Every payroll error your company has ever made started the same way: two systems holding two versions of the same salary. This guide compares tools on how tightly HR and payroll are stitched together, not on the length of their feature lists.
Vendors use the phrase loosely. In practice it covers two different promises, and knowing which one you need decides your shortlist.
One salary structure feeds everything. The CTC agreed in the offer letter becomes the payslip's earnings lines, EPF and ESI deduct at the statutory rates, attendance shapes the month's payable days, and the full and final settlement reads from the same heads when someone leaves. Nothing gets retyped, so nothing drifts.
The software goes one step further and submits your statutory returns: PF to EPFO, ESI contributions, professional tax to state portals, TDS. Only some products do this, and it changes both the price and who carries responsibility when a deadline slips. Most SMEs leave filing with their CA and only need computation done right.
Ask a vendor which of the two they mean before the demo starts. The answer sorts this market cleanly, and it is why the ranking below looks the way it does.
Ranked for Indian companies under 250 employees. Pricing is what each vendor published as of July 2026, before GST.
| # | Tool | Payroll integration | Entry pricing (July 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Offrd | Computation across the whole document lifecycle, attendance bundled via Atndnz, EPF format exports for your CA | ₹99 per document or ₹50 per employee per month, 50 free credits |
| 2 | RazorpayX Payroll | Computation plus automated filing and salary payout on banking rails | Prime around ₹2,499 per month billed yearly, up to 20 employees |
| 3 | greytHR | Subscription payroll that generates ECR, PF and ESI files, add on modules around it | Essential from ₹2,495 per month for 50 employees |
| 4 | Keka | Payroll inside a mid market suite with performance and ATS modules | Foundation around ₹9,999 per month for up to 100 employees, per trackers |
| 5 | sumHR | Payroll with attendance and leave, biometric device support | From ₹2,450 per month, 25 employee minimum billing |
Compiled from vendor pricing pages and third party trackers in July 2026. Keka does not currently publish plan figures, so its price comes from recent trackers. GST and setup fees apply with several vendors. Verify with each vendor before purchase.
Offrd treats payroll as the middle of a lifecycle, not a silo. The salary structure auto balances to total CTC, with Basic defaulting to 50% in line with the Code on Wages. From there, EPF at 12% both sides, ESI at 0.75% and 3.25%, state wise professional tax and gratuity all compute inside the payslip. When an employee exits, the settlement pulls from the same salary heads, so the last document agrees with the first.
Attendance is not an integration project either. The Atndnz app comes bundled free for paying users, with QR check in, GPS and geofencing, and feeds the payroll cycle directly. Payroll history exports include EPF return formats, so your CA files from clean data instead of chasing spreadsheets. Two credits produce a payslip, meaning the free 50 credits cover 25 payslips before you pay a rupee.
The demarcation is deliberate: Offrd owns computation and documents, your CA owns the portal submissions, working from the clean exports Offrd hands over. For a company with a CA on retainer, which is most of the 4,000+ companies using it, that split is exactly how the work already divides.
RazorpayX Payroll is the filing specialist. TDS, PF, ESI and professional tax payments and returns are automated, and salaries disburse straight from the platform on Razorpay's banking rails. For a founder who wants to never see a government portal, it is a credible route, which is why it places second despite a thinner HR document side.
That thinness is real, though. The offer letter tooling is narrower than a document platform's, and there is no policy generator or settlement letter depth. Companies that need both often run RazorpayX for filing and Offrd for the paperwork.
greytHR computes payroll on subscription and generates the ECR, PF and ESI files that filing requires. Around it sits a spread of modules: leave, attendance, onboarding, exit management on higher plans. The catch is that the spread is how the invoice grows, and the integration you came for arrives only after an implementation cycle measured in days. It suits buyers who want one vendor for many modules and can wait for setup.
Recruitment is ₹2,500 per recruiter per month and several modules bill per user beyond the base plan. Against that, Offrd's attendance, documents, payroll and policy builder all sit inside one price with nothing bolted on after.
Keka integrates payroll with attendance, performance and a built in ATS, and the interface is the most modern on this list. The plan block prices for 100 employees regardless of how many seats you fill, and implementation runs weeks. Past 100 staff with formal review cycles, it is a fine choice. Below that, the integration you are paying for extends across modules you may never open.
sumHR connects payroll to attendance and leave with solid biometric device support, priced per employee with no lock in. The 25 employee minimum billing makes it a stretch for the smallest teams, and the payroll depth is serviceable rather than standout. A fair shortlist entry for hardware driven attendance setups in the 25 to 75 employee band.
Skip the feature matrices. Answer this and the market sorts itself.
If someone you trust already files your returns, a CA, an accountant, a compliance consultant, then what you need from software is computation you never have to double check. That is Offrd's lane, and at ₹99 a document or ₹50 an employee it costs a fraction of a filing suite. Your CA gets EPF format exports and clean payroll history, and keeps doing what they were doing.
If nobody files today and nobody wants to learn, buy filing. RazorpayX Payroll automates the submissions end to end, and greytHR generates the return files if your CA still presses the final button. Paying for filing you do not need is the most common overspend in this category, and vendors are in no hurry to point that out.
Either way, run the statutory numbers yourself once. Our CTC to in hand salary calculator shows how EPF, ESI and professional tax move a salary from offer to bank credit, and it is a brisk way to sanity check any vendor's demo. For the wider market beyond payroll, see the guides on HR automation for small businesses and labour law compliance platforms.
It means the salary structure lives in one place and every downstream output reads from it. The offer letter, the monthly payslip, the increment letter and the final settlement all pull from the same salary heads, and attendance data feeds the payroll run. Without integration, each of those is a separate spreadsheet that can drift out of sync.
Offrd, if your need is documents, payslips, attendance and exits computed correctly on one salary master, priced at Rs 99 per document or Rs 50 per employee monthly. RazorpayX Payroll, if you also want returns filed and salaries paid out automatically. greytHR, if you want many HR modules on one subscription.
Offrd computes EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity inside every payslip and settlement, then hands your CA filing ready data: payroll history exports include EPF return formats. Your CA submits to EPFO, ESIC and the state portals from there, the same division of work most SMEs already run.
Yes. Offrd bundles the Atndnz attendance app free for paying users, with QR check in, GPS and geofencing, and attendance feeds the payroll cycle. greytHR, Keka and sumHR also connect attendance to payroll, with biometric device support on their higher tiers or add ons.
As of July 2026, Offrd starts at Rs 99 per document or Rs 50 per employee per month with 50 free credits at signup. RazorpayX Payroll Prime is around Rs 2,499 per month billed yearly for up to 20 employees. greytHR Essential starts near Rs 2,495 per month for 50 employees, and Keka Foundation runs around Rs 9,999 per month per third party trackers.
50 free credits cover 25 payslips. EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity computed on your real salary structures.
This guide is published by Offrd. We include our own platform and rank it first for the segment stated above, on the criteria stated above. The ranking is qualitative and reflects our reading of the Indian market as of July 2026.
Competitor information comes from each vendor's published pricing and product 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. Corrections: service@offrd.co.
More buyer guides: HR automation for small businesses · onboarding automation · labour law compliance platforms