8 Best HRIS for Small Business Owners

Rippling doesn’t list its pricing information online. You have to call the provider to discuss your HR needs and request a quote. For an HRIS platform with time tracking, payroll, software integrations, and employee onboarding and offboarding solutions, the quote I received was $35 per month plus $8 per employee.

If you want to add IT tools to manage your business apps and computer devices, that’ll cost you another $8 per employee, per module monthly. Benefits administration services are also available, but pricing varies depending on the insurance broker.

Here are some of its other add-on solutions and services:

• Global payroll: $20 per employee or contractor monthly*
• EOR services: $599 per employee monthly*
• PEO services: Custom-priced
• ASO services: Custom-priced
• HR help desk: Custom-priced
• ACA & COBRA administration: Custom-priced
• Expense management: Custom-priced
• Headcount planning: Custom-priced
• Learning management: Custom-priced
• Applicant tracking: Custom-priced

*Pricing is based on a quote I received

• Hiring and employee information tools: Its online employee database makes organizing and storing staff data easy and helps create a strong onboarding process. You can add an applicant tracking system if you’re hiring a sizable number of employees. Background checks are available, too.
• Third-party software integrations: If you work with a lot of different applications, then Rippling is a better choice than the rest of the small business HRIS software I reviewed because it integrates with 600+ business programs, such as Slack, Asana, Microsoft 365, Jira, and the Google Workspace. With its App Management module, granting employee access during onboarding and removing accounts when offboarding becomes super-easy.
• Payroll: Aside from handling US payroll, Rippling can manage payments for international workers in more than 140 countries and in over 50 currencies. Gusto, ADP, and Rippling can pay global employees and contractors, but only Rippling ranked as one of our top international payroll providers.
• Benefits administration: Rippling gives you access to a wide range of benefits available in all 50 states. These include health, dental, and vision insurance plus flex plans (FSA, HSA) and commuter benefits. Additionally, Rippling will send your Affordable Care Act notices and handle COBRA notices.
• Learning management: Rippling offers a robust learning management system solution to help build, organize, and deploy your training programs. It has a full list of compliance training sessions, including anti-harassment training for all 50 states. While Paycor has extensive learning management tools, Rippling automates enrollment, sends reminders and certifications, and even ties training requirements into its time and attendance product to prevent clock-ins for employees without the required certifications.
• Device and app management: You can partner with Rippling to buy, set up, secure, and manage employee work computers. It also provides single sign-on (SSO), app provisioning, multi-factor authentication, and API support. While others on our list offer some of these tools, like SSO, Rippling has the most complete program.

Rippling’s IT tools allow you to track business app access and device inventory, including orders for computer peripherals. (Source: Rippling)

• Plans
  • Simple: $49 per month + $6 per person per month
  • Plus: $80 base fee + $12 per employee monthly
  • Premium: $180 base fee + $22 per employee monthly
  • Contractor-only payroll plan: $35 base fee + $6 per contractor monthly
• Add ons
  • State payroll tax registration: Pricing varies per state
  • Priority support and HR advisory services: $8 per employee monthly; for Plus plan only (this is included for free in the Premium tier)
  • International contractor payments in over 120 countries: Custom-priced
  • EOR services via Gusto Global: $699 per employee monthly
  • Health insurance and other benefits: Pricing varies by benefit

• Small business payroll: Gusto, our top recommended payroll software for small businesses, can handle pay processing and tax filings in all 50 states. It pays via check and direct deposit, as well as offers its Gusto Wallet—an online employee account with a mobile app that lets your staff manage finances and a debit card via a Gusto Wallet Spending account that allows workers to get paid faster. It’s a great alternative for employees without traditional bank accounts (although ADP has something similar with its Wisely card). Like Rippling and ADP, Gusto can help you pay international workers.
• Employee management: Gusto is not as feature-heavy as most of the software on this list, but it offers the basics for managing employees, such as staff attendance and paid time off (PTO) tracking, surveys, and performance reviews. The Premium Plan, its highest pricing tier, includes access to HR advisers if you need advice on how to handle HR and payroll compliance issues. Gusto also offers state-mandated compliance courses, such as harassment prevention, with tools to track employee enrollments and training programs, but it does not allow you to build custom learning courses. If creating and deploying employee training programs are important to you, consider Rippling, ADP, Paychex, Paycor, and Zoho People.
• Employee benefits: Gusto can help you manage employee benefits in all US states. It also offers commuter benefits, flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs), pay-as-you-go workers’ compensation, and financial wellness tools.
• Hiring tools: Gusto is on our list of top onboarding software because its hiring tools make it easy to send offer letters and create custom new hire onboarding checklists. It has applicant tracking and job posting tools—although it doesn’t parse resumes as most leading recruitment systems do. Gusto can help set up and remove your employees’ business software and email account access, but its provisioning and de-provisioning processes aren’t as robust as Rippling’s. The latter can help you purchase, store, and manage company-assigned computers while controlling business software access.

With Gusto, you can add employees and set up onboarding tasks with just a few clicks.
(Source: Gusto)

• Small Business plans (those with up to 49 employees)
  • Basic: $99 base fee + $6 per employee monthly Pricing is based on a quote I received.
  • Essential: Custom-priced
  • Core: Custom-priced
  • Complete: Custom-priced
• Mid-market plans (businesses with 50 and more employees): Custom-priced

• Flexible payroll: Paycor lets you adjust its paygrid, allowing you to add or remove paydata columns, such as sales bonus and tip allocation columns. You can also select if the data that will appear in these columns should be in hour or amount formats. These features enable you to create payruns that only contain the paydata items you need. The other providers on my list don’t have a payroll module that’s as flexible as Paycor’s.
• Gamified learning tools: Paycor’s learning system offers canned and customized courses and gamification to make completing training programs fun for employees and teams. Rippling, ADP, Paychex, and BambooHR may have similar tools but these lack gamification features.
• Hire-to-retire employee management: Paycor’s suite of HR solutions is designed to streamline the employee lifecycle. Aside from an employee database, it offers recruiting, compensation planning and analysis, single or bulk onboarding, shift planning, and talent development tools. It can also help you run employee performance reviews, track work goals, and capture feedback.
• Benefits administration: With its benefits solution, employees can manage, shop, and enroll in a benefits plan through Paycor’s self-service portal and mobile app (iOS and Android). The system will guide your workers through the process, even offering an online quiz to help them find the right benefits plan. It also has an online wizard that guides you or your system administrator in setting up and implementing open enrollment events for your staff. In addition, it has dashboards and reports to help you understand the costs, plus you get automated alerts and reminders (such as for re-enrolling).

Paycor can provide cost estimates and benefits plan recommendations based on your employees’ answers to an online quiz. (Source: Paycor)

• Plans*
  • Essentials: $10 per employee monthly
  • Growth: $20 per employee monthly
  • Zen: $33 per employee monthly
• Add ons*
  • Payroll: $6 per employee monthly; free with the Zen plan
  • Benefits administration if you have your own broker: $5 per employee monthly
  • HR advisory desk: $8 per employee monthly
  • Recruiting by JazzHR: Starts at $35 monthly

*All plans and add-ons require at least five employees

• Talent management: You can create offer letters with its templates and make it easy for employees to self-onboard with onboarding checklists, online forms, and e-signatures. TriNet HR Platform also handles background checks and can help you onboard global employees. Aside from ADP, Gusto, and Rippling, only TriNet HR Platform handles international onboarding.
• Communication and record-keeping tools: TriNet HR Platform’s highest tier, Zen, includes a Slack-style communications hub for one-on-one or group communications plus document storage. None of the other software on our list (apart from Zoho People) have a Slack-style communications tool. It also offers employee surveys with its Zen plan, which even comes with pre-built templates you can use.
• Performance and compensation management: Its performance management solution offers 360 feedback, with reviews by managers, peers, and the employees themselves. And, to help you retain and reward employees, it also has compensation management tools, which include real-time comparison salary data and custom salary benchmark reports.
• Employee benefits: TriNet has a network of partner brokers, but it allows you to retain your broker and integrate your existing benefits plans into its system (this is available as a paid add-on). It also comes with easy-to-follow guides and side-by-side plan comparisons to help your employees select the benefits they want during enrollment season. You can track the enrollment progress through reports and a benefits dashboard that also shows monthly benefit costs. Similar to ADP, it offers employee perks like discounts or special rates on movie tickets, concerts and events, apparel, electronic items, and food and dining options.

TriNet HR Platform lets you track and manage employee benefits enrollments and send reminders online. (Source: TriNet HR Platform)

Similar to ADP, Rippling, Paychex, and Paycor, BambooHR doesn’t publish its pricing information online—you have to call the provider to get a quote. Although, what’s great about BambooHR is that it offers a flat monthly rate if you have 25 or fewer employees, which is optimal for very small businesses looking for a budget-friendly HRIS. However, if your headcount exceeds 25, BambooHR will bill you a per-employee monthly fee. This can make it a bit pricey, depending on the number of workers you have.

• Plans*
  • Core: $250 monthly for up to 25 workers; $10 per employee monthly if you have more than 25 workers
  • Pro: $425 monthly for up to 25 workers; $17 per employee monthly if you have more than 25 workers
• Add ons*
  • Time tracking: $3 per employee monthly for up to 25 workers ($2.97 per employee monthly after 25 workers)
  • Benefits administration: $140 monthly for up to 25 workers ($5.48 per employee monthly after 25 workers)
  • Payroll: $190 monthly for up to 25 workers ($7.47 per employee monthly after 25 workers)

*Pricing is based on a quote I received

• Talent acquisition: BambooHR offers online tools for tracking applicants and onboarding new hires. What makes it stand apart from the other small business HRIS in this guide, however, is its mobile hiring app, which lets you review candidates and communicate with applicants and your hiring team using your smartphone. Paycor’s mobile app, by comparison, allows you to track applicants only.
• Customizable workflows: BambooHR also offers prebuilt and customizable workflows to reduce the time you spend coordinating with other departments—and it includes email alerts to make sure people don’t forget time-critical tasks. However, if you want robust workflow automation tools with customizable workflow templates that you can use, consider Rippling.
• Payroll reports: BambooHR’s payroll add-on with tax filing services and end-of-year tax forms make it easy for you to stay compliant with federal and state laws. Over 100 standard payroll-related reports help you analyze your workforce expenses—this is more than what most payroll software include. Gusto, for example, has 20+ customizable reports.
• Performance management: BambooHR’s performance management solution (available in the Pro plan) is designed to help employees grow professionally through self-assessments and feedback from managers and peers. It also includes work goal tracking and performance review reminders, including sample questions to help managers conduct effective evaluations with less subjectivity.

You can track employee performance, feedback, and work goals on BambooHR’s performance management dashboard. (Source: BambooHR)

• Plans
  • Paychex Flex Select: $128.50 per weekly pay period for a business with up to 25 employees Pricing is based on a quote I received.
  • Paychex Flex Pro: Custom-priced
  • Paychex Flex: Enterprise
  • Plan for solopreneurs: Custom-priced
• Add ons
  • Time and attendance: Custom-priced
  • Learning management: Custom-priced
  • Benefits administration: Custom-priced
  • Recruiting and applicant tracking: Custom-priced
  • Employee onboarding: Custom-priced
  • Paychex integrations: Custom-priced

• Talent acquisition: Paychex offers hiring services, including job postings and applicant tracking tools. It also provides onboarding tools, such as background checks and online direct deposit and tax forms.
• HR tools: Paychex keeps you informed with any changes in local, state, or federal labor laws. With its labor compliance posters, HR and business documents, and employee handbook builder, you are given access to online tools to keep your workers informed of regulations and HR-related policies. Additionally, it has a performance management system to help you assess employees’ performance and online learning courses to maintain a well-trained workforce.
• Employee benefits: You get the standard benefits options like medical, dental, vision, and retirement. Paychex also offers non-standard benefits, such as an employee financial wellness program with free financial coaching services, access to personal loans, and a cashflow assistance service, which provides your workers early access to earned wages. What sets it apart from the others on my list is its pet insurance plan, although this is offered through its partner vendor, Corestream.
• PEO services: You can manage HR and payroll from its platform and then transition to its PEO service once your HR needs grow and you don’t want to expand your in-house team. Paychex’s PEO, one of our recommended PEO companies along with TriNet, Rippling, and ADP, can help you efficiently handle day-to-day HR administrative tasks while keeping you compliant with labor and tax regulations.
• Payroll: Paychex offers payroll support for businesses of all sizes. Let’s say, you’re a solopreneur and need expert assistance managing self-employed payroll, Paychex’s sole proprietor business solution can help with that. It even offers access to a solo 401(k) plan and incorporation services to protect your personal and business assets. If you decide to hire and pay employees, you can get a Paychex Flex package, which includes essential payroll and HR tools. And if you’ve grown your workforce into a large team, you can upgrade to its Enterprise plan. You can even sign up for its PEO solution if you need help managing day-to-day HR and payroll tasks. It also assigns a dedicated payroll specialist to its clients, a service that isn’t available with the other software I reviewed.

Paychex Flex’s main dashboard contains quick links to running payroll, adding employees, generating reports, and more. (Source: Paychex)

• Plans (for ADP Run)
  • Essential: Custom-priced
  • Enhanced: $81.66 per weekly payroll for a company with 25 employees; plus $1.89 per additional employee Pricing is based on a quote I received.
  • Complete: Custom-priced
  • HR Pro: Custom-priced
• Add ons
  • Time tracking: Custom-priced
  • Health insurance: Custom-priced
  • Retirement plan: Custom-priced
  • Workers compensation: Custom-priced

• HR features: ADP Run has HR tools for the entire employee lifecycle. It offers recruitment and onboarding tools, including background checks and job postings to 25,000+ job sites via ZipRecruiter. Its higher-tier plans include a team of HR professionals to provide expert advice and help you manage compliances. You also have access to learning and performance management tools. And, like Paychex, it has a huge number of HR and payroll functionalities, but what you select determines your price.
• Global reach: Similar to Rippling, ADP offers international HRIS services. However, you will have to move from ADP Run to its ADP Global product. Services include hiring, onboarding, payroll, and compliance assistance with local laws in over 140 nations.
• Payroll services: ADP Run has an online payroll tool, but it also offers services to make paying employees via check easy and hassle-free. ADP will prepare and deliver the checks to your office, sealed in envelopes and ready to be distributed to employees on paydays. It’s the only provider on my list that offers paychecks with 10 advanced fraud protection features. Plus, if you sign up for its TotalPay feature, an ADP officer will sign the paychecks on your behalf.

You can calculate paychecks, run regular and off-cycle payroll, and access reports via ADP Run’s main dashboard. (Source: ADP)

• Plans*
  • Free plan: For up to five users only
  • Essential HR: $1.50 per employee monthly
  • Professional: $2.50 per employee monthly
  • Premium: $3.50 per employee monthly
  • Enterprise: $5 per employee monthly
  • People Plus: $10 per employee monthly
• Add ons
  • Hiring tools: $60 per recruiter monthly
  • Learning management: $2 per employee monthly
  • Employee profiles (for managing staff data but without employee login access): Starts at 23 cents per employee profile monthly; pricing varies with the plan selected
  • Payroll: $19 base fee + $3 per employee monthly
  • Premium support: $1,128 annually or 20% of the recurring license fee, whichever is higher

*All plans require at least five employees

• Employee database and document management: This includes an employee database, document storage, personal file uploads, e-signature integrations, and templates for employee signatures.
• Recruiting tools: With Zoho People, you get tools for recruiting, applicant tracking, and even social media posting of open jobs. The onboarding portal walks employees through policies, setting up profiles, signing documents, and more. However, if you want an expansive job posting reach, consider ADP, as it can post your jobs to more than 25,000 job sites.
• Employee management: From shift scheduling to performance reviews, your managers can efficiently manage employees through Zoho People. Aside from planning work shifts, it provides performance management solutions for setting goals, identifying skills, conducting self-appraisals, and collecting peer feedback. There’s also an online tool for receiving and responding to employee queries and complaints.
• Learning management: Zoho People, you get a learning management system that includes a combination of online, classroom, and self-paced learning courses for a more holistic learning experience. However, I suggest Paycor if you want to inject gamification into your training programs.
• Staff communications: Similar to TriNet HR Platform, its communication tool is similar to Slack for employee chat. You can even send employees announcements, host forums, and share HR and/or business manuals for employees to access through the system.

Zoho People’s online feeds feature resembles a social media platform, allowing you to share updates and post messages. (Source: Zoho People)