Rippling is a cloud-based human resource management solution that also offers excellent payroll processing tools. It goes a step beyond the norm by incorporating employee-related IT features that most HR programs don’t include. Designed to effortlessly manage all your employees, Rippling‘s Payroll module is its biggest strength, providing access to flexible features that make payroll quick, accurate, and simple.
Who Needs Rippling?
Rippling’s clientele includes names like Vox, Maximum Games, DivvyUp, McCue, and Flowspace.
As you may have deduced, the company primarily targets small- and medium-sized businesses (with up to 1,000 employees), looking for a single, modern system solution for their payroll, benefit, HR, and IT requirements. Rippling is well-suited for businesses with remote workers or international contractors since it can easily process payroll for employees across the globe in a matter of minutes.
Rippling’s payroll solutions are excellent, but they have a complex setup process.
While its sophisticated capabilities won’t exactly get in the way for businesses with only a handful of employees, it can feel intimidating. More so, since other payroll solutions are offering simplified solutions for very small businesses.
Another potential issue is the lack of phone support. You only get email and chat support, as well as a knowledge base. This might be cumbersome for businesses looking for quick service.
The #1 Best Thing About Rippling
The full-service payroll solution is our favorite thing about Rippling. In the company’s words, its payroll is “so powerful, it can run itself.“
The software syncs all your business’s HR data with payroll, completely eliminating any manual labor on your part. No need to worry about miscalculating hours or deductions! Just click Run, and everything will be done in 90 seconds flat.
Another notable mention is the seamless time and attendance product that makes it easy to track and approve hours.
Employees can easily clock in and out using the Rippling app, or their computer or tablet. Your job is only to review and approve hours worked. The software also assists with meeting labor law regulations on breaks and overtime.
Rippling’s Payroll
Rippling is a leading payroll service, and not without reason.
It has a (nearly) fully automated payroll, along with a comprehensive reporting system, that keeps you in the loop regarding your payroll while streamlining the whole process. You can pay your employees and contractors within minutes, regardless of where they live.
Automatic tax filing and compliance are other excellent perks.
Rippling automatically calculates all your payroll taxes and files them with the IRS and other federal, state, and local agencies before the deadline. Additionally, it ensures your company is always in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations.
You can also customize your business’s PTO policy, then review and approve employee time-off requests with a single click. What’s more, the software also takes the responsibility of managing various payment tasks like direct deposit, deductions, reimbursements, and wage garnishments.
Pros
- Extremely fast payroll processing
- Automatic tax compliance and filing
- Automated wizard support
- Offers powerful reporting tools to facilitate better payroll-related decision-making
- Syncs with over 400+ apps
Cons
- Complicated payroll setup
- Slightly expensive for small businesses
- Lack of phone support
Rippling Payroll Pricing & Plans
Rippling doesn’t offer standard subscription plans and instead has quote-based pricing depending on every user’s needs and requirements.
Although pricing starts from $8 a month per user, you have to tell Rippling the services you need, after which you’ll receive a free customized quote for your business.
Note: Rippling’s payroll services are only available after signing up for its Employee Management Platform. As such, you can expect the cost to be steeper than the monthly $8-per-person pricing.
Rippling’s Benefits Administration
Employees are undoubtedly your greatest asset.
Rippling understands this, which is why it brings all your employee benefits—401(k), health insurance, dental, vision, and more—into one system and automates related work. This includes onboarding new hires, administering COBRA, and updating deductions.
You can quote, compare, and enroll in more than 4,000 plans from leading carriers, including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Humana. If you want additional guidance when choosing new coverage, you can grant your broker access to your Rippling account as well.
As mentioned, onboarding new hires is a breeze.
Rippling sends invites to new hires to review and enroll in company benefits, a process that‘s completely online and paperless. You can also track everyone’s progress using the intuitive dashboard.
Moreover, the software takes over your enterprise’s ACA and COBRA compliance work. It sends ACA notices and handles COBRA payments on your behalf, automating the whole process.
Pros
- Efficient and easy employee onboarding and benefits management
- Tons of employee benefits options
- Users can compare benefits plans before enrolment
- Provides centralized dashboard view to track enrolment progress
Cons
- Users have to pay additional fees to retain their benefits broker
- Limited information regarding the differences around health benefits
Rippling’s Time & Attendance
Rippling’s time-tracking software can effortlessly streamline your workload and automate routine actions. It auto-tracks your employees’ hours from clock-in to paycheck while simultaneously letting you review and approve hours.
One of the best things about this is you don’t have to settle for any cookie-cutter solution.
Rippling gives you full control over the use and logic for time tracking, allowing you to customize the system to fit your company’s specific requirements. It monitors everyone’s time cards, notifying you and your team before issues arise (for instance, when an employee is approaching overtime).
It automatically enforces overtime, meal breaks, and other federal, state, and local labor laws based on your location to avoid penalization with built-in compliance.
Besides these, Rippling also has sophisticated attendance enforcement features like geolocation restrictions, QR codes, and selfie clock-ins—features that prevent buddy punching and ensure employees are physically present when clocking in.
You can build powerful custom reports to visualize trends and group labor costs by job, location, or any other measure to inform strategic workforce planning. It’s certainly a well-rounded process to keep track of your employees’ hours.
Pros
- Quick and easy employee clock in and out
- Automatic time tracking to calculate paychecks accurately
- Instantly syncs approved hours with payroll
- Sophisticated attendance enforcement features to prevent buddy punching
Cons
- Costs can add up
- In-personal training unavailable
Rippling’s Talent Management System
The talent management solution empowers you to find, develop, and engage top-level talent for your business through effective recruiting, onboarding, learning, and engagement.
Rippling simplifies the hiring process using powerful sourcing, tracking, and reporting. This helps you find the right people for your job openings. You can also easily build your candidate pipeline by publishing open opportunities on leading job platforms and customize interview stages based on position, department, or seniority.
Setting up customized approval processes and alerts and running background checks and e-verifications—all in one platform—is also possible.
The learning management and employee engagement programs give your employees tools and training to boost efficiency and centralize resources and communicate company information, respectively.
Integration opportunities with top learning management systems (LMS) will equip your employees with crucial resources to help them enhance their skills. Whereas access to hundreds of tools and pre-made courses will support career growth and increase employee retention.
Essentially, Rippling’s talent management solution is designed to help you manage your employees as effectively as possible to improve your business’s bottom line.
Pros
- One-click job posting and customizable applicant tracking capabilities
- Super-fast onboarding
- Provides top-quality training and assistance to employees
- Keeps employee compliance training on track
- Supports employee career growth
Cons
- Reports could use more customization
- Lacks hands-on customer service
Rippling Pricing & Plans
The starting price of Rippling is $8 a month per person. From there, you select the exact services that you need, and the company will get you a quote.
There are no plans or pricing tiers–what you pay will be based on the capabilities you need.
Anecdotally, Rippling tends can be more expensive than some of its competitors, though you will never be stuck paying for features you don’t need. With Rippling, you are not going to have to try to fit your needs into some pre-packaged pricing structure.
What Do Users Think of Rippling?
Rippling’s intuitive user interface and extensive third-party integration support have received many compliments. Others liked the automated and customizable features offered for payroll, HR, IT, and tax compliance.
If you dig into what people say, you’ll hear that it’s clear Rippling is investing in their technology. The platform is very easy to use and keeps getting more powerful.
There’s definitely room for improvement, though, especially on the service side.
Most user complaints revolve around the lack of phone support, which becomes even more prominent because of the learning curve during the onboarding process. With customer service limited to email and chat, there’s no guarantee of quick solutions.
Users also commented the pricing was a little steep for small business owners, plus Rippling doesn’t offer a free trial and has a minimum one-year contract length. This is a serious drawback as most of its competitors offer free trials.
How Rippling Measures up to the Competition
Two of Rippling’s competitors that we really like are Gusto and Paycom.
All three platforms are similar in terms of ease of use and payroll support. But while Rippling’s customizability, speed, and third-party app integrations make it more suitable for larger businesses, Gusto is a better fit for companies that are just starting out.
We recommend Gusto for businesses with a simple tech stack and standard payroll needs. Gusto is way easier to get set up than Rippling, though it is not built to scale. Where Rippling is good for 1,000 employees, you will probably be pushing Gusto’s limits at 100.
Paycom is a tech-first company, like Rippling, that can help growing businesses consolidate payroll, HR, human capital management, workforce management, and IT systems within a single platform.
There are lots of good options for payroll software. Those are just three of the best we reviewed in our post about the Best Payroll Software and Services. You’ll find a complete breakdown of the leading options and when they work well.
Do We Recommend Rippling?
Yes, Rippling is definitely HR Advice approved!
It’s an all-in-one HR platform offering top-of-the-line full-service payroll and tax compliance services, along with other excellent features that make it a great choice for companies with dozens or hundreds of employees with complex payroll requirements.
Try Rippling and see it for yourself! Schedule a 30-minute demo session here.
