Twenty people is the size where HR stops being something the founder does on a Sunday evening. We build HourSquare, so we have an interest here, and we say so where it matters. The rest of this guide covers what a team your size needs, what it can skip, and how six well-known products compare, on facts from their own websites wherever we could open them.
Why 20 is its own category
The HRIS glossary entry on this site says most teams adopt their first HR system between 8 and 15 employees. At 20 you are past that point and well below the size most vendors design for. You have one person, often the office manager or the founder, who can give the system two hours a week. The right product is one that person can set up alone, at a price that does not assume you will reach 200 before the contract ends.
What matters at 20 people
One employee record
Every HR task reads from the same few facts. The start date drives probation reminders and leave accrual, the salary drives payroll, and the manager field decides who approves a request. Kept in three places, those facts drift, and the drift shows up as a wrong payslip. Pick a product where a person is entered once and every module reads that record. Our features page shows how we do this, with an org chart and role-based access on top.
Leave that calculates itself
Leave is the first thing a 20-person team feels. You want accrual rules, a live balance each employee can see, a manager approval step, and a team calendar so two people in the same role do not book the same week. If you maintain balances by hand, it is a spreadsheet with a login.
Payroll inputs you can trust
Many 20-person teams keep an accountant for payroll. The HR system still has to produce clean inputs each month, meaning who worked, who was on leave, who joined or left, and what changed in pay. Some products export those to the accountant. Others, HourSquare among them, run the pay run too, with payslips, payment exports and tax packs for 24+ countries. A tool with no view of time or leave can do neither.
Onboarding that starts itself
A handful of hires a year is too few to build a habit, so each start becomes a scramble. A checklist that starts itself when the hire is created, and fans out tasks to IT, the manager and the new hire, removes the scramble. Our guide on how to automate employee onboarding walks through the steps.
A login for everyone, and no trap at 21
If employees cannot see their own balance or download a payslip, each request becomes a message to the one person running HR. Check that the quoted price includes a login for every employee. Then read the fine print, because many products add a minimum seat count, a flat rate below a threshold, or an annual term, and a 20-person company sits close to several of those lines.
What does not matter yet
A few things sell well in demos and then sit unused at this size. Performance management is usually the first upsell; at 20 people a manager can hold a quarterly conversation with each report. An applicant tracking system earns its keep when you hire often enough to have a pipeline. Count the integrations you would switch on. For most 20-person teams that is a calendar feed, an export to the accountant and sign-in through the identity provider you already use, which is why our integrations page is short.
The vendors, fairly
Prices below come from each vendor's own pricing page, read on 2026-10-23, in USD as shown.
BambooHR
The established US HRIS. Companies with 25 or fewer employees pay a flat monthly rate. Core is USD 250, Pro USD 425 and Elite USD 650 (seen 2026-10-23); above 25 employees the same tiers switch to per-employee pricing from USD 10, 17 and 25 a month (seen 2026-10-23). For 20 people, Core works out to USD 12.50 per employee. Payroll and benefits administration are add-ons for US employees only, and time and attendance is also an add-on. The pricing page offers month-to-month terms. A strong fit for a US team that wants a mature product, an integration marketplace and an open API.
Personio
A European platform for small and medium businesses, with recruiting, performance, surveys, a whistleblowing app and native payroll for Germany. Personio sells through a demo and a quote, and its pricing page returned an error when we tried to open it for this guide, so we quote no figure. Third-party buying guides, and our own competitor notes from October 2026, report a 12-month minimum term on yearly billing and a setup fee. A fit for a German company that wants one supplier from recruiting through payroll, and a weaker fit for a team that wants to buy without a sales call.
Factorial
A modular platform from Barcelona covering HR, finance and IT. Its pricing page says Factorial starts at USD 8 per user per month (seen 2026-10-23), which at 20 people is USD 160 a month at the starting price. Every plan includes Factorial Core, the Time, Talent, Finance and IT modules are added on top, and full plans are quoted. Ask for the quote with exactly the modules you want, since the starting price and the final price can be far apart.
TalentHR
A lightweight HRIS from Epignosis. The free plan covers a maximum of 10 users, so a 20-person team is on a paid plan. Essential is USD 2 per user per month and Premium is USD 4 (seen 2026-10-23), and paid plans require a minimum of 15 users, bought in steps of 5, which at 20 is no obstacle. Time tracking, performance and surveys sit in Premium. An applicant tracking system with a careers page is on every plan, and the pricing page lists no payroll.
Connecteam
An employee management app with iOS and Android apps, whose homepage says employees work from their phones. The Small Business Plan costs nothing while you have 10 users or fewer. Above that, pricing is per hub, and the Operations, Communications, and HR & Skills hubs each start at USD 29 per month for the first 30 users on yearly billing, or USD 35 on monthly billing (seen 2026-10-23). Payroll is listed on the pricing page as an integration, so the pay run happens in another product. A good fit for a team that clocks in from phones, a weaker one for an office team that mainly needs leave, records and payroll.
HR.my
The outlier. HR.my's homepage says it is free forever (seen 2026-10-23), with unlimited employees and no per-head pricing, and that it is crowdfunded by its user community. It lists leave, attendance with a time clock, payroll with generated payslips, expense claims and document workflows. Before you commit, check how the payroll rules for your country are maintained, since the site does not state country coverage, and what support looks like for a crowdfunded service.
Where HourSquare fits
HourSquare is self-serve, so you sign up and set it up without a demo. Every module is included, with onboarding and offboarding checklists that start themselves, leave with accrual and a team calendar, timesheets and shift patterns with approvals, pay runs with payslips and tax packs for 24+ countries, one employee record with an org chart, an anonymous speak-up channel, company SSO and a public API with company API keys. Every employee gets a login. It is free for now, payroll included, and the pricing page says what that means. We do not have everything. There is no native mobile app, though the web app has a phone layout, no applicant tracking system and no integration marketplace.
Questions
Is a 20-person company too small for HR software?
No. Most teams adopt a system between 8 and 15 employees, often after a spreadsheet has lost a leave balance or a contract renewal. At 20 the admin load is steady enough that a self-serve tool pays for itself, provided a non-specialist can set it up and every employee gets a login.
How much should HR software cost for 20 employees?
As seen on 2026-10-23, a 20-seat bill among the vendors here runs from USD 29 a month for a single Connecteam hub on yearly billing, through USD 40 at TalentHR Essential and USD 160 at Factorial's starting price, to a flat USD 250 a month at BambooHR Core. Personio is quoted. HR.my is free with no paid tier shown, and HourSquare is free for now, payroll included.
Do I need payroll inside my HR software?
You can run payroll elsewhere, and many 20-person teams keep an accountant for it. Your HR software still needs to know who worked, who was away and who joined or left each month, and to export that cleanly. Running the pay run inside the same tool removes one handoff.
Should a 20-person team pick a free plan?
Only if it covers your headcount and the features you use daily. TalentHR and Connecteam cap their free plans at 10 users, so a 20-person team pays on both. HR.my has no cap and is crowdfunded. HourSquare is free for now, payroll included. Read the upgrade path before you load your data.
For the whole list of what a team your size gets, with no sales call in between, see what a 20-person team gets.