Enter your business details to see what each option would cost you. Prices are live from our database and shown in Australian dollars.
Small business HR software is about getting the people admin, employee records, onboarding, leave and documents, off spreadsheets and email, without paying for an enterprise system you will not use. The good news for a small Australian business is that the entry point is genuinely cheap, and in two cases free. Below are our ranked picks, then a live comparison table and calculator so you can cost each at your own headcount.
How we chose
Small businesses weigh HR software on cost first, then on how much of the real work it takes off your plate: onboarding a new hire, tracking leave, storing employee documents and staying on the right side of Australian employment obligations. We ranked on the real monthly cost once you count employees and any minimum, the depth of core HR (records, onboarding, time off, self-service), fit with Australian employment practice, and how well the tool suits your kind of workforce, desk-based or deskless. Pricing is live from our database in Australian dollars.
What small businesses should prioritise
Start with the shape of your team, because it decides the answer more than any feature list. A small office-based team is best served by a proper HRIS, and Deel HR gives you that free to 200 employees, so there is little reason to pay at small scale. A deskless or shift-based team, hospitality, retail, trades, care, has different needs, rostering and a mobile time clock, and Connecteam is built for exactly that. Employment Hero is the one to reach for when Australian compliance depth matters most, but read its minimum: at about $100 a month it is priced for a growing team, not a founder plus one. Cost the tool at the headcount you expect in a year, not the one you have today.
Free HR software, and what the free tiers actually cover
Two of these picks are free, and it is worth being clear on what that buys. Deel HR free to 200 employees is a full HRIS: records, onboarding, time off, documents and org charts, with no monthly base fee. Connecteam's free plan, up to 10 employees, is an operations tool: rostering, a time clock, checklists and chat, rather than a records-first HRIS. Both are genuine ongoing plans, not trials. The paid step only arrives when you outgrow the cap, past 200 employees on Deel, or past 10 on Connecteam, where the HR hub is $49 a month for your first 30 users.
The verdict
For most Australian small businesses, Deel is the default: a real HR system, free to 200 employees, with room to grow into global hiring later. Choose Connecteam if your team is deskless or shift-based and you need rostering and a time clock more than a records system. Choose Employment Hero when Australian compliance depth and a tightly joined HR-and-payroll platform matter, and your team is large enough to absorb its roughly $100 a month minimum. Use the calculator above to cost each at your employee count.
Running payroll too?
HR software and payroll overlap but are not the same purchase. If you also need to run pay, lodge Single Touch Payroll and interpret Modern Awards, see our guide to the best payroll software for small business, where Employment Hero and the accounting-based options are ranked on cost per employee.