greytHR vs Shiftelio · verified September 2026
greytHR alternative: pay for twenty-five people, and stop paying Rs 140 a head for GPS
greytHR publishes Essential at Rs 2,495 a month and Growth at Rs 4,495, and both include 50 employees in the base price, so a team of 25 pays the 50-employee figure. GPS Live Tracking is a separate Rs 140 per user per month, on Growth and Premium only, which takes a 25-person company to Rs 95,940 a year, about Rs 3,838 each. Shiftelio is Rs 5,999 a year for 25 people, about Rs 240 each, with GPS check-in and Indian payroll in the price.
Price comparison for a team of 25
Every greytHR figure is from greythr.com/pricing, their own published page, read on 8 September 2026. Essential is listed at Rs 2,495 a month and Growth at Rs 4,495, each including 50 employees, with Rs 45 and Rs 85 per employee above 50. GPS Live Tracking is listed at Rs 140 per user per month and marked "Available for : Growth & Premium". Premium itself is a custom quote and is therefore not in the table: we do not put a number on a plan the vendor does not publish. Shiftelio figures are from our own pricing page. Both sides exclude GST.
| Plan | Works out to | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Shiftelio, GPS and payroll included | Rs 500 a month equivalent | Rs 5,999 |
| greytHR Essential. Billed for 50 employees. GPS is not offered on this plan | Rs 2,495 a month | Rs 29,940 |
| greytHR Growth. Billed for 50 employees. GPS not yet added | Rs 4,495 a month | Rs 53,940 |
| greytHR Growth plus GPS Live Tracking for all 25 users | Rs 4,495 plus Rs 3,500 a month | Rs 95,940 |
The last row is the one to read twice. GPS is the reason most people searching for an attendance app are searching at all, and at Rs 140 per user per month it is Rs 42,000 a year for 25 people, which is more than the Essential plan costs in total. It also cannot be bought on Essential, so adding location moves the whole company up a tier first and then charges per head on top. That is Rs 95,940 against Rs 5,999.
Feature comparison
greytHR rows are from greythr.com/pricing and their published plan contents as at 8 September 2026. Three rows carry OUR cross rather than theirs, and those three are the honest reason a company with a real payroll problem should buy greytHR instead. Read them before you read the price table again.
A price for 25 people that charges for 25 people
Both published plans include 50 employees in the base price. A team of 12 and a team of 50 pay the same figure.
GPS location verification inside the plan price
GPS Live Tracking is an add-on at Rs 140 per user per month, and their page marks it "Available for : Growth & Premium". At 25 users that is Rs 42,000 a year on top of the plan.
Location verification available on the entry plan at all
Not on Essential at any price. The cheapest greytHR route to GPS is Growth plus the add-on.
An entry plan under Rs 1,000 a year
Shiftelio Basic is Rs 999 a year. greytHR's smallest published commitment is Rs 2,495 a month.
Selfie capture tied to the check-in record
Not published as part of the GPS add-on or either plan. If you need photographic proof of who checked in, ask them directly rather than assuming it comes with location.
Indian statutory payroll, payslips, PF and ESI
Leave management and shift rosters
Loans, salary advances and expense claims
Expense Management is a separate add-on at Rs 35 per user per month.
Android and iOS apps
Depth of statutory payroll: form outputs, state-wise PT, arrears and revisions
Theirs, clearly. We run Indian payroll correctly for a small business. We do not match two decades of edge cases, and a company whose hardest monthly problem is compliance rather than attendance should buy greytHR.
Performance management, goals and review cycles
Theirs, as an add-on at Rs 35 to Rs 45 per user per month. We do not build this.
Recruiting and an alumni portal
Theirs, as add-ons: Recruit at Rs 2,500 per recruiter per month, Alumni Portal at Rs 20 per user per month. If hiring workflow is on your requirements list, Shiftelio does not belong on your shortlist.
How the two bills are shaped
A single total is only true at one headcount. The shape of the charge is what decides the bill as your team changes size, and it is the part that does not go stale.
| greytHR | Shiftelio | |
|---|---|---|
| Charging model | A monthly plan fee covering the first 50 employees, then Rs 45 or Rs 85 per employee per month above that, plus per-user add-ons. | Flat annual price per plan, no per-seat component inside the plan, no add-ons. |
| If your team is well under 50 | You pay the 50-employee figure anyway. At 25 staff that is double the per-head cost of a company at 50. | No floor. A five-person business pays the five-person price, Rs 999 a year. |
| Location verification | Rs 140 per user per month as an add-on, Growth and Premium only. Rs 42,000 a year at 25 people. | In every plan, at no extra charge, including the Rs 999 one. |
| What happens when you hire your 26th person | Nothing, until 50. The base is genuinely generous once you are inside it. | You move up a band, from Rs 5,999 to Rs 14,999, and that band runs to 100 staff and unlimited locations. |
| Free tier | None. A 7-day free trial, and paid plans from Rs 2,495 a month. Comparisons that describe a greytHR free tier are out of date. | None either. Basic is Rs 999 a year and starts with 3 months free. |
| Setup | Guided onboarding, appropriate for a compliance platform and measured in days rather than hours. | Self-serve, no fee, typically under an hour. |
The row that decides this for most readers is the third one. Everything above it is a difference of degree; the location add-on is a difference of kind, because it is the feature that made you search in the first place and it is priced at more than an entire Essential plan.
Why teams switch to Shiftelio
The 50-employee base is the whole argument
Not a trick and not hidden: both plans say 50 employees on the pricing page. It simply means your real cost per head is the plan price divided by the people you employ, not by 50. Do that division before the demo.
GPS is the most expensive add-on they sell
Rs 140 per user per month, against Rs 35 for time sheets and Rs 20 for the alumni portal. At 25 people it is Rs 42,000 a year, more than the Essential plan costs in total, and it is unavailable on Essential at any price.
Attendance is the product, not a feed into payroll
Geofenced sites, selfie capture, offline check-in and a trail you can still read three months later in a dispute. Those are product decisions here rather than an add-on line.
The price is on the pricing page
Three plans, three numbers, the employee limit next to each, and nothing to add on afterwards. No demo before you learn what it costs.
What greytHR is actually for
greytHR is one of the oldest Indian payroll platforms still being actively built, and statutory payroll is not a module inside it, it is what the company is. The depth shows in the parts nobody puts in a demo: form outputs, state-wise professional tax, the arrears and revision handling that turns a payroll correction into a five-minute job rather than a weekend, and a support team that has seen your edge case before. If your chartered accountant has heard of one HR platform, it is probably this one. Nothing on this page disputes any of that, and the comparison below is deliberately narrow: it is about what a 50-employee base and a Rs 140 location add-on do to a company of 25, not about whether greytHR is good at payroll. It is.
Stay with greytHR when
If any of these describe you, this page has done its job and you should stop reading. We would rather lose the signup than the trust.
- Compliance is the hardest thing you do each month. If your payroll involves multiple states, complicated arrears, frequent revisions or a history of statutory corrections, greytHR has been solving exactly that for longer than most of this market has existed and it is worth the money.
- You already have fifty or more employees. The 50-employee base stops being a penalty the moment you fill it, and at 50 people Growth is about Rs 1,079 a head a year, which is a fair price for what it does.
- Your chartered accountant or payroll consultant already works in it. The cost of moving a working compliance process to save money on a plan is routinely underestimated, and "my CA knows this system" is a real reason to stay.
- You need performance cycles, recruiting or an alumni portal from the same vendor. We build none of that, and greytHR sells all three.
- Everybody works at one address. If nobody needs their location verified, the Rs 140 add-on never applies to you, and this page loses most of its argument.
Switch to Shiftelio when
- You have well under fifty people. Both greytHR plans bill a 50-employee base, so a team of 25 pays roughly twice the per-head rate of a team of 50 for the same product.
- Location verification is the actual reason you are shopping. GPS check-in with a selfie is the core of this product and is in every plan price. On greytHR it is Rs 140 per user per month, on Growth or Premium only, and Rs 42,000 a year at 25 people.
- You want one number rather than a plan plus add-ons. greytHR publishes six separate add-on rates. Every Shiftelio figure on our pricing page is the whole price, and there is nothing to add to it later.
- Attendance is the problem and payroll is the consequence. Your people are at sites, on routes or in other people's buildings, and knowing they were there is the point rather than a module feeding the payroll run.
- You want to be running this week. Setup is self-serve: add your staff, set your locations and shifts, and people check in from their own phones. There is no implementation project and no fee for one.
The differences that change a decision
What a 50-employee base does to a company of 25
greytHR prints "50 employees" on both plans, so nothing is being concealed. But a pricing page states a plan price and a buyer experiences a cost per head, and those are different numbers. Growth at Rs 53,940 a year is about Rs 1,079 per person at 50 employees and about Rs 2,158 at 25. Same product, same invoice, half the value. This is the single most useful arithmetic to do before any HR software demo, and it applies to Keka at 100 seats, Zimyo at 50, HROne at 50 and greytHR at 50 alike. Vendors do not do it for you because the answer depends on a number only you know.
Why the GPS add-on is priced where it is
Rs 140 per user per month is not greed, it is what happens when location is built as an extension of a payroll platform rather than as the thing the platform is. Continuous tracking costs real money to run: battery, map tiles, storage of a trail. Sold as an add-on to a minority of customers, that cost is recovered from a small base, so the per-user rate has to be high. Sold as the core of the product to everybody, as here, it is spread across every plan. Neither approach is dishonest. But it does mean the comparison a buyer should run is not "which plan is cheaper" but "what does my required feature set cost on each", and on that comparison a 25-person field team gets a very different answer.
Where greytHR is plainly better, and it is not a small area
Indian statutory payroll at depth. Form outputs, state-wise professional tax, arrears and salary revisions, and the specific handling of the corrections that come up in a real payroll year. We do Indian payroll properly for a small business: payslips, PF, ESI, TDS worksheets, loans and advances. We do not claim parity with a company that has been doing only this since before most of this market existed. If your monthly pain is compliance rather than knowing who turned up, that is the product you want and we would rather say so here than have you find out in March.
What we are not, plainly
No performance management, no recruiting, no alumni portal, no org-wide people analytics. greytHR sells all of those, mostly as add-ons. If they are on your requirements list, this page is not for you and our shortlist position is honestly zero.
Where the crossover is
It is worth naming the point where this page stops being right. At about fifty people the base stops being a penalty. Add a payroll process complicated enough that compliance rather than attendance is the hard part of the month, and greytHR is the better purchase. Below fifty, with location verification as the actual requirement, the arithmetic on this page holds and it is not close: Rs 95,940 against Rs 5,999.
Questions people ask
How much does greytHR cost in India?
From greythr.com/pricing, read on 8 September 2026: Essential is Rs 2,495 a month and Growth is Rs 4,495 a month, each including 50 employees, with Rs 45 and Rs 85 per employee per month above 50. Premium is a custom quote and their page claims about a 30 percent saving against Growth. Annually that is Rs 29,940 for Essential and Rs 53,940 for Growth, before any add-on and before GST. Add-ons are priced separately: GPS Live Tracking Rs 140 per user per month, Performance Management Rs 35 to Rs 45, Time Sheets Rs 35, Expense Management Rs 35, Alumni Portal Rs 20, and Recruit Rs 2,500 per recruiter per month.
Does greytHR have a free plan?
No. greythr.com/pricing offers a 7-day free trial with no commitment, and paid plans start at Rs 2,495 a month. This is worth stating flatly because the opposite claim circulates widely, and our own comparison page repeated it before we checked: an earlier version of /best-attendance-apps-india said greytHR was free for up to 25 employees. That was wrong and we corrected it. If a comparison anywhere tells you greytHR has a free tier, check their pricing page directly rather than the blog.
Does greytHR have GPS attendance, and what does it cost?
Yes, as a paid add-on called GPS Live Tracking, listed at Rs 140 per user per month and marked on their own pricing page as "Available for : Growth & Premium". It is not offered on Essential at any price. For a team of 25 that is Rs 42,000 a year on top of the Rs 53,940 Growth plan, so the realistic total is Rs 95,940 a year, about Rs 3,838 per person. Shiftelio includes GPS check-in in every plan, including the Rs 999 one. Price the add-on in from the first quote rather than treating it as an upgrade, because if you have field staff it was never optional.
Shiftelio vs Keka vs greytHR: which is right for a small Indian business?
Answer one question first and two of the three drop out. How many people do you employ, and do any of them work somewhere you cannot see? Keka sells its entry plan as a block covering the first 100 employees, so under about 90 staff you are paying for people you do not employ. greytHR includes 50 employees in both published plans and charges Rs 140 per user per month for GPS on top, so under about 50 staff with any field requirement you are paying twice over. Shiftelio is Rs 5,999 a year flat for up to 25 people across 3 locations with GPS and payroll in the price. Past a hundred people with someone who owns HR, Keka is the better buy. With a genuinely complicated statutory payroll at any size, greytHR is. Under fifty people with staff who work away from one address, the arithmetic favours us, and every figure behind that sentence is on this page and on our comparison pages with a date against it.
Is greytHR good for a company of 25 employees?
It works, and it is not a bad product for you: it is a product priced for somebody else. Both published plans bill a 50-employee base, so your cost per head is double what a 50-person company pays for the same thing, and the feature most 25-person businesses are shopping for, location verification, is an add-on that Essential cannot buy at all. If compliance is genuinely your hardest monthly problem, that premium may still be worth paying and we would not argue with you. If knowing who turned up where is the problem, it is a lot of money for the wrong axis.
What is a good greytHR alternative for Indian statutory payroll?
Be careful with this question, because it has two very different readings. If you want the same compliance depth for less money, we are not the honest answer and neither is any attendance-first tool: that depth is what greytHR sells and it is priced accordingly. If what you actually need is correct Indian payroll for a small team plus attendance you can trust, Shiftelio runs payslips, PF, ESI, TDS worksheets, loans and advances alongside GPS check-in for Rs 5,999 a year at 25 people. The distinction matters. Buying an attendance app to replace a compliance platform is how a payroll year goes wrong.
Can I switch from greytHR to Shiftelio mid-year?
Yes, and the constraint is your data rather than the software. Export your employee master, attendance history and payroll history from greytHR in a format you can open, and check it covers the full financial year rather than the recent months, because that is what you will need at year end. We will import a clean CSV of past attendance and employee records so your history is not stranded in a system you no longer pay for. Do the switch at a month boundary, and if you are mid-financial-year with statutory filings in progress, finish the quarter first.
Is there an implementation or setup fee for Shiftelio?
No. Setup is self-serve and typically takes under an hour: add your employees, set your locations and shift patterns, and staff start checking in from their own phones. There is no configuration project, no migration fee, no paid add-ons and no minimum contract term beyond the annual plan you choose.
See the price before you see a salesperson
Every Shiftelio plan and limit is on the pricing page. There is no quote to request, no implementation fee, no minimum billed headcount and no paid add-on for location verification.
This is a comparison written by Shiftelio, which is one of the two products described. Everything stated about greytHR is drawn from their own published pages and positioning, with every greytHR figure taken from greythr.com/pricing directly rather than from any third-party listing, and was checked in September 2026. Where their pricing is quote-based or reported inconsistently across sources we describe the charging model rather than assert a figure, and you should ask them directly. Plans and prices change on both sides. greytHR names and marks belong to their owners and are used here for identification only; no affiliation or endorsement is implied. If you believe anything here is inaccurate, write to support@shiftelio.com and we will correct it.