Zoho People
HR software only saves time once the leave rules, shifts and attendance devices match how your people actually work.
Zoho People holds employee records, leave, attendance, shifts, performance and onboarding in one place, with a self-service app for staff. Most of the value sits in configuration: leave policies that mirror the ones in your handbook, attendance that reads from the devices on your walls, and shift rosters that produce the hours your payroll needs. We set it up, move your employee data across, and connect it to Zoho Payroll.
Last reviewed — prices, plan details and other figures on this page were checked then.
The parts of Zoho People most businesses use
Zoho People is modular, and each plan unlocks more of it. These are the areas we configure most often, with the plan each one first needs.
Employee records and self-service
One profile per employee with job details, reporting line, documents and history. Staff update their own details and download letters from the app, so HR stops being the help desk for every request. Included from the Free plan.
Leave and holidays
Leave types, accrual rules, carry-forward, compensatory off and holiday calendars per location, with approvals routed to the right manager. Balances update the moment a request is approved. Included from the Free plan.
Attendance and biometric devices
Attendance from web, mobile and facial recognition, or pulled from biometric devices at each site. IP restrictions stop people marking attendance from home. Needs the Professional plan.
Shifts and rosters
Shift patterns per department, rotating rosters, weekly offs and late-arrival rules, so attendance is judged against the shift a person was actually on. Needs the Professional plan.
Onboarding and offboarding
Joining checklists, document collection, asset handover and exit interviews run as workflows instead of reminders. Starts at the Essential HR plan.
Performance, help desk and learning
Goals, KRAs and appraisal cycles from the Premium plan; an HR help desk and a learning management system on Enterprise. We usually add these in a second phase, once attendance and leave are trusted.
Which Zoho People plan you actually need
The plan is decided by the first module you cannot live without. For most businesses that is attendance, which means Professional. Buying Premium for performance reviews you will not run for a year is the most common overspend we see.
| Plan | Per user / month | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Free | ₹0 | Up to 5 users. Employee database, leave, documents, self-service. |
| Essential HR | ₹48 | Onboarding, offboarding and exit interviews, HR process change requests. |
| Professional | ₹96 | Adds attendance (web, mobile, facial recognition, biometric devices), IP restrictions, timesheets and shift rosters. |
| Premium | ₹144 | Adds performance (goals, KRAs, appraisals), compensation, engagement surveys and geo-restricted check-in. |
| Enterprise | ₹192 | Adds HR help desk, learning management (LMS), custom reports and a sandbox. |
Zoho India list price per user per month, billed annually, as of October 2026, excluding GST. Paid plans have a 5-user minimum; Zoho quotes separately above 500 users. Attendance and shift rosters start at Professional, which is the plan most attendance-led rollouts need.
Four stages, scaled to the size of the team
A 30-person office can be live in two to three weeks; a multi-site workforce with devices at every branch takes longer. The Zoho People implementation page sets out what happens inside each stage.
- 1
Policy review
We read your leave policy, attendance rules and shift patterns as they are actually applied, including the exceptions nobody wrote down.
- 2
Configuration
Departments, locations, leave types, shifts, approval chains and roles are set up, and attendance devices are connected and tested.
- 3
Data migration
Employee records, opening leave balances and documents are moved across from spreadsheets or your old HR software, then checked line by line.
- 4
Parallel month and training
One month runs alongside your old method so attendance and leave can be compared before payroll depends on them. Managers and staff are trained by role.
Six things that make Zoho People feel broken
None of these are software faults. Each one is a configuration decision that was skipped, and each one shows up as a wrong salary at the end of the first month.
Leave policies copied from the handbook rather than from practice, so balances disagree with what managers have been approving for years.
Opening leave balances imported without a cut-off date, so the first month double-counts leave already taken.
Biometric device user IDs that do not match employee IDs in Zoho People, so punches arrive but never attach to anyone.
Shifts set up per company instead of per department, so night staff are marked late every day.
Every manager given admin rights during setup and never taken back, so records change with no one accountable.
Payroll switched on in the same week as attendance, so any attendance error becomes a salary error before it can be caught.
Where Zoho People ends and Zoho Payroll begins
Zoho People decides who was present, on leave or absent. Zoho Payroll turns that into money: salary structures, PF, ESI, professional tax, TDS and payslips. The two are separate products with separate licences, and they connect so that loss-of-pay days flow from attendance into the pay run without anyone retyping them.
That connection is where most of the value is, and where most of the mistakes happen. Our page on the Zoho People and Zoho Payroll integration explains what syncs, when it syncs, and what has to be agreed between HR and accounts before the first pay run.
If you also need CRM, accounting and mail, Zoho One includes both Zoho People and Zoho Payroll, and can cost less than buying the apps one by one once most staff use several of them.
Zoho People projects we have delivered
Published case studies, with client names and what was built.
- SWA DiamondsZoho People & Zoho PayrollMulti-store jewellery retailer, 215+ employees. Biometric attendance across stores, mobile check-in with GPS for field staff, department-wise shifts, loss-of-pay calculated from attendance, state-wise statutory compliance, and a custom Deluge function that expires unused compensatory leave automatically.
- Diya and Thomas CompanyZoho People & Zoho PayrollManual attendance, leave and salary calculation replaced with one system: employee records migrated into Zoho People, shift schedules and leave policies configured, salary structures built in Zoho Payroll, and a self-service portal for leave, attendance and payslips.
- Ayn Musk Furniture LLC (BOSQ)Zoho PeopleFurniture manufacturing and trading business moving HR off spreadsheets: centralised employee records, automated attendance, shift schedules and holiday calendars, leave approvals, and HR reporting that no longer has to be compiled by hand.
Zoho People — common questions
How much does Zoho People cost in India?
Zoho People is free for up to 5 users. Paid plans run from ₹48 per user per month (Essential HR) to ₹192 (Enterprise), billed annually and excluding GST, with a 5-user minimum. Attendance, biometric devices and shift rosters start at the Professional plan, ₹96 per user per month. Our implementation fee is separate and one-off.
Can Zoho People read attendance from our biometric machines?
Yes, on the Professional plan or above. Zoho People supports biometric device integration, so punches from the machines at each site are pulled in and matched to employees. The work is in matching device user IDs to employee records and deciding how missed punches are handled. Our biometric attendance integration page covers the details.
Does Zoho People calculate salaries?
No. Zoho People handles attendance, leave and employee records. Salaries, PF, ESI, professional tax, TDS and payslips are calculated in Zoho Payroll, which connects to Zoho People and takes loss-of-pay days from it.
How long does a Zoho People implementation take?
A single-office team of 30 to 50 people usually goes live in two to three weeks. Multi-branch rollouts with biometric devices at each site, rotating shifts and payroll integration typically take four to eight weeks, most of it spent agreeing policies and running a parallel month.
Can you move our employee data from Excel or another HR system?
Yes. We migrate employee records, reporting lines, documents and opening leave balances, and agree a cut-off date so leave already taken is not counted twice. Our Zoho migration page explains how we de-duplicate and reconcile before anything goes live.
Is Zoho People included in Zoho One?
Yes. Zoho One includes Zoho People and Zoho Payroll alongside CRM, Books, Mail and other apps. If most of your staff would use several Zoho apps, Zoho One is often cheaper than separate subscriptions; if you only need HR, buying Zoho People alone usually costs less.
Related pages
- Zoho PayrollSalaries, PF, ESI, professional tax and TDS, fed by Zoho People attendance.
- Biometric attendance integrationConnecting the devices at each site so punches attach to the right employee.
- Shift and leave managementRosters, leave rules and compensatory off, set up the way you actually run them.
- Zoho People implementationWhat happens in each stage, and what you need to decide before setup starts.
- Zoho implementationHow we run Zoho projects across every app, not just HR.
- Zoho Partner in KeralaOur statewide practice, with Zoho People and Payroll rollouts across all 14 districts.
Talk to us about Zoho People
Tell us how many employees you have, how many locations, and how attendance is recorded today. That is usually enough for us to say which plan you need and how long the rollout will take.
- Your leave and attendance rules reviewed before anything is configured
- Biometric devices connected and tested at each site
- A parallel month before payroll depends on the new data
- Role-based training for HR, managers and staff
We implement Zoho People and Zoho Payroll for businesses across India and the GCC, and for Kerala and its fourteen districts from our base in Malappuram.