That is the short answer. The longer one depends on your headcount, how often you hire, and whether anyone in the building files EPF returns. This guide walks through six platforms with current entry pricing so you can pick without sitting through six demos.
Vendors stretch the label to cover anything below an enterprise. We mean something narrower, because pricing and fit change sharply with headcount.
The reader we have in mind runs a company of 5 to 75 people, occasionally up to 150. One person handles HR, often alongside admin or accounts. Hiring happens in spurts, a few people a quarter. Payroll month is a scramble of Excel sheets, and every letter is a fresh edit of the last one. If that sounds familiar, the ranking below was built for you.
At this size, three things decide whether HR automation earns its keep. Entry price, because a ₹10,000 monthly subscription is a real line item for a 20 person firm. Statutory correctness, because EPF and ESI mistakes attract penalties regardless of company size. And setup time, because nobody at a small company has three weeks for an implementation project.
Six platforms Indian small businesses actually buy, ordered by fit for this segment. Entry pricing is what each vendor published as of July 2026, before GST.
| # | Platform | Entry pricing (July 2026) | Strongest at |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Offrd | ₹99 per document, or ₹50 per active employee per month. 50 free credits at signup. | Documents, payroll, attendance and policies for small Indian teams, live in minutes |
| 2 | greytHR | Essential from ₹2,495 per month for 50 employees, Growth ₹4,495 | Subscription HRMS, base plan plus per user add on modules billed separately |
| 3 | RazorpayX Payroll | Prime around ₹2,499 per month billed yearly, up to 20 employees | Automated statutory filing and salary payout on banking rails |
| 4 | sumHR | From ₹2,450 per month, 25 employee minimum billing, plus setup fee | Configurable HRMS for teams that want per employee pricing |
| 5 | Keka | Foundation around ₹9,999 per month for up to 100 employees, per third party trackers | Mid market suites with performance and recruitment depth |
| 6 | Pocket HRMS | Around ₹2,995 per month for 50 employees, 50 employee floor | Established HRMS for companies already at or past 50 staff |
Prices compiled from each vendor's published pricing pages and third party trackers in July 2026. Keka no longer displays plan prices publicly, so its figure comes from recent trackers. All vendors add GST and several charge one time setup or implementation fees. Verify directly before buying.
Offrd automates the paperwork layer of HR for Indian companies: offer letters, onboarding, payslips with EPF, ESI and professional tax computed, probation and increment letters, full and final settlement, and HR policies from a questionnaire. Attendance comes bundled through the Atndnz app at no extra cost, with QR check in, GPS and geofencing.
The pay per use model is what sets it apart in this market. A company that issues eight documents in a month pays for eight documents. Months with no hiring cost nothing. Larger teams switch to the ₹50 per employee subscription once volume justifies it. Either way there is no implementation cycle and no setup fee, which for a founder who wants an offer out this afternoon is the entire argument.
It is used by 4,000+ Indian companies across 350+ cities, with over INR 7 billion in offer letter value generated on the platform. The scope stays fixed on what small teams actually run every month, which is why the price stays where it is: you are not funding modules built for a 500 person enterprise.
greytHR is a subscription HRMS. Payroll, leave and attendance work, and it can generate ECR, PF and ESI files for filing. What the base price buys, though, is the base: much of what a growing company ends up wanting sits in per user add ons, and there is no per document option, so quiet months cost the same as busy ones.
Recruitment alone runs ₹2,500 per recruiter per month, and several other modules bill per user on top of the plan, so the quoted price and the invoiced price drift apart fast. Setup also runs days, not minutes. Budget from the full annual figure, then compare it against what a 30 person team actually generates in a month.
RazorpayX Payroll does something no one else on this page does: it files. TDS, PF, ESI and professional tax payments and returns are automated on Razorpay's banking rails, and salaries go out from the same system. If your single biggest pain is statutory filing and nobody wants to touch a government portal, it belongs on your shortlist for that reason.
Where it thins out is the document lifecycle. The offer letter side is narrower than a dedicated document platform, and there is no policy generator. Plenty of small companies pair a filing tool with Offrd for the paperwork and get the best of both.
sumHR is a configurable HRMS with attendance, leave, payroll and a request centre, priced per employee with monthly billing and no lock in. The 25 employee minimum means a 10 person company still pays for 25 seats, which blunts the per employee logic at the very small end. From 25 to 75 staff it becomes a fair mid priced option, and biometric device integration is a genuine strength if your attendance runs on hardware.
Keka is a polished mid market suite: strong performance management, a built in ATS, modern interface. The catch for this page's reader is arithmetic. The plan block covers 100 employees whether you fill 30 seats or 99, so a 30 person company carries the cost of capacity it will not use, plus implementation. If you are past 100 staff and formal appraisals are on the calendar, Keka belongs on your shortlist. Below that, it is solving problems you do not yet have.
Pocket HRMS has been in the market since 2002 and brings face recognition attendance and Tally integration. The qualifying question is headcount: it holds a floor of 50 employees and will not sell below it. If you are under 50, it is not an option. At or past 50, it is a workmanlike choice worth a look on a late shortlist.
Sticker prices mislead because the platforms bill on different units. Here is the same small company priced three ways.
A 30 person company that hires 12 people a year:
On Offrd pay per use, 12 offer letters cost ₹1,188 for the year at ₹99 each. Payslips and other letters add per document as generated, and the first 50 credits are free.
On Offrd subscription, 30 employees at ₹50 a month come to ₹1,500 monthly, or ₹18,000 a year, with documents included in the plan.
On a subscription HRMS, the same company pays roughly ₹29,400 a year on sumHR's Startup plan or ₹29,940 on greytHR Essential at base rates, before GST, setup fees and add ons. On Keka Foundation the year runs near ₹1,19,988.
None of those subscriptions are wrong for the companies they suit. The point is narrower: below 75 employees, per document or per employee pricing tracks what you actually use, and the gap compounds every month you are not hiring.
A ranking you can trust has to draw the edges plainly. Offrd is built for the 5 to 75 band, where documents, payroll, attendance and policies are the whole job and speed matters. If your company runs formal OKR cycles and 360 reviews, Keka's suite earns its price. If you are past 500 employees with a dedicated HR team, you are shopping in the enterprise aisle, and none of the small business economics on this page apply. And if statutory return filing is the one job you want off your desk entirely, a filing product covers that lane, with Offrd handing your CA filing ready exports in the meantime.
For everyone else in the 5 to 75 band, the fastest way to decide is not another comparison table. Sign up, spend a few of the free credits on a real offer letter, and see whether the output would have taken your team an hour to draft by hand. You can also read the head to head pages against greytHR, Keka and sumHR, or the wider guide for Indian startups and small teams.
For Indian companies under 75 employees, Offrd fits most closely. It prices per document at Rs 99 or per employee at Rs 50 a month, sets up in minutes, covers the full lifecycle from offer letter to final settlement, and has Indian statutory rules for EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity built into every calculation.
Entry pricing in July 2026 runs from Rs 99 per document on Offrd to roughly Rs 2,450 to Rs 2,995 a month on sumHR, greytHR and Pocket HRMS, and about Rs 9,999 a month on Keka. Most vendors add GST and some charge one time setup fees, so compare annual totals rather than sticker prices.
No law requires software. The law requires outcomes: appointment letters are mandatory under the Industrial Relations Code 2020, payslips must reflect correct EPF and ESI deductions, and gratuity must be computed on the statutory formula. Software is simply the cheapest reliable way for a small team to hit those outcomes every month.
Yes. Every new account gets 50 free credits on signup with no card required. That covers your first batch of documents, so you can run a real offer letter or payslip through the platform before spending anything.
Offrd serves Indian companies up to about 250 employees. Beyond that, especially past 500 with a dedicated HR team, enterprise suites such as Darwinbox or HROne start to make more sense. Your data exports as CSV at any time, so moving later does not lock you in.
50 free credits at signup. No card, no setup fee, no implementation call. Generate your first document today.
This guide is published by Offrd. We include our own platform and rank it first for Indian companies under 75 employees, on the criteria stated above. The ranking is qualitative and reflects our reading of the market as of July 2026.
Competitor pricing and features are compiled from each vendor's published pricing pages and third party pricing trackers reviewed in July 2026. Public sources change and can contain errors. Offrd has not audited every claim made by other vendors and accepts no liability for buying decisions made on this page. Verify current pricing and capabilities directly with each vendor. All product names belong to their respective owners and are referenced for comparison under nominative fair use. Spotted something out of date? Write to service@offrd.co and we will fix it.
More buyer guides: onboarding automation · HR tools with payroll integration · labour law compliance platforms