Alternatives to Rippling
Rippling HR software without the payroll, for teams under 25.
Rippling HR software is a platform: a required core, then payroll, benefits, devices and IT sold per employee on top, on a quote. Spodus HR is smaller and says so up front: an org chart, time off, onboarding checklists and reviews. No payroll, no benefits, no device management. It fits a team under 25 that runs payroll elsewhere.
CRM
Contacts, pipeline, follow-ups
Finance
Estimates, invoices, payments
HR
Org chart, time off, reviews
Support
Tickets, SLAs, portal
Inbox
Channels and direct messages
What actually pushes small teams off Rippling.
The product is excellent. The shape of the bill is the problem for a team of twelve.
The platform is required, and everything else is on top
Rippling starts with a core platform you have to buy. Payroll, benefits, device management, IT and spend are each separate products priced per employee per month on top of it, and some carry a monthly base fee as well. The price is a quote, not a list. So a team that wanted an org chart and time off is holding a quote for a platform.
Per employee means everyone on the payroll
The unit is the employee, not the person who signs in. Every hire adds a line to every product you bought, whether or not they ever open it. That is the right model when the product is running their payroll. It is the wrong model when the product is holding their start date and their leave balance.
You bought an HR platform to get an org chart
Rippling is built for the company that wants payroll, benefits, laptops and app logins in one system, and that is a company of fifty with an ops lead. A team of twelve that runs payroll through its accountant is paying for the platform that makes all of that possible. What it uses is the page where people book time off.
What Spodus HR is instead.
Four HR jobs, done plainly, inside a seat that also holds the customer.
Org chart, time off, onboarding, reviews
The org chart redraws itself as people join, move and leave. Time off is a request, an approval and a balance, on a calendar the team can see. Onboarding is one dated checklist per new hire. Reviews are grouped by cycle, each with a reviewer, a rating and a due date. That is the whole of Spodus HR.
No payroll, no benefits, no devices
Spodus does not run payroll, does not enrol anyone in a benefit plan, and does not ship or manage a laptop. Payroll stays with your accountant or your payroll provider. If you need those in the HR tool, this is the wrong page, and Rippling is the right product.
A seat is a person who signs in, and it holds more than HR
A seat is somebody with a Spodus account, and it carries the CRM, the invoices, the tickets and the team chat as well as the people record. An employee who signs in to book time off is a seat, and we would rather say that plainly than call anyone free. There is no platform fee and no product sold on top.
What you would be giving up.
Rippling does things Spodus will never do, and for most companies those things are the reason to buy an HR platform. Payroll in many countries, with tax filings done for you. Benefits administration and open enrolment. Device management: a laptop ordered, shipped, locked and wiped from one screen. App logins created on the first day and removed on the last. Spend, corporate cards and expense reports. Spodus has none of that: no payroll of any kind, no benefits, no device or app management, no corporate cards and no expense reimbursements. If you run payroll, or you want the laptop and the logins handled by the same system as the hire, stay on Rippling. Spodus is for the team under 25 that already runs payroll elsewhere and wants the org chart, the time off and the onboarding list next to the customer, the invoice and the ticket.
Side by side.
| Spodus | Rippling | |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll and tax filings | ||
| Benefits administration | ||
| Device and app management | ||
| Org chart and time off | ||
| Onboarding checklist and reviews | ||
| Priced by | People who sign in | Every employee, per product, on a quote |
| Required platform fee | No | Yes, with each product on top |
| CRM, invoicing and support in the same seat | ||
| Team chat |
Rippling's pricing structure above was read from their own pricing page on 11 September 2026; check it for current rates, which we deliberately do not quote here. Spodus is priced per seat on both Growth and Business, with no seat minimum. Customers in the support portal are free.
People come over. Payroll does not, because there is none here.
Rippling exports an employee list, and Spodus imports it by CSV or Excel onto people records with a column mapping step: name, role, manager, start date and the fields you choose to keep. There is no Rippling preset, so the mapping is done by hand, which is minutes for a team under 25. What does not come across, and has nowhere to land: payroll history, tax filings, benefit elections, device records and app logins. Keep those where they are, or with whoever runs payroll for you next.
Questions, answered.
Is Spodus a Rippling alternative if we run payroll?
What does Spodus HR actually include?
Do employees who only book time off cost a seat?
Can we import from Rippling?
Thinking about the rest of the stack?
The same honest read on the other tools teams try to leave.
