Keka vs Shiftelio · verified August 2026
Keka alternative: pay for the team you have, not for a hundred seats
Keka's entry plan is listed at Rs 9,999 a month covering up to 100 employees, which means a team of 25 pays the same as a team of 99. That is Rs 1,19,988 a year, or about Rs 4,800 per person you actually employ. Shiftelio is Rs 5,999 a year for 25 people, about Rs 240 each, with GPS attendance and full Indian payroll in the price.
Price comparison for a team of 25
Keka figures are from the Keka listing on Techjockey read in August 2026, which gives Foundation at Rs 9,999 a month, Strength at Rs 12,999 and Growth at Rs 15,999, each covering up to 100 employees, with lower renewal rates of Rs 6,999, Rs 9,999 and Rs 13,999. Two further third-party listings give the same three headline figures. We could not take these from keka.com/pricing, because that page publishes no prices at all: it loads normally and lists the tiers with no figure against any of them, so the product is sales-gated by design. Unlike the rest of this site these are therefore second-hand figures and we are telling you so. Shiftelio figures are from our own pricing page. Both sides exclude GST.
| Plan | Works out to | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Shiftelio, everything included | Rs 500 a month equivalent | Rs 5,999 |
| Keka Foundation, renewal rate | Rs 6,999 a month, billed for 100 seats | Rs 83,988 |
| Keka Foundation, listed rate | Rs 9,999 a month, billed for 100 seats | Rs 1,19,988 |
| Keka Strength | Rs 12,999 a month, billed for 100 seats | Rs 1,55,988 |
| Keka Growth | Rs 15,999 a month, billed for 100 seats | Rs 1,91,988 |
Every Keka row above is the same price at 12 employees as at 99, because the plan is sold as a block covering the first hundred. That is the entire reason this page exists. At 25 staff the listed Foundation rate works out to about Rs 4,800 per person you actually employ, against about Rs 240 here. Add 18 percent GST to both sides and the ratio does not move.
Feature comparison
Keka rows are taken from their published module list and the plan contents shown on third-party listings as at August 2026. Four rows carry our cross rather than theirs, and those four are the honest reason a growing company eventually outgrows us. Read them before you read the price table again.
A price for 25 people that charges for 25 people
The entry plan is sold as a block covering the first 100 employees. A team of 12 and a team of 99 pay the same figure.
Flat annual price with no per-seat component
Per employee above 100, at Rs 90 to Rs 150 a head depending on tier.
An entry plan under Rs 1,000 a year
Shiftelio starts at Rs 999 a year. Keka's smallest listed commitment is the 100-seat block.
Self-serve setup, running the same day
Keka is configured and migrated as an implementation project, which is appropriate for a platform of that size and is measured in weeks not hours.
A free trial you can start yourself without a demo
ITQlick reports no free trial and no free version; Keka onboards through a scheduled sales demo.
GPS-verified check-in with a selfie, as the core of the product
Keka has geofenced attendance as one module among many. Techjockey reviewers report it working unevenly: "geofencing service doesn't work sometimes".
Indian payroll runs, payslips, PF and ESI
Leave management and shift rosters
Loans, salary advances and expense claims
On Keka from the Strength tier upward.
Android and iOS apps
Performance management, goals and review cycles
Theirs. We do not build this and are not planning to.
Applicant tracking and a recruiting pipeline
Theirs. If hiring workflow is on your requirements list, Shiftelio does not belong on your shortlist.
Org-wide people analytics
Theirs. We report on attendance, leave and payroll, not on headcount trends and org health.
Asset management register
Theirs, from the Strength tier.
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.
| Keka | Shiftelio | |
|---|---|---|
| Charging model | A monthly plan fee covering the first 100 employees, then Rs 90 to Rs 150 per employee per month above that. | Flat annual price per plan, with no per-seat component inside the plan. |
| If your team is well under 100 | You pay the full block anyway. At 25 staff that is four times the per-head cost of a company at 100. | No floor. A five-person business pays the five-person price. |
| What happens when you hire your 26th person | Nothing, until 100. The block is genuinely generous once you are inside it. | You move up a plan band, from Rs 5,999 to Rs 14,999, and that band runs to 100. |
| Setup | An implementation project: configuration and data migration, measured in weeks. | Self-serve, no fee, typically under an hour. |
| Scope | Full HRMS: payroll, performance, onboarding, applicant tracking, assets, analytics. | Attendance, leave, shifts and payroll. No performance, no recruiting, no org analytics, no asset register. |
| Location verification | Geofenced attendance as one module inside a much larger product. | GPS check-in with selfie verification, included in every plan, and the centre of the product. |
| Trying it | Through a scheduled demo. No free trial or free version is listed. | Sign up and use it. No card, no demo, no call. |
Two things this page deliberately does not claim. It does not state a Keka implementation or setup fee, because Keka does not publish one and the figures circulating come from a competitor citing a leaked quote document. And it does not claim the 100-seat block is a trick: it is how a platform with a real implementation cost protects itself from tiny deployments, and it is stated openly. It is simply the wrong shape for a company of twenty-five, which is the only argument this page is making.
What Keka users say
Quoted unmodified from public Techjockey reviews of Keka, which rates 4.4 out of 5 across 78 reviews with 87 percent recommending it. Three quotes rather than five, because these are the ones we could source precisely and we would rather show three real ones than pad it. They are complaints inside a well-liked product, and they are here because each names something a small buyer should test during the demo.
“Geofencing service doesn't work sometimes.”
“May initially seem overwhelming; getting familiar with features took time.”
“Poor customer service response.”
Why teams switch to Shiftelio
You are billed for the people you employ
There is no seat block and no minimum headcount. A twelve-person business pays the twelve-person price, and the entry plan starts at Rs 999 a year rather than at a hundred seats.
Attendance is the product, not a module
GPS check-in with a selfie, geofenced sites, offline capture and a location trail you can still read three months later in a dispute. These are product decisions here rather than one tab inside an HR suite.
No implementation project
Add your staff, set your locations and shift patterns, and people start checking in from their own phones. Under an hour, self-serve, and no fee for someone to configure it for you.
The price is on the pricing page
Three plans, three numbers, published, with the employee limit next to each. No demo to sit through before you learn what it costs, and no add-ons to discover in the order form.
What Keka is actually for
Keka is a broad HR management system: payroll, attendance and leave, performance management, onboarding workflows, applicant tracking, asset management and people analytics in one platform, sold in blocks that cover the first hundred employees with a per-employee rate above that. That is a normal and reasonable shape for enterprise software, and for a company past a hundred people with somebody whose job title contains the word HR, it is a good product bought for good reasons. It rates 4.4 out of 5 across 78 Techjockey reviews with 87 percent of reviewers recommending it, and nothing on this page disputes that. Attendance is one module inside it rather than the point of it.
Stay with Keka 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.
- You are buying an HR department in software. Performance cycles, goal setting, structured onboarding, applicant tracking, asset registers, org-wide analytics. We build none of that and are not going to pretend otherwise.
- You are past a hundred employees with someone who owns HR. At exactly the point the 100-seat block stops being a penalty, Keka starts being priced sensibly, and a configured platform is a sensible investment rather than an obstacle because somebody exists to run it.
- You are close enough to a hundred people that the block is nearly full. At 90 staff the listed Foundation rate is about Rs 1,333 per person a year, which is a fair price for a full HRMS. The problem on this page is arithmetic at 25, not value at 90.
- You need one vendor across recruiting, HR and payroll. Consolidation has real value once you are large enough for the seams between systems to cost more than the platform does.
Switch to Shiftelio when
- You have between roughly five and a hundred people and no HR function. The person who would administer an HRMS is the owner, and they have a business to run.
- You would be paying for seats you do not employ. A 100-seat block charged to a 25-person company means three quarters of the invoice covers people who do not exist, which is the single most common reason a quote comes back higher than the pricing page implied.
- Attendance is the actual problem. Your people are at sites, on routes or in other people's buildings, and you need to know they were there. GPS check-in with a selfie is the core of this product rather than a module inside it.
- You want the price without a sales call. Rs 999, Rs 5,999 or Rs 14,999 a year depending on headcount, published, with no implementation fee and no paid add-ons.
- You want to be running this week. Setup is self-serve: add your staff, set your locations and shifts, and start. There is no migration project between you and a working attendance register.
The differences that change a decision
The 100-seat block is the whole story for a small company
Selling the first hundred employees as one block is not a trick, it is how a platform with a real implementation cost protects itself against tiny deployments, and Keka states it openly. But it has a consequence no pricing page states in the way a buyer experiences it: your true cost per employee is the block price divided by your actual headcount, not by a hundred. At 25 people the listed Foundation rate is about Rs 4,800 a head a year. At 90 people the same plan is about Rs 1,333 a head. Same product, same invoice, four times the value. If you take one thing from this page, do that division before the demo rather than after it.
An HRMS is bought to be administered
The value of performance cycles, onboarding workflows, asset registers and analytics is unlocked by somebody configuring and running them. In a company with an HR team that person exists and the platform pays for itself. In a twenty-five-person business that person is the owner, and the modules quietly go unused while appearing on the invoice. This is the most common way small companies overbuy software, and it is worth being honest that the failure is one of fit, not of the product. Keka is well reviewed by the people it was built for.
Attendance as the point versus attendance as a module
Inside a full HRMS, attendance exists to feed payroll: it needs to be correct, and it does not need to be interesting. When attendance is the reason you are buying anything at all, the details that decide whether the system actually works are different ones. What happens when the phone has no signal in a basement. Whether a supervisor can fix a missed punch without a support ticket. Whether the GPS trail means anything three months later when there is a dispute. Whether the geofence fires reliably, which is the one thing Keka reviewers name as uneven. Those are our product decisions rather than a module's.
What we are not, plainly
No applicant tracking, no performance management, no org-wide people analytics, no asset register. If your shortlist includes those because you genuinely need them, we are not on it and should not be. This page is for the reader who added Keka to a shortlist for attendance and payroll, met a hundred-seat block shaped for a much larger company, and started looking again.
Where the crossover is
It is worth naming the point at which this page stops being right. Somewhere around ninety to a hundred and fifty people, with someone who owns HR, the block stops being a penalty and the modules start getting used. At that point Keka is a better purchase than we are, and if you are already there, buy it. Below that, you are paying HRMS money for an attendance register.
Questions people ask
How much does Keka cost in India?
Third-party listings read in August 2026 give three plans: Foundation at Rs 9,999 a month, Strength at Rs 12,999 and Growth at Rs 15,999, each covering up to 100 employees, with per-employee rates of Rs 90 to Rs 150 above that and lower renewal rates from the second year. Annually the listed Foundation rate is Rs 1,19,988 before GST, whether you have 12 employees or 99. We could not read keka.com/pricing directly because it returns a bot-verification page, so ask Keka to confirm your number.
What is a good Keka alternative for a small business in India?
It depends on what you were buying Keka for. If you need performance management, onboarding workflows, an asset register and applicant tracking, no small attendance app is an alternative and you should keep looking at HRMS platforms. If you added Keka to a shortlist because you need attendance, leave and payroll for a team well under a hundred, a flat-priced attendance-first tool is usually the better fit. Shiftelio is Rs 5,999 a year for up to 25 employees across 3 locations, with GPS check-in and payroll included and no implementation fee.
Why is Keka expensive for a team of twenty-five?
Because the entry plan is sold as a block covering the first hundred employees, so a company of twenty-five pays the same as a company of ninety-nine. Divided by the people you actually employ, the listed Foundation rate is about Rs 4,800 per head per year at twenty-five staff and about Rs 1,333 at ninety. Nothing is being hidden from you: the plan says up to 100 employees. It is simply priced for a company four times your size.
Does Keka have a minimum number of employees?
Not a stated minimum you must employ, but the effect is similar: the plans are sold in a block covering the first 100 employees, so 100 is the smallest quantity you can pay for. Ask explicitly whether any smaller commitment exists for your headcount before you compare per-employee rates with other vendors, because two vendors quoting similar per-employee figures can produce very different bills for the same small company.
Does Shiftelio do performance management or recruiting?
No. Shiftelio covers attendance, leave, shifts and payroll, including GPS-verified check-in, payslips, PF and ESI, loans and advances, and letters. It does not do performance cycles, applicant tracking, asset registers or org-wide people analytics, and we would rather say that here than have you discover it in week two. If those are on your requirements list, buy an HRMS.
At what size should I move from Shiftelio to a full HRMS?
Roughly when two things are true at once: you are past about a hundred people, and somebody in the company owns HR as their actual job. Before that, the modules an HRMS charges for tend to go unused. After that, the seams between separate systems start costing more than a platform does, and the seat block that makes Keka expensive at twenty-five is being filled anyway. We would rather tell you where the line is than have you find it the hard way.
Can I switch from Keka to Shiftelio mid-year?
Yes, and the practical constraint is your data rather than the software. Export your attendance and payroll history from Keka 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.
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 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 Keka is drawn from their own published pages and positioning, together with the Keka listing on Techjockey and two further third-party listings for pricing, which we name in the price table because their own pricing page publishes no prices at all, and public Techjockey reviews which are quoted rather than summarised, and was checked in August 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. Keka 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.