India's accuracy-first HRMS & payroll
Payroll
PeopleOS wins for teams that want a best-of-breed payroll engine with ledger-grade accuracy, a forever-free tier up to 25 employees, and a generous per-employee price even at scale. Zoho Payroll wins if Zoho Books is already your accounting platform — the native two-way sync between Zoho Payroll and Zoho Books is unmatched. PeopleOS supports Zoho Books via its Accounting Hub integration but treats it as one of many destinations rather than the centre of gravity.
PeopleOS wins Tie Competitor wins
If your accounting team is deeply embedded in Zoho Books and your finance flow expects real-time payroll-to-books sync without intermediate journals, Zoho Payroll is the path of least resistance. PeopleOS supports Zoho Books via its Accounting Hub but the sync is REST-based rather than native. For most companies that’s indistinguishable in practice.
PeopleOS Starter: ₹49 × 50 + ₹499 = ₹2,949/mo. Zoho Payroll: ₹50 × 50 + ₹1,500 = ₹4,000/mo. PeopleOS is roughly 25–30% cheaper at this scale. Both have annual discounts.
Zoho Payroll runs standalone for payroll. For HR features (employee profiles, leave, attendance, performance) you need Zoho People as a separate product. PeopleOS bundles all of that into one platform on the Starter and Growth plans — no add-ons.
Yes. PeopleOS Migration Studio imports YTD payroll data, employee tax declarations, and leave balances. Most teams switch at financial-year boundary (April) but mid-year migrations work — Form 16 generation handles the partial-year split.
Both compute statutory deductions correctly. PeopleOS is event-sourced with property-based tests that mathematically prove net pay = gross − deductions across thousands of generated test cases. Zoho Payroll uses traditional integration tests. For most teams the practical accuracy is identical; for audit-heavy contexts PeopleOS’s tamper-evident ledger is a stronger story.