# 6 Top-Rated Tools for HR Tech Stack | Capterra > Looking to build an HR tech stack for your business? Check out these top 6 HR tools with the highest user ratings, along with pricing details and guidance on how to choose. Source: https://www.capterra.com/resources/top-rated-HR-tech-stack --- HR Basics # 6 Top-Rated Tools To Include in Your HR Tech Stack Written by: Ashish Upadhyay Ashish UpadhyayAuthor Ashish Upadhyay is a writer at Capterra. He provides insights to help small businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing over 550,000 ... [See bio & all articles](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/aupadhyay/) Published December 15, 2023 12 min read ## Looking to build an HR tech stack for your business? Check out these top 6 HR tools with the highest user ratings. Human resources managers and administrators often oversee multiple operations beyond recruiting, such as payroll processing, managing incoming applications, and employee scheduling. Having the right tools to manage these processes is crucial for any HR professional. HR professionals can consider building a custom tech stack to simplify these cross-functional operations. With the right software solutions, an HR tech stack can automate manual tasks, reducing the burden on HR professionals and freeing their time to focus on strategic initiatives. Thankfully, building an HR tech stack isn't that complicated. We looked at thousands of reviews from HR professionals and their software search patterns to identify the most-viewed HR-related software categories on [Capterra](https://www.capterra.com/). Per our analysis, the top three categories are: - [Payroll](https://www.capterra.com/payroll-software/) - [Applicant tracking](https://www.capterra.com/applicant-tracking-software/) - [Employee scheduling](https://www.capterra.com/employee-scheduling-software/) This article highlights six top-rated products from these three HR software categories—two products from each category listed alphabetically—based on verified user reviews. ## Top-rated payroll software for your HR tech stack ## 1\. [Gusto](https://www.capterra.com/p/131882/Gusto/) _Analysis performed November 2023_ As a payroll tool, Gusto automates tax calculation and salary disbursement processes. It tracks employee work hours and calculates overtime based on the logged hours. The software also offers flexible payroll processing options with hourly, weekly, and monthly payouts for contractors. The software even stores and organizes tax management forms, such as employee I-9s, W-2s, and contractor 1099s. **Product features of interest**: - **Automated payroll:** Sync your team's hours automatically. The feature summarizes work hours from time tracking tools and integrates with attendance systems to ensure accurate payroll processing and eliminate manual data entry and calculations. - **Automated tax filing:** Calculate business and employee taxes based on up-to-date local, state, and federal tax regulations. This functionality helps generate and file tax forms with appropriate government agencies so businesses don't have to navigate complex tax codes and deadlines. - **Health benefits administration:** Offer health insurance benefits, including health savings accounts (HSA), disability insurance, flexible spending accounts (FSA), life insurance, and dependent care. **Customer support options:** Help center, FAQs, call, and email ### Who should consider Gusto? Gusto is worth considering for HR managers looking to simplify payroll processing for contract employees. Contract employees often have varying work arrangements and payment schedules, creating challenges in receiving timely compensation. This HR solution addresses these challenges by offering a range of flexible payroll processing options. HR teams can choose between hourly, weekly, or monthly payouts for contractors. Additionally, they can pay contractors via check, automated clearing house (ACH) transfer, wire transfer, credit card, and online payment systems such as PayPal or Venmo. #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Starting price $40 per month + $6 per additional user #### Billing cycle Monthly #### Device Compatibilty ## 2\. [Rippling](https://www.capterra.com/p/172127/Rippling/) _Analysis performed November 2023_ Rippling offers payroll functionality as part of its finance cloud platform. The platform allows you to create corporate cards for your teams, control their office expenses, and reconcile payments digitally. You can create an expense group for specific teams, set an expense limit, and create transaction rules to manage costs every month. The software also lets you reimburse employees and contractors for corporate expenses. Rippling supports local currency payments in over a hundred countries, enabling you to hire local and international employees. When an employee submits an international receipt, Rippling translates its line items and converts its currencies for the reviewer. **Product features of interest**: - **Custom spend policy engine**: Build hyper-custom policies for reimbursement, and expenses based on employee data and automatically apply them to specific teams and individuals. - **Unified people analytics**: Give every team instant visibility into their corporate spending with the help of in-depth reports and automatically update expense policies when individuals get promoted. - **Dynamic general ledger mapping**: Sync card transactions to your general ledger (GL) and use policies to automatically categorize each transaction's fields, saving your team the painstaking work of matching every transaction to a GL category. **Customer support options**: Help center, FAQs, call, and email ### Who should consider Rippling? HR managers looking to have great control over corporate spend management and expense tracking. The software automates employee reimbursement, which can improve accuracy and efficiency in company expense reporting. Its ability to create customized expense and payment policies benefits HR managers working with diverse teams across countries with varied payment structures and payroll laws. Best functionality #### Trial/Free Version Pro tip The payroll process involves collecting and storing sensitive employee information, such as social security numbers, addresses, and banking information. Ensure your shortlisted payroll tool offers robust security features, such as multi-factor authentication and data encryption, to safeguard sensitive employee data. Also, ensure the tool complies with all applicable data privacy laws. ## Top-rated applicant tracking software for your HR tech stack ## 1\. [ADP Workforce Now](https://www.capterra.com/p/155895/WorkforceNow/) _Analysis performed November 2023_ ADP Workforce Now is an HR suite with applicant tracking capabilities to standardize the hiring pipeline—from creating job posts to onboarding new hires. This solution enables HR teams to build a personalized career website to showcase available positions and simplify the application process for candidates. Additionally, HR teams can create job posts for social media from within the ATS. This feature pre-populates job details into the posts, including the job title, job description, company name, and location. **Product features of interest**: - **Video messaging:** Use video messages to communicate job requirements and company culture details. This feature enhances candidate engagement and addresses potential misunderstandings or miscommunications arising from diverse interpretations of text-based job descriptions. - **Sponsored job posting with ZipRecruiter:** Integrate ZipRecruiter, an online job search engine and recruitment platform, to create unlimited sponsored job postings, identify quality candidates, and send application invitations to candidates. - **Reporting and analytics:** Generate comprehensive reports to analyze recruitment costs and the duration of position fulfillment. This data-driven approach helps improve decision-making and enhances overall recruitment efficiency. **Customer support options**: Live chat, call, email, and help desk ### Who should consider ADP Workforce Now? Recruiters looking to eliminate confusion in communicating job roles or expectations can consider ADP Workforce Now. Its video messaging feature enables recruiters to share job requirements and company culture details via video messages. These messages bridge the gap between textual descriptions and real-world scenarios by demonstrating work processes, team collaborations, or on-site environments. They help clearly communicate a role's demands and dynamics. #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Starting price Available upon request from the vendor #### Device Compatibilty Pro tip Leverage a demo, trial, or free version to understand how your shortlisted ATS software handles HR tasks such as posting job listings, scheduling interviews, and managing candidate communication. A trial run can also help you identify potential issues or limitations with the software, such as complicated interfaces or lack of features your HR team needs. ## 2\. [Indeed](https://www.capterra.com/p/161381/Indeed/) _Analysis performed November 2023_ While Indeed is primarily a job board, the platform offers application tracking functionality, including job posting, resume parsing, talent acquisition, and interview scheduling. The software also features an AI resume search, which analyzes job descriptions and candidate resumes to identify the best matches based on skills, experience, education, and other factors. Additionally, the platform enables direct transfer of candidate data and resumes from job boards, saving HR teams time and reducing manual data entry errors. **Product features of interest**: - **Sponsored job posting:** Increase the visibility of a job posting by promoting it to the top of search results and on the Indeed job board. Recruiters can target their job postings to specific audiences based on location, job type, and industry. - **Interview management:** Schedule one-on-one, panel, and multi-round interviews. Preview resumes, record interviews, share screens, take notes, and share details with the next interviewer. - **Applicant skills testing:** Use pre-built assessments and screening questions to test applicants' skills and track their scores. Employers can view the scores of all candidates and filter the results to identify best-suited applications. **Customer support options**: Help center, FAQs, and query forms ### Who should consider Indeed? HR teams looking for an ATS tool that automates resume parsing and candidate data entry can consider Indeed. Its advanced AI resume search feature leverages intelligent analytics to automate and standardize identifying top-tier candidates with the most relevant qualifications, skills, and employee experience. Moreover, Indeed offers a recruiter extension that imports data directly from its suite of products, including Indeed Jobs and Indeed Resume, to enhance data collection and recording. #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Starting price Available upon request from the vendor #### Device Compatibilty ## Top-rated employee scheduling software for your HR tech stack ## 1\. [HotSchedules](https://www.capterra.com/p/52611/HotSchedules/) _Analysis performed November 2023_ HotSchedules offers an employee scheduling app with an intuitive drag-and-drop dashboard for managers to create flexible schedules for specific teams and individuals working for your business. The software lets you establish labor rules during implementation and asks for data regarding employee headcount and total work hours. Once you give the data, HotSchedules automatically generates optimized employee schedules. **Product features of interest**: - **Demand-driven scheduling**: Create accurate demand forecasts based on business performance data and align them with your predetermined labor rules to automate scheduling for your team based on customer demand.  - **Automated scheduling**: Develop automated schedules for recurring jobs by setting up a work roster and assigning specific people to the roster. Automated scheduling can take into account the specific skills and expertise of specialists when assigning tasks. This ensures that the right person with the required skills is assigned to each role on the roster. - **AI-based labor forecasting**: Maintain labor forecasting accuracy with an algorithm analyzing economic trends, consumer behavior, and historical data, such as foot traffic during the promotional season and holidays. **Customer support options**: Help center, FAQs, email, and call ### Who should consider HotSchedules? Restaurants and salons frequently dealing with mealtime rush and sudden spike in reservations need demand-based scheduling for greater efficiency. HotSchedules can be of help in such scenarios. The software provides AI forecasting to managers with the help of internal and external data points and helps create schedules that match forecasted demand with greater accuracy. #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Starting price Available upon request from the vendor #### Device Compatibilty Pro tip Choose software that offers a mobile-friendly interface or a dedicated mobile app. This is essential for employees who may need to access their schedules on the go. A mobile-friendly interface is equally important for both managers creating schedules and employees viewing them. ## 2\. [Runn](https://www.capterra.com/p/202595/Runn/) _Analysis performed November 2023_ Runn is a workforce planning and management platform that offers employee scheduling capabilities. You can get a bird's-eye view of everyone's schedules in your team and assign people to projects based on their availability. The software lets you filter your search by role, skill, team, and experience to find the most ideal individuals for tasks. With a resource dashboard aligned to ongoing projects, you can view how each project in the pipeline impacts your team's availability and manage your team's capacity accordingly. **Product features of interest**: - **Resource scheduling:** Set custom work hours for each team member, manage time off and holidays, and assign projects to specific people or roles based on their skill set and experience through a resource-planning dashboard. - **Project forecasting**: Get real-time visibility of how future work impacts availability and monitor live insights for the near future. Get forecasts of how much revenue, profit, and costs your projects incur in comprehensive project reports.  - **Time sheet tracking**: Set team and individual time sheets that teams can access to view their respective schedules. Record non-billable time and get reports on how much time gets spent on non-billable work and potential losses. **Customer support options**: Live chat, email, help desk, and knowledge base ### Who should consider Runn? IT teams and consulting firms wishing to oversee employee schedules and create role-specific schedules for ongoing projects can benefit the most from Runn. The software offers a high-level heatmap of everyone's time for managers to identify work trends across the business and create project timelines and schedules accordingly. #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial ## How much do HR software tools cost? HR software costs vary based on the software type, core HR management features, user count, business size and type, integrations, and storage. Most HR tools offer a free trial (no-cost trial plans ranging from 14 to 30 days) or a forever free version with limited features. Besides these, typical pricing plans include: - **Entry-level plans:** These offer basic HR features and are suitable for small teams or businesses. - **Mid-tier plans:** These cover all basic and some advanced features and are ideal for teams that have outgrown basic HR solutions but don’t require the full range of functionality offered by enterprise-level tools. - **High-end plans:** These include unlimited access to advanced features and are ideal for large enterprises with cross-functional teams. **_Note:_** _The table provides per-user, per-month pricing details for each category._ **Entry-level plan** **Mid-tier plan** **High-end plan** **Payroll software** **Price:** $5 to $99 **Features:** Tax compliance, payroll management **Price:** $6 to $299 **Features:** Customized tax portals, gamification elements, data storage **Price:** $17 to $400+ **Features:** Unlimited access to entry and mid-level features **Applicant tracking software** **Price:** $15 to $99 **Features:** Sponsored job posting, interview scheduling **Price:** $35 to $109 **Features:** Candidate tracking, CRM integration, bulk data import, priority support **Price:** $80 to $199 **Features:** Unlimited job posting, workflow and HR automation, custom domains, multi-location support **Employee scheduling software** **Price:** $1.70 to $29 **Features:** Time tracking, payment, tax compliance **Price:** $2.49 to $48 **Features:** Custom payment schedules, currency conversion, general ledger **Price:** $8 to $80 **Features:** Unlimited access to entry and mid-level features ###    Hidden costs associated with HR software tools Besides the HR software license price, additional costs may include: - **Implementation and training costs:** Setup, customization, and staff training expenses. - **Data migration and integration costs:** Moving data and connecting with other systems might require extra funds. - **Support and maintenance Fees:** Ongoing charges for updates and technical assistance. ## Frequently asked questions when selecting software for your HR tech stack Before finalizing software, consider asking vendors these questions to ensure you pick the best tools for your HR tech stack. Does the software have an employee self-service portal? This feature of an HR platform allows employees to self-update their information, reducing administrative workloads for HR professionals. Employees can access and download their pay stubs and tax forms using the self-service portal and set their own work schedules based on availability. Additionally, prospective candidates can track the status of their job applications, eliminating the need for frequent inquiries and improving the candidate experience. New employees can also use the portal to check and complete onboarding tasks such as submitting paperwork. Can the software be customized? Customization is crucial whether you're purchasing payroll software, applicant tracking software, employee scheduling software, or any other HR tool. This will help tailor the software to your business's specific HR needs. For example, an applicant tracking tool should include the ability to customize workflows and stages to match your unique hiring processes. What collaboration tools does the software support? Collaboration is the cornerstone of effective teamwork, whether creating employee schedules, creating an applicant-tracking workflow, or running payroll. Some collaboration features to consider in your HR software solution include chat, audio and video calls, whiteboards, and annotations. These features will make working together easier for your HR team, especially if you have a virtual or hybrid workforce. * * * Looking for Human Resources software?Check out Capterra's list of the [best Human Resources software](https://www.capterra.com/human-resource-software/) solutions. ### Was this article helpful? * * * ## About the Author [### Ashish Upadhyay](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/aupadhyay/) Ashish Upadhyay is a writer at Capterra. He provides insights to help small businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing over 550,000 Capterra user reviews and nearly 48,000 interactions between Capterra software advisors and buyers. Ashish has written about insurance, fintech, and real estate sectors and his work has been featured in MAST The Magazine and Medium. ### RELATED READING - [Personalizing Recruiting and Onboarding With the Right HR Tools](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-hr-software-personalizes-recruiting-onboarding/) - [AI vs. HR Software Reviews: What SMBs Should Consider When Selecting HR Tools](https://www.capterra.com/resources/ai-vs-hr-software-reviews/) - [7 Top-Rated AI Applicant Tracking Software](https://www.capterra.com/resources/ai-applicant-tracking-software/) - [Employee Retention Strategy: Practical Steps and Resources for SMB HR Teams](https://www.capterra.com/resources/employee-retention-strategies-smbs/) - [Build Your SMB's HR Tech Stack to Address Growth, Skills, and Retention Challenges](https://www.capterra.com/resources/build-your-smbs-hr-tech-stack/) - [How To Set Up Payroll for a Small Business](https://www.capterra.com/resources/steps-to-setting-up-your-small-business-payroll/) - [5 Key Recruitment Software Features With Top Products That Offer Them](https://www.capterra.com/resources/recruiting-software-key-features/) - [8 Top-Rated AI Payroll Software](https://www.capterra.com/resources/top-rated-ai-payroll-software/) - [How to Improve Employee Retention: Building a Retention-Driven HR Tech Stack](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-to-improve-employee-retention-hr-tech-stack/) To arrive at the product list: - We looked at the search patterns of thousands of reviews from HR professionals to identify the top three HR-related software categories that are most viewed by visitors on Capterra.com: Payroll, applicant tracking software, and employee scheduling software.  - We then used the 2023 Capterra Shortlist reports to identify the two highest-scoring products from each software category based on their popularity and rating scores. ([Read the complete Capterra Shortlist methodology here](https://blog.capterra.com/research-methodologies/).) - Each product featured on the Capterra Shortlist also had to meet the market definition of the software category they belonged to: - [Applicant tracking software](https://www.capterra.com/applicant-tracking-software/): _"Applicant tracking software allows organizations to easily manage the hiring process by maintaining a database of applicant and job information."_ - [Payroll software](https://www.capterra.com/payroll-software/): _"Payroll software automates the management of employees' salaries, wages, bonuses, and deductions."_ - [Employee scheduling](https://www.capterra.com/employee-scheduling-software/)_: “Employee scheduling systems help to create, track, and manage employee schedules as well as approve employee vacation/leave requests.”_ The “best functionality” tool is identified based on the highest user ratings for functionality that a vendor receives based on user reviews as of Nov. 29, 2023 Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from Capterra’s payroll, applicant tracking, and employee scheduling software directories. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the Capterra directory that offer them. Only products with publicly available pricing information, as of Nov. 29, 2023, were considered for pricing calculation. **Read more about our editorial independence** We select and rank products based on an objective methodology developed by our research team. While some vendors may pay us when they receive web traffic or leads, this has no influence on our methodology.