Flat fee or per employee: what HR software actually costs

Most HR software multiplies a rate by your headcount, so the bill grows every time you hire. A flat fee does not. Here is what each model costs as your headcount grows — including the team sizes where a per-employee tool is the cheaper choice.

$26,880 the dearest published rate at 200 people, a year

1–16 and 21–53 the team sizes where Zoho People costs less than we do — see section 4

$960 HRMZY, flat, at the same headcount (Premium)

What the flat fee buys: within your plan’s employee limit the bill does not move when you hire, there are no per-seat licences to administer, and nothing is renegotiated as you grow. Crossing a limit moves you to the next plan — once, then flat again.

Competitor rates are read from each vendor’s own published pricing; the newest reading on this page is 2026-09-24. Our plan prices come from live billing records, not from this file.

The four ways HR software is priced

Almost every HR platform uses one of four pricing models, and which one a vendor chooses affects your bill far more than its headline rate does.

The difference only shows up over time. Two products advertised at similar prices can diverge by an order of magnitude once your headcount changes, because one of them charges for the change and the other does not.

Per employee, per month

A rate multiplied by headcount. The most common model by a wide margin. Predictable per head, but the invoice grows every time you hire, and most vendors bill on everyone on the payroll rather than everyone who logs in.

Flat fee per company

One price for the whole company, up to an employee limit. The bill does not move when you hire — and does not fall when you shrink. Crossing a limit moves you to the next plan: the fee changes once, then stays flat again.

Tiered bands

A per-employee rate that steps down as you grow, so your effective rate depends which band you land in. Cheaper per head at scale, and awkward to forecast across a band boundary.

Quote only

No published price at all. Several established vendors in this category publish nothing, so you get a number only after a sales call — and cannot compare them against anyone before it.

What HR software actually costs as you grow

Every figure below is read from the vendor’s own published pricing, on the date shown beside it. The “lowest published” column is computed across the whole roster, so where a competitor is cheaper than us at a given size, it is that competitor’s name in the column.

Team size	HRMZY	Lowest publicly priced in the table	Read
5 people	$25 Standard	Zoho People $7.50	2026-09-19
20 people	$25 Standard	HRMZY $25	current plan price
21 people	$80 Premium	Zoho People $31.50	2026-09-19
25 people	$80 Premium	Zoho People $37.50	2026-09-19
50 people	$80 Premium	Zoho People $75	2026-09-19
200 people	$80 Premium	HRMZY $80	current plan price

Rates are each vendor’s published list price for a comparable plan, expressed as a monthly cost at that headcount. A vendor publishing no rate cannot appear in the lowest-published column, because an unpublished price cannot be compared. A figure priced in another currency is displayed in that currency and never ranked against a dollar one.

Every vendor at every size, each figure carrying the date it was read: what you actually pay at each headcount, or just the twenty-person case: what a 20-person team pays.

Why most vendors price per employee

Per-employee pricing is the industry standard, and there are real reasons a vendor picks it. A comparison that cannot state them is not worth reading, so here they are in their strongest form.

It moves in small steps. A per-employee bill changes by one seat when you hire one person. A flat fee does not move at all — until it does, at a plan limit, in a single jump. Ours steps from $25 to $80 at twenty-one people.
You are not subsidising anyone. A rate per head means a five-person company pays for five people’s worth of records, payroll runs and support — not a share of what a two-hundred-person company costs to serve.
It is cheap to start. A five-person company pays for five people, which is a far lower entry price than any flat fee covering twenty.
It is easy to compare. One published rate lets a buyer calculate their own cost in seconds — which is exactly why nearly every vendor publishes one.
You never re-enter a procurement cycle. The rate you agreed at five people is the rate at fifty. Growing costs you a negotiation with nobody and produces no step change you did not choose.

The trade-off is not that one model is predictable and the other is not — both are, differently. A per-employee bill is a slope: it moves a seat at a time, and it moves upward as you grow. A flat fee is a step: it does not move within a limit, then changes once when you cross one. Which is easier to live with depends on whether your budget copes better with drift or with jumps — and on a tight month, a slope is the one that does not surprise you.

When flat pricing is the wrong choice

Flat-fee pricing is not better. It is different, and in several common situations it is genuinely worse. If any of the following describes you, a per-employee tool will cost you less — and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.

Where a per-employee tool costs less than we do
Zoho People (Essential HR) is cheaper than our covering plan at 1–16 and 21–53 employees, crossing over at 54. In those bands buying from them is the cheaper decision — and the table above prints it at every size we publish. Between and above them, we are.
How much cheaper, at both ends of the range: at 5 people, $7.50 against our $25; at 25 people, $37.50 against our $80. The gap is not one size.

Your headcount sits in one of those bands

A flat fee covering twenty people is poor value for five. Wherever a per-employee rate lands below our covering plan — the bands above — it is simply less money, and paying for capacity you are not using is not a saving.

Your headcount shrinks or is highly seasonal

A per-employee bill falls when your headcount does. A flat fee does not. If your team halves between seasons, the model that tracks headcount is the one that tracks your costs — and a flat fee will be the more expensive half of the year.

You need one specialist tool, not a suite

If all you need is payroll, or all you need is an applicant tracker, a focused product at a few dollars a head will usually beat any all-in-one on both price and depth. A flat fee is only good value if you actually use more than one part of what it covers.

Common questions about HR software pricing

Published rates in the comparison above range from under a dollar to several dollars per employee per month, depending on the vendor and the plan. The table shows what each works out to at every headcount it prices, with the date every rate was read.

No. At small headcounts a per-employee rate is usually cheaper, because you pay only for the people you actually have. The table above shows the team sizes where a per-employee tool costs less than our covering plan, and names which one.

You move to the next plan and the fee changes once, then stays flat again until the next limit. It is a step, not a slope — which is the whole practical difference from a per-employee bill.

On a flat plan there is no per-head rate, so adding someone does not change the invoice; what matters is the plan’s employee limit. On a per-employee plan, whether contractors are billable varies by vendor and is worth confirming in writing before you sign.

Several established vendors in this category publish no rate and quote only after a sales call. The comparison above marks them as quote-only rather than estimating a figure on their behalf.

No. Every flat plan on this page carries an employee limit, published beside its price. A flat fee means the price does not move within the limit — not that there is no limit.

Every competitor figure carries the date it was read from that vendor’s own pricing page, shown in the table. Our plan prices are read from live billing records rather than typed into the page. Figures are re-read or removed as they age.

After. Price is the wrong first question if a product cannot meet your statutory obligations where you employ people — and that applies on either pricing model. Check filing and compliance coverage for your country first: a cheaper tool that files your returns is worth more than a dearer one that cannot.

What HRMZY charges

For completeness, since this page compares models rather than vendors — here is our own pricing, on the flat-fee model described above.

Standard

$25 a month, for up to 20 employees.

Premium

$80 a month, for up to 200 employees.

Plan prices and employee limits on this page are read from the live billing records, not typed into the page.

The entry plan carries 25 modules and the higher plan 37, counted from the same billing records the price comes from. Nothing in that list is a paid add-on.

On the entry plan: Attendance, Bank Account, Biometric, Clients, Contracts, Employees, Estimates, Events, Expenses, Holidays, Invoices, Leads, Leaves, Messages, Notices, Orders, Payments, Payroll, Performance, Products, Projects, Reports, Tasks, Tickets, Time Logs.

There is a 14-day free trial.

Work out what your company would pay

The plans, the employee limits and what each one includes — on one page.

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