Comparison · verified August 2026
Best payroll software for small businesses in India
Almost every product here says statutory compliance and means it can calculate the deduction. This page ranks them on whether they produce the file the government actually wants.
The short answer
If you want the filing pack produced in-house, buy greytHR at Rs 29,940. If you want proper payroll for as little as possible, buy Zoho Payroll at Rs 12,000, or nothing at all under 10 employees. If you want somebody else to pay and file it, RazorpayX is the only one claiming to.
Our own product is on this page in fifth place. It is by far the cheapest thing here and it produces none of the statutory files, which on this page's question is the answer that matters. If your accountant already files your returns, that fifth place is exactly the buy you want. If they do not, it is not.
The word doing the work throughout this category is compliance. It is used by products that generate a signed Form 16 and by products that print a number on a payslip, and you cannot tell which you are buying from a pricing page. That is what the table below is for.
What each one costs a 25-person business for a year
The cheapest tier of each product that can actually run a payroll, at 25 employees, for a year. Seat floors are priced in rather than footnoted: greytHR and factoHR both bundle 50 employees into every published tier and RazorpayX Elite covers 50, so a business of 25 pays the 50-employee price at all three. Keka has no row because it publishes no prices.
| Product | What you are buying | Per year | Per employee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shiftelio | Rs 5,999 band, up to 25 staff. Calculates PF, ESI, PT and TDS. Produces no statutory file | Rs 5,999 | Rs 240 |
| Zoho Payroll | Standard, annual billing, includes 25 employees. Free up to 10. Excludes GST | Rs 12,000 | Rs 480 |
| Kredily | Payroll OS. The cheapest tier that can run a payroll at all | Rs 14,988 | Rs 600 |
| greytHR | Essential. Generates the ECR file, ESI challans and Form 16. Billed as 50 employees | Rs 29,940 | Rs 1,198 |
| factoHR | Core, billed quarterly. Billed as 50 employees. Statutory output not itemised | Rs 59,988 | Rs 2,400 |
| RazorpayX Payroll | Elite, covering 50. Prime stops at 20 employees. Claims payments and filings | Rs 65,988 | Rs 2,640 |
| Keka | Publishes no prices at any tier. Sales-gated by design | Not published | Not published |
Every figure comes from the vendor's own published pricing page, read in August 2026. Zoho Payroll states its prices exclude GST; assume the same applies elsewhere unless a vendor says otherwise. Our own row is priced from our public pricing page and its statutory column was checked against our source code rather than our marketing.
Does it produce the file, or only the number?
The question this page exists for, answered from each vendor's own documentation. Where an entry says nothing itemised, that means the vendor names no individual statutory output on the pages we could read, not that the product certainly lacks one. Ask for the list of documents by name.
- IncludedgreytHRYes, and documented in its own help pages: a Generate ECR File button for PF, ESI challans, and Form 16 with Part A and Part B plus Form 12BA, digitally signed
- IncludedRazorpayX PayrollClaims more than anyone: calculation, payment and filing, on all three paid tiers. The claim is a single ticked row and names no individual document, so get the list in writing
- IncludedZoho PayrollForm 16 is named as a download. EPF, ESI, state-wise PT and LWF are calculated. Form 24Q, Form 12BB, ECR and the word challan appear nowhere we could read
- IncludedKredilyPF and ESI challans, Form 12BB and Form 16 are all named, and all sit on the paid tiers. Their own comparison table says so plainly, which is more than most manage
- Costs extraShiftelioNo. We calculate PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS and export a salary statement, attendance register and timesheet. We produce no ECR file, no challan, no return, no Form 24Q and no Form 16, and we file nothing
- Costs extrafactoHRNothing itemised. The pricing page names no statutory output individually, so there is nothing published to check
- Costs extraKekaNothing published, along with no prices. Sales-gated by design
How this list was ranked
Ordered by what the software produces, not by what it costs. That is why our own product sits fifth while being less than half the price of anything above it, and why the third entry is the most expensive on the page.
- Documented beats advertised. greytHR ranks first because its statutory claims appear in its own product help pages as named buttons and screens, not on a marketing page. A help article describing how to generate the ECR file is evidence of software; a feature bullet is evidence of a copywriter.
- An itemised claim beats a broad one. RazorpayX makes the strongest claim on the page, calculation plus payment plus filing, in one ticked row naming no document. It ranks third rather than first for exactly that reason: we cannot check it, and neither can you until you have the list in writing.
- Free is ranked on what it excludes. Kredily is free at any headcount and its own comparison table excludes challans, Form 16 and Form 12BB from that tier. Publishing that plainly is to its credit and is why it ranks fourth rather than lower.
- We are ranked on the same rule as everyone else. Shiftelio calculates PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS and produces no statutory file, so it ranks fifth on a page about producing statutory files. Its price is in the table and the reader can weigh it.
- An unpriced product cannot be compared. Keka publishes no prices and itemises no statutory output. It is a well-regarded product and it ranks last here on disclosure alone, which the entry says explicitly.
Best in each category
Produces more statutory output than anything else here
Cheapest product here that generates Form 16
The only one that claims to pay and file, not just produce
Best free tier, and the clearest about what free excludes
Cheapest here, and the one that produces the fewest statutory files
Widest HR suite on the page, if payroll is only part of what you want
Well-regarded, and impossible to compare
The question that eliminates most of this list
Who uploads the ECR file to the EPFO portal next month?
If the answer is your accountant, and they are content to work from a salary statement, then the statutory column above does not apply to you and you should buy on price and on how the numbers get into the payroll in the first place. That is the cheap end of this table.
If the answer is you, then only two products here reduce that job meaningfully and one of them claims to remove it. Ask each vendor to show you the generated file itself in a trial, not the feature list, and check the format before you buy.
The whole list at a glance
| # | Product | Billing shape | Location verification | At 25 staff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | greytHR | Essential at Rs 2,495 a month and Growth at Rs 4,495 a month, each bundling 50 employees, then Rs 45 and Rs 85 per employee above 50. Premium is quoted. No free plan, a 7 day trial only. | Not the point of this page, but for completeness: GPS attendance is a paid add-on at Rs 140 per user per month, which is why greytHR ranks lower on our GPS comparison than it does here. | Rs 29,940 a year on Essential, because 25 employees are billed as 50 |
| 2 | Zoho Payroll | Free up to 10 employees. Standard is Rs 1,000 a month on annual billing and includes 25 employees, then Rs 40 each. Professional is Rs 3,000 and Premium Rs 4,000, each including 50. Prices exclude GST. | Not applicable. This is a payroll product rather than an attendance one, which is worth knowing before you compare it to anything else in our cluster. | Rs 12,000 a year on Standard, which includes exactly 25 employees, plus GST |
| 3 | RazorpayX Payroll | Prime at Rs 2,499 a month for up to 20 employees. Elite at Rs 5,499 a month covering 50, then Rs 150 per employee. Enterprise is quoted. No free tier published. | Not applicable. A payroll and compliance product, not an attendance one. | Rs 65,988 a year on Elite, because Prime stops at 20 employees |
| 4 | Kredily | Free forever at Rs 0 with no employee limit, marked on their own page as subject to an unpublished active usage policy. Payroll OS is Rs 1,249 a month and Professional Rs 1,749, each covering 25 employees. | Selfie and GPS start at Professional. Not relevant to this page, but it means the payroll tier and the attendance tier are not the same tier. | Rs 14,988 a year on Payroll OS, the cheapest tier that can run a payroll at all |
| 5 | Shiftelioour product | Flat annual bands, not per seat. Rs 5,999 a year for up to 25 staff, Rs 14,999 for up to 100. | GPS attendance, geofencing, selfie capture and offline punching are in every plan, including the cheapest, which is the thing we are actually good at and the reason we rank first on our other comparisons. | Rs 5,999 for 25 staff, Rs 240 a head, less than half the cheapest paid tier of anything else on this page |
| 6 | factoHR | Free up to 20 employees, then Core Rs 4,999, Premium Rs 5,999 or Ultimate Rs 6,999 a month, each covering up to 50 employees, with Rs 69 to Rs 119 per employee beyond that. Indian plans are billed quarterly. | Geofencing is not in Core; it starts at Premium. Selfie punch and face recognition are dollar-priced add-ons on top of a rupee plan. | Rs 59,988 a year on Core, because 25 employees pay the 50-employee price |
| 7 | Keka | None published. The pricing page lists Foundation, Strength and Growth for HRMS and payroll, with no price against any of them, and offers a free trial whose length is not stated. | Not published either, for the same reason. | Unknown. Nothing on this page can be compared to a number that does not exist |
1 of 7
greytHR
Produces more statutory output than anything else here
A business that wants the actual files, generated in-house.
| Billing | Essential at Rs 2,495 a month and Growth at Rs 4,495 a month, each bundling 50 employees, then Rs 45 and Rs 85 per employee above 50. Premium is quoted. No free plan, a 7 day trial only. |
|---|---|
| Location | Not the point of this page, but for completeness: GPS attendance is a paid add-on at Rs 140 per user per month, which is why greytHR ranks lower on our GPS comparison than it does here. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 29,940 a year on Essential, because 25 employees are billed as 50 |
| Source | greythr.com/pricing for the plan rates and the greytHR admin help desk for the statutory output, both read August 2026. The help desk documents a Generate ECR File button, ESI challans and digitally signed Form 16 and 12BA. |
Choose it when
You want the artefacts and you want them produced by the software rather than by your accountant. This is the only entry on the page whose statutory claims are documented in its own product help pages rather than asserted on a marketing page: a named button that writes the PF ECR text file, ESI challans, and Form 16 with Part A and Part B, digitally signed. If your reason for buying payroll software is the month-end filing pack, buy this and stop reading.
Look elsewhere when
You have fifteen people. Both tiers bundle 50 employees into the price, so a small business pays for 50 either way and the effective per-head cost is double the headline. It is also five times our price and two and a half times Zoho Payroll, and if your CA files the returns from a salary statement anyway you are paying for a capability you will not use.
2 of 7
Zoho Payroll
Cheapest product here that generates Form 16
A small Indian business that wants payroll done properly for very little.
| Billing | Free up to 10 employees. Standard is Rs 1,000 a month on annual billing and includes 25 employees, then Rs 40 each. Professional is Rs 3,000 and Premium Rs 4,000, each including 50. Prices exclude GST. |
|---|---|
| Location | Not applicable. This is a payroll product rather than an attendance one, which is worth knowing before you compare it to anything else in our cluster. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 12,000 a year on Standard, which includes exactly 25 employees, plus GST |
| Source | zoho.com/in/payroll pricing and features pages, read August 2026. Form 16 is named as an employee download. Form 24Q, Form 12BB, ECR and the word challan do not appear on either page. |
Choose it when
You are under 25 people and you want EPF, ESI, state-wise professional tax and LWF calculated correctly, payslips issued, and Form 16 available for download, for Rs 12,000 a year. Under 10 people it is free. On price-per-capability this is the best value on the page and it is not close.
Look elsewhere when
You expected the whole filing pack. Form 16 is named; the ECR file, the ESI challan and Form 24Q are not named anywhere we could read, so ask specifically before assuming. Be careful too not to confuse this with Zoho People, which is the attendance product and a separate subscription: if you need both you are buying twice.
3 of 7
RazorpayX Payroll
The only one that claims to pay and file, not just produce
A founder who wants compliance to be somebody else’s problem entirely.
| Billing | Prime at Rs 2,499 a month for up to 20 employees. Elite at Rs 5,499 a month covering 50, then Rs 150 per employee. Enterprise is quoted. No free tier published. |
|---|---|
| Location | Not applicable. A payroll and compliance product, not an attendance one. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 65,988 a year on Elite, because Prime stops at 20 employees |
| Source | razorpay.com/payroll/pricing, read August 2026. The feature table carries a single row reading "Compliance Calculation, Payments & Filings", ticked on all three paid tiers, and does not itemise which documents it covers. |
Choose it when
You want the deduction calculated, the money actually paid to the department, and the return actually filed, and you would rather buy that outcome than manage it. Nothing else on this page claims to do the paying and the filing. For a founder with no accountant and no patience for the EPFO portal, that is worth real money.
Look elsewhere when
You want to know exactly what you are buying. The strongest compliance claim here is also the least itemised: one ticked row, no list of documents, no mention of ECR, Form 24Q or Form 16 by name. Get that list in writing before you sign, because "filings" covering PF and ESI but not TDS is a very different product from one covering all three. Note also the hard step at 20 employees: 21 people moves you from Rs 29,988 to Rs 65,988.
4 of 7
Kredily
Best free tier, and the clearest about what free excludes
Records now, payroll when you can afford it.
| Billing | Free forever at Rs 0 with no employee limit, marked on their own page as subject to an unpublished active usage policy. Payroll OS is Rs 1,249 a month and Professional Rs 1,749, each covering 25 employees. |
|---|---|
| Location | Selfie and GPS start at Professional. Not relevant to this page, but it means the payroll tier and the attendance tier are not the same tier. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 14,988 a year on Payroll OS, the cheapest tier that can run a payroll at all |
| Source | kredily.com/pricing including the plan comparison matrix, read August 2026. That matrix is the source for what the free tier excludes. |
Choose it when
You want an employee database, self-onboarding, leave and statutory calculation for nothing while you decide. No other free plan in this category has no headcount cap. Credit where it is due: their comparison table is the most honest document any vendor on this page publishes, because it names exactly what free does not include instead of hiding it behind an asterisk.
Look elsewhere when
You read "free payroll" and stopped there. Free Forever excludes salary payouts, PF and ESI challans, Form 12BB, Form 16, overtime, daily wages, mid-month payouts and exit settlements. All of it starts at Payroll OS, Rs 14,988 a year for 25, which is more than Zoho Payroll charges for a tier that generates Form 16. And the free offer carries an asterisk reading subject to active usage policy, a policy not published anywhere we could find.
5 of 7 · our product
Shiftelio
Cheapest here, and the one that produces the fewest statutory files
A business whose CA files the returns and who needs the numbers to be right.
| Billing | Flat annual bands, not per seat. Rs 5,999 a year for up to 25 staff, Rs 14,999 for up to 100. |
|---|---|
| Location | GPS attendance, geofencing, selfie capture and offline punching are in every plan, including the cheapest, which is the thing we are actually good at and the reason we rank first on our other comparisons. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 5,999 for 25 staff, Rs 240 a head, less than half the cheapest paid tier of anything else on this page |
| Source | Our own product code, August 2026, not our marketing. PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS are calculated in src/app/actions/tax-calculation.ts. A search of the codebase for challan, ECR, Form 16, Form 24Q and Form 12BB found no generator for any of them. |
Choose it when
Your accountant already files your returns and what you actually need is for the numbers reaching them to be correct and to come from verified attendance rather than a spreadsheet. We calculate PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS, run payroll from geofenced attendance including overtime and daily wages, and export a salary statement, an attendance register and a timesheet. At Rs 5,999 for 25 people that is Rs 240 a head against Rs 12,000 at Zoho Payroll and Rs 29,940 at greytHR.
Look elsewhere when
You want the filing pack. We do not produce a PF ECR file, an ESI challan, a professional tax return, Form 24Q or Form 16, and we do not file or pay anything on your behalf. If that is what you came for, greytHR generates them and RazorpayX claims to file them, and either is the right purchase over us. One correction we owe you while you are here: a testimonial on our own landing page mentions one-click challan generation. The product does not do that, this page says so, and the testimonial is wrong.
Disclosure: this is our product and this page is on our website, which is exactly why the criterion is written out above, why every rival figure is dated and sourced, and why the paragraph above this one exists. Our prices are on the pricing page and there is nothing behind a "contact us". How we rank is set out on the methodology page. On this page's own criterion we rank fifth of seven, because our product generates no statutory file at all. We also correct a testimonial on our own landing page that wrongly mentions one-click challan generation.
6 of 7
factoHR
Widest HR suite on the page, if payroll is only part of what you want
A growing company buying HR, recruitment and payroll together.
| Billing | Free up to 20 employees, then Core Rs 4,999, Premium Rs 5,999 or Ultimate Rs 6,999 a month, each covering up to 50 employees, with Rs 69 to Rs 119 per employee beyond that. Indian plans are billed quarterly. |
|---|---|
| Location | Geofencing is not in Core; it starts at Premium. Selfie punch and face recognition are dollar-priced add-ons on top of a rupee plan. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 59,988 a year on Core, because 25 employees pay the 50-employee price |
| Source | factohr.com/pricing including the tier matrix and add-on rows, read August 2026. The pricing page does not name EPF, ESI, professional tax, Form 16 or TDS individually, which is why the statutory column below says ask. |
Choose it when
You want one vendor for payroll, HR, recruitment and attendance and you are at or near fifty employees, so the bundled block is used rather than wasted. As a suite it is the most complete thing here.
Look elsewhere when
Payroll compliance is your actual question. The pricing page does not itemise a single statutory output by name, so on the one criterion this page ranks by, there is nothing published to rank. The free tier is not an answer either: it excludes attendance, payroll processing, the mobile app and the geofence, and caps at 20. And 25 employees pay the 50-employee price at every tier.
7 of 7
Keka
Well-regarded, and impossible to compare
A mid-market company running a full sales evaluation.
| Billing | None published. The pricing page lists Foundation, Strength and Growth for HRMS and payroll, with no price against any of them, and offers a free trial whose length is not stated. |
|---|---|
| Location | Not published either, for the same reason. |
| 25 staff, per year | Unknown. Nothing on this page can be compared to a number that does not exist |
| Source | keka.com/pricing, read August 2026. The page loads cleanly with no bot check and no CAPTCHA. It simply contains no prices: the product is sales-gated by design. |
Choose it when
You are large enough that you were going to run a sales process anyway, you want a demonstration and a negotiated quote, and Keka has been recommended to you by somebody whose judgement you trust. It is a serious product with a good reputation and its absence from the cost table is about disclosure, not quality.
Look elsewhere when
You are a small business trying to compare five options in an afternoon. You cannot compare this one at all without a sales call, and that is a deliberate choice on their part. It ranks last here purely on the page’s criterion: we cannot verify a single statutory output or a single price, so there is nothing to rank.
Questions people ask before choosing
What is the difference between calculating a deduction and filing a return?
Calculating means the software works out that Rs 1,800 of PF is due from a salary. Filing means somebody produces the PF ECR text file, uploads it to the EPFO portal, generates the challan and pays it at a designated bank before the due date. Nearly every product in this category advertises statutory compliance and means the first thing. Very few do the second. The gap between the two is a monthly job for you or your accountant, so the honest question to ask any vendor is not does it handle compliance but which files does it produce, named individually, and does anybody upload them.
Which payroll software actually generates a PF ECR file and Form 16?
On this page, greytHR is the best-evidenced: its own admin help pages document a Generate ECR File button, ESI challans, and Form 16 with Part A and Part B plus Form 12BA, digitally signed. Kredily names PF and ESI challans, Form 12BB and Form 16 on its paid tiers. Zoho Payroll names Form 16 as a download but names neither the ECR file nor any challan. RazorpayX Payroll claims calculation, payment and filing without listing which documents. Shiftelio, our own product, generates none of them and says so above. factoHR and Keka itemise nothing publicly.
What is the cheapest payroll software for a small business in India?
Zoho Payroll is free up to 10 employees and Rs 12,000 a year for 25 on Standard, and it generates Form 16, which makes it the best value on this page for a business that wants proper payroll. Kredily is free at any headcount for records only, with payroll starting at Rs 14,988. Shiftelio is Rs 5,999 for 25, which is cheaper than both, but we produce no statutory files, so we are only the cheapest answer if your accountant is already filing. Cheapest and most suitable are different questions here and this page is deliberately ranked on the second.
Do I still need a CA if I buy payroll software?
Almost certainly yes, and the software changes what you pay them for rather than whether you need them. A product that only calculates leaves the whole filing job with your accountant. A product that generates the files removes the preparation but not the review, the annual return, the notices and the judgement calls. Only RazorpayX on this page claims to do the paying and the filing itself, and even then somebody still has to answer for what was filed. Budget for the accountant either way and treat any vendor implying otherwise with suspicion.
Why do so many plans bundle 50 employees?
Because it is a sales floor, and for a small business it doubles the real price. greytHR bundles 50 into both published tiers, factoHR covers up to 50 in every plan, and RazorpayX Elite covers 50. A business with 25 people pays the 50-employee price at all three, so an advertised per-head rate is half what you will actually pay per head. Zoho Payroll Standard is the exception on this page: it includes exactly 25. Always divide the annual price by your own headcount rather than reading the vendor per-head figure, which is what the cost table above does.
Can Shiftelio run my payroll?
It can run the calculation and the payment side and not the statutory filing side, and it is worth being exact about which. It calculates PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS, runs payroll from geofenced attendance including overtime and daily wages, handles loans and advances with an audit trail, and exports a salary statement, an attendance register and a timesheet. It does not produce a PF ECR file, an ESI challan, a professional tax return, Form 24Q or Form 16, and it does not file or pay anything to any department. If those files are what you need, greytHR generates them and we would tell you to buy it.
Is free payroll software safe to rely on?
Read what free excludes before you rely on it, because in this category free usually means records rather than payroll. Kredily is free at any headcount, and its own comparison table excludes salary payouts, PF and ESI challans, Form 12BB, Form 16, overtime, daily wages and exit settlements from that tier; it also carries an unpublished active usage policy. Zoho Payroll is free only up to 10 employees but is genuinely payroll within that limit. factoHR is free up to 20 and excludes payroll processing outright. A free tier is a good place to keep employee records while you choose; it is rarely a place to run a salary run.
How was this list ordered?
By one question: does the software produce the statutory artefact, or only the number? That is why our own product ranks fifth of seven despite being the cheapest thing on the page by a factor of two, and why the most expensive entry ranks third. Prices were read from each vendor’s own pricing page in August 2026, and statutory claims from each vendor’s own product documentation where any exists. Keka publishes no prices at all and is included as an entry rather than a comparable row.
Work the numbers yourself
The deductions are the same whichever product you buy, and they are free to check. These calculators show their working as text, with no signup and no email.
Other comparisons on this site
Each of these ranks against a different question, so they reach different answers. The one you want is the one whose question is yours.
- Best attendance apps in India: Annual cost at 25 employees with GPS verification working
- Best free attendance apps in India: How far a free tier gets you before payroll, location or a headcount cap forces an upgrade
- Best GPS attendance apps in India: Which tier gates which kind of location proof: stamp, geofence, live trail, anti-spoofing
- Best attendance apps for field staff in India: Site caps, offline capture and the cost of a continuous trail, for staff never at one address
- Best attendance apps for construction sites in India: Workers who own no smartphone, whether a daily wage can be paid at all, and whether the pricing shape survives a headcount that moves with the project
- Best attendance apps for restaurants in India: Whether a two-part day can be rostered at all, whether each outlet gets its own boundary, and how fast a new hire can punch
The criteria this list is ordered by, what counts as a source, and how often the figures are re-checked are set out on our methodology page. Plan structures, seat minimums and per-employee rates were checked in August 2026against each vendor's own published pricing page. Statutory claims come from each vendor's own product documentation where any exists, and where a vendor names no individual output we say so rather than infer one. Keka publishes no prices and appears as an entry rather than a cost row. Zoho Payroll is a different product from Zoho People and the two are separate subscriptions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used for identification only; no affiliation or endorsement is implied. Shiftelio is our own product, is marked as such, ranks fifth of seven on this page's criterion, and its entry corrects a claim made in a testimonial on our own website. If you believe anything here is inaccurate, write to support@shiftelio.com and we will correct it and say that we did.