BambooHR vs Zoho People 2026: Cost for 25 People

Zoho People is the HRIS a 25-person US company can price to the dollar. Workforce, with time off included, is $125 a month on yearly billing. BambooHR Core is a flat $250 a month, and its payroll add-on publishes no list price. Pick BambooHR if payday has to share the HR system and you will take a quote. Pick Zoho Enterprise, $200 a month at that headcount on yearly billing, if reviews and leave must share one Zoho plan.

Prices below were read on October 30, 2026 on BambooHR's pricing page, BambooHR's payroll page, Zoho People's pricing page, Zoho's US plan comparison, and Zoho Payroll's US pricing page. Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 35 HRIS tools as of October 30, 2026, and 23% of them are free, freemium, or open source. BambooHR is the most cross-shopped name in that HRIS ranking, listed as an alternative to 47 other tools, and it drew 279 side-by-side comparisons on Toolradar in the last 90 days. Zoho People is not in that ranking, so the totals below are our arithmetic on the vendors' list prices, not a directory row.

At a glance

Question	BambooHR	Zoho People	Who wins
What you are buying	Core, Pro, or Elite HR, with payroll as a US add-on	Essential HR, Workforce, Talent, or Enterprise, with no payroll on the plan	Depends on the job
Bill at 25 people, HR only	$250/mo flat on Core, $425/mo on Pro	$125/mo on Workforce yearly, $200/mo on Enterprise yearly	Zoho People
Time off	Included on Core, Pro, and Elite	On the free edition, Workforce, and Enterprise. Absent from Essential HR and Talent	BambooHR, if you refuse to study the matrix
Performance reviews	Pro and Elite	Talent and Enterprise, and Talent has no time off	Tie on features, Zoho on price if you can live on Enterprise
US payroll	Add-on for US employees, publishes no list price	Not on any People plan. Separate product, Zoho Payroll, with a printed price	Zoho if you need a number today. BambooHR if it must be the same system
Hiring	5 open jobs on Core, 25 on Pro, 50 on Elite	Zoho Recruit add-on at $60 per recruiter a month	BambooHR for a short slate
Free start	Pricing page lists no free plan and no trial	Free for 3 users, then a 30-day trial of a paid plan that falls back to that free edition	Zoho People
Past 500 people	Per-employee rate, with a volume discount BambooHR does not print	List price stops. Zoho asks for a quote	Tie, both leave the website

An HRIS is the system of record for employees: the file, time off, onboarding tasks, and the approvals around them. Payroll is the wage calculation and the tax filing, and it may sit inside that system or on a second invoice. The useful comparison is which of those jobs each vendor will put a dollar figure on.

What 10 and 25 people cost

The table multiplies Zoho's yearly per-user rates by headcount and uses BambooHR's flat fee, which the pricing FAQ says is what companies of 25 employees or fewer are charged. Both columns are HR only. Payroll is not in either number. This is our calculation on the published rates, before tax and before any BambooHR volume discount, which does not apply inside that flat fee.

Headcount	BambooHR Core	BambooHR Pro	Zoho Workforce, yearly	Zoho Enterprise, yearly
10 people	$250	$425	$50	$80
25 people	$250	$425	$125	$200

The flat fee is the small-company trap. A 10-person company pays the same Core bill as a 25-person company, so the headline per-employee card is not the invoice. Zoho's per-user rate scales down: the same 10 people on Workforce are $50 a month on yearly billing, HR only, with time off included. At that headcount, Workforce is a fifth of the Core floor and still covers leave.

Yearly billing is the rate in that table. Every paid Zoho plan also has a month-to-month rate in the plan table below, and it is higher. At 25 people, monthly Enterprise costs the same as the Core floor. A team that will not sign a year should use that monthly column, or the yearly savings disappears.

Above 25 people the BambooHR floor ends and the page gives two per-employee readings. The plan cards show $10, $17, and $25 per employee a month for Core, Pro, and Elite. The cost FAQ on the same page says pricing starts at $10.25, $17.50, and $25 per employee a month once headcount passes 25, and that a volume discount then applies automatically. BambooHR does not print the discount schedule. At 50 people the FAQ starting figure is $512.50 a month on Core before that discount, while the card rate is $500. Zoho Workforce at 50 people is the yearly per-user rate times headcount, double the 25-person Workforce bill in the table above. The full tier list is in our BambooHR pricing guide.

Where the plans actually split

Plan	Price	What a small US team is buying
BambooHR Core, 25 or fewer	$250/mo flat	Employee records, custom reports, time off, eNPS, onboarding with e-signature, hiring capped at 5 open jobs, one compliance course
BambooHR Pro, 25 or fewer	$425/mo flat	Core, plus 360 reviews, 1:1s, goals, an employee community, 25 open jobs, 15 compliance courses
BambooHR Elite, 25 or fewer	$650/mo flat	Pro, plus compensation planning, Mercer salary benchmarks, levels and bands, 50 open jobs, 300+ compliance courses
Zoho Essential HR, yearly	$3/user/mo	Records, onboarding, documents, surveys, an HR help desk, benefits administration, salary revision letters. No time off
Zoho Essential HR, monthly	$4/user/mo	The same Essential HR modules with no yearly term
Zoho Workforce, yearly	$5/user/mo	Essential HR plus time off, attendance with FLSA overtime, shift scheduling, and timesheets
Zoho Talent, yearly	$5/user/mo	Essential HR plus OKRs, goals, 360 feedback, appraisals, and a learning module. No time off
Zoho Workforce or Talent, monthly	$6/user/mo	The same modules as the yearly plan, with no yearly term
Zoho Enterprise, yearly	$8/user/mo	Workforce and Talent together, plus a sandbox
Zoho Enterprise, monthly	$10/user/mo	The only month-to-month plan that holds both leave and reviews
Above 500 Zoho users	Quote	Zoho stops the list and asks for a price

BambooHR's cards and its FAQ disagree by $0.25 on Core and by $0.50 on Pro once you are past the flat fee. For a company of 25 or fewer, ignore the card and use the flat charge. Elite's flat fee is $650 a month, which is the plan you buy for Mercer benchmarks, not for leave or reviews. Pro already has the review cycle.

Time off is on every BambooHR plan and on two Zoho plans

BambooHR wins if the buyer will not read a matrix. Core includes time-off management, a calendar, and unlimited custom policies. Pro and Elite keep that and add reviews. A company cannot "upgrade into" a BambooHR plan that drops leave.

Zoho's US comparison draws the opposite picture. Custom PTO policies, time-off approvals, and vacation tracking are on the free edition, on Workforce, and on Enterprise. They are absent from Essential HR and from Talent. The free edition covers 3 users and includes leave plus the employee database and documents, with 250 MB of storage. The first paid plan, Essential HR, adds onboarding, an HR help desk, surveys, benefits administration, and salary revision letters, and it takes leave away.

That is the expensive mistake on an otherwise cheap price list. A founder who outgrows 3 free users and buys Essential HR to get onboarding checklists loses the leave module the free edition already had. The repair is Workforce, not a setting inside Essential HR. Talent, the performance plan, has the same hole: OKRs, 360 feedback, appraisals, and the learning module, and no leave. The only paid plan that holds leave and reviews together is Enterprise. Our Zoho People review walks the four US plans one by one. The BambooHR review covers what the higher flat fee is paying for.

Reviews, pay bands, and the hourly clock

Performance is a step up on both products, and the step is not the same purchase. BambooHR Pro adds 360 review cycles, 1:1s, goal tracking, and an employee community. Elite is not required to run that cycle. Elite is the compensation desk: planning worksheets, levels and bands, and Mercer salary benchmarks. A 25-person company that wants reviews and already has leave on Core moves to Pro at the flat Pro rate. It does not need Elite unless leadership wants benchmark bands.

Zoho puts salary packages, revision approvals, and revision letters on every paid plan, including Essential HR. That is internal pay administration, not an outside benchmark. Mercer-style bands are not on the Zoho comparison. A team that wants a revision letter without a review cycle can stay on Essential HR. A team that wants the review cycle and still tracks PTO cannot stay on Talent. They land on Enterprise, at $8 per user on yearly billing.

Hourly work splits the same way. Zoho Workforce and Enterprise include web and mobile attendance, facial-recognition check-in, kiosk and biometric options, geo and IP restrictions, shift scheduling, timesheets mapped to projects, and overtime compliance named for FLSA. BambooHR's Time and Attendance add-on covers shift scheduling, meal and rest breaks, project tracking, and automatic overtime, and like payroll it publishes no list price. For an hourly US team, Workforce is a finished time-and-leave price. Core plus the time add-on is a quote. The best HRIS for small business ranking is the wider shortlist if neither shape fits.

Payroll: one vendor prints it, the other will quote it

Zoho wins when the question is "what will payday cost." BambooHR wins when the question is "can payroll live in the employee record."

No Zoho People plan runs payroll. The US comparison lists timesheets that support reports for payroll processing, which is a handoff to a payroll system, not the payroll system. US payroll is Zoho Payroll, a separate product. On yearly billing, Standard is $29 a month per organization plus $5 per employee, and it is single-state payroll with automatic federal, state, and local tax payment and filings, in any one of the 50 states. Professional is $49 a month per organization plus $7 per employee, and it adds multi-state payroll, bonus runs, and multiple pay rates. A 14-day trial does not ask for a card.

At 25 people on yearly billing, Standard is $154 a month and Professional is $224 a month. Add Workforce and a single-state payday is $279 a month for the pair. Add Enterprise, because the company also wants reviews, and Professional payroll, because people work in two states, and the pair is $424 a month. Next-day processing and postal W-2s are extra, each listed at $3 per employee. Those are printed add-ons, not a sales call.

BambooHR Payroll is an add-on on Core, Pro, or Elite, limited to US employees. The payroll page lists direct deposit, federal, state, and local tax filing, W-2 creation, multi-rate pay, garnishments, an audit trail, and accounting sync to QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. Employment and income verification through Equifax's The Work Number is included with the payroll plan. Managed Payroll, where a BambooHR specialist runs the cycle and the company approves it, is a second unpriced option. The only printed payroll discount is 15% when Payroll and Benefits Administration are bought together with a plan, and that bundle discount is for US-based employees. There is still no base fee to discount.

So a 25-person company can leave Zoho's website with $279 a month for Workforce plus single-state payroll. The same company leaves BambooHR's website with the Core flat rate and a blank payroll line. Core might still be the cheaper total after the quote, and it might not. Anyone who needs the number before the call cannot finish it on BambooHR. Our payroll cost guide prices the standalone payroll tools a team keeps when the HRIS will not run payday. The BambooHR vs Gusto comparison is the version of this decision when payroll, not the employee file, is the thing you are buying.

Zoho also sells People Plus, a bundle around People. On the US version of the People Plus pricing page, the payroll product line is not included. US payroll stays on Zoho Payroll's own page.

Hiring, setup, and the bill after the seat

BambooHR's applicant tracking is inside the HR plan, with a hard cap: 5 open jobs on Core, 25 on Pro, and 50 on Elite. Six open roles at once force Pro even if the company does not want reviews. For a team that posts two jobs a quarter, Core's cap is enough and the ATS is already inside the Core floor.

Zoho People does not include that ATS. The US comparison prices Zoho Recruit's Corporate HR edition at $60 per recruiter a month, or $600 per recruiter a year. One recruiter on top of Workforce is a known add-on, not a reason to lift every employee to a higher HR tier. A company whose hiring work is the system of work should read the Zoho Recruit review before treating People as an ATS. BambooHR wins a light hiring slate. Zoho wins when one recruiter seat is cheaper than moving the whole company to Pro.

Setup is printed on Zoho's comparison and quiet on BambooHR's pricing page. Zoho's Jumpstart onboarding is $1,000 for 25 hours on Essential HR, $2,000 for 40 hours on Workforce, $3,000 for 60 hours on Talent, and $4,000 for 80 hours on Enterprise. A paid plan also includes a 30-day trial, and when the trial ends the account moves to the free edition rather than closing. BambooHR's pricing page offers month-to-month or an extended term, credit card or ACH for monthly payers, and it does not list a trial or an implementation fee. Elite adds two administrator training sessions a year, two hours of data-integrity help a year, and an extra 30 days of implementation for Elite features. A team that wants a week in the product before a contract can start that week on Zoho. A team that wants BambooHR's implementation cost in writing has to ask.

Two smaller Zoho charges matter once the seat looks cheap. Premium support is $114 a month, or $1,128 a year, or 20% of the license fee, whichever is higher. On a 25-person Workforce account the 20% slice is the smaller number, so that monthly floor is the one that applies. Enterprise also lists a data backup the other plans do not include. Custom forms are capped at 1 per 10 users on Essential HR and 5 per 10 users on Enterprise, and storage runs from 1 GB per 100 users on Essential HR to 5 GB per 100 users on Enterprise. A company that builds many custom forms meets the form cap before it meets a user cap. BambooHR's pricing page does not publish a form quota or a support surcharge. Registered nonprofits get an extra 15% off BambooHR, which is the only discount on that page with a number besides the payroll-and-benefits bundle.

E-signature is included on BambooHR's plan matrix. Zoho's comparison lists e-signature as an integration and says personal file uploads require Zoho Sign. Budget Sign separately if the packet has to be signed inside Zoho. BambooHR says it has over 150 integration partners. Zoho's comparison names Google, Office 365, and several Zoho apps, plus QuickBooks on timesheets, and does not print a partner count.

Who should pick which

Pick Zoho Workforce if the company has 25 or fewer people, the weekly work is the employee file and PTO, and payroll can stay on Zoho Payroll or on a tool you already run. At 10 people the HR bill is $50 a month on yearly billing. At 25 it is the Workforce total in the table above. Add Payroll Standard only if everyone is in one state. The how much an HRIS costs guide shows where a still-smaller stack starts, if even Workforce is more system than the company has process for.

Pick Zoho Enterprise if the same company runs review cycles and still tracks leave. Talent looks like the performance bargain because it shares Workforce's per-user rate, and it is the wrong plan the week someone files PTO. Enterprise is the plan that closes that gap, and it is still under BambooHR Pro's flat fee at 25 people.

Pick BambooHR Core if you want leave, onboarding, and a short hiring slate on every plan without a module map, and you are willing to request payroll. The flat fee is painful at 10 people and ordinary at 25. Pick Pro if reviews, or more than five open jobs, are already on this year's list. Pick Elite only for compensation bands and the Mercer data. The BambooHR vs HiBob comparison and the BambooHR vs Rippling comparison are the other two HRIS conversations this shortlist usually turns into. The BambooHR alternatives guide is the page for a team that has already decided to leave.

Skip both as a first system if you have three people and no HR process. Zoho's free edition covers that headcount, including leave. BambooHR's pricing page does not offer an equivalent. Past 500 people, Zoho's list price stops and BambooHR's unpublished volume discount is doing the real work, so both belong in a quote rather than a spreadsheet.

How we compared

We read BambooHR's pricing and payroll pages, Zoho People's pricing page and US plan comparison, Zoho Payroll's US pricing page, and the US version of Zoho's People Plus pricing page, all on October 30, 2026. Every 10-person and 25-person total is our multiplication of those list rates, yearly where Zoho offers a yearly rate, before tax. HRpresso runs no test lab and holds no account with either vendor, so nothing here is a negotiated rate or a setup timing. The method is on how we rate. The Toolradar counts come from Toolradar's HRIS ranking as of October 30, 2026.

FAQ

Is BambooHR cheaper than Zoho People for 25 people?

Not on the HR seat. BambooHR Core is a flat $250 a month for 25 employees or fewer. Zoho Workforce is $5 per user a month billed yearly, $125 a month at 25 people, and that plan includes time off. BambooHR Pro, the plan that adds reviews, is a flat $425 a month. Zoho Enterprise, the plan that holds time off and reviews together, is $200 a month at 25 people on yearly billing. The comparison flips only after you add payroll, and only BambooHR's payroll line is still a quote.

Does Zoho People include payroll?

No. None of the US People plans run payroll. Timesheets can produce reports for a payroll system. US payroll is Zoho Payroll, priced on its own page: Standard is $29 a month per organization plus $5 per employee on yearly billing, for a single state, and Professional is $49 plus $7 per employee for multi-state. At 25 people, Workforce plus Standard is $279 a month. People Plus, Zoho's bundle around People, does not list payroll on the US version of its pricing page.

Does BambooHR include payroll?

No. Payroll is an add-on for US employees, with federal, state, and local filing, direct deposit, W-2s, multi-rate pay, and garnishments. BambooHR publishes no list price for it. The printed discount is 15% when Payroll and Benefits Administration are bought with a plan, for US-based employees. Benefits administration itself is also an add-on, so the seat rate is not an enrollment system. Global employment is a further add-on, powered by Remote, also without a list price.

Which Zoho People plan has both time off and performance reviews?

Enterprise. Time off is on the free edition, Workforce, and Enterprise, and it is missing from Essential HR and Talent. Performance reviews, OKRs, and the learning module are on Talent and Enterprise. A company that needs both jobs and prices Essential HR, or prices Talent because it matches Workforce's rate, is on the wrong plan. Enterprise is $8 per user a month billed yearly, or $10 billed monthly.

Does either HRIS have a free plan?

Zoho People does. The US comparison says the free edition covers 3 users and includes the employee database, time off, and documents. A 30-day trial of a paid plan falls back to that free edition when it ends. BambooHR's pricing page lists no free plan and no trial. It offers month-to-month or an extended term, and an extra 15% off for registered nonprofits.

Can a company above 500 employees buy either from the price list?

Zoho People stops the list above 500 users and asks for a quote. BambooHR keeps a per-employee rate and says a volume discount applies automatically as headcount grows, without printing the schedule. At that size, both prices in this article are a ceiling or a starting point, not the contract. Confirm the quote against the employee count you will actually load, including anyone outside the US, before you sign.

Cite this: HRpresso, "BambooHR vs Zoho People 2026: Cost for 25 People", October 2026.

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