Looking for hr software for your small business? Check out our comprehensive list and find the human resource software that fits your business needs.
Human resource management software is an essential element of every business, regardless of its size. HR software can streamline and simplify HR processes, making it easier to manage employee information, benefits, payroll and more.
RUN Powered by ADP is the best HR and payroll solution for many small businesses. It has thorough employee benefits and automates most elements of payroll to save business owners as much time as possible.
However, ADP isn’t the right HR system for every small business. To help small-business owners find the best HR software for their needs, we’ve narrowed down dozens of popular HR solutions to find the eight best software choices for small businesses.
| Starting base price | Starting per-employee fee | International payroll | Built-in time tracking | Healthcare benefits | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ADP | Custom | Custom | Yes (add-on) | Yes | Yes | Try ADP | ||
| Gusto | $49/mo. | $6/mo. | For contractors | Yes | Yes | Try Gusto | ||
| Rippling | Custom | $8/mo. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Try Rippling | ||
| Paychex | Custom | Custom | Yes (third party) | Yes | Yes | Try Paychex | ||
| Justworks | None | $79/mo. | No | Yes (add-on) | Yes | Try Justworks | ||
| Papaya Global | None | $25/employee/mo.* | Yes | No | Yes | Try Papaya | ||
| BambooHR | Custom | Custom | No | Yes | Yes | Try BambooHR | ||
| Paycor | Custom | Custom | No | Yes | Yes | Try Paycor | ||
| Bambee | $99 | N/A | No | No | No | Try Bambee |
*Starting price for businesses with 101+ global employees. Price decreases to $20/employee with 501+ employees and $15/employee with 1,001+ employees.
Plan and pricing information up to date as of 4/23/2024.
Our star rating: 4.4 out of 5
ADP is one of the world’s best HR software companies. While ADP has several products that support businesses of all sizes in all industries, its most popular small-business product is RUN Powered by ADP, which empowers business owners to pay employees, onboard new hires, perform background checks, launch HR trainings and more.
ADP doesn’t list pricing for its RUN Powered by ADP product online, so potential customers must contact the company directly for a quote. ADP is also one of the only HR software providers to offer a free trial: New users can get up to three months free.
Our ADP review explores ADP’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try RUN Powered by ADP
Our star rating: 4.6 out of 5
Gusto’s cloud-based HR and payroll software gives small-business owners an easy way to pay their employees without wasting time on complicated payroll concerns. Although Gusto’s software focuses primarily on enabling easy payroll processing, it also offers basic HR tools that most small businesses can’t do without, including employee benefits and new-hire onboarding.
Notably, business owners can use Gusto to find healthcare and other benefits for employees. Since Gusto has its own insurance brokerage, businesses don’t have to pay extra to integrate their benefits with their payroll software — the insurance premium is your only cost.
Papaya offers multiple global payroll solutions starting at the following price points:
Our Gusto review explores Gusto’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try Gusto
Our star rating: 4.3 out of 5
Rippling’s fully automated payroll features make it one of our top payroll providers for small businesses, but its suite of HR features is potentially even more impressive. Through Rippling, small businesses can access HR tools usually reserved for midsize and large businesses, including compensation management, employee surveys, global headcount planning, learning management system access and more.
Rippling also has some unique IT and finance features that integrate easily with its payroll and HR suite of products. Businesses with remote teams can use Rippling for password management, employee expense reimbursement and remote device setup.
Rippling doesn’t list its monthly base fee online, but its per-employee payroll fee starts at $8 per contractor or employee paid per month. With Rippling, businesses can build their own unique finance, tech, HR and payroll packages from the ground up, which means a custom quote is required for most businesses.
Our Rippling review explores Rippling’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try Rippling
Our star rating: 4 stars out of 5
Paychex is a well-rounded payroll and HR system that targets small, midsize and some large businesses. For the most part, its extensive HR features are offered as add-ons rather than being bundled with specific plans only. Instead of scaling up to a more expensive payroll plan, small businesses have the flexibility to choose an affordable payroll package while paying for only the HR features they need.
Along with its payroll and HR software, Paychex also has a PEO plan for small businesses that want to outsource their human resource department. Even if you choose a payroll software plan rather than Paychex PEO, you still have access to high-quality, PEO-level employee benefits. (The same is true for small businesses that use SurePayroll by Paychex, a highly affordable payroll company owned by Paychex.)
Paychex has multiple payroll software plans:
While Paychex doesn’t advertise a free trial, new customers can set up a Paychex account and import data for free. You won’t be charged until your first payroll run.
Our Paychex review explores Paychex’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try Paychex
Our star rating: 4.2 stars out of 5
As a domestic professional employer organization, Justworks partners with U.S.-based small businesses to take payroll and HR off their hands. While you deal with running your business, Justworks deals with processing payroll, onboarding employees, finding the best benefits and gauging employee satisfaction at work.
Justworks’ software automates and streamlines every phase of the employee life cycle, from onboarding new hires to assigning admin permissions to users with different job titles and levels of seniority. Along with offering standard employee benefits, Justworks also has employee health and wellness perks like gym reimbursements and commuter benefits.
Justworks is an exception to most other PEO companies in that it lists its pricing online, which makes it easier for potential customers to decide whether Justworks is right for them or not:
Justworks Hours, Justworks’ time and attendance tracker, is available only as an add-on feature. It starts at $8 per month per employee.
Our Justworks review explores Justworks’ pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try Justworks
Our star rating: 4.2 stars out of 5
Papaya Global is a global payroll service that makes it possible for small businesses to pay employees in more than 160 countries. Along with processing payroll in dozens of local currencies, Papaya helps small businesses offer competitive global benefits that stand out on a local level. Its team of compliance experts with on-the-ground experience in dozens of countries help small businesses comply with complex labor laws across the world.
Papaya Global’s payroll and HR services range from a few dollars per employee per month to a few hundred dollars per employee per month. It offers several solutions to better serve a wide range of multinational businesses operating on vastly different budgets:
Note that the prices listed here are starting prices only. Interested customers will need to contact Papaya Global directly for a customized quote.
Our Papaya Global review explores Papaya Global’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try Papaya Global
Our star rating: 4.4 out of 5
BambooHR is committed to helping small businesses create company cultures that attract and retain great employees. While it offers fairly standard payroll tools, its employee-focused HR services excel at helping small businesses find the best employees, then gather and implement employee feedback to ensure employee satisfaction at work.
While BambooHR has at least as many HR features as a standard PEO, it isn’t actually a professional employer organization. Instead, it gives businesses the in-house tools they need to offer top-notch human resource experiences without the cash investment often required by more intensive solutions.
BambooHR’s custom pricing is based on your company’s size. Businesses with between one and 20 employees will be charged a flat monthly fee, while businesses with over 20 employees pay a custom monthly per-employee fee.
BambooHR doesn’t list its prices online, though it has two primary plans and a handful of add-on services:
Optional add-on plans include:
Our BambooHR review explores BambooHR’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try BambooHR
Our star rating: 3.9 stars out of 5
If one of your company’s primary aims is to offer competitive compensation and benefits, Paycor’s HR software for small businesses can help. Its compensation and employee engagement tools help employers measure how satisfied their workers are while on the job, and its comprehensive data analytics give business owners key personnel insights that can boost performance, productivity and satisfaction.
While Paycor’s HCM software principally targets midsize businesses, it can work well for small businesses, especially those that want thorough data insights. Paycor also offers industry-specific software that better meets the needs of employers and employees in unique or niche fields.
Like most HCM software, Paycor doesn’t list its prices online. However, it does offer 50% off its base prices for up to six months.
Our Paycor review explores Paycor’s pros, cons, pricing and features in more detail.
Try Paycor
Bambee is an HR outsourcing solution for small businesses without a fully-fledged HR department. With Bambee, you receive a dedicated HR manager who will ensure employment law compliance and assist you in everyday HR matters. For example, Bambee’s HR manager can:
That said, Bambee’s actual HR platform is rather lackluster. Unless you add on its optional guided payroll, the system only includes an employee directory, a chat function for interacting with your HR manager, performance tracking, staff record-keeping and e-signature workflows. But this may be all you need if you’re a new business with few employees and like the extra hand-holding to understand and create compliant employee processes.
Bambee starts at $99 per month if you have zero employees and jumps to $299 per month after hiring your first employee. Its pricing allows you to build company policies and processes, receive recruiting assistance and manage your contractor network before your first employee, unlike most software vendors that require a minimum employee count.
You can check out the various Bambee plans in the table below.
Note: Bambee’s guided payroll module is a paid add-on. You will need to contact Bambee directly for pricing.
| 0 employees | 1–4 employees | 5–19 employees | 20–49 employees | 50–70 employees | 71+ employees | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $99/mo. | $299/mo. | $399/mo. | $499/mo. | $1,299/mo. | Contact sales |
| One-time setup fee | $0 | $500 | $500 | $1,500 | $2,000 | Contact sales |
| HR manager access | No (Bambee HR platform access only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Number of core HR policies supported | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | Custom |
| Number of custom HR policies supported | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 12 | Custom |
| Number of job descriptions | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | Custom |
| Support mediums | Chat and email | Chat, email and phone | Chat, email and phone | Chat, email and phone | Chat, email and phone | Chat, email and phone |
Try Bambee
The TechRepublic team uses an in-house algorithm to calculate star ratings. We rate payroll and HR brands according to the following categories:
Our expert’s experience with and insights into the software products we review accounts for the remaining 10% of the overall score.
We do our best to test software for ourselves while reviewing and rating it, which means signing up for live demos and setting up trial accounts whenever possible. We also rely on third-party review sites like Gartner Peer Insights to understand how other customers experience the software so we can represent their point of view in our own articles.
When you’re sorting through the top small-business HR systems to find the right one for your needs, make sure to take the following factors under consideration:
Whenever possible, get hands-on experience with your HR and payroll software before committing to a plan. Unfortunately, when it comes to HR systems, free trials are the exception, not the rule. Set up a free account whenever possible and, when not possible, schedule a personalized demo to get a custom quote from the software’s sales team.
Speaking broadly, RUN Powered by ADP is the best human resource management software for many small businesses. Along with its fully automated payroll services, RUN by ADP gives small businesses access to competitive employee benefits, HCM-level hiring tools and comprehensive onboarding features.
In the end, though, the best human resource management software differs from business to business.
For example, small businesses that need comprehensive, affordable payroll with more limited HR tools will likely find that Gusto or Paychex are the best HR management tools for their needs. International ventures could view Papaya Global or Rippling as the best human resource software for their small business. Consider your budget, payroll needs and HR concerns while deciding which human resource system is right for you.
Most HR management software solutions cost a monthly base fee on top of a monthly per-employee fee. As a result, the cost depends largely on how many employees you have, though you should also take the base price into account when calculating software costs.
Human resources software solutions for small businesses can cost as little as $44 a month (Paychex Flex for one employee) or $590 a month (Justworks Basic for 10 employees). International HR and payroll systems tend to cost more, especially employer of record services, which can cost as much as $650 per employee per month.
HR software simplifies the complex task of managing a diverse workforce by automating crucial tasks, organizing employee records and making it easier for businesses to offer competitive, legally compliant benefits. Without HR software, it’s much harder — if not impossible — to keep track of employee’s information and stay on top of federal, state and local HR regulations.
Most human resource management systems for small businesses include two or more of the following key features:
Payroll is usually an essential component of HR solutions targeted at small businesses, though some software providers sell separate HR and payroll products. (For instance, Patriot Payroll has both an HR plan and a payroll plan.)
Read next: The Best Accounting Software for Small Businesses
Kylie McQuarrie has been writing about small businesses, payroll, and finance for ten years. While wrapping up her master's degree in English, she simultaneously leant her writing to small businesses struggling to reach customers in Canada, the US and Australia. She's been pursuing a professional writing career with a focus on business payroll and accounting ever since.
