Best HR Software: 10 Platforms Compared (2026)

HR software is the system that holds the employee record and runs the processes around it: onboarding, time off, payroll, benefits, performance, and the documents and approvals each one generates. The ten products below are the ones a buyer keeps meeting, and they are not ten versions of the same thing. A payroll service with an HR layer, a professional employer organisation, an employer of record and an enterprise HCM suite are all sold as HR software, and buying the wrong kind costs a year.

This page sorts them by the job each is built for, prints the pricing each vendor published as of September 2026 where there is any, and is direct about where each falls short. It also covers what the labels HRIS, HRMS and HCM actually mean, what most comparisons leave out (contracts, data export, and who carries the compliance risk), and how to run an evaluation yourself. One disclosure before we start: we take no vendor money, run no affiliate links, and accept nothing for placement.

Shortlist three for your situation

Answer eight questions and the chooser applies the fit rules from the cards below to produce a shortlist of three, with the reason each made it. It is a filter, not a verdict.

The 10 platforms worth knowing

The first three are starting points for the situations most buyers are in, and the remaining seven follow alphabetically. The numbers are positions in that order, not scores. These products are built for different companies, and a single ranking would hide exactly the difference that matters.

If you want three to look at first, these cover the situations most buyers are in. BambooHR is the broadest system of record; Gusto is the payroll-first choice for small companies; Rippling is the platform for a company that wants HR, IT and finance together.

1

BambooHR

Core HRIS for 25 to 1,000 employees

The system of record most small and mid-sized companies end up with

See the detail

2

Gusto

Payroll-first for 1 to 100 employees

The easiest payroll a small US business can run

See the detail

3

Rippling

HR, IT and finance in one system for growing companies

Built for the company that wants one login for people, devices and spend

See the detail

The other seven, alphabetically:

• Deel: the fastest route to a lawful employee in a country where you have no entity.
• HiBob: the mid-market HRIS with the most attention paid to how employees experience it.
• Homebase: scheduling, time clock and payroll for a shift-based business in one app.
• Justworks: large-group benefits and a compliance partner for a company too small to have either.
• Paycor: a full HCM for a 50 to 1,000 person operation with hourly complexity.
• Workday: the reference enterprise HCM, when the organisation is large enough to need one.
• Zoho People: the lowest price for a real HRIS on this page.

Comparison at a glance

Read this to rule options out quickly. The pricing column shows what each vendor published in September 2026; four of the ten publish nothing, and every figure here moves, so treat it as the shape of the cost rather than the number. Read the last column first. Every product carries a real tradeoff, and working out which one you can live with narrows the field faster than any feature list.

Platform	Positioned for	Published pricing (September 2026)	Where it falls short
BambooHR	Core HRIS for 25 to 1,000 employees	Core $10, Pro $17, Elite $25 per employee per month (list); flat rate from about $250 per month under 25 employees; final price by quote	US-only payroll; the add-ons stack up; reporting thinner than enterprise suites
Gusto	Payroll-first for 1 to 100 employees	Simple $49 plus $6 per person per month; Plus $80 plus $12; Premium $180 plus $22; contractor-only plan available	HR features are light beyond payroll and onboarding; international only through partners
Rippling	HR, IT and finance in one system for growing companies	Modular; platform from $8 per user per month plus a base fee; most buyers quoted; implementation fees common	Cost rises with every module; complexity is real; contracts and renewals need reading
Deel	Global hiring: EOR, contractors and international payroll	Deel HR free; contractor management $49 per contractor per month; US PEO $125; employer of record $599 per employee per month	A US-only company gains little; EOR is expensive per head; HRIS is lighter than a dedicated one
HiBob	Mid-sized, multinational, culture-led companies	Quote only; modular core plus talent, compensation, surveys, workforce planning; implementation fee	No published pricing; expensive per head below a few hundred employees; payroll through partners in most countries
Homebase	Hourly teams in restaurants, retail and services	Basic free (one location, up to 10 employees); Essentials $30, Plus $70, All-in-One $120 per location per month; payroll $49 plus $6 per employee	Not a full HRIS for salaried staff; per-location pricing suits few sites, not many
Justworks	Small companies that want a PEO to carry payroll, benefits and compliance	PEO Basic $59 and PEO Plus $109 per employee per month, volume discounts from about 25 to 50 employees; health premiums extra; non-PEO payroll plan also offered	Co-employment means ceding some control; per-head price outgrows you; leaving a PEO is a migration
Paycor	Mid-market HCM in healthcare, manufacturing, restaurants and services	Quote only since 2025; historically a base fee plus a per-employee charge that rose with modules	Multi-year contracts and implementation fees; the Paychex acquisition leaves the roadmap in motion
Workday	Large enterprises and global organisations	Quote only; multi-year subscription; implementation through partners typically runs to six or seven figures and six to eighteen months	Not for companies under about 1,000 employees; cost; dependence on implementation partners
Zoho People	Budget HRIS, especially for companies already on Zoho	Free up to 5 employees; Essential HR $1.25, Professional $2, Premium $3, Enterprise $5 per employee per month on annual billing	US payroll is a separate product with limited coverage; support and polish trail the price leaders; strongest inside the Zoho suite

The platforms in detail

BambooHR

The system of record most small and mid-sized companies end up with

Deployment Cloud HRIS, US payroll add-on

Who it is for

BambooHR is the system of record for companies that have outgrown a spreadsheet and a payroll login: typically 25 to 1,000 employees, US-based or US-led, with an HR person or small team who needs one place for records, time off, onboarding and the documents that go with them. It is the product most often named when a mid-sized company says "we finally got an HRIS".

What it does

Core is employee records, custom reporting, workflows and approvals, a hiring pipeline, time-off management, benefits tracking, satisfaction surveys and a compliance training course. Pro adds performance reviews and one-on-ones, recognition and a broader training library; Elite adds compensation planning with benchmarking, dashboards and premium support. US payroll, time tracking and benefits administration are add-ons. The vendor lists $10, $17 and $25 per employee per month for the three tiers, with a flat rate from about $250 a month for companies under 25 people, and confirms the price by quote.

Where it is weak

Payroll is US-only, so a company with staff abroad runs a second system. The add-ons are where the price grows, and a buyer comparing the Core list price with Gusto's bundle is not comparing like with like. Reporting is good for its size and thin next to an enterprise suite; a people analytics team will hit the edges. None of that is a reason not to buy it. It is the reason to price the whole stack before signing.

Strengths

• Clean records, time off and onboarding, which is what most buyers need first
• Hiring pipeline and e-signature included in Core
• Published list prices, rare in this category

Limits

• US-only payroll
• Add-ons for payroll, time and benefits change the price materially
• Reporting depth below enterprise suites

Gusto

The easiest payroll a small US business can run

Deployment Cloud payroll and benefits, HR tools in higher plans

Who it is for

Gusto is for the small US business whose HR problem is mostly a payroll problem: paying people correctly in every state, filing the taxes, and offering benefits without a broker. Its sweet spot is one to about a hundred employees. Many companies start here and stay far longer than the size suggests, because the payroll is hard to leave.

What it does

Full-service payroll in all 50 states with tax filing, direct deposit, W-2s and 1099s, plus health, dental, vision, 401(k) and workers' compensation through Gusto's brokerage. Onboarding with offer letters and document e-signature is in every plan; time tracking, PTO management, an HR resource centre and compliance alerts come with Plus and Premium. Contractors abroad can be paid, and employees abroad through a partner employer of record. Published pricing in September 2026: Simple $49 a month plus $6 per person, Plus $80 plus $12, Premium $180 plus $22, with a contractor-only plan below that. The Simple base fee rose from $40 in March 2026.

Where it is weak

The HR layer is light. There is no performance management, the document and policy tooling is basic, and reporting is payroll reporting. A 150-person company with an HR team will feel the ceiling. International employees go through a partner, and a company with entities abroad needs something else for them.

Strengths

• Payroll and tax filing that small businesses actually run without help
• Benefits brokerage inside the product
• Transparent, published pricing

Limits

• Little beyond payroll and onboarding in the HR layer
• Not built for several hundred employees
• International only through partners

Rippling

Built for the company that wants one login for people, devices and spend

Deployment Cloud HRIS, payroll, IT and spend modules

Who it is for

Rippling is for the growing company, often technology or professional services, that wants HR, IT and finance to share one employee record: hire someone and the laptop ships, the apps provision, the payroll starts and the corporate card issues. It fits from a few dozen employees to a few thousand, and it is the product most likely to be chosen by a company that expects to be three times its current size in two years.

What it does

A core HRIS with US and global payroll, benefits, time and attendance, recruiting, learning and performance, plus device management, app provisioning and identity, and expense, corporate card and bill pay modules. A PEO option and an employer of record in many countries are available on the same platform. The workflow engine that sits across all of it is the reason people buy it. Pricing is modular: the vendor's published starting point is $8 per user per month plus a base fee for the platform, and most buyers are quoted a bundle. Implementation fees are common.

Where it is weak

Every module adds to the per-employee price, and a company that starts with HR and payroll and adds four modules over a year can find its cost per head has tripled. The breadth brings complexity; a small company without an operations lead can be overwhelmed by configuration. Contract terms, renewal increases and support responsiveness are the recurring complaints in customer reviews, and they are worth asking about in writing.

Strengths

• One record driving HR, payroll, devices, apps and spend
• Global payroll and EOR on the same platform
• Workflow automation that most HRIS products lack

Limits

• Modular pricing climbs quickly
• Complexity that small teams may not need
• Read the contract and renewal terms closely

Deel

The fastest route to a lawful employee in a country where you have no entity

Deployment Cloud global payroll, EOR, contractor management

Who it is for

Deel is for the company hiring outside its home country: contractors in a dozen countries, or employees in places where it has no legal entity and does not want one. It is also used by US companies as a lightweight free HRIS around its paid global products. If everyone works in the United States, Deel is the wrong starting point.

What it does

Employer of record in more than 150 countries, where Deel's local entity employs the person on your behalf and handles contracts, payroll, benefits and statutory compliance. Contractor management with localised agreements and payments. Global payroll for companies with their own entities. A US PEO, immigration support, and Deel HR, a core HRIS the vendor offers free. Published pricing in September 2026: contractor management $49 per contractor per month, EOR $599 per employee per month, US PEO $125 per employee per month, with custom pricing for global payroll.

Where it is weak

EOR is expensive per head and is a bridge, not a destination: once a country has more than a handful of employees an entity is usually cheaper. The free HRIS is lighter than a dedicated one and exists to keep the paid products sticky. Support is largely through the platform, and customer reviews are divided on responsiveness. For a US-only company the product has little to offer that Gusto or BambooHR do not do more simply.

Strengths

• Legal employment in countries where you have no entity
• Contractor agreements, payments and compliance in one place
• Free core HRIS around the paid products

Limits

• EOR cost per head is high and grows with the headcount
• The HRIS is not the centre of the product
• Little value for a US-only workforce

HiBob

The mid-market HRIS with the most attention paid to how employees experience it

Deployment Cloud HRIS with payroll hub and UK payroll

Who it is for

HiBob, sold as Bob, is for the mid-sized company, often multinational, that treats HR as a culture function as well as an administrative one. The typical buyer is 150 to 2,000 employees across several countries, with a people team that wants engagement, performance and compensation in the same system as the records.

What it does

Core HR with a social-style employee experience, onboarding, time off, and attendance; talent modules for performance, goals and one-on-ones; compensation planning with benchmarking; engagement surveys; workforce planning; learning; a payroll hub that connects to payroll providers, and native UK payroll. It is strong at multi-country configuration: different policies, currencies and entities in one instance. Pricing is by quote, modular around a core package, with an implementation fee; the vendor does not publish rates.

Where it is weak

Below a couple of hundred employees the price per head is hard to justify against BambooHR or Rippling, and there is no published figure to plan around. Payroll in most countries runs through partners connected by the hub, which works but is not the same as native payroll. The polish of the employee experience is real, and so is the configuration time needed to get it.

Strengths

• Performance, compensation and engagement in the core product
• Multi-country configuration in one instance
• An employee-facing experience people use voluntarily

Limits

• Quote-only pricing
• Expensive per head for smaller companies
• Payroll via partners outside the UK

Homebase

Scheduling, time clock and payroll for a shift-based business in one app

Deployment Cloud and mobile scheduling, time clock, payroll add-on

Who it is for

Homebase is for the restaurant, shop, clinic or service business with hourly staff, where the HR system that matters is the schedule and the time clock. It runs on the manager's phone and the employees' phones, and it is priced per location rather than per employee, which suits a business with one to a handful of sites.

What it does

Shift scheduling with availability and swaps, a time clock with break tracking and geofencing, team messaging, hiring with job postings and applicant tracking, and, in the top plan, onboarding, HR and compliance tools and labour cost controls. Payroll is an add-on. Published pricing in September 2026: Basic free for one location and up to ten employees; Essentials $30, Plus $70 and All-in-One $120 per location per month; payroll $49 a month plus $6 per employee paid. Promotions on the Plus tier appear regularly.

Where it is weak

It is not an HRIS for a salaried office: no performance management, light records, and the HR tools exist to support the hourly workflow rather than to run a people function. Per-location pricing is cheap for two sites and awkward for forty. A company with both an hourly frontline and a salaried head office usually pairs it with something else, or moves to Paycor.

Strengths

• Scheduling, time clock and messaging built for hourly teams
• A genuinely usable free tier for one location
• Payroll that follows the timesheet

Limits

• Not a full HRIS for salaried staff
• Per-location pricing scales badly across many sites
• Light on performance and records

Justworks

Large-group benefits and a compliance partner for a company too small to have either

Deployment PEO (co-employment) with cloud platform

Who it is for

Justworks is a professional employer organisation: it becomes the co-employer of your staff, runs payroll under its own tax accounts, and pools your employees with tens of thousands of others to buy benefits. It is for the company of 5 to 150 people that wants large-group health plans and a compliance partner, and is prepared to accept the co-employment model to get them.

What it does

Payroll in all 50 states with tax filing under the PEO's accounts, benefits administration with access to large-group medical, dental, vision and other plans, workers' compensation, 401(k) administration, compliance support, HR tools for onboarding, time off and documents, and 24-hour support. Justworks also sells a non-PEO payroll product and an employer of record for staff abroad. Published PEO pricing in September 2026: Basic $59 and Plus $109 per employee per month, with discounts from roughly 25 to 50 employees; health premiums are charged on top of the platform fee and are usually the larger number.

Where it is weak

Co-employment means the PEO's policies and its benefits carriers, not yours, and some decisions move out of your hands. The per-employee fee that is reasonable at 20 people is a large line at 200. Leaving a PEO is a migration: new tax accounts, new benefits plans, and a mid-year change that resets deductibles. The HR software itself is adequate rather than distinguished; the product is the service around it.

Strengths

• Large-group benefits a small company could not buy alone
• Payroll, tax and compliance handled by the PEO
• Published per-employee pricing

Limits

• Co-employment cedes control
• Cost per head outgrows you
• Exit is a migration

Paycor

A full HCM for a 50 to 1,000 person operation with hourly complexity

Deployment Cloud HCM: payroll, HR, time, talent, analytics

Who it is for

Paycor is a mid-market human capital management suite with a long history in healthcare, manufacturing, restaurants and professional services: organisations of 50 to a few thousand people with hourly complexity, multiple locations and a payroll team. It competes with Paylocity, ADP Workforce Now and UKG Ready rather than with Gusto.

What it does

Payroll and tax, HR and benefits administration, time and attendance with scheduling, recruiting and onboarding, learning, performance and compensation, and analytics with benchmarking, in one platform with a mobile app. Paychex acquired Paycor in April 2025 and the product continues under its own name. Pricing was published in tiers until 2025 and is now quote-only; the historical structure was a monthly base fee plus a per-employee charge that increased with the modules selected, and mid-market buyers report all-in figures in the low-to-high twenties of dollars per employee per month.

Where it is weak

Contracts tend to be multi-year with implementation fees, and the price is unknown until a sales cycle has run. The interface has improved but is not the reason anyone chooses it. The acquisition puts the roadmap in motion: integration with Paychex products is an opportunity for buyers and an uncertainty for current customers.

Strengths

• Full HCM with hourly, multi-location depth
• Analytics and benchmarking for a mid-market HR team
• Sector experience in healthcare and manufacturing

Limits

• Quote-only pricing and multi-year contracts
• Implementation cost and time
• Roadmap in motion after the Paychex acquisition

Workday

The reference enterprise HCM, when the organisation is large enough to need one

Deployment Cloud enterprise HCM and finance suite

Who it is for

Workday is the enterprise reference point: global organisations of 1,000 to hundreds of thousands of employees that need one HCM across countries, entities and unions, and a finance suite alongside it. It is on this page because buyers search for it, not because a company of 200 should consider it.

What it does

Core global HR, payroll in a number of countries with partners elsewhere, talent and performance, recruiting, learning, compensation, workforce planning, analytics and skills, with the finance, planning and spend suites sharing the data model. It is configured rather than customised, updated on a fixed cadence, and implemented by certified partners. Pricing is by quote on multi-year subscriptions; implementation programmes for large organisations commonly run six to eighteen months and cost in the six or seven figures, before the subscription.

Where it is weak

Scale is the weakness for everyone below it. The product assumes an HR technology team, an implementation partner and a governance process. A mid-sized company that buys it because a board member knew it elsewhere ends up paying enterprise prices for a fraction of the capability, and taking a year to go live.

Strengths

• Global, multi-entity core HR at any scale
• HR and finance on one data model
• Deep analytics, planning and skills

Limits

• Not for organisations under about 1,000 employees
• Implementation cost and duration
• Dependence on partners for delivery

Zoho People

The lowest price for a real HRIS on this page

Deployment Cloud HRIS, attendance and performance modules

Who it is for

Zoho People is for the budget-conscious company, and especially for the company already running Zoho CRM, Books or Mail, that wants a real HRIS for a few dollars per head. It is popular with small and mid-sized businesses in India and elsewhere outside the US and has a growing US base among companies that do payroll separately.

What it does

Employee database, time off, attendance with a time clock and shift scheduling, timesheets, onboarding, document management, performance appraisals and goals, a learning management module in the higher tiers, case management, and an employee self-service app. Published pricing in September 2026 on annual billing: free for up to five employees, then Essential HR $1.25, Professional $2, Premium $3 and Enterprise $5 per employee per month, with monthly billing around 20 per cent higher. Zoho Payroll and Zoho Recruit are separate products in the same suite.

Where it is weak

US payroll is a separate Zoho product whose state coverage should be checked for your locations before assuming it will work. Support and interface polish trail the products charging five to ten times as much, and the configuration can be fiddly. Much of the value depends on the rest of the Zoho suite; on its own it is a competent, inexpensive HRIS rather than a platform.

Strengths

• The lowest price for a full HRIS on this page
• Attendance, shifts and timesheets included
• Strong inside the Zoho suite

Limits

• US payroll is separate and coverage varies
• Support and polish below the price leaders
• Less compelling outside Zoho

HRIS, HRMS, HCM: what the labels mean

The same product is sold under half a dozen names, and the name usually tells you which buyer the vendor is addressing rather than what the software does. A human resources information system, HRIS, is the core record: who works here, in what job, at what pay, with what time off, and the self-service that lets employees maintain their own details. A human resources management system, HRMS, is the older label for an HRIS with payroll, benefits and time attached. Human capital management, HCM, is the enterprise label and adds talent, learning, workforce planning and analytics; Workday and Paycor call themselves HCM, BambooHR and Zoho People call themselves HRIS, and Rippling calls itself a workforce platform. HR management software, HR platforms, HR systems and HR tools are the same things described by a search engine.

Treat all of it as vocabulary. What separates these products is five things: whether payroll is native, partnered or absent; whether the vendor is your software provider or your co-employer; which countries it can employ or pay people in; how much talent and analytics capability sits above the record; and what the price does as modules and headcount grow. Every question worth asking a salesperson is a version of one of those. Our glossary entries on workforce management and exempt versus non-exempt cover the terms the products themselves assume you know.

Software, PEO or employer of record

Three of the ten are not software purchases in the ordinary sense. Justworks is a professional employer organisation: it co-employs your staff, runs payroll under its own tax accounts and pools your employees to buy benefits. Deel's main product is an employer of record: its local entity employs the person in a country where you have none. Rippling offers both alongside its software. In each case you are buying a service and a legal relationship, and the software is the window onto it. The questions change accordingly: who is liable for a payroll tax error, whose handbook applies, and what leaving involves.

Choosing for your situation

Four situations come up more than any other, and each rules out most of the field on its own.

HR software for a small business

Under about twenty-five people the question is usually payroll, and the answer is usually Gusto, with Zoho People or Deel HR as the free record beside it if Gusto's HR layer is not enough. If benefits are the problem, Justworks' PEO buys large-group plans a company that size cannot get alone. If the team is hourly, Homebase's free tier and scheduling do more than any HRIS. From twenty-five to a hundred, BambooHR becomes the default system of record and the payroll question is whether to use its add-on or keep Gusto beside it. Our new hire forms checklist and onboarding checklist show what the system needs to hold from day one.

Hiring outside the United States

Contractors abroad can be paid from Gusto, Rippling or Deel, and Deel's contractor product adds localised agreements and compliance checks. Employees abroad without an entity mean an employer of record: Deel, Rippling or Justworks. Employees through your own entities mean multi-country payroll, which is Deel, Rippling, HiBob's payroll hub or, at scale, Workday. The EOR is a bridge: once a country has more than a handful of employees, an entity plus a local payroll is usually cheaper, and the good vendors will say so.

Mid-market, 150 to 1,000 employees

This is where BambooHR, Rippling, HiBob and Paycor compete, and the decision turns on the workforce. Hourly, multi-site, unionised or healthcare: Paycor. Multinational and culture-led: HiBob. Wanting devices and apps in the same system: Rippling. Wanting a clean record and not much else: BambooHR. All four will run performance reviews; the performance review template and HR metrics pages cover what to put in them.

Replacing a system

Migration is where these projects fail. Export everything from the old system before the contract ends, including documents and historical payroll. Time payroll changes to a quarter start and run both systems for one cycle. Expect the pay data, the time-off balances and the org chart to be wrong in that order, and check them in that order. A vendor that cannot tell you how to get your data out again is telling you something.

What most comparisons leave out

Almost no comparison in this category tells you what the contract says, what leaving costs, or who is liable when payroll is wrong. Those decide more of the outcome than any feature.

• Contract term and renewal. Gusto, Homebase and Zoho People are monthly or annual with no lock-in. Rippling, Paycor and Workday sell multi-year terms, and renewal increases of 5 to 15 per cent are commonly reported. Ask for the renewal cap in writing.
• Implementation fees. Rarely on the pricing page. Rippling, HiBob and Paycor commonly charge them; Workday's are the largest number in the project.
• Payroll tax liability. Software vendors file under your accounts; a penalty for their error is your penalty first, then a claim under their accuracy guarantee. A PEO files under its own accounts and carries the liability, which is part of what the fee buys.
• Data export. Test it during the trial: employee records, documents, payroll history, time-off balances. If the export is a support ticket, plan the exit before the entry.
• Where the data lives and who can see it. Employee data is personal data. Ask which subprocessors touch it, where it is hosted, what the retention is on cancellation, and whether the vendor's staff can view records. Our state monitoring laws page is about a different product category, but the same questions apply to any system holding employee data.
• Compliance is still yours. Software surfaces deadlines; it does not meet them. Form I-9 within three business days, new hire reporting within twenty days, final pay on the state deadline, FMLA notices within five business days, and pay ranges in postings are the employer's obligations whichever product is running.

How to evaluate these yourself

Since you should not take our word for any of this, here is the evaluation we would run before signing, in order. It puts the parts most likely to fail first.

1. Write down the ten things you do most. Hire, onboard, change pay, approve time off, run payroll, handle a leave, run a review, offboard, answer an employee's question, produce a headcount report. Every demo is scored against that list, not against the vendor's agenda.
2. Load a real month. Your own employees, anonymised if needed, with the real pay changes, the real time-off requests and the real new hire. A demo on sample data proves that sample data works.
3. Run one payroll in parallel. If payroll is in scope, the trial is not complete until a real pay period has been calculated in both systems and reconciled to the cent. Differences are usually in overtime, garnishments and state tax setup.
4. Ask in writing, and keep the reply. Full price at your headcount with the modules you will use, implementation fee, contract term, renewal cap, data export format, subprocessors and hosting location, and what happens to your data 90 days after cancellation.
5. Have an employee use it. Someone who is not in HR requests time off, updates their address and finds their pay stub without help. If they cannot, the support tickets for the next three years are already written.
6. Call two references at your size. Not the vendor's list. Ask what surprised them, what the renewal did, and what they would ask for in the contract now.

Key takeaways

• These ten are not versions of one product. Payroll services, PEOs, employers of record, HRIS and enterprise HCM are all sold as HR software, and the first decision is which kind you need.
• Small US businesses usually choose between Gusto (payroll first) and BambooHR (record first), with Homebase for hourly teams, Justworks for benefits through a PEO, and Zoho People for the lowest price.
• Published pricing in September 2026 runs from free to $25 per employee per month for software and $59 to $599 for PEO and EOR services. Add-ons and modules move the total more than the tier.
• Rippling, HiBob, Paycor and Workday quote. Ask for the full price at your headcount, the implementation fee and the renewal cap in writing.
• Test data export, run one payroll in parallel and have a non-HR employee use the product before signing.
• The software surfaces compliance deadlines; meeting them is still the employer's job.