Free HRMS Software In India for Small Businesses 2026

Free HR software sounds like an obvious win for a small business. No subscription fees, no contract, just sign up and start managing payroll and attendance. But the reality is more nuanced and some businesses have wasted weeks switching between free tools before finding one that actually holds up.

The honest situation in India: fully free HRMS tools exist, but they all have real constraints. Some cap the employee count. Some give you attendance tracking but not payroll. Some bury compliance features behind a paid upgrade. And some are genuinely free, forever usable, solid, and practical for a team under 25.

This guide covers what’s actually available, what each free option includes and where it stops, and what you should do once your team outgrows a free plan. We’ve tried to be specific rather than vague because “free with limitations” can mean very different things depending on which limitation matters to you.

Truth About What “Free” Actually Means In Indian HR Software

Before looking at specific tools, it’s worth being clear about the three types of “free” you’ll encounter in this market:

• Free forever plans: Genuinely free with no expiry but usually limited by employee count, features, or both. Kredily and greytHR’s Starter plan fall here.
• Free trials: Full access to all features for a limited period typically 7–30 days. Good for testing real workflows before committing. Waggex, Keka, and most paid tools offer this.
• Open-source / self-hosted: Free to use but requires technical setup, hosting, and ongoing maintenance. Frappe HR (formerly ERPNext HRMS) is the most relevant example for India.

For most small businesses in India, the most useful free tier is one that covers payroll and basic compliance PF, ESI, and attendance-linked salary calculation. If a free plan doesn’t touch those, it’s not saving you the work that actually consumes HR time. Keep that test in mind as we go through each option.

1. Kredily Genuinely Free Forever, With One Important Catch

Kredily was founded in 2017 with a clear mission of making HR software accessible to Indian MSMEs and startups that couldn’t justify a paid subscription. Their free plan is real no time limit, no employee cap, and it covers payroll automation, attendance tracking, leave management, and basic PF/ESI compliance. For a bootstrapped team of 10–20 people where budget is tight, this is the most practical starting point in this list.

What the free plan covers

• Payroll processing with salary calculations
• PF and ESI compliance calculations
• Attendance tracking web clock-in, GPS location, biometric integration
• Leave management with approval workflows
• Employee self-service access
• Basic employee database

What it doesn’t include on the free plan

• TDS calculation and Form 16 generation are not in the free plan. This is the most significant gap. Any employee earning above ₹7 lakh annually (new tax regime) or ₹2.5 lakh (old regime) has a TDS obligation on their employer. If TDS isn’t automated, it needs to be handled manually which is exactly the kind of compliance risk that causes EPFO and Income Tax notices.
• Performance management is behind the paid tier (₹1,499/month for 25 users).
• Support on the free plan is community-based which is fine until you have a payroll issue mid-cycle and need a quick resolution.

User reviews on CrazeHQ mention recurring complaints about session management (frequent auto log-outs) and occasional feature inconsistencies on the free tier. Worth testing with a real payroll cycle before fully committing. The paid Payroll OS plan starts at ₹999/month for 25 employees among the most affordable paid upgrades in the market.

2. greytHR Starter Strong Compliance Foundation, Limited Headroom

greytHR is perhaps the most trusted name in Indian HRMS. Founded in 2009, it has over 30,000 companies on the platform and a compliance track record that few competitors can match. Their Starter plan is free forever for up to 25 employees and includes payroll, leave management, attendance, and the employee self-service portal.

What the free plan covers

• Full payroll processing with PF, ESI, and Professional Tax
• Leave management with holiday calendars
• Attendance management and basic reports
• Employee self-service portal payslip downloads, leave applications
• Core employee database and document storage (250MB limit)

Where it stops

• The 25-employee cap is a hard ceiling. The moment you cross it, you’re moving to a paid plan starting at approximately ₹3,495/month flat regardless of whether you have 26 employees or 50. That’s a significant cost jump.
• Performance management, advanced workflows, and analytics are not included in the Starter plan.
• Independent reviews note that the Essential paid plan (the first tier above free) doesn’t include attendance management meaning if you need attendance + payroll in a paid plan, you need the Growth tier, which is considerably more expensive. It’s a pricing structure that nudges users upward faster than expected.

For a very small, stable team under 25 employees where attendance is simple and compliance depth matters, greytHR’s free plan is genuinely useful. The brand credibility and compliance history add real peace of mind that a newer platform can’t match.

3. Zoho People Free Good HR Toolkit, Not a Payroll Tool

Zoho People‘s free plan supports up to 5 users with an employee database, time-off tracking, and basic HR records. The platform is part of India’s largest SaaS ecosystem and integrates natively with Zoho CRM, Zoho Books, and Zoho Projects which is a genuine advantage if you’re already using those tools.

What the free plan covers

• Employee database and profiles
• Leave and time-off management
• Basic attendance (1 admin only on the free plan)
• HR document storage (250MB)
• Mobile app access

What it doesn’t cover

• Payroll is not part of Zoho People at all free or paid. Indian payroll is handled through a separate product, Zoho Payroll, which has its own pricing. If you want integrated HR + payroll, you need both configured together.
• The 5-user limit on the free plan makes it genuinely only suitable for a founding team or a business at the very earliest stage.
• Attendance features are limited on the free plan shift management and advanced tracking require paid tiers.

Zoho People makes the most sense as a free tool when you’re a small team already using Zoho products and need a place to centralise HR records not when payroll automation is the goal. For payroll, you’d need to look at Zoho Payroll separately, which starts at approximately ₹50/employee/month.

4. Frappe HR Fully Free, But Requires Technical Setup

Frappe HR (previously part of ERPNext) is open-source and completely free no employee cap, no feature limits, no time restriction. It covers the full range: payroll, recruitment, onboarding, performance reviews, attendance, leave, and statutory compliance including Indian PF/ESI/TDS. If you have the technical resources to set it up, it’s the most feature-complete free option in this list.

What you get

• Full HRMS payroll, recruitment, onboarding, performance, attendance, leave
• Indian statutory compliance configurable for PF, ESI, TDS, Professional Tax
• No employee limits, no per-user charges
• Active Indian user community and regular updates
• Self-hosted your data stays on your own server

What the “free” actually costs you

• Technical setup is not optional. Frappe HR runs on the Frappe Framework and needs to be installed on a server (VPS or cloud), configured, and maintained. An IT team or developer is required. This is not a sign-up-and-go solution.
• Indian payroll compliance particularly TDS slabs, state-wise PT, and ESI applicability rules needs to be configured correctly. A wrong setup will produce wrong payslips. This requires someone who knows both the software and Indian compliance rules.
• Ongoing maintenance: software updates, server upkeep, and bug fixes are your responsibility. There’s no support desk.
• Frappe Cloud (the hosted version) is paid starting at approximately $50/month for a cloud instance. If you don’t want to self-host, the free advantage largely disappears.

For a non-technical founder or a small business without an in-house developer, Frappe HR is not practical as a free tool. For a tech company with IT resources, it’s worth serious consideration particularly if data sovereignty (keeping HR data on your own servers) matters.

5. Waggex Free Trial Full Access Before You Commit

Waggex isn’t a free-forever plan, it’s a full free trial with no credit card required. We’re including it here because for many small businesses, the most useful thing isn’t a permanently capped free plan but a genuine opportunity to run real payroll on real software before paying anything.

During the trial, you get access to everything: payroll with PF/ESI/TDS compliance, attendance management, selfie and GPS attendance for field teams, leave management, employee self-service app, and HR reports. Most businesses complete the setup and run their first payroll cycle within a day.

After the trial, the pricing is ₹2 per employee per month which for a 20-person team is ₹40/month. The post-trial cost is low enough that the comparison with a permanently capped free plan becomes less straightforward than it looks.

Where Waggex’s trial is particularly useful: if your team includes field staff, delivery executives, or anyone who doesn’t work from a fixed desk. GPS check-in and selfie attendance are native features, not add-ons. No other tool in this comparison handles field workforce attendance as cleanly and on a free plan or trial, you can test that against your actual team before deciding.

Free Plan Comparison at a Glance

Here’s how the free options compare on the features that matter most.

* Waggex trial duration varies check waggex.com for current terms. All other plan details verified from official pages and third-party sources as of 2025; verify before signing up.

Which Free Option Should You Actually Use?

There’s no universal answer, but there is a logic to it:

• If you have under 25 employees and need reliable compliance on a zero-budget: Start with Kredily’s free plan. It covers the basics and you can run payroll without paying anything. Just handle TDS manually or verify that your team doesn’t yet have TDS obligations.
• If you’re under 25 employees and statutory compliance track record matters most: greytHR’s Starter plan. Older platform, more established compliance handling, trusted by 30,000+ companies. The 25-employee ceiling will come, but it buys you time to evaluate.
• If you’re already using Zoho products: Zoho People (free for 5 users) makes sense as a starting point for HR records, but you’ll need Zoho Payroll separately for salary processing.
• If you have technical resources and want full control: Frappe HR. Full features, no limits, self-hosted. The cost is time and IT capability, not money.
• If you want to test a proper HRMS before deciding: Waggex’s free trial gives you full access payroll, compliance, field attendance, and everything without a credit card. Run one real payroll cycle and you’ll know whether it fits.

When to Move Off a Free Plan

Free HR software is a good starting point, not a permanent solution for a growing team. These are the signs that a free plan has run its course:

• Your team has crossed the employee cap and you’re manually managing the overflow outside the system.
• TDS has become applicable for employees as salaries grow, and the free plan doesn’t automate it.
• Field teams or remote employees need GPS or mobile attendance that the free plan doesn’t support.
• Payroll is taking longer because leave and attendance data still have to be manually compiled before each run.
• Compliance queries are starting to come PF notices, ESI discrepancies, audit questions and the free tool doesn’t generate the documentation quickly.

When any of these show up, the cost of staying on a free plan in time, risk, and manual work exceeds the cost of a basic paid HRMS. At ₹2 per employee per month, Waggex‘s paid tier is one of the lowest upgrade costs available. greytHR’s paid plans start at ~₹3,495/month flat. Kredily’s Payroll OS runs ₹999/month for 25 employees.