Veritas HR
Guide

Top 10 Payroll Software in India

Ten payroll platforms sold to Indian employers, from free tiers to enterprise workforce systems, with published prices and exactly which statutory filings each vendor says it handles.

By

Priya Nair

· Updated

· Editorial, independently researched

Payroll software is judged on one thing: whether the statutory side comes out right without a person checking it. Before comparing features, fix the thresholds that apply to you. Provident fund registration is triggered at 20 employees; ESIC applies at 10 employees, with a wage ceiling of ₹21,000 a month; professional tax is state-specific; and a POSH internal committee is required once you have 10 employees. Any product on your shortlist must calculate PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS and produce Form 16 and Form 24Q. The next question is who files. Some products calculate and hand you a challan; a few pay and file on your behalf. If you would rather hand the whole run to a service provider, outsourced payroll in India typically costs ₹50 to ₹200 per employee per month depending on headcount and how much compliance work is bundled in — compare that against the licence cost plus the hours your team spends.

How we picked

Every product was researched from the vendor’s own website and is drawn from the thirty-two products tagged as payroll software on Veritas. Products are normally ordered by the Veritas score, which counts upvotes, moderated reviews and a Bayesian rating; sponsors never affect it. At launch no product has an upvote or a review, so every score is tied at the same value and a merit ranking would be meaningless. The ten below are therefore grouped by who they suit rather than ranked one to ten, and every price is the vendor’s own published starting figure at the time of research, not a negotiated quote. Last updated 2 September 2026.

Free or near-free for small teams

  • Zoho Payroll (Chennai, founded 2018) — free up to 10 employees; Standard from ₹1,000 a month on annual billing for 25 employees. EPF, ESI, state professional tax, Labour Welfare Fund and income tax are included on every plan, with TDS worksheets, Form 12BB and digitally signed tax forms; challan records sit in higher tiers. Contractor payments with TDS, salary transfers through HSBC and ICICI Bank, and WhatsApp document delivery.
  • Kredily (Bengaluru, founded 2017) — a free-forever plan with no headcount cap covering automatic PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS calculation, attendance, leave and a self-service app. Payroll OS from ₹1,249 a month for 25 employees adds ICICI Bank salary payouts, PF and ESI challans, Forms 12BB and 16 and expense workflows. Aimed squarely at firms still running payroll on spreadsheets.
  • PagarBook (Bengaluru) — ₹499 per staff member per year for the app-only plan, rising for web access. Built for shops, factories and clinics without an HR department: selfie, GPS and face-match attendance, offline entry, overtime and fine rules, muster rolls, and salary handling for regular, contractual and piece-rate staff with advances, PF, ESI and payslips. Interface in more than ten languages. No free trial.

Published per-employee pricing

  • greytHR (Bengaluru, founded 1994) — ₹2,495 a month covering the first 50 employees, then ₹45 per employee. The deepest published statutory list of any product here: PF with ECR files, ESI challans, state professional tax, TDS with eTDS returns and Form 24Q, digitally signed Form 16 and 12BA, bonus and Labour Welfare Fund. Payouts run through greytHR PayNow. Free trial available.
  • TeamNest (Mumbai) — ₹2 per employee per day with a ₹1,000 monthly minimum, and a free start before committing. One subscription bundles attendance, leave, expenses, payroll, central and state statutory compliance, timesheets, a helpdesk, onboarding and exit. Interface available in eight languages including Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. ISO 27001 and ISO 20000-1 certified.
  • sumHR — ₹1,428 per employee per year, or free bundled with Jupiter Money salary accounts. Payroll with unlimited salary structures and IT declarations, PF, ESI, PT and TDS calculation and Form 16, plus attendance via web, biometric or GPS-tagged punches and OKR performance reviews.
  • SalaryBox (Cresce Technology, Gurugram) — ₹30 per user per month on top of a ₹1,500 monthly base for the Starter plan, discounted on quarterly and annual terms. Attendance first: AI-checked selfie punches inside a geofence, rosters, live location tracking. The Business tier adds automated salary runs, Indian statutory compliance and payslips; the enterprise tier unlocks API access and Tally integration.

Payroll that also pays and files

  • RazorpayX Payroll (Bengaluru, founded 2019) — ₹2,499 a month for the Prime plan covering up to 20 employees, Elite up to 50 with a per-employee charge beyond, and a custom enterprise tier. The distinguishing feature is that TDS, PF, professional tax and ESIC are calculated, paid and filed by the platform, with challans generated automatically and Form 16 issued with a digital signature. Multi-state compliance, contractor payments and a WhatsApp-reachable self-service dashboard.
  • Paybooks (Bengaluru, founded 2012, part of TransPerfect) — quote-driven with a free trial. Sold either as self-managed software or as a fully outsourced payroll desk, which is the useful option if you want software and a service from one supplier. Every self-service plan covers salary processing, leave, increments, bank files, payroll MIS and statutory reports for PF, ESI, professional tax, LWF, NPS, Form 16 and Form 24Q; the top tier takes on the filings themselves. Integrates with Tally, Securax biometric attendance and Perk Finance.

Desktop, on-premise and complex workforces

  • Saral PayPack (Relyon Softech, Bengaluru) — ₹53,700 a year for the single-user Standard desktop licence, inclusive of maintenance and support, with cloud and mobile options for employee self-service. Covers the full punch-to-payslip cycle including shift rules, arrears, bonus, reimbursements, TDS and full-and-final settlement, with PF, ESI, professional tax and Form 16 handling and biometric device feeds. The only product here sold primarily as a desktop application.
  • Ascent Workforce Management (Eilisys Technologies, Pune) — quote-driven, available cloud or on-premise. Built for multi-shift, multi-location, contractor-heavy operations in manufacturing, automotive, pharma, EPC and BFSI, with a dedicated contract workforce management module alongside time and attendance, leave, payroll, travel and expense, and visitor and canteen management. Access through the Ascent Connect app and kiosk screens.

What we could not tell you

Eleven of the thirty-two payroll products on Veritas publish no rupee figure at all, including Darwinbox, PeopleStrong, ZingHR, Keka HR, Akrivia HCM, Officenet, HRMantra, Wallet HR, Spine HR Suite, Beehive HRMS and HRMTHREAD. Several of those are strong enterprise systems; they are absent from the price comparisons above only because there is nothing published to compare. If your headcount is in the thousands, expect a quote-driven process and budget for implementation separately from licence cost.

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