Rippling review 2024: Cost, plans, features and more

Rippling payroll software review

Pricing and plans

The overall cost of payroll is always an important factor, particularly for small businesses that need to get their dollars’ worth. We looked at the plans offered by Rippling and tried to find out as much as we can about their costs.

How much does Rippling cost?
Rippling’s base plan starts at $8 per user per month, but it doesn’t show you any fixed pricing plans. Instead, you are required to request a tailored quote. Aside from the base plan required to pay employees, you need to pay extra for additional features — and this can add up.

What plans does Rippling offer?

Rippling offers its payroll software in three different ‘clouds,’ or suites of services:

• HR cloud: Offering U.S. and global full-service payroll, time and attendance, benefits, applicant tracking and more.
• Finance cloud: Equipped with corporate card management, expense tracking and bill pay features to come soon.
• IT cloud: Includes app, inventory and device management tools.

Alternatively, you can opt for a suite that combines HR Cloud, Finance Cloud and IT cloud, which comes in four tiers:

• Core: Includes all the base features including global employee graphs, organization charts, workforce analytics, automated compliance capabilities and a host of others features.
• Pro: Includes all of the features in Core as well as automated workflows, ten custom workflows and formula fields and advanced reporting.
• Unlimited: Gives you everything in the Core and Pro plans, plus unlimited workflows, fields and reports as well as the ability to use open APIs to automate actions in third-party systems.
• Enterprise: Everything in the Unlimited plan as well as access to the Rippling API.

What Rippling does have going for it is flexibility. With its unified workforce management platform, you can pick and choose the features you need to create a customized experience for your business. And, while it’s not ideal that you can’t see the price up-front, you at least know that you’re paying for what you need and nothing else.

Unfortunately, there is no free version or even a free trial, so it does represent a commitment. 

How does Rippling’s pricing compare to other companies?

While it is difficult to analyze Rippling’s pricing on its own, it helps to look at it in the context of other providers. Rippling tends to be a little more expensive than providers like Patriot, Gusto and Workful.

Is Rippling worth it for me?

Rippling might be on the expensive side for smaller businesses with fewer than fifty employees — especially if you only need the basic payroll software. You might find other providers like Gusto or Workful to be more suitable.

If you have more than fifty employees and plan on growing further, Rippling can be an exceptionally helpful service to lean on as you scale your business up and find more use for extra features.

Features and add-ons

To understand whether Rippling is the right service for you, we’ve looked at the features offered with its payroll software, as well as what you’ll get with other service plans.

What features are included in Rippling payroll software?

Rippling’s payroll software offers the following features:

• Domestic and international payroll: You can use Rippling in all 50 states as well as countries across the world.
• Tax filing: Rippling automates payroll taxes on a federal, state and local level so your payments are always on time.
• Compliance: W-2, W-4, 1099 and new hire forms are all automated to ensure you stay compliant with all regulations.
• Garnishments: Rippling can support and pay out all garnishment types. 
• Tracking: You can track hours and PTO, and automatically sync it to your payroll, as well as the specific job and its pay rate.
• Payment options: You can send payment to your employees by direct deposit and check.
• Expense management: Rippling payroll software offers speedy reviews, approvals and reimbursements of company expenses. 
• Benefits: You can use Rippling payroll to manage benefits and ensure deductions are synchronized to payroll, including medical, dental, vision, 401k and more.
• Integrations: Rippling supports over 500 integrations, including major software like Quickbooks, Xero and Netsuite.
• Templates: You’ll have access to hundreds of tweakable templates for workflows related to employees moving country or state, off-cycle pay runs and more.
• Mobile app: Rippling’s mobile app allows employees to see and manage their pay and time off from wherever they might be.

As far as payroll software goes, Rippling offers a full set of features that make it an extremely well-rounded option. There’s a reason the company wins first place in our top 10 payroll software ranking.

What other features can I get with Rippling?

Rippling’s fully customizable platform means you can mix and match its tools and services to build the perfect administration software product. It offers three suites, or ‘clouds,’ with the following features:

It’s clear that Rippling offers a broad and customizable suite of software that goes far beyond payroll — including everything you need to manage and scale your business. But if your business is smaller than 50 people or on a tighter budget, there may be better options to fit your budget and needs.

Does Rippling offer the best plan for me?

The features in Rippling’s unified platform are wide-ranging, providing a truly all-in-one experience for payroll management and beyond. However, smaller businesses might find the extent of these features excessive, and might prefer alternatives based on their specific requirements.

• On a budget: Starting at $17 per month, plus $4 per person, Patriot offers a range of useful features for businesses operating on a tighter budget. You’ll get an unlimited payroll for multiple locations, multiple pay rates, time and attendance, HR and more with its basic plan.

• For hourly workers: If you’re handling plenty of hourly workers, Homebase offers great time-tracking features alongside its payroll system, including instant tracking of hours, breaks, overtime and PTO. Its plans range from free to $80 per month, so there’s something for every budget.

• For basic payroll: If you aren’t in need of any frills and you’re paying 25 people or less, Payroll4Free has it all in its name; its basic services for free.

Rippling vs. other providers: key features

Customer support and experience

Rippling’s customer service is only reachable by live chat and email. The live chat and help center are only accessible when logged in. It also provides an FAQ help center. You can fill out a form to talk to their sales team, who may be able to help with your query.

It’s also worth noting that employees of companies using Rippling have no direct customer support options. Rippling asks that they contact their company’s administrator for help.

The lack of phone support is not ideal, particularly given that there is no quick way to speak to a Rippling representative if you’re not already a member.

What do other users think of Rippling?

To get a clearer picture of what Rippling’s customers think, we’ve looked at their user scores from third-party review sites, such as Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra. Seeing other users’ opinions is a good way to understand real-life experiences with Rippling.

The above scores are excellent across the board, but it’s worth pointing out that these take everything into account, not just customer service. However, Capterra also offers a separate score for customer service, for which Rippling gets a 4.8 out of 5.

Many reviews praise the company’s customer support, referencing their helpfulness and collaborativeness. However, some negative reviews bemoan — as we did — the lack of phone support and some say the email forms take a few days to get a response.

On Trustpilot, Rippling has yet to reply to any negative reviews — which, given that there are so few, perhaps isn’t hugely important. 

Rippling vs. the competition

Before deciding if Rippling is the right payroll software for your business, it’s worth comparing the provider to the competition to see if there are any better alternatives:

Is Ripping the cheapest payroll provider?

Rippling is definitely not the cheapest payroll software provider on the market; but that’s not to say it isn’t offering a great value for the money. If you have the budget, the size and the scalability, you might find that Rippling is worth the extra money for the number of features and flexibility it offers.

However, if you’re looking for a basic payroll software provider for a low cost and without frills, we recommend the following:

• Payroll4Free: Payroll4Free is our best software pick for those needing basic services. Its plan is free if you’ve got 25 people or fewer in your business.
• Patriot Software: Patriot is our best software pick for brands on a budget. Its basic plan is $17 a month plus $4 per employee or contractor. 

How flexible are Rippling’s plans?

Rippling doesn’t offer ‘plans’ the way many other providers do. Instead, it provides a central platform to which you can add a mix of the services you need. It’s a degree of flexibility that puts Rippling ahead of the competition if you have the requirements and budget.

To put it into perspective, Patriot’s tax services are only offered with the full service plan, which costs $20 per month more than its basic plan. 

Homebase Payroll offers team communication and performance tracking in its essentials plan. But you’ll need to pay $28 a month more for PTO tracking, time-off limits and labor cost controls and another $32 a month more for HR and compliance features and employee documents.

Gusto’s Plus plan offers extra features like team management, performance reviews, next-day direct deposits and more. But you’ll pay twice as much to access these features — even if you only need one or two of them.

Does Rippling offer the most payroll features?

Rippling’s range of features goes far beyond just payroll, offering a full HR, finance and IT software suite. The only providers that offer a similar level of features across the board are Gusto, Homebase, OnPay and Paycor, and each of these falls short in some way or another.

If you’re a growing business with plans to upscale and need the full array of tools to manage your employees, Rippling will likely offer the most complete package. 

Is Rippling right for your business?

Rippling is our top choice for businesses looking for new payroll software, with an important caveat. Firstly, its sheer abundance of features and integrations, combined with how slick and easy their platform is to use, make Rippling an excellent overall provider.

However, it’s not very clear if the provider is the most affordable option until you get a quote for yourself, and there are definitely more affordable options on the market. This is particularly true for businesses on the smaller side that employ fewer than fifty people. Providers like Payroll4Free and Patriot offer budget-based plans for those with basic needs, but if you want something more advanced and are prepared to pay for it, Rippling is an excellent option.

It’s always important to compare your options before committing to a provider, which means doing the necessary research beforehand. This gives you the best chance to find the software that suits your needs. As CIPP expert Samantha O’Sullivan says, “Payroll is always changing.”

“There will always be a more effective way of performing a process,” said Samantha. “Payroll professionals are adept at continuous improvement. Processes will always need to be reviewed due to the fact legislation and guidance is constantly changing. And let’s not forget that domino effect in payroll, so, when one thing is amended, this has a knock-on effect on a multitude of other areas.”

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Does Rippling offer a free trial?

Rippling does not offer a free trial or any kind of free version of its software. Free Payroll software trials aren’t especially common, but if you want to try out payroll software before committing, Homebase offers a 14-day trial for its all-in-one software. Roll by ADP offers a three-month trial, and Workful offers a one-month trial — so there are other options available.

Does Rippling offer direct deposit?

Rippling allows direct deposit as well as check payments, and you can run payroll in as little as 90 seconds.

Does Rippling offer automated tax filing?

Rippling offers automated calculating and filing of all payroll taxes on a local, federal and state level, including W-2, W-4, 1099 and new-hire forms.

Does Rippling offer time tracking?

Rippling offers time tracking as well as PTO tracking, and it’s synchronized to payroll automatically.

Does Rippling have a mobile app?

Employees can use the Rippling mobile app to see paystubs, request time off and view tax forms.

Does Rippling support integrations?

Rippling supports over 500 integrations with major third-party providers, including:

• Collaboration software such as Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, Asana, Github and Dropbox.
• Customer support software like Zendesk, Front, Guru and Salesforce.
• HR software like Human Interest, Guideline, Checkr and One Medical.
• Office management software like SwagUp, Envoy and OfficeSpace.