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HR & Recruiting
Zoho People
Cloud HRMS from Zoho for attendance, leave, performance, and employee management, with India payroll via Zoho Payroll.
FindThatSoftware verdictEditorial ruling
A good fit for Indian SMBs already in the Zoho ecosystem that want core HR and performance management in the cloud, with Zoho Payroll for India alongside. Payroll is a separate Zoho product, so factor that in. Verify current per-user pricing and the payroll add-on on Zoho's India site.
FindThatSoftware has source-checked this listing and keeps 2 public sources visible for buyer verification.
Should you use Zoho People?
Use it if indian SMBs using the Zoho suite. Avoid it if a founder-led team of three should not buy Zoho People, because the five user minimum makes them pay for seats nobody uses.
Spec sheet
- Starting price
- ₹48/mo₹48/user/mo sticker
- Free plan
- Available
- Free trial
- Available
- Status
- Source checked 29 Jul 2026
- Source trail
- 2 public sources
Work at Zoho People?
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Claim this listing →In short
Zoho People is a commerce & operations / hr & recruiting for Indian buyers. It costs about ₹48/mo before GST, billed in rupees. That is per user with a 5-user minimum, so the smallest bill is about ₹240 a month. It issues an India GST invoice, so you can claim input credit. FindThatSoftware rates it best for indian SMBs using the Zoho suite, and a poor fit if a founder-led team of three should not buy Zoho People, because the five user minimum makes them pay for seats nobody uses.
The trade-off, weighed
What you gain, and what you give up.
The case for
- Zoho People bills in rupees. Essential HR is 60 rupees per user a month, and 48 rupees when paid yearly, before GST
- The free edition covers a very small team with employee database, leave management and document management at no cost
- Enterprise tops out at 240 rupees per user a month, which keeps an HR suite with LMS and help desk inside most India budgets
The catch
- Every paid plan carries a five user minimum, so a three person company still pays for five seats
- Attendance tracking, biometric integration, timesheets and roster management are absent from Essential HR and start at Professional, which doubles the per user price
- E-signature templates need a separate Zoho Sign subscription, so paperless onboarding costs more than the Zoho People licence alone
- Extra storage costs 230 rupees a month and extra forms 580 rupees a month, both charged on top of the per user licence
True India price
Registered business, per month
₹48
Zoho People is billed in rupees at ₹48/mo, so there is no forex markup. A registered business reclaims GST, so that is roughly the cost (₹576/yr). Without reclaim, add 18% for about ₹57 a month.
- Sticker price
- ₹48/mo
- GST
- 18%, reclaimable if registered
- Registered per month
- ₹48
- Registered per year
- ₹576
- If you can't reclaim GST
- ₹57
- Try first
- Has a free plan, so you can start without a card.
- Watch for
- Zoho People is priced per employee per month, from ₹48/user/mo, with higher tiers adding features, and free for up to 5 employees. Statutory payroll (PF/ESI/TDS/PT) runs through Zoho Payroll, added at a small per-employee monthly fee. Confirm current plans on Zoho's site.
Indicative, not a bill. The exchange rate is a single mid-market reference, not a live feed, and GST-registered businesses may reclaim input credit. Confirm current pricing on the vendor site.
Full India pricing breakdownIndia readiness
How well Zoho People fits an Indian business operationally, from the verified pricing and company facts we hold.
- ✓GST invoice
Issues a GST-compliant invoice, so a registered business can reclaim input tax.
- ✓Bills in INR
Priced in rupees, so there is no forex conversion or card markup on top.
- ✓India HQ
India-headquartered, so support, timezone, and context are local.
How Zoho People compares
Against the 7 other hr payroll toolswe list, from what we verified on each vendor’s own pages.
Less common among the other hr payroll tools
Recorded for Zoho People and for at most a third of the 7 others we list.
- Sandbox
- Biometric device integration
- Employee database
- Employee engagement surveys
- Facial recognition attendance
- Geofenced attendance
- Learning management system
- Multi entity management
Also in most alternatives
Recorded for at least half of the 7 others, and for Zoho People.
- Leave management
- Employee self service
This compares only the capabilities enough rival tools share for a comparison to mean anything — roughly a quarter of what we verified. The full list is under “What we verified” below, and anything absent from both is something we did not record rather than something the product lacks.
Paying for more than Zoho People? See your whole stack's real India cost and where you could switch to save.
Audit my stackOverview
What is Zoho People?
Zoho People is the cloud HRMS in the Zoho suite, covering employee database, attendance and leave, timesheets, performance management, and HR workflows. It pairs with Zoho Payroll for India and integrates with the wider Zoho ecosystem, billing in INR.
Best for
- Indian SMBs using the Zoho suite
- Teams needing cloud HR + performance
- Companies wanting HR and payroll from one vendor
Who should avoid it
- A founder-led team of three should not buy Zoho People, because the five user minimum makes them pay for seats nobody uses
- A factory or retail chain that needs shift rosters and biometric attendance cannot use Essential HR and has to start at Professional
What we verified about Zoho People
Read from Zoho People’s own pages. Each line is a finding and what it was based on, so you can check any of it yourself.
Features we confirmed48
- Timesheets
- Time logs collect into timesheets sent for approval
- Sandbox
- Enterprise plan includes a sandbox environment
- Nine box matrix
- Nine-box matrix is a performance management feature
- Multi entity management
- Multi-entity management independently manages multiple organizations
- Leave management
- Time-off management with customizable leave types and policies
- Learning management system
- Enterprise adds a learning management system with courses
- HR document management
- Organization and employee file management included from free
- Geofenced attendance
- Geo-restrictions confine attendance to a defined region
- Facial recognition attendance
- People Kiosk is a facial recognition attendance app
- Employee self service
- Employees access profile and Zoho People services themselves
- Employee onboarding
- Structured onboarding covers orientation, paperwork and training
- Employee engagement surveys
- Premium adds employee engagement, Essential HR lists surveys
- Employee database
- Employee database is a repository of all employee information
- Biometric device integration
- Biometric integrations mark attendance from your device
- Attendance tracking
- Attendance tracked via web, mobile and facial recognition
- 360 degree feedback
- 360-degree feedback gathers input from multiple stakeholders
- Attendance based leave accrual
- Leave accrues based on days or hours actually worked
- Attendance regularization
- Employees can rectify incorrect or missed attendance entries
- Bradford absence scoring
- Bradford score mitigates short frequent unplanned absences
- Candidate onboarding
- Custom module lets candidates fill in basic information
- Client and job time tracking
- Project, job and client management tracks logged task time
- Compensation management
- Customizable salary and benefit components with revisions
- Compensatory off
- Comp-off applies leave against overtime worked
- Continuous reviews
- Continuous reviews appear in performance management
- Exceptional working day
- A weekend day can be declared a working day
- Exit interviews
- Exit interviews collect feedback from departing employees
- Gps location tracking
- Location tracking records work location between check-in and out
- Hourly permission tracking
- Hourly permissions record short absences separately
- HR analytics
- Premium adds advanced HR analytics on top of HR reports
- HR help desk
- Enterprise adds an HR help desk module
- IP restricted attendance
- IP restrictions confine attendance logging to defined ranges
- Maternity and paternity leave grants
- Leave grant covers child care, maternity and paternity credits
- Offboarding workflows
- Customizable offboarding workflows fit your exit process
- Okr management
- OKR creation, cascading, check-ins and reports are included
- On duty marking
- On duty covers employees working outside the office location
- Overtime management
- Overtime management supports reports for payroll processing
- Performance appraisals
- Performance evaluation uses goals, KRAs, skills and competencies
- Personal file uploads
- Employees can upload personal files like ID proofs
- Resignation and termination management
- Central dashboard manages resignations and terminations
- Salary revision letters
- Revision letters notify employees of salary changes
- Self appraisals
- Self-appraisals are a listed performance management feature
- Shift change requests
- Employees can raise shift change requests
- Shift patterns
- Custom shift schedules assign to employees, roles and locations
- Shift rotation
- Shifts rotate automatically at defined intervals
- Shift scheduling
- Roster management creates and schedules employee shifts
- Timesheet auto submission
- Timesheet scheduler automatically submits for approval
- Timesheet billing and invoicing
- Timesheets support billing and invoice generation
- Zia AI bot
- Zia AI bot is included from the Essential HR plan
What people use it for4
- Track attendance and leave
- Roster, biometric and shift rotation target shift-based workforces
- Run appraisal cycle
- Appraisals, self-appraisals and nine-box support review cycles
- Run payroll
- Cloud HRMS for attendance, leave and employee management in India
- Bill client time from HR system
- Timesheets integrate with Zoho Invoice for billing
Works with15
- Zoho vault
- Zoho Vault integration provides password management
- Zoho sign
- Zoho Sign templates power e-signature in Zoho People
- Zoho recruit
- People Plus bundle packages Zoho Recruit for hiring
- Zoho projects
- Leave and timesheets integrate with Zoho Projects
- Zoho payroll
- India statutory payroll is delivered by Zoho Payroll alongside
- Zoho invoice
- Timesheets integrate with Zoho Invoice for billing
- Zoho expense
- Timesheet integrations list Zoho Expense explicitly
- Zoho CRM
- Timesheet integrations include Zoho CRM
- Zoho connect
- Leave module integrates with Zoho Connect
- Zoho cliq
- Leave module integrates with Zoho Cliq
- Zoho books
- Timesheet integrations name Zoho Books
- Quickbooks
- Timesheet integrations explicitly list QuickBooks
- Microsoft 365
- Leave management integrates with Office365
- Google workspace
- Leave management integrates with Google calendars
- Google maps
- Geo-restrictions can use Google Maps for attendance
Terms, compliance and how you buy24
- Liability capped at 50000 INR
- Zoho India terms cap liability at ₹50,000 or twelve months fees
- Customer owns their data
- Zoho terms state you own content created or stored by you
- Chennai jurisdiction
- Zoho India terms settle disputes exclusively in Chennai courts
- Auto renewal default
- Zoho terms auto-renew unless you notify seven days prior
- Annual discount over 20 percent
- Toggle states Yearly - Save more than 20%
- Attendance gated above essential
- Attendance, timesheets and roster start at Professional
- E signature requires zoho sign
- Zoho Sign templates require a separate Zoho Sign subscription
- Extra forms charged
- Our research records extra forms at ₹580 a month
- Extra storage charged
- Our research records extra storage at ₹230 a month
- Five user minimum on all paid plans
- Comparison row shows minimum users of 5 on every paid tier
- Free plan single administrator
- Free plan allows exactly 1 administrator
- GST charged on top
- Zoho invoices GST in addition to listed subscription fees
- GST invoice for input credit
- Zoho India terms promise invoices formatted for input tax credit
- India headquartered vendor
- Zoho Corporation Private Limited contracts from Chennai for India
- INR billed
- Zoho publishes rupee per-employee pricing for People in India
- LMS and helpdesk enterprise only
- HR help desk and LMS appear only on Enterprise
- Modular plan structure
- Workforce and Talent editions split attendance from performance
- Payroll is a separate product
- Statutory India payroll runs through Zoho Payroll separately
- People plus bundle
- Bundle packages Recruit, People, Expense, Connect, Cliq, Sign, Vault
- Per employee pricing
- Plans are quoted per employee per month
- Performance gated to premium
- Performance and compensation management begin at Premium
- Premium support on enterprise
- Enterprise bundle tier includes premium support
- Quote above 500 users
- Page says ask for a price quote above 500 users
- Unlimited admins on paid
- All paid plans show unlimited administrators
Compare Zoho People
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Pricing caveat and source trail
Pricing and free-plan claims can change. FindThatSoftware keeps source URLs visible so users can verify before buying.
Zoho People is priced per employee per month, from ₹48/user/mo, with higher tiers adding features, and free for up to 5 employees. Statutory payroll (PF/ESI/TDS/PT) runs through Zoho Payroll, added at a small per-employee monthly fee. Confirm current plans on Zoho's site.
Zoho People pricinghttps://www.zoho.com/people/zohopeople-pricing.htmlZoho People (official site)https://www.zoho.com/people/
Verified against the sources above. How we research & rate software →
Does Zoho People give a GST invoice in India?
Zoho People issues an India GST invoice, so a GST-registered business can claim input tax credit on it directly.
Is Zoho People good for Indian small businesses?
Zoho People is worth evaluating for Indian buyers, but the final fit depends on pricing limits, support, integrations, and setup effort.
Does Zoho People have a free plan?
Zoho People lists a free plan, but check the official pricing page for current usage limits before choosing it.
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