Quick answer: Keka HR is priced per employee per month, usually annually and with a minimum billable headcount, in plan tiers that step up from core HR and payroll to performance, hiring and advanced modules. Its reputation in India rests on employee experience — a well-designed self-service portal and app that employees actually use — combined with competent Indian payroll. It is the most common choice for growing IT, services and startup teams; companies whose pain is purely statutory payroll often prefer greytHR.
What Keka covers
- Core HR — employee records, documents, org chart, onboarding and exit workflows.
- Payroll — Indian statutory compliance (PF, ESI, PT, LWF, TDS, Form 16), salary structures, reimbursements, flexible benefits, full-and-final settlement.
- Attendance and leave — shifts, WFH and hybrid attendance, biometric integration, leave policies, holiday calendars.
- Performance — goals and OKRs, continuous feedback, review cycles, 9-box. See performance and OKR software in India.
- Hiring (Keka Hire) — requisitions, pipelines, interview scheduling, offers. See applicant tracking and recruitment software.
- Expenses and travel, plus Keka Learn for training in higher configurations.
The pricing structure and what to ask
Plans are tiered: a core plan covering HR and payroll, then higher plans adding performance, hiring and advanced capabilities. What to establish in writing:
- Minimum billable headcount. Small teams often pay for more employees than they have.
- Which modules are in your quoted plan. Performance and hiring are commonly separate or higher-tier.
- Implementation and migration cost, and who does the data cleaning.
- Renewal pricing for years two and three.
- Biometric device support for your exact model, by name.
- Support SLA around payroll dates — a delayed response on the 28th is a different problem from one on the 8th.
Current India pricing is on the Keka HR listing.
Where Keka is strong, and where it is not
Strong: employee self-service and mobile experience; onboarding that feels designed rather than assembled; performance and OKR workflows that companies actually run; a clean payroll experience for standard white-collar structures; good reporting.
Less strong: deep factory and blue-collar scenarios — rotational shift rules, overtime under the Factories Act, contract labour registers, multi-plant statutory variation. For those, greytHR, HRMantra, Pocket HRMS or ZingHR are usually a better fit. And at several thousand employees across entities and geographies, Darwinbox or PeopleStrong are the enterprise answers.
Choosing between Keka, greytHR and Zoho People
| Your priority | Choose |
|---|---|
| Employee experience, performance, hiring | Keka HR |
| Payroll and statutory compliance depth | greytHR |
| Lowest cost, already on Zoho | Zoho People + Zoho Payroll |
| Field/factory attendance | factoHR, Pocket HRMS |
| Enterprise scale and complexity | Darwinbox, PeopleStrong, ZingHR |
More in our HRMS buyer's hub and list of HRMS software in India.
FAQs
How much does Keka HR cost in India?
Keka is priced per employee per month, generally billed annually, in plan tiers that add performance, hiring and advanced modules as you move up — usually with a minimum billable headcount. Confirm the minimum, which modules are in your tier, and renewal pricing before signing. Current pricing is on the Keka HR listing.
Does Keka include payroll?
Yes. Keka covers Indian payroll with statutory compliance — PF, ESI, professional tax, LWF, TDS and Form 16 — along with salary structures, reimbursements, flexible benefits and full-and-final settlement. Confirm that payroll is in your quoted plan rather than a higher tier.
Keka or greytHR — which should I pick?
Keka if your priority is employee experience, performance management and hiring, which is typical for IT, services and startup teams. greytHR if your priority is Indian payroll and statutory compliance being correct in every edge case. Both handle standard payroll competently; the difference is what they are best at beyond it.
Is Keka good for manufacturing companies?
It is usable but not its strongest ground. Rotational shift rosters, Factories Act overtime, contract labour registers and multi-plant statutory variation are better served by greytHR, HRMantra, Pocket HRMS or ZingHR. For office-based manufacturing staff, Keka is fine.
Does Keka have an applicant tracking system?
Yes — Keka Hire covers requisitions, candidate pipelines, interview scheduling and offers, and shares the employee record so a hire becomes an employee without re-entry. It is usually in a higher plan tier, so confirm it is included in your quote.
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