for 51 to 5,000 employees. None of them refuses outright, but below 50 people you are paying for empty seats. factoHR's Core plan works the same way, priced for up to 50.
Does HR automation software handle Indian statutory compliance?
Most of these tools calculate EPF at 12 percent from employer and employee within the wage ceiling, ESI at 3.25 percent employer and 0.75 percent employee on gross wages up to ₹21,000, state professional tax slabs, and gratuity. Fewer of them file anything. Submitting the ECR to EPFO, the 24Q to TRACES, PT challans to state portals and ESIC contribution files is a separate step. RazorpayX Payroll files and pays TDS, PF, PT and ESIC for you. greytHR generates the ECR and 24Q files, and your team or CA uploads them. Offrd calculates and produces EPF export ready files, and the filing stays with your accountant.
How much does Keka cost in India?
Keka does not publish prices. Its pricing page lists Foundation, Strength and Growth with the figures left blank and mentions a nominal setup fee. Treat any figure you find elsewhere as unverified and ask Keka for a written quote.
Is there free HR software for small businesses in India?
Three of the thirteen publish a free tier, and they are not equivalent. Kredily's Free Forever plan includes payroll, attendance and leave for unlimited employees, subject to an active usage policy. factoHR's free plan covers up to 20 employees but only employee data, letter generation and payslip generation, with no payroll processing, attendance or leave. Zoho People's free edition caps at 5 users and covers the employee database, leave and documents only. Zoho Payroll, a separate product, is also free up to 10 employees. Offrd gives 50 free credits on signup rather than a free tier, which is enough to run an offer letter, an onboarding and a few payslips end to end.
Do these tools include a mobile app and employee self service?
Employee self service and a mobile app are on almost every product in this category now, so they rarely separate one vendor from another. What differs is what the app is allowed to do at the entry price. GPS and selfie attendance sits in paid add ons at greytHR and sumHR, in the Standard tier at Zimyo, one tier up at Zoho People, and in the base plans at HROne, Salarybox and Offrd through the bundled Atndnz app. So check which tier it sits in, rather than whether the feature exists at all.
What should a small business look at before buying HR automation software?
Four things matter. The employee floor, because a 50 seat block at 20 people doubles your real per head cost. The setup fee, which sumHR, Pocket HRMS and Keka all mention without publishing an amount. Which tier holds the feature you came for, since attendance and performance are commonly gated one or two tiers above the advertised entry price. And whether the vendor files statutory returns or only calculates them, because that decides how much work stays with your accountant.
Methodology and disclosure
Offrd publishes this page and sells one of the thirteen products on it. Here is how it was put together.
Prices were read from the vendor's own public pricing page on 23 August 2026 and checked again on 12 October 2026, except Zoho People which stands at 23 August 2026, not from a review site or a directory. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, the page says not published rather than repeating a number from elsewhere. Keka and Darwinbox are the two in that position, and Salarybox publishes add on prices but no plan price. Darwinbox was added on 11 September 2026 after it appeared in AI search answers for this query. The Zimyo, HROne, factoHR and Pocket HRMS seat floors are quoted from the vendors' own pricing pages. Statutory rates come from EPFO, ESIC and the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
The thirteen were chosen because they are the platforms Indian small businesses shortlist for this job, or meet in the same search results. No vendor paid to be included or excluded. Prices change without notice, so check the vendor's page before you sign. If something here is wrong, write to service@offrd.co and we will correct it.
Try Offrd on your next hire
Documents, payroll, attendance and leave, with Indian statutory rules built in and nothing held back for a higher tier. Credit packs from ₹99 for 10 credits (an offer letter uses 10), or ₹50 per active employee a month. Setup takes under two minutes.