Best HRMS Software for 2024

3.92

Best overall

$8 PEPM

ADP Workforce Now

3.85

Best for scalability

$18–$27 PEPM*

BambooHR

3.75

Best for ease of use

$250 per mo. for first 25 employees

UKG Ready

3.66

Best for customization

$21–$29 PEPM*

Paycor

3.63

Best for workforce development

$99 per mo + $6 PEPM

* The vendor’s pricing is quote-based; the prices in the chart are estimated based-on third-party sources and user reviews.

Rippling: Best HRMS overall

Learn more about Rippling →

Overall score

3.92/5

User scores

4.64/5

Pricing

2.75/5

Platform/interface

4.28/5

Core HR

4.44/5

Workforce management

4.38/5

Talent acquisition

3.94/5

Performance management

3.15/5

Employee relations

3.18/5

Pros

PEO and EOR services available for HR support.
Intuitive user interface (UI) and design.
Quick release schedule for access to new features.
Device management and app provisioning and de-provisioning for tech-heavy businesses.
Platform localization for more than 150 countries and native payroll capabilities for 50 countries.

Cons

System occasionally lags or breaks after frequent use.
No sandbox feature to test new workflow automations in a closed environment.
Lacks phone support, unless you purchase its PEO, EOR, or HR Help Desk module.

Why I picked Rippling

With a 3.92 out of 5 score, Rippling is the best HRMS overall because it balances advanced HR features geared toward growing businesses with an approachable, easy-to-navigate interface. You can customize workflows, approvals, access levels, reports, and analytics for more pointed insights into your company’s workforce to drive a more efficient, productive, and engaging company culture.

Your HR teams can also offload some of their more repetitive work, like training course assignments, document collection, and task follow-ups, by having Rippling automate it for you. Moreover, most of Rippling’s modules are robust for an all-in-one HR solution. Its payroll solution is particularly noteworthy since you take care of domestic and international pay within the same platform to speed up processing times.

Although Rippling has great integration options with Slack, Google Workspace, and Zoom, it’s not the best option for companies with primarily frontline workers. It does not support employee private messaging and shift scheduling, for example. Its mobile app also does not have nearly the same capabilities as its desktop counterpart, forcing on-the-go teams to manage functions like payroll in an office.

But if you already have third-party solutions for these areas, Rippling’s vast integration library and app management features make it the best choice for consolidating your tech stack.

Rippling is a comprehensive HR software with an IT-forward feature set and design. Unlike other HRMS, Rippling intentionally includes IT features, like app provisioning during new hire onboarding, to unify the company tech stack. Far from alienating HR professionals without IT backgrounds, these capabilities make Rippling more accessible to companies that need custom processes but lack in-house tech expertise.

Some of Rippling’s stand-out features, such as its Workflow Studio for in-app process automation, are advanced for a non-enterprise HR system. For example, you can send reports, schedule Google Calendar meetings, and even adjust employee paid time off (PTO) accruals based on almost any data attribute.

This is especially important when you have a company of over 250 employees but an HR department of two. Rippling can take care of the administrative side of HR, like sending new hire surveys or collecting policy acknowledgments, while your HR team of two works with managers and executives to improve employee experience and retention.

However, one drawback of Rippling is that it has a fast feature release schedule that can lead to a lack of refinement in existing modules. Major modules like its global payroll, recruiting, and performance management modules were released in 2022 and 2023 but fall behind some competitors.

For example, Rippling only supports payroll for 50 countries compared to the 70 or more for platforms like Deel. Recruiters still have to schedule interviews with candidates manually in its recruitment module. It doesn’t offer devices like physical time clocks or digital signage software for frontline teams. And, although Rippling is a major player in the PEO market, it lacks IRS and Employer Services Assurance Corporation (ESAC) certifications.

Even so, Rippling’s quick release schedule means you can access features that work natively with Rippling without relying on integrations. It also creates a more seamless experience than Paylocity and UKG, which rely on acquisitions and mergers for new features.

Risk management support

Rippling offers features to support businesses experiencing transition and, therefore, at greater risk for compliance errors. For example, Rippling comes standard with its Compliance 360 feature, which monitors processes within the platform and notifies you of potential global, federal, state, and municipal time and pay violations. This safeguards against labor law violations as you expand into unfamiliar states and territories.

Likewise, Rippling offers a flexible professional employer organization (PEO) service option, which adds worker classification monitoring to its Compliance 360 capabilities. This can help you reduce the risks associated with employee misclassification, including penalties, back pay, and tax violations. And, after you build out your HR team and don’t need Rippling’s PEO support anymore, you can “turn it off” directly within the platform without incurring a fee, switching systems, and losing data.

You can use Rippling’s Workflow Studio and approval workflows to manage your company risk further. Although it’s not the same as UKG Ready’s accident tracking feature, you can create custom fields that trigger workflows for collecting essential information with strict deadlines — like injury paperwork — timely. You can also save this data in the employee profile for recordkeeping and audit purposes.

Rippling displays a workflow diagram with three tasks involving injury paperwork collection branching off from the condition trigger block "workplace injury or illness changes from an empty value." — You can use Rippling’s workflow studio to set multiple processes in motion, including managing risk levels based on triggers like employee injury dates. Source: TechnologyAdvice

Customizable report builder

Rippling’s report builder lets you build dynamic reports in real time without the need to run the reports or download them to an external spreadsheet software. Its reporting capabilities are also not isolated in various modules, so you don’t have to switch between modules to access payroll, benefits administration, performance management, or recruitment reports.

Instead, Rippling unites data from internal HR modules and some external integrations, like Jira. This means you can link information and draw conclusions from data you would otherwise have to manipulate off the platform manually.

For instance, you can gather usage reports for various apps through Rippling to determine their return on investment (ROI). You can even calculate the minutes employees spend in meetings to inform employee productivity during performance reviews. With this data, you can evaluate your organization’s risk for meeting fatigue and burnout.

Although Rippling lacks advanced report capabilities like ADP Workforce Now’s benchmarking and AI narrative descriptions, you can use Excel-like formulas and charts for more granular insights. It is also more approachable than UKG Ready, whose report-like interface takes time to understand.

Rippling displays four column lists for selecting variables in a report: one, module name; two, module tab; three, field names; and four, currently selected variables. — Rippling lets you draw from internal and external data sources to understand your HR processes from a broader perspective without needing spreadsheet or business intelligence software. Source: TechnologyAdvice

Rippling Unity's home screen displays Rippling apps like payroll and time off, outstanding tasks for an employee named Jessica, and external single sign-on apps like Google, Slack, and Salesforce.

Rippling displays the Feed tab on its homepage with company posts in the middle plus widgets showing who is out of office, employee birthdays, new hires, and staff work anniversaries on the right.

Rippling displays a customized payroll report with total employee costs by work location in a bar chart above and a disaggregated spreadsheet below.

Rippling displays employee hierarchical relationships in a tree diagram with buttons to filter, categorize, download, zoom in and out, and change to list view.

Rippling displays a candidate application review dashboard for someone named “James West” with demographic information at the top plus sections to view the candidate’s interview stages, documents, and comments between recruitment stakeholders.

Rippling starts at $8 per employee per month (PEPM). Depending on your business circumstances, it may also charge you an additional base fee per month, with most third-party sources stating the base price is $35 per month.

All customers start with Rippling’s base platform, Rippling Unity, which is its core human resources information system (HRIS). It includes main features like its Workflow Studio, Compliance 360, onboarding, and leave management modules. After purchasing a Rippling Unity plan, you can add on the modules you need from its HR, IT, or Finance clouds.

Rippling scored moderately well for pricing at 2.75 out of 5. Although it does provide a starting price for its platform, it does not share details on pricing for any of its modules. It also does not include a free trial or free plan, which can be a turn-off if you need to test specific features before purchasing, especially if those features are in modules outside Rippling Unity.

That said, Rippling shares similar pricing to competitors like TriNet HR Platform; it can even be cheaper than Gusto Simple if you have fewer than 20 employees and only need Rippling Unity. But this also means that the platform becomes significantly more expensive for the more tactical and analytics features that are hallmarks of HRMS, including workforce planning and performance management.

Below is an overview of the four different plans of Rippling Unity:

Rippling Unity

Core

Pro

Unlimited

Enterprise

Includes:

Global organizational chart.
Global workforce analytics.
Permissions and access control.
Approval management.
Document and policy management.
Compliance management.
Salary banding.
PTO and leave management.
Localization for 150+ countries.
Customized workflows (for onboarding only).

Includes everything in Core, plus:

Customized workflows (for any event).
Up to 10 workflows.
Up to 10 formula fields in reports.
Up to 10 reports that join data from three or more sources.
Integrate with Slack for approvals and sending messages.
Integrate with Microsoft Teams for sending messages.
Create and send calendar invites.
Scheduled reports.

Includes everything in Pro, plus:

Unlimited customized workflows.
Unlimited formula fields.
Unlimited advanced reports.
Webhooks.

Includes everything in Unlimited, plus:

Access to Rippling’s API.

Additional modules

HR Cloud

IT Cloud

Finance Cloud

U.S. and global payroll.
Benefits administration.
Time and attendance.
Flex benefits (FSA, HSA, and commuter).
Recruiting.
Learning management.
Pulse (employee engagement).
Headcount planning.
Performance management.

App management.
Device management.
Inventory management.

Corporate cards.
Expense management.

Additional services

ACA and COBRA administration.
HR Help Desk (HR Support).
PEO services.
Global employer of record services.

Note: Rippling currently offers a one-month free subscription if you sign up within six weeks. This is subject to end anytime, so please check its website for the latest.

Considering Rippling?

Get a bigger picture of its capabilities by checking out some of the resources below:

ADP Workforce Now: Best for scalability

Overall score

3.85/5

User scores

4.17/5

Pricing

2.75/5

Platform/interface

4/5

Core HR

4/5

Workforce management

4.29/5

Talent acquisition

4.19/5

Performance management

3.66/5

Performance management

3.45/5

Pros

Huge product line covering solopreneurs to enterprises.
Support for HR and payroll in more than 140 countries.
Comprehensive and standalone HR products available.
HRO, PEO, and EOR services to fit your level of service needs.
Customer support is available through phone, chat, email, and online knowledge base.
Open API to support integration with niche industry tools.

Cons

Difficult-to-navigate UI with multiple pop-up windows.
Benefits and time management features are only available in higher plans.
Recruitment is managed through an integration with ZipRecruiter, limiting candidate diversity.
Users report slow issue resolution with customer service.
Must integrate with Kudos for employee recognition and rewards.

Why I picked ADP

ADP Workforce Now comes in with a total score of 3.85. It impressed me for its sheer number of features that allow companies to digitize almost all of their HR processes.

What’s more, Workforce Now is the backbone platform for most of ADP’s other offerings, including its PEO product and global payroll add-on. Its other services, like EOR, HRO, tax, and unemployment claim services, mean that you can access the level of HR support you need during various stages of growth.

As a result, you can stay with one company as you scale, aiding in knowledge retention, data migration, and employee satisfaction and experience. This makes Workforce Now your best bet if you want support for more complex needs, like multiple entities, divisions, departments, and employee types.

Workforce Now is ADP’s mid-market HR and payroll product for businesses with 50 to 1,000 employees. Although ADP is well known for its payroll features, Workforce Now modules cover the complete employee life cycle with capabilities for strategic HR, like compensation management and DEI benchmarking.

In particular, ADP Workforce Now gives equal attention to the concerns of HR staff and individual contributors. Employees rate ADP’s Mobile Solutions, Workforce Now’s mobile app, a 4.4 and 4.7 on the Google Play and Apple App stores, respectively. Little things, like an “undo” button in the app to quickly fix an accidental punch-in and quick-access buttons for recent paychecks, benefits, and the staff directory, make it a straightforward tool for frontline employees.

Other employee-centric features include financial wellness tools like on-demand pay, discounts, and savings through ADP’s Wisely paycard and app. Onboarding from the employee side is also very appealing since you can customize the experience based on the new hire’s role and location.

For example, you can include a custom message from the new hire’s manager, welcome videos, interactive team profiles, and a map around their new office. The experience becomes less about completing mandatory paperwork, like the I-9 form, and more about providing a great first impression of your company.

Administrators also have access to many features and people data in Workforce Now. ADP’s payroll capabilities and compliance monitoring are particularly strong, with customizable elements to address more complex needs like shift differentials and tip credits.

Despite this, Workforce Now suffers from the issues of many legacy systems: a complicated system layout and an outdated appearance.

For example, it takes multiple clicks to hire an employee, requiring you to navigate to its HR dashboard, then its hiring and onboarding module, and finally, its various hiring workflows. This is before you even begin entering any new hire information. Compare this to Rippling, which has a handy add or remove employee button in its navigation side rail.

But Workforce Now is exceptionally feature-rich, especially for complex payroll and time clock needs, including support for certified payroll, check delivery, and geofencing. So, if you’re looking for a mainstay product with years of expertise, ADP is your best choice.

Learn more about ADP →

ADP product integrations

ADP is a long-standing company that has acquired or partnered with several companies to build its HRMS capabilities. Workforce Now integrates with nearly 500 products, including industry-specific ones like safety management programs for construction and POS systems for restaurants, retail, and hospitality. This means you can connect Workforce Now’s employee data and management features to the tools you already use to facilitate cross-system data flow while limiting double data entry.

ADP even offers standalone portions of its Workforce Now product, allowing you to extend the capabilities of your already existing systems without purchasing entirely new software. For example, if you like Bob’s employee engagement features but want Workforce Now’s payroll, you can embed Workforce Now into Bob’s Payroll Hub module. Similar capabilities exist for ADP’s compliance, tax, and global payroll products.

The one drawback is that connecting these products can create a clunky experience. For example, just pushing your payroll data into your accounting software’s general ledger (GL) in Workforce Now requires you to remember to do this manually after each payroll. Occasionally, modules open in other browser windows instead of happening seamlessly within one window. This can be frustrating, especially if you want a cleaner way to interact with your HR data.

Workforce trends and analytics

Workforce Now offers advanced workforce analytics through its ADP DataCloud add-on. Here, you can access ADP’s dataset of over 30 million employees to compare your organization to others in your industry. You can even “mash up” or combine your people and financial data for more effective hiring and budgeting.

Workforce Now also uses narrative insights, or natural language descriptions of your workplace data, in its storyboards feature. ADP walks you through common questions, such as the cost of turnover and pay equity, in a more approachable manner than Rippling and UKG Ready. This makes addressing these issues faster since it requires much less manual data manipulation.

In particular, if you’re intentional about DEI initiatives in your company, Workforce Now’s DataCloud has some useful, pre-built tools to understand how your hiring and termination processes affect your diversity landscape. You can even monitor diversity in your organization’s leadership team over time to see if organizational strategies like DEI training and employee resource groups (ERGs) impact your business at its highest executive levels.

ADP displays two windows; one shows the questions, "What is your cost of turnover? How can you save?" above text stating an organization lost 20 employees and spent $520K in costs; another window shows a list of employees at risk for turnover plus potential costs to replace them. — ADP Workforce Now’s DataCloud uses storyboards to help you understand various HR metrics, like turnover cost, plus drill down into the data affecting outcomes. Source: ADP

ADP Workforce Now displays its homepage on a desktop computer and mobile phone; the desktop shows a list of things to do, plus widgets for payroll and timesheets, while the mobile phone provides links for an employee named Darnell to clock in and review their pay.

ADP displays a dashboard for configuring fields on an employee roster report.

ADP displays a workforce analytics dashboard with widgets for earnings, checks, and direct deposit analyses.

ADP displays a dashboard of open roles and their respective hiring managers, recruiters, departments, locations, and costs to date.

ADP does not disclose pricing for its Workforce Now product. Pricing depends on several factors, including headcount, modules needed, and the complexity of your payroll needs. Third-party sources indicate that ADP Workforce can cost anywhere between $18 and $27 PEPM, plus a percentage of your annual subscription cost for implementation.

Workforce Now received the same score as Rippling for pricing: 2.75. Like Rippling, it does not provide a free trial or free plan. But it frequently offers promotions and discounts, which can be attractive if you want to try the software at a reduced cost. Plus, all ADP Workforce Now plans have payroll as a standard feature.

However, other critical features, like benefits administration, leave management, and time tracking, are reserved for higher tiers, making it less likely you can operate with its lowest Select plan. Moreover, users note that ADP has a reputation for low starting prices but lots of service charges for things like garnishments, tax notice inquiries, and custom reports.

ADP also charges an administrative fee for every payroll you run, meaning it’s more expensive if you have multiple payroll schedules or run off-cycle payrolls for bonus checks or to fix payroll errors.

Workforce Now plans

Select

Plus

Premium

Includes:

Payroll and tax.
Basic reporting and analytics.
Onboarding/offboarding workflows.
ADP Assist (virtual assistant).
Voice of the Employee (employee engagement surveys).
Digital recordkeeping and unlimited storage.

Includes everything in Select and:

Benefits administration.

Includes everything in Plus and:

Time tracking.
Leave management.
Scheduling.

Additional modules

Talent acquisition.
Performance management.
Compensation management.
HR Assist (regulatory compliance assistance).
Analytics and enhanced insights.
Learning management.

ADP and Generative AI

If you’re interested in a scalable HRMS and want to dabble in AI for HR purposes, ADP released its new generative AI assistant in January 2024. The new tool draws on ADP’s huge compliance dataset plus your company data to help you complete payroll tasks plus proactively remind employees to submit timecards, complete paperwork, and answer common personnel questions.

As an HRMS buyer, the tool lets you use natural language to draft reports and create graphs for faster and more easily digestible insights into your workforce trends. All Workforce Now plans come with the tool, making it an attractive choice for your HR staff to speed up rote processes.

BambooHR: Best for ease of use

Learn more about BambooHR →

Overall score

3.75/5

User scores

4.38/5

Pricing

3.00/5

Platform/interface

4.06/5

Core HR

3.91/5

Workforce management

4.04/5

Talent acquisition

3.63/5

Performance management

3.10/5

Employee relations

3.55/5

Pros

Plug-and-play workflows and homepage widgets for speedy implementation.
Bundle and volume discounts available.
Internal ATS and career page included in every plan.
Multiple training videos and resources to get employees familiar with the platform.

Cons

Payroll support for U.S. employees only.
Employee engagement surveys limited to eNPS and pre-defined wellness surveys.
Cannot manipulate reports in real time.

Why I picked BambooHR

BambooHR is the easiest and most approachable platform on my list. Although it doesn’t have the customization options of UKG Ready, the automation capabilities of Rippling, or the global support of ADP, you’ll likely find BambooHR the better option if you want to implement an HR software solution quickly.

With an overall score of 3.75, BambooHR does well with automatic workflows, document modification and recordkeeping, and employee communication and engagement. BambooHR also includes an ATS in all plans, which most HRMS reserve for higher tiers. This means you can manage and track a basic candidate pipeline for more consistent hiring.

BambooHR is not the best, however, if you expect rapid growth. While it has all the features of a full-scale HRMS, it doesn’t have options for more specialized workflows. For example, BambooHR’s reporting and analytics are fine for most operations-focused HR teams, but you cannot create custom charts. This can be a major drawback for workforce and big-picture company planning.

Nevertheless, BambooHR is a great choice to reduce the amount of administrative work on your HR teams. Because it contains more tools in the realm of tactical HR, it’s a step above a simple HRIS with only recordkeeping and limited workflow automation.

BambooHR is a comprehensive HR software that stands out among users for its modern-looking interface that you can customize with your company colors and logo. But beyond looking nice, BambooHR is well-liked by employers and employees at SMBs because of its user-friendly interface and simple-to-use workflows.

In fact, BambooHR’s philosophy directly contradicts UKG Ready’s. Where UKG Ready aims to develop highly customized modules and settings to fit your company’s work cadences, BambooHR is more of a one-size-fits-all solution.

Workflows in BambooHR are mostly pre-built, with some ability to configure onboarding and offboarding depending on roles, departments, and locations. However, it cannot build workflows from scratch for various processes unique to your organization, such as disciplinary procedures, employee development plans, or safety tracking. Ad hoc workflow build functions, like Rippling’s Workflow Studio, are also nonexistent.

However, this makes BambooHR significantly more accessible than others on my shortlist. Fewer configuration options also mean it takes less time to start or complete HR processes, like adding a new employee, creating a job requisition, or requesting and giving feedback to peers. For example, BambooHR’s feedback workflow is only two questions long to encourage quicker and more frequent exchanges.

BambooHR is a good choice if you want access to strategic HR operations, like compensation banding, talent pools for candidate relationship management (CRM), and training assessments, without complicated implementation. You can also use BambooHR to develop good HR processes, like consistent onboarding cadences and double-blind assessments in performance reviews, if you don’t currently have a tried-and-true procedure.

The drawback is that BambooHR is not the most scalable platform. It doesn’t offer HRO services, support for international workforces, or highly customizable analytics. As a result, you’re likely to experience better success with BambooHR if you’re a small domestic company without significant expansion plans.

Intuitive interface

BambooHR operates much like internet browsers, such as Google Chrome and Apple Safari. Access to your account and other system settings are next to your Avatar in the top right corner. Meanwhile, tabs across the top house various HR operations, like recruitment, payroll, and reports. Entering any module opens up more features in subsequent tabs or a navigation sidebar.

Access to tabs, profile information, and settings change dynamically based on your security levels. You don’t have to flip between system administrator and employee views like in TriNet HR Platform or Gusto. Each feature also includes guided instructions to help start the process, reducing the need for in-depth training.

For example, adding a new access level in BambooHR is much easier than Rippling or BambooHR. BambooHR simply asks what you want employees to do and what you want employees to see when you make new access levels. It also uses IT jargon sparingly, making it easier for your HR team to configure.

ALT: BambooHR displays a custom access level dashboard with the tab "What can people with this access level see" highlighted and options to grant or take away view access for various data fields. — BambooHR uses a step-by-step flow to help HR staff create custom access levels for employees and external users, reducing the dependency on your IT staff. Source: TechnologyAdvice

Employee community

BambooHR’s new employee community feature is a major step up from its previous announcements feature inside the “what’s happening” homepage widget. Employees and system administrators can now access a company newsfeed on their home dashboard.

Employee community houses company announcements, events, and peer-to-peer recognition. What’s great is that it operates similar to popular communication tools like Slack. Managers can create separate communication groups for messaging between their direct reports, while employees can create groups around various topics.

For example, employees can create a pet lover group dedicated to their furry, feathered, or scaly friends to find and relate to other staff with the same interest. Employee community also supports polls, emojis, GIFs, and replies for more engagement and fun. It even integrates with Slack, making it easier for HR and administrators to share information across all company channels.

However, because the feature is so new, expect initial bugs as BambooHR rolls out its capabilities to Pro plan subscribers. The module also has a different interface than the rest of BambooHR, creating a slightly disjointed experience.

That said, its data analytics and ability to collect confirmations that important company announcements were viewed and read are great ways for you to improve upon the efficiency and effectiveness of company communications.

ALT: BambooHR displays its Employe Community insights dashboard with overview numbers on posts made, post views, active members, and comments made for December 2023, plus a doughnut chart showing what post types were most popular. — BambooHR’s new Employee Community feature lets you see what posts received the most engagement so you can modify your employee communication strategy accordingly. Source: BambooHR

BambooHR displays a homepage with widgets on time off, company tasks, and team members in or out of the office, plus a button in the top right corner to edit the widgets.

BambooHR displays an employee turnover dashboard with a vertical bar chart of termination reasons by month plus doughnut charts with detailed views of terminations by manager and length of service.

BambooHR displays its people directory in a spreadsheet with employee photos, names, job titles, locations, employment statuses, and hire dates.

BambooHR does not reveal starting pricing on its website, so you must contact its sales team for a customized quote. It also recently overhauled its pricing and subscription tiers.

BambooHR has two new subscription plans, Core and Pro, which replace its Essentials and Advantage plans. The new plans are positive changes since both offer more features to start. For example, BambooHR’s Core plan now includes onboarding, which its Essentials plan did not. This capability alone brings BambooHR on par with most HRIS and HRMS where basic recordkeeping and onboarding come standard.

Another great addition to its subscription plans is that BambooHR now includes its ATS in all tiers. This is a huge differentiator since access to recruitment features means more consistent and streamlined hiring to maintain proper staffing and encourage growth.

BambooHR follows a similar pricing model as before. If you have 25 employees or fewer, you pay a flat monthly price for either plan. If you have more than 25 employees, pricing changes to a PEPM model. BambooRH also offers volume discounts once you cross a particular headcount.

With these changes, BambooHR earned a 3 out of 5 for pricing, with its starting plan mirroring competitors like Rippling and TriNet HR Platform.

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Core*

Pro*

For up to 25 employees: $250 per month flat rate.
For more than 25 employees: $10 per employee per month (PEPM).
Volume discount applies after 25 or more employees.
Includes:
- HRIS and reporting.
- Hiring and onboarding.
- Time off and benefits tracking.
- Access to integrations marketplace.

For up to 25 employees: $425 per month flat rate.
For more than 25 employees: $17 PEPM.
Volume discount applies after 25 or more employees.
Includes everything in Core, plus:
- Performance management.
- Employee experience and rewards.
- Employee community.

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Payroll.**
Benefits administration.
Time tracking.

* There is a one-time implementation fee for the Core and Pro plans and the Payroll add-on. If you have fewer than 25 employees, you can opt for the QuickStart implementation for a lower fee.

** Please note that additional factors, like the number of FEINs or states where you need payroll, can affect this price. Please contact BambooHR for specific pricing quotes.

Currently, BambooHR offers a 15% discount if you combine its payroll and benefits administration add-ons with its Core or Pro plans. Visit BambooHR below to learn more.

Visit BambooHR

BambooHR and small business HR

Besides being the best HR platform for small businesses, BambooHR is also in many of our other HR buyer’s guides. Check them out below:

UKG Ready: Best for customization

UKG Ready employee profile. Source: UKG Ready

Overall score

3.66/5

User scores

4.17/5

Pricing

0.38/5

Platform/interface

3.81/5

Core HR

4.75/5

Workforce management

4.73/5

Talent acquisition

4.69/5

Performance management

4.24/5

Employee relations

2.40/5

Pros

Includes strategic-heavy HR features, such as succession planning, industry benchmarking, talent development, and skills gap analysis.
Strong recruitment and benefits administration modules for attracting top candidates.
Universal search function to access modules and information quickly.
Available in 15 languages to improve platform navigation.

Cons

Significant learning curve and confusing layout.
Native payroll for the U.S. and Canada only.
Need to purchase its employee engagement and People Insights modules for sentiment analysis.
No native peer-to-peer recognition feature.

Why I picked UKG Ready

UKG Ready impressed me with its ability to customize each module to suit your specific HR processes. This means you create a tailor-made HR system with operations that occur your way, compared to more pre-configured platforms like BambooHR.

UKG’s customization also improves collaboration and consistency across teams. For example, if you want hiring managers to quickly look into recruitment metrics like time-to-fill for one of your open positions, you don’t have to create or schedule reports for them. It’s just as simple as creating a report view, saving it, and placing it in a widget for them to see in real time.

Besides making it easier for employees to find the information they need, you can also control the experience of less tech-savvy employees. You can create dashboards, hide or limit access to various information, and improve the efficiency of common HR processes, like injury recordkeeping.

Despite UKG Ready’s score of 3.66, its customization comes at a price. Its complex UI can take some time to understand. If your business is smaller, UKG Ready might be overwhelming as a first-time HRMS. But if you’ve outgrown more simplistic HRMS options like Gusto or TriNet HR Platform, UKG Ready can create a more personalized experience for your increasingly diverse teams and business model.

Formerly Kronos Incorporated’s Workforce Ready, UKG Ready is UKG’s all-in-one small and midsize business (SMB) HR suite. Although small businesses can use UKG Ready, its rather complicated interface and feature set make it a better option for midsize companies needing more niche capabilities.

UKG Ready’s interface looks and functions much like a spreadsheet program. Modules like its employee roster, organizational chart, goal tracking, and ATS all use a configurable, report-like workspace for entering and viewing the data you need.

The benefit is that it is easy to manipulate and drill down to see the information you need at any time. But the drawback is that it takes significant time to build out each module how you want and train your staff on the program, compared to more plug-and-play options like BambooHR.

UKG Ready also rivals ADP Workforce Now when it comes to payroll and time-tracking capabilities. This includes services like certified payroll, check signing and delivery, and shift scheduling that major payroll competitors, like Gusto, don’t offer.

Yet, of particular interest for an HRMS buyer is UKG Ready’s surprisingly capable hiring module. While nowhere near standalone recruitment options, it does have many more features than most top HR systems with an internal ATS.

For example, résumé parsing, knockout questions, and text message communication are great tools for quickly sorting through candidates’ applications and starting conversations. It even includes characteristics typical of candidate relationship management (CRM) systems, such as career sites and applicant self-service.

Despite this, be prepared for a lengthy ramp-up time if you choose UKG Ready. Users note that implementation typically takes longer than most due to its high customizability and less-than-intuitive setup. You’ll also need to factor in system training for your middle managers. Yet, it might be a better choice than options like Namely, which cannot handle companies with multiple entities and competing workflows.

Learn more about UKG →

Configurable interface

Unlike others in my roundup, with UKG Ready, you can customize every aspect of the system to meet your needs. Beyond attaching your company logo, you can add or remove widgets on your home screen to quickly access the data most important to you. Although BambooHR offers similar capabilities, its widgets are pre-built and limited in function.

By contrast, you can add quick access buttons to any module you want in UKG Ready’s start bar at the top of the screen and then add widgets that give you a small glimpse into your most pressing data. For example, a middle manager might customize their screen to see the attendance board and time statistics widgets to assess who is in or out.

Your HR team, on the other hand, may have their dashboard set up to view more strategic business needs, such as succession charts and frequently accessed reports. You can do this within every module, improving work efficiency since you only focus on the workflows you use most often and hide the rest.

ALT: UKG Ready displays a homepage dashboard with icons linking to processes like account info, time, and daily tasks, plus widgets for clocking in and out, saved reports, and company announcements. — You can configure each module in UKG Ready with the widgets, charts, or reports you need, making it easy to find information. Source: UKG Ready

Advanced reports and recordkeeping

UKG Ready collects and tracks multiple information on your people, including reports on employee usage, login, and even system preferences. Besides helping you improve the experience for your employees, it helps you in the event of audits. It also gives you insight into the platform’s ROI and security, which is especially important with an increased employee headcount.

UKG Ready’s report functionality is also noteworthy, competing against enterprise HR software like Workday. Because each module functions like a report, it’s easy to drill down to understand standard HR metrics like attrition, flight risks, and employee sentiment.

Pair this with its new generative AI assistant, UKG Bryte, and you can gather even more information on your company’s performance metrics, like turnover costs by location, equitable compensation management, and employee work-life balance. For growing businesses, this provides you with the data to ensure you’re keeping your employees happy and your business prepared for any transformational business changes, like expansion or restructuring.

UKG displays a pop-up window with the question, "Who are the top employees with overtime at the Tampa store?" above a report, bar graph, and copy explaining the visualizations and that an employee named Brigit Beard has the highest overtime hours. — You can ask Bryte AI in UKG Ready about specific people data, and it will synthesize this information into easily digestible charts and reports for quicker data insights. Source: UKG

A tablet and mobile phone show two different views of UKG Ready's recruitment module; the tablet displays its recruitment homepage with reports for open job requisitions, new job applications, and time-to-hire metrics; the mobile phone shows a job applicant's view of a job opening for a driver, including salary, location, job time, and address information plus an apply button.

UKG Ready displays a dashboard in its team module with a list of company, personal, and shared goals, plus a bar chart showing goal progress.

UKG Ready displays a timesheet dashboard on a desktop computer with a list of employee names and their current fatigue levels from low to high, plus a sidebar with data points analyzing an employee named Arni's risk of fatigue.

A tablet and mobile phone show two views of UKG Ready's benefits enrollment; the tablet displays side-by-side views of healthcare costs for a Cigna HSA and Cigna PPO plan; the mobile phone shows a list of employee benefits choices.

Like many HR platforms targeting midsize businesses or larger, UKG Ready does not disclose its pricing. You will have to call their sales team for a custom quote. Third-party sources indicate that, depending on your employee headcount and the modules you need, pricing can range from $21 to $29 PEPM, putting it on par with ADP Workforce Now.

Because UKG Ready lacks transparency around pricing, implementation fees, discounts, and contracts, it earned the lowest pricing in my shortlist at only 0.38. UKG Ready has many features, but its modular structure can result in higher prices to start, especially compared to vendors that use tier HR pricing, like Gusto and BambooHR.

But UKG Ready’s customization can be very attractive, and you may want to pay more to develop a platform centered around your business’s unique processes. Most vendors with hidden pricing likely offer volume, annual, or industry-specific discounts, plus the ability to negotiate.

Below are the different modules that UKG Ready offers:

HR: onboarding, self-service, benefits administration, ACA management, and COBRA administration.
Payroll: compliance, insights, and tax services.
Talent: ATS and succession planning, plus compensation, performance, and learning management.
Time and attendance: timekeeping, absence tracking, leave management, and compliance rules management.
Scheduling: automated schedules, AI suggestions, and compliance guidelines management.
Analytics: reporting, AI insights, benchmarks, and sentiment analysis.
Ready boost: price package that includes all critical modules (HR, payroll, and timekeeping) and an accelerated, 100-day implementation timeline.

Paycor: Best for workforce development

Learn more about Paycor →

Overall score

3.63/5

User scores

4.03/5

Pricing

2.13/5

Platform/interface

3.53/5

Core HR

3.50/5

Workforce management

4.44/5

Talent acquisition

3.94/5

Performance management

4.19/5

Employee relations

3.58/5

Pros

Industry-specific benchmarking tools to understand how you perform to your peers.
Financial learning and counseling tools in its mobile app to improve employee financial security.
Customizable pay grid for company-specific pay cadences and faster processing.

Cons

Expensive for small businesses since key modules, like onboarding, benefits administration, and time-tracking, are in higher-tier plans or paid add-ons.
Navigation is clunky with some modules, like analytics, having a different appearance from the whole.
Lacks managed HR services or support for international workforces.

Why I picked Paycor

Paycor is an excellent choice to automate your core HR operations so you can focus on more meaningful workforce development. Except for UKG Ready, Paycor is the most feature-rich option for talent management. And even though UKG Ready has similar features, Paycor’s dashboard is more accessible for growing HR teams.

In particular, Paycor enables employees to manage their professional career goals. Managers can request employee feedback anytime to understand how to motivate their teams better and build psychological safety. Paycor also enables employees to take learning courses at their convenience to bolster their career advancement.

Paycor also provides opportunities for your teams to take action based on data insights. For example, skill assessments filter into performance review workflows to add context to employees’ successes and areas of opportunity during the review period.

However, Paycor only received a 3.63 score overall for its clunky system navigation. Its starting price is also off-putting, especially if you’re a small business or startup that wants to take advantage of the tactical advantages of an HRMS, like hiring and upskilling, despite your headcount.

Still, I’d recommend Paycor if you want to improve the employee experience. Employees can engage directly with each other in Paycor to foster a positive company culture. Meanwhile, on-demand pay gives employees access to their funds when needed and Paycor’s compensation management can minimize pay inequity. As a result, Paycor is a better choice if you want capabilities to increase employee retention while reducing manual HR operations.

Paycor may have started as a payroll-focused software solution but now includes features that approach a full human capital management (HCM) system. Although it doesn’t offer the global support of Rippling or ADP, like UKG Ready, it’s the best choice if you need tools for developing and retaining your workforce.

For example, Paycor includes dedicated modules, from leadership training to employee engagement surveys, company newsfeeds, and peer-to-peer recognition. These features allow you to take steps to address concerns based on insights from your people data, like burnout, attrition, and lack of DEI in the workplace. Its advanced analytics, such as resignation predictions, lets you take proactive measures to address turnover risk factors, like poor compensation, to increase the likelihood of keeping star employees.

Paycor is also quite robust when it comes to operational HR concerns. Its customizable pay grid allows you to change and add pay code columns and run off-cycle payrolls at will, giving you more freedom to run payroll based on your business needs. You can also work on pay periods months in advance for more strategic planning, such as determining the best time to pay discretionary holiday bonuses.

Paycor is also a strong solution for traditional operational needs, whether your workforce is in or out of an office. Advanced scheduling allows you to assign shifts based on employee availabilities and predicted labor needs. Its benefits advisor feature improves the employee experience during open enrollment by helping them determine the right benefits plans based on their circumstances. It also offers physical time clocks for your onsite employees.

However, Paycor, like UKG Ready and Paylocity, does not have the most modern appearance. Modules also have an inconsistent interface, meaning controls are in different locations than expected. Paycor houses module settings in various places, such as inside the module itself or on its navigation side rail. As a result, it takes longer to learn how to navigate and modify each module to your specific HR needs.

Still, a somewhat outdated appearance might be the least of your concerns, considering Paycor’s advanced payroll and workforce management features.

Employee training and development

Paycor has an internal learning management system (LMS) and manager-specific training modules to support employees’ professional development. With Paycor’s LMS, administrators can create and assign training courses to employees based on their hire date or as needed. Employees can also enroll in courses to satisfy development plans or refresh their knowledge in certain areas.

Unlike BambooHR, course assignments do not have to revolve around your onboarding process. You can develop courses for company-specific processes, such as training around your company’s social media use. Paycor also has a special place to track certifications so you can ensure employees complete necessary courses before current certifications expire.

Paycor Paths is also a dedicated module for managers to improve their leadership effectiveness. Managers issue leadership surveys to their direct reports, and Paycor synthesizes responses into scores in various arenas, like recognition and performance reviews. Your managers can then use this information to take learning paths to improve their soft skills in areas like feedback and communication.

Although this doesn’t replace one-on-one coaching and mentoring, it does gives managers clearer insights into their strengths and weaknesses. Plus, instilling good managerial habits can help managers address their employees’ concerns more effectively to promote greater workplace satisfaction and productivity.

Paycor displays an insights dashboard with cards showing percentage data on how well a manager performs in areas related to coaching, optimization, and retention, plus insights into one-on-one meetings, recognition, and performance reviews. — Managers can use Paycor to solicit feedback from their direct reports, identify areas of opportunity, and take action to improve in the areas they are weakest. Source: Paycor

Skills assessments and tracking

Paycor’s career management software allows you to measure employee competencies, pinpoint skill gaps, outline career paths, and solidify role responsibilities. Besides aiding employees in their professional development, you can use the tool for succession planning and providing transparent expectations for career advancement.

Employees can view their role profiles from their performance dashboards and assess their skill competencies. Managers can segment skills by different levels to better understand skill mastery and the employee’s readiness for new positions. They can also tie competencies to upcoming performance reviews to monitor their direct reports’ progress in developing their skills.

Paycor’s employee skill features are less advanced than those of HCM or standalone competency management software. For example, your HR staff has to set up skill competencies for each role based on your job descriptions or a Paycor template, which can be lengthy.

Its assessment feature is also somewhat subjective since managers and direct reports can only choose between “development,” “meeting expectations,” or “exceeding expectations” to evaluate each competency. This is instead of tying each skill to more objective evaluations, like assessment tests or LMS courses.

Nevertheless, Paycor’s skills assessments and new AI can help you understand the current strength of your workforce and suggest training opportunities for more targeted upskilling or recruitment initiatives.

Paycor displays a people analytics dashboard with a doughnut chart illustrating how many employees are not interested, ready, or not ready for a promotion, plus a list of employee data points below the chart. — Your HR and management teams can use Paycor’s career management feature to track the competency of your workforce and remain prepared for talent fluctuations. Source: Paycor

Paycor displays a homepage with alerts indicating 19 compliance warnings and 17 pending new hires, plus a company newsfeed with recent posts, a widget showing time insights, and a pop-up chat window with an employee named Connie.

Paycor displays its compliance warnings dashboard with three cards indicating that the company has one tax registration issue, 17 tax recommendations, and one employee address concern.

Paycor displays a staff directory with a list of employee names, pictures, locations, and departments, plus options on the left to filter and sort by status, department, manager, and job title.

Paycor displays a performance dashboard with a list of items needing attention, like management input and one-on-one discussions, plus a company activity feed on the right rail.

Paycor displays a list of modules like engage, my team, leader insights, my tasks, and alerts, plus buttons to rearrange them on the page.

Paycor offers two pricing tiers depending on your business: small and mid-market. Although Paycor does not disclose pricing for its mid-market product, companies with fewer than 50 employees can access its small business pricing plans starting at $99 per month plus $6 PEPM.

Compared to other options in my HRMS shortlist, Paycor is expensive for what you get, especially if you have few employees. While you get access to multi-state payroll and tax services in all its plans, it is the only module you receive in its lowest tier, Basic.

This is quite costly compared to other payroll-focused solutions. OnPay, for example, is $40 per month plus $6 PEPM and includes benefits administration and core HR modules, like onboarding. Plus, since BambooHR revamped its pricing plans, Paycor is now the only product on my list that doesn’t offer onboarding standard.

This severely affected Paycor’s score for pricing, resulting in a score of 2.13 out of 5. However, it is the only platform with a 14-day free trial of its HR, onboarding, payroll, and time modules. If you want to get a feel for the platform before purchasing, Paycor is a great option.

Paycor small business packages

Basic

Essential

Core

Complete

Starts at $99 per month plus $6 PEPM.

Includes:

Federal, state, and local tax filings.
Client-managed garnishments.
Check stuffing.
Basic reporting (pre-built reports and scheduled reporting).
New hire filing.
On-demand pay.
AutoRun payroll.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC).

Includes everything in Basic, plus:

Labor law posters.
Onboarding.
Time off management.
Report builder.
Job costing.
401(k) integrations and EDI processing.
General ledger report and electronic GL.
E-Verify service.
Recruit and hire.
Basic analytics.
HR support center.

Includes everything in Essential, plus:

On-demand HR support.
Expense management.
Employee import.
HR, COR leadership, and engage modules.

Includes everything in Core, plus:

Career management.
Compensation planning.
Talent development.

Add-ons

Workers’ compensation.
Time and scheduling.
Benefits administration.
Recruiting.

Note: Paycor offers a 50% discount on all its small business plans for the first six months, plus waived setup fees. For its mid-market tier, you can get HCM Cor free for one month, which includes payroll, HR, onboarding, and analytics modules.

HR for the deskless workforce

Paycor stands out for its mobile app, which makes it easier for employees to complete basic HR processes without contacting the HR department. Learn more about its HR app in Best HR Apps.

Honorable mentions

If my choices above aren’t right for you, check out my runners-up below for more options to fit your budget and business goals.

Paylocity: Best for recruitment

Alternative for: Paycor and UKG Ready

Overall score: 3.74/5

When to choose Paylocity

Paylocity is very similar to Paycor, with customizable and advanced payroll plus support for more complex HR needs like compensation budgeting, performance management, and employee engagement. Paylocity’s recruitment module is particularly strong, especially if you’re in an industry with a high turnover, like restaurant and retail.

A rather unique feature of Paylocity is the ability to create job application QR codes and posters that you can print and post in your workplace. These codes make it easy for walk-in candidates to apply using their phones. It also speeds up candidate processing since you don’t manually input information into your HRMS’s ATS from paper applications.

Why it didn’t make the list

Paylocity has many features but poor execution. Navigating the platform is tedious for both system administrators and employees because Paylocity doesn’t organize features where you would expect.

For example, you cannot access your employee profile directly from your avatar photo in the upper right corner. Instead, you must enter Paylocity’s self-service or HR and payroll modules for your personnel data. Even more confusing is that each area displays your data differently, making for an inconsistent experience.

Namely: Best for employee engagement

Alternative for: Rippling and BambooHR

Overall score: 3.52/5

When to choose Namely

Namely has an employee newsfeed that serves as the platform’s central navigation hub. It mimics prominent social media platforms, making it a fun tool for employees to keep apprised of company news. It also encourages more natural peer-to-peer appreciation. Because of this, Namely is a great option if you are experiencing low HRMS usage rates among your employees.

Why it didn’t make the list

Namely has rather weak reporting and analytics. It also does not support international teams. While it does offer managed payroll and benefits administration services, Namely works better if you have limited domestic growth goals, especially because you cannot control multiple entities from the same account.

Gusto: Best value for money

Alternative for: BambooHR

Overall score: 3.34/5