The best Rippling alternatives & competitors in 2024

1. Gusto – Best all-in-one Rippling alternative for payroll & HR

Overview

Gusto tops our list of best Rippling alternatives with a more intuitive and user-friendly platform at a better price point. They offer many of the same perks as Rippling, like fully integrated functionality, automated tax filings, unlimited payroll runs, and built-in employee benefits. But Gusto offers more flexible benefits options for smaller businesses, they have faster direct deposit times (next-day compared with Rippling’s 4-day), and all of their plans include Gusto’s powerful payroll platform along with a basic suite of HR and people tools. 

On Gusto’s mid-range Plus plan, you get access to almost all of their more powerful tools including time tracking, advanced HR, and workforce cost reporting. With Rippling, any feature you want in addition to their core HR module, “Unity,” is going to cost extra (including payroll), and the prices can add up quickly. Gusto’s pricing is fully transparent, and you won’t pay a cent until you run your first payroll.

Gusto won the top spot for best overall Rippling alternative from TechRepublic, as well as best payroll software for small business in 2023 in independent analysis by NerdWallet, U.S. News and World Report, Business.org, and Fit Small Business. 

AUTOMATIC TAX FILING & COMPLIANCE

Every time you run payroll, all federal, state, and local taxes are automatically calculated, filed, and paid along with benefits deductions, workers’ comp, and PTO. Gusto handles all your 1099s and W-2s, and they’ll keep you compliant with meal times, breaks, and minimum wage. This can be a lifesaver for small businesses that struggle with complex payroll tax requirements. 

FULLY INTEGRATED

Having a single system to manage payroll, taxes, time tracking, and compliance—as well as hiring, onboarding, performance, and benefits—reduces your admin burden and streamlines your tech stack while keeping your team happy, healthy, and on track.

BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION

Managing benefits can be cost-prohibitive for many small businesses. But Gusto offers custom no-cost, low-cost, and premium benefits options to help build a package that fits your budget. Benefits administration is included at no extra cost, which sets them apart from many Rippling competitors. Employees can self-enroll, saving time and simplifying the enrollment process. 

Gusto offers more than 9,000 different plans from 30+ carriers, across all 50 states. In comparison, Rippling offers a still impressive 4,000 options, but only brokers insurance products in 34 states.

EMPLOYEE SELF-SERVICE

Employee self-service makes it easy to upload documents, e-sign contracts, and gives employees lifetime access to paystubs, W-2s, and more. Employees can view their paychecks, manage PTO, clock in and out, and access financial management tools right from the app. Rippling also offers a user-friendly employee self-service portal that includes lifetime access. 

DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL HIRING

Gusto offers new-hire filing and compliance in all 50 states, and both FUTA and SUI payments are calculated and paid automatically. They also support international contractor payments in 120+ countries, and their Employer of Record service, powered by Remote, is now live in both Canada and India, with plenty more countries to follow. If you’re looking for a Rippling competitor with wider global payroll support, check out Remote instead.

Key Features

• Seamlessly integrated payroll, HR, time tracking, and benefits
• Payroll, taxes, and compliance in all 50 states
• Next-day / 2-day direct deposit
• Multiple pay rates and schedules
• Unlimited payroll runs 
• Pay by direct deposit, check, or prepaid debit card
• Integrated time tracking tools
• Payroll on AutoPilot fully automates payroll for salaried employees
• Support for international contractors in 120+ countries; global payroll currently being expanded
• Employee-self service with lifetime access
• Benefits administration included in all plans at no additional cost
• AI-powered payroll and workforce cost reporting
• Hundreds of software integrations at no extra cost

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Gusto offers three pricing plans, with the Simple plan starting at $40 per month plus $6 per person per month. The Simple plan includes Payroll on AutoPilot along with multiple pay rates and schedules and unlimited payroll runs. It also comes loaded with basic support for hiring and onboarding, PTO, and benefits administration, but it lacks support for multi-state payroll as well as time tracking and more complex PTO options. 

Plus plans start at $80 per month plus $12 per person per month and include the full suite of time tracking, reporting, and team management tools along with the bulk of their advanced HR suite. This includes applicant tracking, custom offer letters, company org charts, performance reviews and employee happiness surveys. Plus plans also come loaded with popular features like next-day direct deposit and multi-state payroll.  

Dedicated support from certified HR pros along with compliance alerts is available only with the Premium plan or through the HR add-on at $8 per person per month.  

Gusto’s Premium plans are priced exclusively, and include everything Gusto has to offer with no hidden monthly fees. For more info on Premium pricing, contact their sales team today. 

Rippling’s pricing is only available upon request, and you’ll need to set up a sales call in order to build a custom package for your business. 

Free Trial? Yes, Gusto is free until you run your first payroll.

Free Version: No. 

See how Gusto stacks up to Rippling to find the perfect fit for your payroll and HR needs. Explore now.

Transform your HR processes with Gusto, a platform that’s already the choice of over 300,000 businesses.

2. Remote – Best alternative to Rippling for global payroll & compliance

Overview

If your business is going global, Rippling is still a solid contender in the space with a well-oiled onboarding process for international contractors and support in more than 150 countries around the world. But Rippling falls short when it comes to global payroll, supporting just 25 countries at the time of writing. Remote currently offers Employer-of-Record (EOR) services in more than 80 countries around the world, along with support for international contractors in more than 200 countries and territories, making them one of the top Rippling competitors for global teams. 

In 100+ countries where your business already has an established entity, they offer global payroll services. If you don’t have an entity, you can take advantage of their EOR service. They don’t contract with outside entities, which means better, faster support. For hiring international contractors, they provide compliant local contracts to make sure you’re staying within local labor laws as well as support for local taxes. 

Their impressive suite of international support includes hiring, self-service onboarding, compliance, and benefits in a wonderfully user-friendly platform. The best part is you can pay all of your team members around the world—whether contractor, full-time, or EOR—with a single payment.  

Their website also includes a guide to local laws, compliance, and holiday and mandatory leave policies in every country they cover, which can be helpful as you’re thinking about expanding your talent pool to new countries. Remote also offers a unique refugee talent program, making it totally free to hire any refugee as a full-time employee. 

One downside is that Remote’s pricing can start to add up, especially for EOR services, and at some point it makes more financial sense to open your own entity. But for small businesses and startups especially, Remote is easily one of the best alternatives to Rippling for global payroll and contractors.

Key Features

• Contractor payments in 200+ countries and territories
• Global payroll in 100+ and EOR in 80+ countries
• Payment supported via wire transfer, ACH, SEPA, and card
• 100+ currencies supported with no conversion fees
• Localized compliance, contracts, and benefits administration including stock options
• Contractor misclassification risk assessment included
• One-click or autopay contractor invoices
• Seamless onboarding and employee self-service portal

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Remote prices their services based on which kind of global hiring you need. For their EOR service, it costs $599 per employee per month (on an annual plan), which is in line with industry standards. To go month-to-month it increases to $699. Their international contractor payments are reasonable at $29 per month, but if you only have international contractors and not full-time employees (or if you are operating 100% within the US), there are much more affordable solutions out there. 

For global payroll in countries where you operate your own entity, you have to contact sales for pricing.

Free Trial? You can set up an account and explore features including hiring and onboarding at no cost for 30 days. You’ll only be charged when you pay global workers.

Free Plan: No. Learn more about Remote

3. ADP Run – Best Rippling alternative for quickly growing businesses

Overview

ADP is the largest payroll company in the world, offering two payroll and HR solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses: ADP Run for businesses with fewer than 50 employees and ADP Workforce Now for businesses with 50–999. 

If you’re looking for the best alternatives to Rippling with similar functionality, ADP Run probably doesn’t have the power you need. It’s mostly just a payroll tool with a few HR add-ons, especially in the more affordable tiers. If you want any popular tools like time tracking or benefits administration, you’ll have to pay for an add-on. If you need to pay contractors, you’ll have to purchase a separate tool.

But once your business crosses the crucial “50 employee threshold,” ADP Workforce Now enters as a solid competitor. Their advanced HR suite includes employee performance and engagement, enhanced HR guidance and compliance, robust analytics and insights, and the largest LMS course catalog on the market. Like Rippling, ADP offers an incredibly powerful platform that has every bell and whistle you might want. Also like Rippling, everything you add costs extra. 

For businesses that are quickly scaling, however, ADP’s long list of payroll, time tracking, and HR features, along with their a-la-carte pricing can make it an attractive candidate to grow as you grow. It’s not the cheapest service on the block, but there’s no question they have the tool you need to run your business.

Key Features

• Fully integrated HR, payroll, benefits, and time tracking
• Robust employee scheduling capabilities
• PTO / Time-off accruals
• Comprehensive analytics and reporting
• Over 700 software integrations available
• Mobile app
• Every HR, time, and people tool imaginable
• Features siloed based on # of employees
• Highly rated payroll tool

Pros and Cons

Pricing

ADP’s pricing tiers are confusing at best. For businesses with fewer than 50 employees, they offer 4 pricing tiers: Essential Payroll; Enhanced Payroll that includes wage garnishment, unemployment, background checks, and job postings; Complete Payroll and HR+ that adds on some HR tools like employee handbooks, proactive compliance alerts, a job description wizard, and access to the HR help desk; and HR Pro Payroll and HR, that includes an applicant tracking system (ATS), onboarding tools, and an LMS.

Where ADP stands out is their Workforce Now packages for medium-sized businesses from 50–999 employees. They offer three tiers: Select, Plus, and Premium. Select is a basic suite of HR and payroll tools. Plus includes benefits administration, and Premium adds on their suite of employee management tools including time tracking, scheduling, and PTO management.

With any of the Workforce Now packages, you can add on modules for Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Compensation Management, HR Assist, Analytics and Enhanced Insights, and Learning Management.

According to Forbes, users reported pricing starts from $62 per month, but the average business should expect to spend a lot more than that. For example, the ADP support team quoted payroll only for 50 employees at $400 per month.

Free Trial? Yes, three months free on select products.
Free Plan: No.

Learn more about ADP Workforce Now

4. Justworks – Best alternative to Rippling’s PEO

Overview

For some small business owners, using a full-service PEO makes more sense than handling payroll, hiring, and HR in-house. In the PEO co-employment relationship, Justworks takes on some legal liability as an employer that you don’t have to bear, which isn’t the case for standalone HR solutions. In exchange, you hand over control of some things like the employee handbook and workplace policies.

While PEOs may seem expensive, depending on the size of your business, it can often be cheaper than the cost of hiring an HR professional. If you’re currently using Rippling’s PEO service, you may be looking for a more affordable alternative with fewer bells and whistles. 

Justworks is one of the most affordable PEO options out there, and comes with support for payroll, tax filings, onboarding, PTO management, and compliance along with low-cost benefit options. They also offer traditional benefits like medical, dental, and vision, but these are only included with their higher-tier plan.  

For smaller businesses looking to take complex HR and compliance tasks off their plate, Justworks is one of the most affordable Rippling alternatives that can grow as your business grows. They keep their prices low by paring down their HR options, but for many small businesses, they’ll have everything you need. For larger businesses with more complex needs and more money to spend, there are more robust PEOs out there. 

Key Features

• Full service PEO with dedicated HR rep
• New-hire compliance in all 50 states
• International contractor support in 30+ countries included (rolling out EOR services soon)
• Unlimited payroll runs
• 4-day direct deposit  
• Paydays must follow set schedules (bi-weekly or bi-monthly)
• Off-cycle payrolls included
• Unemployment, HR, PTO, and expense management included
• Benefits administration and time tracking 
• Self-service employee onboarding
• Flexible admin permissions
• Mobile app

Pros and Cons

Pricing

Justworks has two pricing tiers: Basic and Plus. The Basic plan costs $59 per employee per month up to your 50th employee, where it drops down to $49 per employee per month. This includes everything Justworks offers save for traditional benefits and their time tracking app. The Plus plan jumps up to $99 per employee per month ($89 from your 50th employee onwards) and includes traditional benefits like medical, dental, vision, COBRA, and access to HSAs and FSAs.   

While the Basic plan is much more expensive than out-of-the-box payroll solutions, it’s one of the cheaper PEOs on the market, and may be a good option for businesses looking to offload most of their day-to-day HR. However, for startups and smaller businesses, there are more affordable and more agile payroll products on the market.  

Free Trial? Yes, 14 days.

Free Plan: Yes.

Learn more about Justworks PEO

Compare Justworks vs Gusto

5. BambooHR – Best Rippling alternative for automated workflows

Overview

BambooHR is great for both small- and medium-sized businesses who want to easily manage personnel records, payroll, and perks. BambooHR is the most HR-focused entry on this list—it’s a purebred Human Resources Management System (HRMS) with payroll, benefits, and time tracking as extras. 

Onboarding, offboarding, document storage, employee satisfaction, and robust reporting options are all built right in. Out-of-the-box workflows for time off requests, salary changes, and more make it easy to save time on admin while being sure nothing slips through the cracks. 

For tools like performance management, payroll, and benefits administration, you’ll need to pay extra. But their performance management tools are some of the best out there, and visualizations of employee progress and satisfaction, along with customizable automations and reporting on almost any piece of data set them apart as a team management tool. Employee self-service for onboarding, personal information, document storage, and benefits is also best-in-class.   

While BambooHR does come with “benefits tracking,” it’s a clunky feature that requires a lot of manual entry. If you’re looking for HR software with benefits, you’re better off paying for their benefits administration add-on. 

If you don’t have complex payroll needs, and you’re looking for a more HR-focused tool, BambooHR has all the bells and whistles to help streamline admin and manage your team while improving productivity across the board. Or, if you already have payroll and time tracking tools you love, using Bamboo to jumpstart your performance management is a great choice.   

Key Features

• Best-in-class performance management tools and visualizations
• Intuitive, user-friendly onboarding and offboarding
• Automated workflows for time-off requests, promotions, compensation changes, and more
• Payroll processing in all 50 states
• Multiple PTO policies and automated accruals
• Integrated Applicant Tracking System
• Custom reporting options on any data housed in the system
• Payroll, benefits, time tracking, and performance management available as add-ons
• 125+ software integrations

Pros and Cons

Pricing

BambooHR no longer shares pricing information on their website, and you’ll need to reach out to get a custom quote. For companies with more than 20 employees, their HRIS software is priced on a per-employee, per-month basis. For companies with 20 employees or fewer, pricing is charged at a monthly flat rate. 

BambooHR has two available plans along with a handful of optional add-ons. The Essentials Plan comes with employee records management, standard reporting and analytics, time-off management, as well as a few automated workflows. Previous pricing started at $108 per month for the first 20 employees.

The Advantage Plan includes advanced reporting, custom workflows, onboarding and offboarding, their applicant tracking system, and employee wellness features. 

They also offer four add-on packages: payroll (previously priced at $150 per month for up to 20 employees + $7.25 per employee per month after that), benefits administration (previously priced at $5 per employee per month), performance management (previously priced at $5.75 per employee per month), and time tracking (previously priced at $3 per employee per month). These modules all have volume discounts, so the per employee cost will drop as your business grows. 

Free Trial? Yes, 7 days.

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about BambooHR 

Compare BambooHR vs Gusto

6. Homebase – Best Rippling alternative for shift-based businesses

Overview

Homebase is an all-in-one scheduling, time tracking, payroll, and HR solution created specifically for shift-based businesses. HR needs for restaurants, retail, and other hourly businesses differ significantly from traditional white collar offices. Yet a lot of people management platforms like Rippling lack even basic scheduling functionality. 

Homebase lets you auto-schedule by availability or using sales and labor forecasts. You can further optimize your workforce with team management tools like collecting shift feedback to take employee pulses, team ‘shouts’ to give kudos to fellow employees, and powerful shift swapping tools to save time on schedule changes with minimal involvement from management. 

While Homebase is more of a time-tracking tool with an HR add-on, they’ve got everything hourly-based businesses need to manage their teams. Their HR suite includes hiring and onboarding with automated job postings across multiple job boards, employee happiness surveys, no-cost benefit options, and secure document storage and compliance designed with shift-based businesses in mind. Sick leave, PTO, and vacation time are easy to manage and track, and a team of HR pros is available to answer your compliance questions. 

While there are more powerful HR-focused platforms on the market, and more robust, AI-powered scheduling tools, they often come with a hefty price tag. Homebase is the easy winner for small, shift-based businesses looking for the best Rippling alternatives to streamline their tech stack while still accessing all the tools and functionality they need—at a price that won’t break the bank.

Key Features

• Designed specifically for shift-based businesses 
• Powerful time and scheduling tools 
• Recruiting, hiring, and paperless onboarding
• Payroll add-on available with automated tax filings
• Track employee certifications
• Built-in compliance for meal time, breaks, and minimum wage
• Integrations with popular POS, recruiting, accounting, and payroll software
• Robust, native communication tools
• Mobile app for time tracking, communication, shift swapping, and more
• Employee happiness surveys and retention tools

Pros and Cons

Pricing 

Homebase offers four pricing tiers. Their Basic plan is free and includes basic scheduling and time tracking and POS integration for up to 20 employees at a single location. 

The Essentials plan is $20 a month per location and includes advanced scheduling and time tracking and team communication tools.  

At $48 per location per month (billed annually), the Plus plan adds on hiring, performance management, and PTO, as well as permissions and policies. The All-in-One plan adds the HR tools you need to thrive including new-hire onboarding, employee document storage, labor cost reporting, and their full HR and compliance suite at $80 per month. 

For the payroll add-on, it’s $39 a month + $6 per employee paid per month.

Homebase offers no-commitment monthly plans at slightly higher prices than listed above. 

Free Trial? Yes, 14 days.

Free Plan: Yes, basic scheduling, time, and hiring features for up to 20 employees at a single location. 

Learn more about Homebase

7. TriNet HR – Best value Rippling HR alternative

Overview

TriNet used to operate solely as a PEO, before they merged with Zenefits. Their product became TriNet Zenefits for a time, and now Zenefits has been dropped entirely. Their standalone HRIS is now called TriNet HR and their PEO is TriNet PEO. The recommendation here is for the standalone HRIS software, not for their PEO. 

All of TriNet HR’s packages include automated self-onboarding with offer letters and background checks, employee self-service, digital docs and signatures, and account provisioning. They also come loaded with employee scheduling, time off tracking, PTO, data and document management, company directories and org charts, software integrations, mobile app access, and their basic analytics dashboard. For most companies looking for the best Rippling alternatives to manage employee data, this is more than enough. And at just $8 per employee with no base package fee, it’s incredibly affordable.

However, if you’re looking for benefits administration, recruiting tools, or learning management, these are available only as add-on modules to their packages at a per-employee-per-month rate. Payroll is only included in their highest-tier package, though it does come with automated federal and state tax filing, as well as new-hire reporting.

At the end of the day, TriNet HR isn’t the best HR software on the block, and it doesn’t pack nearly as much power as Rippling, but their affordable pricing makes it possible to access the HR functionality you need for much cheaper than most competitors in the space.

Key Features

• Affordable base plan
• Time tracking, PTO, and scheduling tools 
• Paperless employee self-onboarding
• Payroll add-on available with automated tax filings
• Robust, native communication tools
• Mobile app for time tracking, communication, PTO requests, and more
• Employee happiness surveys and retention tools

Pros and Cons

Pricing 

TriNet HR starts with the “Essentials” plan at $8 per employee per month, and then offers two higher-tier plans, “Growth” at $16 and “Zen” at $27 per employee per month. But these prices are only available if you make an annual commitment. For month-to-month packages, the prices go up to $10, $20, and $33 per employee per month, respectively. 

The Essentials plan comes loaded with all of the basic HRIS systems functionality you need including onboarding and offboarding and employee and data management, but it lacks more robust reporting and analytics. 

For their full suite of reporting, analytics, data, compensation, and performance management, you’ll need to upgrade to their Growth plan. Payroll can be added to either of these plans for $6 per employee per month.

Finally, the Zen plan adds on retention tools like employee engagement, a “People Hub” to facilitate communication, and payroll at no extra cost. However payroll is only included for select industries.

Benefits administration, recruiting tools (powered by JazzHR), and HR advisory services aren’t included in any plans. The benefits administration fee is waived only if you choose a benefits broker referred by TriNet.

It’s also worth noting that TriNet isn’t built for start-ups and very small businesses. They have a minimum requirement of 5 employees for any of their pricing plans. You can still use their service if you only have two or three employees on payroll, but you’ll still have to pay for all five. 

Free Trial? No.

Free Plan: No.

Learn more about TriNet HR 

Compare TriNet HR vs Gusto

8. Workday – Best Rippling alternative for analytics & reporting

Overview

AI is changing the way we work, and Workday is leveraging its potential to boost productivity and keep your team happy, motivated, and on track. Their impressive human capital management (HCM) solution includes a native communication platform, a customizable dashboard for easy navigation and access to essential tasks and tools, and provides mobile apps for payroll, time tracking, and HR tasks. 

Workday offers integrated recruiting, hiring, and onboarding along with a full suite of AI-powered time and scheduling tools. Employees can easily clock in and out, swap shifts, and scheduling is both automated and compliant. 

But where Workday really shines is their AI-powered, data-driven decision making. For hiring, they provide robust data on skills gaps and compensation, along with impressive workforce optimization insights. From a people management perspective, they help keep employees engaged through tailored professional development and personalized HR experiences. Rippling is a front-runner in the reporting and analytics space, and Workday gives them a run for their money.  

Where Workday falls a little short compared to Rippling is their integrated payroll. It’s somewhat limited and is more of an add-on to their core people management software. Additionally, their global payroll solution is limited to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and France, though they do offer integrations with a handful of global payroll providers.

If you’re a midsize company looking to jumpstart productivity, discover efficiencies, and ramp up employee engagement, Workday is a great tool for the job. But if you’re a smaller business looking for a simpler tool to manage your team, there are more affordable options out there.

Key Features

• Integrated payroll, benefits, and HR
• Robust, AI-powered analytics and reporting
• Financial, workforce, and operational optimization 
• Employee management portal
• Native communication tool
• Customized employee experiences
• Scheduling & shift swapping capability

Pros and Cons

Pricing 

Workday’s pricing is not transparent, and you’ll need to contact them for a custom quote. However, according to Forbes, users have reported pricing around $99 per user month.

Free Trial? No.

Free Plan: No. 

Learn more about Workday