10 Best HR Software Companies Of 2025

In the competition for top talent, technology plays an important role. SAP SuccessFactors gives businesses an edge by applying AI-assisted applicant screening to identify the best matches between candidates and open job requirements. The company’s innovations benefit employees by providing them with a digital Work Zone for communicating with managers and team members that can be personalized to fit their work style.

One indication of SuccessFactors’ focus on midsize and large businesses is SAP’s migration program for current customers of the company’s ERP Human Capital Management (HCM) to its cloud-based SuccessFactors HCM product. SAP claims that 80% of its customers are small and midsize businesses, but the capabilities and complexity of its HR software make it unsuitable for organizations with fewer than several hundred employees. For example, the Employee Central Service Center has a minimum of 1,000 employees.

The Joule AI copilot in SAP SuccessFactors automates common HR tasks.

Features

Businesses with an international workforce will appreciate SuccessFactors HCM’s support for payroll processing in 50 countries and global employee benefits management. The company offers more than 100 local versions of Employee Central, which houses employee profiles and self-service, global compliance and HR automation tools. However, several functions require purchasing WorkForce Software products, including time and attendance, workforce forecasting and scheduling, as well as absence and leave management.

Pricing

The little pricing information available on the SAP site suggests that SuccessFactors will likely break the HR budget of most small businesses. Employee Central’s core HR features cost $75.60 per user per month with a contract of one year to five years. The SuccessFactors Recruiting product is priced at $180 per transaction (internal or external hire) per month for one year to three years, and the Compensation module costs $23.40 per user per month with a contract from one year to three years.

Customer Service

SAP offers nontechnical assistance 24/7 by chat, telephone and email. For technical issues, the company relies on its Get Support application that administrators and users access through their account. SAP recommends that customers first search for a solution in its knowledge base, which features interactive Guided Answers. Customers can also schedule a one-on-one 30-minute call with an expert to discuss new or ongoing issues.

Reputation

SAP has been a leading vendor of technology solutions for enterprises for more than 50 years. Its products include finance, procurement and CRM in addition to HR and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Customers posting reviews on popular rating sites note that the product is easy for HR administrators and employees to use despite its wealth of features. They highlight its ability to streamline work processes, but they point out that many features require dealing with SAP’s partners.

Learn more: Read our full SAP SuccessFactors review.

Many HR software vendors target specific industries for their products, but nonprofits and educational institutions are often omitted. GoCo’s HR solution for nonprofits and education addresses the unique needs of these operations in terms of compliance with labor regulations and tax filings. For example, schools are able to calculate the tax due for their voluntary compensation to individuals at many different locations within and across jurisdictions.

GoCo’s approach to pricing its HR products gives small businesses plenty of options when choosing the payroll and HR features they need, but it also can drive up the monthly price for organizations looking for a comprehensive HR-payroll solution. The add-on options include talent development, benefits administration, time and attendance, and recruiting in addition to core HR and payroll.

GoCo’s simple onboarding workflow completes the process in six steps.

Features

The heart of GoCo’s HR software is the Premium HR module that includes onboarding and offboarding, document management and automated workflows in addition to an AI-powered knowledge base and MagicDocs paperless document management tool. Adding the company’s Benefits Administration module lets businesses use their existing payroll processor with GoCo HR services. Conversely, you can combine Premium HR with GoCo’s payroll service and use another benefits provider, or combine all three functions.

After choosing one of the four base plans, businesses can add any of eight add-ons that include compliance, time management, recruiting, performance management, messages and employee engagement. The third step is to schedule a consultation with the company to receive a custom quote.

Pricing

Prices for GoCo’s Premium HR software start at $5 per employee per month. No other prices are listed on the company’s site. One indication of the product’s value is the high ratings GoCo receives in this category from users posting to review sites. However, the company charges a base fee for Premium HR on top of the per-user price that isn’t posted prominently on its site (we found it on a support page).

Customer Service

GoCo’s support staff is available from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT Monday to Friday. Administrators can also reach support by live chat and email, and employees can reach support by email only. Self-support options include a knowledge base that features webinars and e-books. Also provided are an employee onboarding guide, employee engagement guide and compliance guide.

Reputation

GoCo is a relatively new company, founded in 2015, but it has already earned a reputation among business users for being a solid product with responsive support. However, some customers note that they have cycled through several different support representatives due to frequent staff changes.

Employee turnover, drops in worker productivity and other aspects of HR management often take companies by surprise. UKG’s two HR software solutions—UKG Ready for SMBs and UKG Pro for enterprises—do their best to prevent managers from being blindsided by problems in the workforce. In particular, The People Insights module in UKG Ready applies AI techniques to alert companies to potential problems and recommends proactive steps to prevent them.

UKG Ready and UKG Pro serve as one-stop shops for all of an organization’s HR and payroll needs. Modules in the UKG Ready suite range from the standard HR benefits and payroll to workplace culture and smart scheduling that considers skills, compliance and employee preferences. UK Pro adds strategic workforce planning, communication and collaboration and the Great Place to Work Hub that’s designed to enhance employee inclusivity and engagement.

UKG reports can be viewed, sorted and filtered in many ways.

Features

Keeping all the HR and payroll pieces running like a well-oiled machine requires having up-to-date insights into all aspects of the business’s operations. The customizable reports available in UKG Ready provide benchmarks for comparing your company’s performance in various areas to industry standards, as well as sentiment analysis for gauging how well projects and new initiatives are being received by workers.

The list of reports provided in UKG Pro is literally as long as your arm and numbers in the hundreds. Report categories include compliance, tax filing and reconciliation, workforce management, compensation and business rules. However, UKG’s Bryte AI assistant that promises insights into your workforce and culture is sold separately.

Pricing

UKG doesn’t publish the prices for its HR software. Reviews posted by UKG Ready users on top rating sites give the product good scores for value.

Customer Service

UKG subscriptions come with 24/7 support. The support staff can be reached by telephone, live chat and email, and the company promises a “rapid response.” UKG’s only self-support option is to post your question to the UKG Community.

Reputation

UKG was formed by the 2020 merger of Kronos and Ultimate Software. The company supports the HR operations of more than 80,000 organizations and has offices in countries around the world in addition to its dual headquarters in Massachusetts and Florida. UKG Ready receives consistently good reviews on popular user rating sites, although slightly lower aggregate scores than competing HR software. Users note the product’s wealth of features and customization options as positive traits, but several report problems relating to its inconsistent interface.

Learn more: Read our full UKG Pro review.

HR software is as important to the success of a business with a handful of employees as it is to enterprises, even though small and large companies have very different employee-management needs. Zoho People offers very small businesses a no-cost way to get their feet wet with HR software and a clear upgrade path as they grow and their HR needs change. The free version of the product supports up to five employees and comes with document management, e-signatures and time-off management.

Zoho People’s low prices come with a big caveat: Most SMBs need more HR management features than are available in the high-end Enterprise plan, which costs $5 per employee per month and includes only 5GB of storage per user. The Enterprise version doesn’t include recruiting or payroll, for example, and even the company’s People Plus package requires paying extra for the Zoho Payroll add-on.

Features

It won’t take long for a company to outgrow Zoho People’s free offering. The good news is that stepping up to the Essential HR plan won’t break many small business HR budgets: Prices start at only $1.50 per employee per month, discounted to $1.25 per user per month with an annual contract. Essential HR adds onboarding and basic workflow automations, but for most small businesses, the next logical upgrade will be to Zoho People’s Professional or Premium offerings. These cost slightly more per employee but add key features such as time and attendance tracking and, in Premium, performance and compensation management.

Pricing

Zoho People’s low prices, starting at $1.50 per user per month, are mitigated by the software’s many add-on features that can drive up a business’s monthly bill quickly. All Zoho People plans cap storage at amounts ranging from 1GB per user for Essential HR to 5GB per user for Enterprise. Additional storage costs $4.60 a month or $55 a year for each 5GB. Zoho People Plus prices start at $10 per employee per month, but while the Plus package adds recruiting and expense management, businesses will still have to pay extra for integration with Zoho Payroll.

Customer Service

Zoho’s classic support is available with all plans and relies on email, promising a response within eight hours. Phone support is offered for “critical requests” only. The company’s premium support costs $114 a month, $1,128 a year or 20% of your recurring license fee, whichever is higher. It provides 24/5 telephone and live chat support. Zoho’s enterprise support offering is priced at 25% of your recurring license fee and features 24/7 phone and live chat support, as well as four hours of training services.

Among the company’s self-support options are an administrator’s guide, video tutorials, implementation guides and troubleshooting tips. Zoho offers webinars and a knowledge hive featuring hundreds of HR-related articles.

Reputation

Zoho was among the pioneers in software as a service (SaaS) with the release in 2004 of Zoho Virtual Office, which was offered for free to teams and companies with up to 10 users. Despite the company’s reputation as a purveyor of free and low-cost software, the comments of Zoho People customers posting on review sites focus more on the usability and easy implementation of the product than on its value. However, several users note that it supports fewer third-party integrations than competing products.

We’re impressed by Rippling’s ability to automate HR and payroll workflows based on triggers from data residing anywhere in the system, or from third-party integrations. Imagine an employee entering an expense report in Microsoft 365 that automatically generates a reimbursement payment in Rippling that’s ready for a manager’s approval.

That’s a relatively simple example of the automation possibilities delivered by Rippling’s comprehensive HR and payroll package for small businesses. The workflow automations can be applied to a company’s compliance, benefits, time tracking and other components, promising to free up time for managers and employees to spend on more important tasks. However, Rippling does not publicly post its pricing, so what these dazzling features will cost your company remains a mystery.

Rippling’s onboarding wizard can complete the process in minutes.

Features

Rippling’s products are presented in four categories: human capital management (HCM), payroll, IT and spend, which includes expense management, corporate cards and bill paying. What’s missing is any indication of how the pieces fit together to create complete HR and payroll solutions. For example, the company’s U.S. payroll services are split between employees and contractors working anywhere in the world. It’s unclear whether businesses that have both employees and contractors will need to purchase two different products.

Pricing

We met with a Rippling sales representative to ask what the price would be for an HR/payroll package purchased by a business with 25 employees. The rep quoted us a price of $20 per user per month for payroll and core HR features, with a 20% discount for an annual contract. Rippling charges a $35 platform fee each month.

Customer Service

Administrators and employees can reach the Rippling support staff through their account, and the webform on the company’s contact page is sent to its sales office. The contact page has email links for use by tax agencies and insurance carriers. Rippling’s help center provides getting started guides and articles on a range of HR and payroll topics. Other self-help resources are webinars and the Rippling University.

Reputation

Rippling is proud of the fact that all its apps are homegrown and built to work together rather than being the result of mergers or white labeling. Customers posting reviews on popular rating sites give the company high grades for global payroll and compliance, as well as for its onboarding and offboarding, and ability to automate common processes. However, some have been surprised by hidden fees, and they note the product’s lack of an employee dashboard.

Learn more: Read our full Rippling review.

Workday is a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor, particularly for the company’s Enterprise Management Cloud product that integrates finance, HR and operations management. Workday defines “small businesses” as those with fewer than 500 employees. One Workday feature that managers and employees will appreciate in particular is the one-stop benefits dashboard that guides workers through the enrollment process using personalized suggestions. The dashboard makes it a breeze to confirm ACA compliance and features pre-built integrations for a range of benefits options.

Workday’s three packages for small businesses have plenty of features and functionality to boost the effectiveness of their HR, payroll and other processes, but only one of the three focuses exclusively on HR rather than finance and payroll, and one lacks HR features entirely. Many organizations will appreciate the integration of financial, payroll and HR management that Workday offers, although installing and learning the system can take time.

Workday’s visual reports show the impact of employee movements over time.

Features

Workday’s ERP approach is evident in its focus on combining finance, spending and employee management in its three products designed for small businesses. The first combines finance, spending and human capital management. The second has finance and spend components, and the third only human capital management.

As a multi-tenant cloud service, Workday is able to provide small companies with the same level of performance as true enterprises. It applies the data sets it collects from its millions of users to train and fine-tune the AI models that underpin its finance, payroll and HR software.

Pricing

While no Workday prices are made public, customers posting reviews on top ratings sites give the company good scores for value. The company’s extensive ERP services for many different industries provide a clear upgrade path for growing businesses, but taking the first step to ERP can be a challenge for a small operation.

Customer Service

Workday customer support is available 24/5 to all subscribers (24/7 for the most critical issues), while the company’s Success Plan subscribers have 24/7 support for all problems no matter their severity. The company’s contact page directs users experiencing problems to their HR or IT department. Its support page has a link to the Workday Community for self-support (registration required). Workday offers education and training resources, as well as webinars and a resource library.

Reputation

According to the company, more than half of Fortune 500 businesses use Workday’s ERP products, yet three-quarters of its customers have fewer than 3,500 employees. However, the company receives tepid aggregate scores at top user review sites. Several users report difficult implementation and long wait times for technical support.

Learn more: Read our full Workday review.

One of the best ways to boost the efficiency of your company’s HR and payroll operations is by empowering employees to handle matters themselves. Paycom’s self-service payroll and HR features benefit HR staff and workers alike by providing fast and simple access to tools for submitting work hours, updating information and reviewing past pay and tax data. The employee portal supports English and Spanish for updating personal data, beneficiaries and direct deposit details. New hires are able to sign and submit tax, employment eligibility and other onboarding documents.

Paycom’s Beti payroll software automatically retrieves employees’ pay records at the start of each pay cycle, approves expenses and updates compensation changes. It sends reminders to employees when they need to take some action, such as filling in data missing from their time records. The software gives employees a view of their payroll and withholdings prior to payout so they can plan ahead.

The Manager-on-the-Go app puts all Paycom administrative tools in a single app.

Features

The five core Paycom modules are payroll, talent acquisition, talent management, HR management and time and labor management. These components are well integrated into the company’s custom-built HR solutions, but Paycom doesn’t offer third-party integrations. Instead, the company provides new customers with custom converters for linking with third-party providers. Similarly, accounting integrations rely on a custom version of the GL Concierge tool.

Pricing

No prices are listed on Paycom’s site, so potential customers have to infer the value of the company’s services from other sources. The product receives fair grades for value on top user review sites, although its value ratings are lower than those for competing HR software.

Customer Service

The Paycom Contact Us page lists the addresses and telephone numbers of the company’s sales offices in all 28 states. However, it doesn’t provide information on reaching the Paycom support staff by telephone, live chat or email. Instead, it lists about two dozen FAQs on topics such as logging in to your account, W-2s and data privacy requests. Other self-help resources are webinars, videos and case studies.

Reputation

Paycom was founded in 1998 and was a pioneer in online payroll processing. It was named one of the best mid-sized firms in the U.S. by Time Magazine in 2024. The company receives praise from customers posting on user review sites for its ease of use and time-management features. However, some users note that its HR software lacks the workflow automations that are available from competing products.

Learn more: Read our full Paycom review.

Sometimes all-in-one business solutions turn into multifaceted problems. Paycor’s approach to HR and payroll software for small businesses avoids this by centralizing all employee-related data while also helping managers engage with workers and enhance their leadership skills. The midrange Core and top-tier Complete packages integrate payroll and tax management with recruiting and hiring, onboarding and other core HR services.

Very small businesses can start with Paycor’s Essential plan that focuses on payroll processing and tax administration but includes many useful HR functions, including new hire filing employment verification service (EVS) and E-Verify service. All Paycor HR plans support recruiting and hiring, but the company sells benefits administration and time and attendance separately.

HR administrator’s view of an employee’s entry in Paycor.

Features

The standard payroll and tax features at the heart of Paycor’s HR software include employee self-service using the company’s mobile app, as well as check stuffing and online check stubs. You can set payroll to run off cycle and to auto-run. The Essential plan is limited to recruiting and hiring three jobs, while Core supports five jobs and Complete lets you recruit and hire for an unlimited number of jobs.

Pricing

Paycor doesn’t publish its prices. To get an idea of Paycor’s pricing for small businesses, we asked a Paycor sales representative what the price of a combined HR/payroll package for a company with 25 employees would be. We were told that Paycor charges a $99 base monthly fee plus per-employee charges starting at $6 a month.

However, the Core plan that was recommended for our fictitious 25-employee business costs $399 for initial setup and $30 per employee per month, discounted 50% for the first 12 months. The total annual cost of such a plan would be about $4,500 for the first year and $9,000 subsequently, according to the representative.

Customer Service

Paycor provides telephone support for administrators from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET Monday to Friday. Employees are instructed to contact their company administrator for support matters. The Paycor support page has FAQs for employees and administrators, and its resource center features webinars and articles on topics related to payroll and HR.

Reputation

In its 30 years of offering payroll and HR services, Paycor has supported thousands of businesses in all 50 states and now is used by more than 2 million people. Users give the company high scores in their reviews posted on top ratings sites for centralizing HR and payroll information and integrating with other operations. However, several note that support isn’t always responsive.

Learn more: Read our full Paycor review.

Compliance is an area that few small business owners spend much time thinking about, until they realize how damaging the penalties for noncompliance can be to their company. The HR Compliance Dashboard included with Paylocity’s payroll and HR software for small organizations shows at a glance the status of all regulatory requirements, including I-9 verification for foreign workers in the U.S., Affordable Care Act (ACA) and state and federal tax rules.

Small businesses are offered two other services designed to boost the effectiveness of their workforce. Paylocity’s HR Edge service gives businesses access to account managers with expertise in payroll tax and workplace management matters. The Modern Workforce Index AI-based analytics tool developed by Paylocity aggregates information from its 25,000 clients to offer insights into workforce performance enhancements.

Features

The components of Paylocity’s HR and payroll packages meet the payroll and HR management needs of SMBs, covering time and attendance, benefits administration, expense management and on-demand employee payments. Out-of-the-box HR workflow automations let companies create custom triggers that reduce the time and effort required to complete standard operations such as offboarding and position and pay rate changes.

Employees can use Paylocity’s self-service portal to view payroll information, clock in and out, request time off and interact with coworkers. Performance management tools give managers and employees a view into their progress in achieving goals and learning the skills they need to advance in their careers.

Pricing

We met with Paylocity sales representatives to ask what the company would charge a business with 25 employees that was looking for payroll and core HR features. We were quoted a rate of $10 per user per month, plus a $180 monthly base fee, for a total monthly bill of $430.

Customers posting reviews on review sites give Paylocity mostly favorable scores for value.

Customer Service

Administrators can reach the Paylocity support staff by telephone from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. CT Monday to Friday. Support can also be contacted by email. No live chat support is offered. To protect the privacy of employees, the company doesn’t access or share their information. Self-help resources for administrators include how-to articles, training courses, alerts and updates. Employees have access to FAQs and the PEAK knowledge base (accessed through their account) for their self-support needs.

Reputation

Paylocity has provided businesses with HR payroll services since 1997. The company’s aggregate scores on user rating sites are good but not great. Customers give Paylocity’s products high grades for ease of use and range of features, but several note that implementing the systems can be problematic. They also note that Paylocity’s customer support doesn’t always respond in a timely manner.

Learn more: Read our full Paylocity review.

Not many new entrepreneurs have “File W-9s” at the top of their to-do list. In fact, handling the details of recruiting, onboarding, payroll and employee management can be a barrier to entry for some startup companies. TriNet’s HR Platform and HR Plus add-ons strive to provide a path for startups from their earliest days to enterprise status. The line from the entry-level HR Platform Essentials plan, which costs only $10 per employee per month, to the top-tier HR Manager version of TriNet’s HR Plus add-on parallels a successful startup’s growth trajectory.

While the HR Platform’s Zen package serves as an all-in-one HR/payroll solution, small businesses can choose to add payroll processing, recruitment and benefits administration as separate add-ons to the Essentials or mid-tier Growth plan (Zen includes payroll processing but not benefits administration). The big leap in price comes when adding HR Plus, which requires HR Platform and costs from $20 to $50 per user per month on top of the price of HR Platform.

Features

Very small businesses will find all the HR features they need in HR Platform Essentials, which comes with automatic onboarding, automated HR workflows, document management and scheduling. It also supports dozens of integrations, including Slack and Microsoft Office 365. The Growth version of HR Platform adds analytics, performance management and compensation management, while the Zen plan includes payroll processing, employee engagement surveys and TriNet’s People Hub collaboration tool.

The next steps up are to HR Plus’s Payroll Tax Compliance Manager, complete Payroll Manager solution and the top-end HR Manager, which features support from TriNet’s HR and payroll experts. Other TriNet services include Payroll Tax Compliance Audits for $1,000 apiece and HR Operations Audits for $2,500 each.

Pricing

The low $10 per-user-per-month price of TriNet’s HR Platform Essentials is mitigated somewhat by the company’s five-user minimum. For $20 per user per month, the Growth version of HR Platform adds useful people management tools, including compensation and performance management. However, many small businesses will likely realize more value from HR Platform Zen, which comes with payroll processing and is priced at $33 per user per month.

Midsize businesses are most likely to realize the benefits of upgrading to HR Plus for payroll tax compliance (an additional $20 per user per month), complete payroll management ($30 per user per month) or HR Manager ($50 per user per month). All three add-ons give businesses access to experts in payroll taxes, payroll management and HR management.

Customer Service

TriNet customers can reach the company’s support staff by live chat 24/7 through their account consoles. Support reps can be reached by telephone from 6 a.m. to midnight ET Monday to Friday as well as by email. The company’s help center has a knowledge base, getting-started guides and other self-support options such as training videos.

Reputation

TriNet acquired the former Zenefits product in 2022 and now has more than 20,000 clients. The company also sells professional employer organization (PEO) services and the Clarus R+D tax credit service. TriNet receives middling overall ratings at popular user review sites. Positive comments center on TriNet’s ease of use and complete set of payroll and HR features. Dissatisfaction with customer support and a lack of reporting options were common themes in negative comments.

Learn more: Read our full TriNet review.