Keka vs greytHR: Payroll Compared for 2027

Quick answer: Pick greytHR if you want to see a rupee price before talking to sales: its pricing page lists ₹2,495 a month (Essential) and ₹4,495 a month (Growth), each covering 50 employees. Pick Keka if you want one platform that carries payroll, attendance, hiring and performance, and you are fine requesting a quote. Keka's pricing page shows three plans but no rupee amounts, so budget from a demo, not from this article.

How we researched this: We read Keka's pricing, payroll, payroll-compliance and small-business pages, greytHR's pricing, payroll, attendance and employee self-service pages, greytHR's help articles on the mobile-app login, and the Income Tax Department's Form 138 user manual on incometax.gov.in. Every figure below was checked in October 2026 and can change. We do not predict 2027 prices.

What each vendor actually publishes about price

The two vendors take opposite approaches, and that shapes how you shortlist.

greytHR publishes a flat-plus-per-head structure. Per the vendor's pricing page (checked October 2026):

• Essential: ₹2,495 per month including 50 employees, then ₹45 per employee per month above 50. It covers payroll, leave management, basic core HR, employee self-onboarding and exit, and a helpdesk.
• Growth: ₹4,495 per month including 50 employees, then ₹85 per employee above 50. It adds attendance, shift management, overtime, permissions, geo-fencing and a confirmation workflow. The page marks this plan "Recommended".
• Premium: custom pricing. greytHR says it includes all modules and claims "~30% savings" against Growth plus add-ons. That saving is the vendor's claim, not something we tested.

The add-ons listed on the same page are Performance Management (₹35 to ₹45 per user per month), Time Sheets (₹35), Expense Management (₹35), GPS Live Tracking (₹140, and it includes GeoMark), Recruit (₹2,500 per recruiter per month) and an Alumni Portal (₹20). The page does not say whether GST is added or what the minimum billing term is, so ask for both in writing.

Keka does not print rupee prices on its main pricing page. It shows three HRMS and payroll plans (Foundation, Strength and Growth), each with a "Free Trial" button, plus separate hiring and project-services plans. Its small-business page is different: it says pricing "starts at ₹90 per employee per month" and that the complete HR stack starts at ₹6,999 per month. Keka does not say whether ₹6,999 is a monthly minimum. If it is, a 30-person company would pay far more than ₹90 a head, because ₹6,999 divided by ₹90 is about 78 employees. That is our arithmetic, so test it in the quote.

There is also a contradiction to resolve. The small-business page says there are no setup fees. The FAQ on the main pricing page says "a nominal setup fee applies" for guided onboarding. Get the setup fee, or its absence, written into the quote.

What greytHR's published numbers mean in rupees

Using only the figures above, and leaving out add-ons and any tax, this is the monthly base cost:

The jump between Essential and Growth is the real decision. Because the Growth tier is where attendance arrives, a company that needs punches and shifts to flow into payroll should price Growth from the start, not Essential. A 25-person trading firm that marks attendance on a spreadsheet and only needs payslips and statutory returns can stay on Essential at ₹2,495 a month, a flat figure that is easy to budget.

Plan-by-plan: what sits in which tier

Keka's feature list is more granular than greytHR's, and the tier boundaries matter more than the names.

Two things stand out. First, Keka's lowest plan already includes overtime automation and expense management, while greytHR puts expense management on a ₹35-per-user add-on. Second, if you run several companies under one promoter group, both vendors treat multi-entity payroll as a higher-tier or add-on item, so declare your entity count before you get a quote.

Payroll and statutory compliance, compared

Both products cover the monthly statutory cycle an Indian employer cannot skip. What you are really buying is how few manual steps remain between "attendance closed" and "challans filed".

Keka says its payroll calculates PF and ESI contributions and generates ECR on payroll closure, applies state-specific Professional Tax slabs with monthly and half-yearly cycles, computes TDS from declarations and tax-regime choices, and handles gratuity, bonus and full-and-final settlement. It also lists Labour Welfare Fund and labour-law outputs such as muster rolls and wage registers, and claims coverage of all 28 states and 8 union territories. Salary payout from the Keka Wallet is available at "additional charges".

greytHR lists PF calculations with ECR generation, ESI computations and challans, Professional Tax with state rules, bonus calculations, Labour Welfare Fund, TDS with eTDS returns, "one-click Form 24Q generation with automatic FVU validation" and digitally signed Form 16 and Form 12BA. Its PayNow facility debits salaries from within the application, and it lists bank-transfer formats for major banks plus batch-wise and bank-wise release.

The form numbers have changed, so test the output

The Income Tax Department's Form 138 user manual on the e-Filing portal says the quarterly salary-TDS statement is now Form 138, "earlier known as Form 24Q". Due dates are 31 July, 31 October, 31 January and 31 May of the following year for the four quarters, and filing needs a valid TAN, the Return Preparation Utility from NSDL (Protean) and an FVU file. Keka's compliance page already uses the new numbering: it lists the year-end certificate as "Form 130" in place of Form 16, and the quarterly returns as Forms 138 and 140. greytHR's payroll page still describes Form 24Q and Form 16.

That is probably branding lag rather than a product gap, but it is exactly what to test in a demo. Ask each vendor to produce a sample quarterly file that your accountant can validate with the current utility. Our guide to Form 16 and 24Q payroll software explains the transition in more detail, and the PF, ESI and PT calculation guide covers the monthly side.

Attendance, geo-fencing and the mobile app

Payroll accuracy depends on clean attendance, so look at capture methods.

Keka's small-business page says it syncs with "120+ biometric devices" and supports GPS-based geofencing and remote clock-in. On the pricing page, selfie clock-in, continuous location punching and geo-fencing sit in the Strength plan, so the entry plan is office-based. See Keka Attendance for the module listing.

greytHR's attendance page lists third-party attendance hardware, GeoMark, geo-fencing, selfie attendance, GPS Live Tracking and "Visage" as capture methods, with overtime policies and automatic shift-rotation plans. The page does not explain what Visage does, so ask for a live demo before assuming facial recognition. For a wider look at the category, read our guide to face and geo-fence attendance apps and the attendance software category.

Logging in: the greytHR portal and app

There is no single greytHR login address. The login page at greythr.com asks for an official email or phone number and then looks up your company's own URL. Employees can also use the greytHR mobile app. Per the vendor's help article, the app supports three sign-in routes:

1. OTP: choose your country, enter a mobile number or email, then the code. The OTP stays valid for 15 minutes and you can receive up to five.
2. Web address: enter the company web address, then Login ID and password.
3. SSO: for enterprise identity providers, choose "Log In via SSO" after the web address.

Admins invite staff from the Admin portal: Employee, Main, Overview, then "Invite More" under the Mobile App Users card. The invite only works if the employee's mobile number is already in the greytHR database, so clean your employee master first.

Keka's pricing page says employees get self-service through a mobile app for attendance, finances and approvals, with SSO and mobile-OTP login in the Strength plan and above.

Which company should pick which

A 25-person Pune distributor running payroll in Excel mainly needs PF, ESI, PT and payslips. greytHR Essential at ₹2,495 a month is easy to budget. Keka may be cheaper per head if its ₹90 figure applies without a minimum, but you must get that in writing.

A 120-person Coimbatore textile exporter with shifts, overtime and a biometric device in each unit should price both. greytHR Growth would be ₹4,495 plus 70 extra employees at ₹85, which is ₹10,445 a month by our arithmetic. Keka's overtime automation and 120-plus device integrations are in Foundation, so ask for a quote on that tier.

A 400-person group with two legal entities and field sales needs multi-entity payroll, SSO and live tracking. Both vendors push you to higher tiers or add-ons, and greytHR Premium is custom priced. Compare against enterprise suites such as Darwinbox and our Darwinbox vs Workday guide.

Who should look elsewhere: companies that want payroll only, tied to a bank, may prefer Zoho Payroll or RazorpayX Payroll; see our RazorpayX Payroll vs Zoho Payroll comparison. Very small teams may prefer factoHR, Kredily or Pocket HRMS; our factoHR, Pocket HRMS and Kredily comparison lays out their pricing.

How to run a fair demo and trial

Both vendors offer trials: greytHR states a 7-day free trial, and Keka shows free-trial buttons without a length. Seven days will not cover a full payroll cycle, so use the demo on your own data.

1. Send a sample. Give each vendor one anonymised month of your payroll: 10 to 15 employees, including one on ESI, one with overtime, one who left mid-month and one in a state with Professional Tax.
2. Ask for the quarterly file. Request the Form 138 output (or the 24Q file) validated with the current NSDL utility.
3. Test the mobile punch. Have three staff clock in from the field and check what the manager sees.
4. Ask the money questions. Setup fee, minimum monthly bill, GST, billing term, add-ons you will need, and what happens to the price if you cross 50 or 100 employees.
5. Reference calls. Ask for a company of your size in your state who has run at least one full quarter.

Work through the process using our monthly payroll in one day plan, and compare other tools on the payroll software category or the HRMS hub. For fuller pricing context read our Keka pricing guide and greytHR pricing guide.

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