Free HRIS Software: What Free Plans Actually Cover

People search "is BambooHR free" and "free HRIS" because HR software looks like something a small company should not have to pay for: it is a list of employees, their documents and their time off. The honest answer, for the three vendors compared here, is that none gives it away on its pricing page: BambooHR and Gusto publish paid plans only, and Rippling quotes. What a small employer can do is choose the cheapest route that matches its real need. We read the vendors' pricing pages on October 27, 2026; nothing here comes from a hands-on trial.

For whom: a US employer of roughly 5 to 50 people deciding whether to pay for HR software. Not for: a company with employees in several countries, or one already buying a payroll-led suite through a sales process.

What the three cost

For a company of ten, BambooHR's flat Core price works out to $250 a month for HR alone; Gusto's Simple plan for ten people is $49 + 10 × $6, or $109 a month, with payroll in the same bill.

Our pick

Gusto, for a small employer whose first need is paying people. You have to buy payroll anyway, and Gusto's positioning puts employee records and basic HR in the same product, so for many small teams the "HRIS" question disappears into the payroll decision.

• Pick BambooHR instead when the HR record is the job: onboarding, documents, time off and an employee experience your people team runs, with payroll elsewhere. Its flat price makes the 25-and-under tier predictable.
• Pick Rippling instead if HR needs to drive IT and device setup as well; expect a quote, not a list price.
• When free is enough: under about ten employees, a shared spreadsheet for records plus your payroll provider's employee profiles can do the job; move to an HRIS when onboarding paperwork or time-off tracking starts eating hours.

For full costs, see HRIS total cost.