6 best HR software for 2024: a guide for small businesses

Rippling is an all-in-one HR platform designed to simplify and streamline HR and IT processes for businesses.

Its HR platform stands out not only for its comprehensive features, but also for delivering an exceptional user experience (UX). Beyond offering all the tools necessary for HR, payroll, benefits, and IT management, Rippling ensures a seamless and aesthetically pleasing user interface. This emphasis on a beautiful UX enhances the overall user satisfaction, making the platform not just functional but a pleasure to navigate and use.

They definitely win top marks for one of the most beautiful, simple and engaging UX designs of any HR software, but they also have a comprehensive suite of all the features you’d expect from a quality HR software provider.

A screenshot of Rippling’s dashboard

Rippling features

• Global payroll: pay employees and contractors in minutes with a modern payroll system that has a 100% accuracy guarantee.
• Manage employee benefits: from private medical to workplace pension plans in one integrated system.
• Time and attendance: hourly employees can easily clock in and out, and their hours automatically sync.
• Learning management: streamline employee training – from harassment to security training.
• Employment: hire, pay and manage employees and contractors globally (with the ability to configure specifically by country).
• Payroll: pay employees and contractors in minutes with a modern payroll system that has a 100% accuracy guarantee.

One potential downside of using Rippling is the fact that it comes with a steep learning curve due to its extensive range of integrated features, which might require a bit more time for users to familiarise themselves with. In comparison, Gusto offers a more streamlined and intuitive user experience, particularly in terms of payroll management, making it a potentially more user-friendly option for businesses seeking a quicker learning curve and a simpler interface for payroll-related tasks.

Rippling pricing

Pricing starts from £7 per month per user.

CitrusHR is an easy-to-use HRMS software tool with a strong all-round set of features. It is most suited to businesses with more than eight employees that may be light on existing business software and want an all-in-one HR solution.

CitrusHR’s highest payment plan (HR Support Service) also offers excellent customer service support from HR professionals for those occasions where you might need advice on more serious issues. This form of HR outsourcing provides a number of ready-made HR policies – a reassuring and unique selling point.

A screenshot of Citrus HR’s dashboard

CitrusHR features

CitrusHR has a wide range of features with all of the core essentials covered. Its lowest-tiered plan, HR software-only provides:

• Activity dashboard: see all your activity in a centralised platform in real-time.
• Benefits management: manage all employees benefits in a convenient way
• Payroll management: pay your employees quickly and efficiently
• Third-party integrations: compatibility with a range of complimentary software
• Onboarding: make onboarding easier for both you and your new recruit
• Learning and development: add learning patheays to help with onboarding and offboarding
• Recruitment management: oversee the recruitment process from start from finish

User feedback on CitrusHR’s annual leave monitoring has highlighted occasional glitches, impacting reported leave balances for certain users—an aspect where Zoho People emerges as a stronger alternative, offering more robust and accurate leave tracking functionalities, providing greater reliability for businesses managing employee time off.

CitrusHR pricing

CitrusHR’s pricing is split into two payment plans. HR Software Only costs £2.50 per user and there is a minimum cost of £20 per month, which works out to a required eight users per month.

You’ll need to purchase HR Support Service for access to the Citrus support team, which costs an initial flat charge of £50 per month – plus £7 per employee.

A screenshot of Gusto’s dashboard

Gusto features

Gusto scores highest for remuneration tools, with unlimited payrolls for any payment tier. The platform also boasts sophisticated paysheet add-ons like multiple pay schedules, allowing you customisable payment terms to send wages to your employees. Plus, Gusto also has good functionality for other HR areas.

• Unlimited payrolls – Create as many as you want with no limitations
• Two-day direct deposit – Get money into your account faster
• Time-off tracker and reporting – Get in-depth analysis regarding time off to use however you wish
• Accounting integrations – Integrate seamlessly with software such as Freshbooks and Quickbooks
• Health benefits administration – Manage all the intricacies of your health benefits system
• Employee onboarding – Onboard employees effectively

By far the most common criticism of Gusto by users is that it doesn’t have a mobile app – something to consider if you want to be able to manage your payrolls away from the desk.

While Gusto has faced criticism for lacking a mobile app, which may impact payroll management on the go, Rippling takes the lead with its robust mobile capabilities, offering a comprehensive mobile app.

This makes Rippling a preferred choice for businesses seeking the flexibility to manage HR and payroll tasks seamlessly from anywhere, addressing a key limitation observed in Gusto’s user experience.

Gusto pricing

Gusto has three pricing tiers available: Core, Complete or Concierge. Gusto Core costs £28 as a flat rate charge, plus £4.30 per added employee. This means that a company with 10 employees would spend £71 per month.

Gusto Complete is only marginally more expensive at £8.60 per extra employee. If you have the funds available, we think this higher-tiered plan is worth the added cost for small teams with fewer than ten employees. Added benefits include next-day direct deposits, automated payroll sync and employee time tracking.

If you’re working in an on-site industry – such as retail, hospitality, events, and construction – it can feel like there aren’t many great software options for firms that aren’t office-based. That makes Deputy, a multi-award winning HCM system, the resolute winner for staff management. Its easy-to-use timesheet and time clock software allows for easy shift scheduling and real-time updates. Deputy also integrates with over 300 leading payroll and POS software brands, plus it has an iOS and Android app, so you can manage your staff and send updates from anywhere.

A screenshot of Deputy’s dashboard

Deputy features

Deputy’s features are centred on management and time tracking, where it easily outranks the rest of the field. That being said, it is lacking a lot of core HR features – particularly around performance management and recruitment. Compared to Zoho People, which offers a comprehensive suite encompassing performance evaluation and recruitment tools within its platform, Deputy might necessitate additional third-party integrations for these essential HR aspects.

The Deputy Premium plan has:

• Reminders: reminders are always helpful!
• Reporting & statistics: get up to date, accurate statistics on all the things you care about most
• Automated scheduling: make your life easier by scheduling, automating and implementing important things in advance
• Employee onboarding: onboard employees with ease
• Payroll management: keep all the essential information regarding your employees payroll all in one place.

Deputy pricing

For affordability, Deputy scores highly at just £1.50 per user for its Scheduling plan or Time and Management plan (counted as any employee, administrator or supervisor that uses the software). However, to get the best out of Deputy, we would recommend the Premium plan. At just £3 per user, per month it combines all the features in the lower tiers for both time and scheduling – plus, as it offers unlimited users it’s suitable for teams of all sizes.

Part of the well-known suite of Zoho software products, Zoho People is an affordable cloud-based tool that serves as a great starting point for firms that are new to HR management software and want to trial a product without risking their budget.

Zoho People can be best described as an HRMS platform. Like many of the other brands featured in this list, the platform’s interface is structured using a centralised dashboard format, where users can find quick access to essential employee and company information. Users can drag-and-drop various widgets to customise their view, letting managers instantly see updates on everything from birthdays to timesheet reports.

A screenshot of Zoho People’s dashboard

Zoho People features

Zoho People has a strong focus on core functions, scoring exceptionally well in hiring and onboarding new employees. Training functions are also available including an online learning portal for blended learning, and discussion forums for employees to learn together. Performance management is another strong point for the platform. Work can be tracked using tools like goals and self-appraisals – although these advanced tools are only provided in the more expensive payment tiers.

Zoho’s Essential HR plan offers:

• Holiday approvals – Make it easy for yourself to approve holidays and time off for your employees
• An employee database – Host profiles for the most important details about your employees
• Mobile app – Manage your business on the go with a convenient mobile app
• Employee onboarding – Onboard new employees and equip them with all the information they need
• Workflow checklist and tasks – Keep a tidy list of things needed to be done within your system
• Unlimited users – You never have to worry about reaching your limit of profiles

The area of HR where Zoho People underperforms is payroll. Only companies based in India can integrate with the brand’s other platform, Zoho Payroll, meaning a third-party integration is necessary for paysheets and wage management.

In contrast, Gusto stands out for its inclusive payroll features, offering a user-friendly experience and comprehensive payroll management capabilities, making it a more versatile choice for businesses with diverse geographical locations and payroll needs.

Zoho People pricing

Zoho People is easily the most budget-friendly HR software in this list. Its lowest-priced payment tier costs just 83p per user – unusually generous given it allows for unlimited users. Handily, Zoho People is also the only top HR software on this list that allows you to buy employee profiles for just 25p per profile (defined as accounts that don’t need access to the system).

According to the 2019 Work Institute Retention Report, 27% of workers leave their jobs voluntarily each year.

Hiring and attracting new talent is a major aspect of HR, and one where many small businesses waste a lot of resources – often outsourcing tasks to recruiters to save time. JazzHR is a great HRIS software option to maximise productivity in this area, functioning particularly well for larger teams with more than ten employees.

Structured around a user-friendly activity dashboard, this powerful tool replaces time-wasting manual hiring processes like spreadsheets. Its intuitive and customisable HR system helps recruiters and hiring managers to source qualified candidates more efficiently, by giving you a great range of features to design your own way of viewing employee data.

A screenshot of Jazz HR’s dashboard

Jazz HR features

Jazz HR’s features are designed to be added or removed, so you can pick and choose how complex you want your user experience to be. Social media integrations mean you can find and contact new talent leads easily using apps like Facebook and LinkedIn. The system also has a calendar where you can quickly view your day-to-day tasks, as well as tracking candidates through the interview process.

Its lowest-priced payment plan, JazzHR Hero, includes:

•  Applicant tracking – keep your new applications organised by priority, preference etc
•  Application management – allow your potential new employees to manage their CVS and applications on your platform
•  Resume database – keep a collection of your employees resumes
•  Resume search – search by topic, category, industry or keyword
•  Background screening – screen for negative social footprints, prison records of potential new employees, etc.
•  Calendar management – manage your calendar from the system
•  Calendar sync – sync calendars from other software and applications

Given that JazzHR specialises in the recruitment and hiring processes, there are obvious limitations to its employee management capabilities. There are a few basic features missing, like mass emailing, that some users will require. We would suggest CitrusHR for those looking for an all-in-one system with more capabilities.

Jazz HR pricing

JazzHR’s pricing uses a flat rate charge for unlimited users, meaning it could be an expensive investment or an absolute steal, depending on your team size. For SMEs, the Hero plan offers the greatest value for money at £27.91 per month, billed annually. That works out at just £3.48 per user for a team of eight.

HR software comparison – which is the best value for money?

Because of the way Gusto is priced (£28 per month plus £4.30 per additional user), we have compared each brand based on cost for a team of five employees.

As expected, Zoho People scores highest on affordability, costing just £4.15 in total per month, for a team of five – although it should be noted that this is for the platform’s very basic Essential HR plan.

Jazz HR’s monthly billing cycle means it is too expensive for solo users. However, its generous offer of unlimited users means that growing teams could easily see the platform rank highest for value for money.