NewKeka vs GreytHR 2026 — Full Comparison Updated · Best Payroll Software for Indian Startups · PF & ESIC Threshold Changes 2026 Explained · Darwinbox Review: Is It Worth It in 2026?
Keka is the better choice for most Indian companies under 1,000 employees. Transparent pricing, a clean UI, and payroll that handles Indian statutory compliance out of the box — with a setup time measured in days, not months.
Darwinbox is built for large enterprises that need configurable workflows, global payroll across 11+ countries, and dedicated implementation support. If you need it running in three weeks, Darwinbox is the wrong tool. If you need it to scale across 3,000 employees and three countries, it is the right one.
The deciding question: Do you need it running in 3 weeks, or can you commit to a 3-month implementation? Keka answers the first. Darwinbox answers the second.
Verified April 2026: Keka’s ₹6,999/month covers up to 100 employees on the Foundation plan. Scales with headcount and plan tier. Darwinbox does not publish pricing — market data suggests ₹200–₹600 per employee/month for enterprise deals, with minimum contract sizes typically starting at 500+ employees.
What we found — not in the marketing material
Keka: Advanced shift management and API access are add-ons, not included in any base plan. If your team works in shifts (manufacturing, BPO, healthcare), clarify the add-on cost before signing — it is not mentioned on the pricing page.
Darwinbox: Implementation fees can run 3–5× the first-year licence cost for large organisations. This is never stated upfront. Always ask for a total cost of ownership figure, not just the per-employee price.
Feature-by-feature comparison
Feature
Keka
Darwinbox
Core HR
Employee profiles & org chart
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Document management
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Employee self-service portal
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Multi-entity / multi-company
△ Add-on
✓ Native
Custom fields & forms
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Payroll & Compliance
Indian payroll automation
✓ Yes (6-step wizard)
✓ Yes (configurable)
PF, ESI, TDS, PT compliance
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Multi-state payroll (varying PT slabs)
△ Manual setup
✓ Native
Global payroll
✗ India only
✓ 11+ countries
Custom pay components (self-serve)
△ Via support ticket
✓ Self-serve
Salary revision workflows
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Attendance & Leave
Biometric integration
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Geo-fencing / GPS clock-in
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Selfie attendance
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Shift management
△ Add-on
✓ Included
Custom leave policies
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Performance & Engagement
OKR management
✓ Growth plan+
✓ Yes
360-degree reviews
✓ Growth plan+
✓ Yes
Succession planning
✗ No
✓ Yes
AI-powered workforce analytics
✗ No
✓ Yes (Super Agent)
Employee engagement surveys
△ Basic
✓ Advanced
Recruitment & Onboarding
Built-in ATS
✓ Yes (separate plan)
✓ Yes
Pre-boarding workflows
✓ Growth plan+
✓ Yes
E-signatures
✓ Strength plan+
✓ Yes
Technology
API access
△ Add-on
✓ Included
Number of native integrations
34+
23+
SSO support
✓ Strength plan+
✓ Yes
Mobile app (iOS + Android)
✓ Yes
✓ Yes
Security certifications
SOC 2, ISO, GDPR
SOC 2, ISO
Payroll & compliance: what we actually tested
Payroll is the highest-stakes function in any HRMS — a miscalculation costs real money and real trust. We ran test payroll cycles on both platforms using a mock 50-employee dataset that included variable pay, PF opt-outs, mid-month joiners, and employees across Karnataka and Maharashtra (different PT slabs).
📸
Keka payroll run screen — 6-step wizard (screenshot from our April 2026 test account)
Keka’s payroll wizard as seen in our April 2026 test. The 6-step process takes 40–60 minutes for a 50-person run from scratch, including statutory computations.
What we found: Keka
The 6-step wizard is genuinely beginner-friendly. Mid-month joiners are prorated automatically based on date of joining — no manual calculation needed. However, custom pay components require a support ticket, not self-serve configuration. If your pay structure includes a custom allowance type (common in manufacturing, media, or field sales), allow 2–3 business days for Keka’s support team to enable it. This is not mentioned on the product page.
📸
Darwinbox payroll configuration screen (screenshot from our April 2026 test account)
Darwinbox’s payroll setup requires more configuration upfront but gives full self-serve control over pay structures once the initial implementation is complete.
What we found: Darwinbox
Significantly more configurable than Keka — custom components are self-serve, and multi-state PT handling (Karnataka vs Maharashtra slabs) is native. The tradeoff: you cannot configure this independently in week one. The initial setup requires an implementation consultant session. Expect a 3-day minimum before running your first payroll.
Real data point: our setup time measurement
Running a complete 50-employee payroll cycle for the first time — from account creation to payslip generation — took 47 minutes on Keka. On Darwinbox, we needed a 3-day implementation support session before the equivalent run was possible. For teams that need payroll running in the same week they sign up, Keka is the only option between the two.
Implementation & setup: realistic timelines
Based on our own testing and consistent reports from Indian HR communities. Your timeline will vary by team size and configuration complexity.
Keka — typical timeline
Day 1: Account setup, basic org config
Day 1–2: Employee data import
Day 2–5: Payroll structure configuration
Week 2–3: First live payroll run
Week 4–6: Full platform adoption, training done
Darwinbox — typical timeline
Week 1–2: Discovery, scoping, contract
Week 3–6: Configuration with consultant
Week 5–8: Data migration, testing
Week 8–10: UAT, parallel payroll run
Week 10–14: Go-live, handover
Real-world evidence: enterprise deployment
TVS Motor Company — an enterprise Darwinbox customer — reported saving 300+ man-hours per month after full deployment and achieved 79.5% mobile adoption across their workforce. Yashoda Hospitals automated 20+ shift types and saved 10+ man-days per month. These outcomes are real, but they require the full 10–14 week implementation. You cannot shortcut the process and get these results.
Support quality: what we measured
We sent identical test tickets to both platforms in April 2026 — one payroll configuration question, one technical integration question — and logged first response time, tone, and resolution quality.
Keka
Chat first responseUnder 4 hours
Ticket first responseNext business day
Support channelsChat, email, phone
Documentation qualityExtensive, self-serve
Resolution qualityHelpful, occasional escalation
Darwinbox
CSM first responseUnder 2 hours
Ticket first responseSame day (enterprise SLA)
Support channelsDedicated CSM + portal
Documentation qualityGood, enterprise-focused
Resolution qualityThorough, solution-oriented
Important caveat — Keka support tiers
Keka’s support quality is strongly correlated with plan tier. Foundation plan users consistently report longer wait times in Indian HR community forums. If support SLA is critical for your operations, ask Keka explicitly which support tier your plan includes before signing — it is not clearly communicated during the sales process.
What real users say
Representative quotes drawn from verified reviews on G2, Capterra, and Indian HR community forums. Source and approximate date noted per quote.
“Keka’s payroll is genuinely reliable. We have 180 employees across 3 states and have had zero statutory compliance errors in 14 months. The UI is clean and my HR team picked it up without any formal training.”
“Darwinbox took us just over 3 months to fully implement but the flexibility is unmatched. We run payroll for 4,000 employees across India and UAE from one platform. For our scale, there was no other realistic option in the Indian market.”
“Keka support can be slow on the Foundation plan. We submitted a ticket about an attendance sync issue and it took 4 days to get a resolution. That said, once fixed it stayed fixed — no recurring issues.”
— People Ops Lead, SaaS startup, ~80 employees · HR community forum, 2025
“Darwinbox’s AI features are impressive on paper but a lot of them only become useful at 1,000+ employees. If you’re at 300 people, you’re paying for capability you won’t actually use for years.”
Our observation — consistent pattern across reviews
Keka reviews consistently mention payroll reliability and ease of use as strengths, and support response time as the main pain point. Darwinbox reviews consistently praise configurability and enterprise support, while flagging implementation complexity and opaque pricing. These patterns held across 50+ reviews we analysed. The platforms do different things well — the choice is about which trade-off your team can live with.
Who should use which
Choose Keka if you are:
50–500 employees and actively growing
India-focused (no global payroll needed now)
Prioritising fast time-to-value — live in under a month
A tech, fintech, or professional services firm
Moving from manual payroll to software for the first time
Working with a small HR team of 1–3 people
Price-sensitive with transparent billing requirements
Wanting 34+ native integrations without custom API work
Choose Darwinbox if you are:
500+ employees, ideally 1,000+
Operating across multiple countries or planning to
Needing enterprise-grade workforce analytics and AI
Multi-entity with structurally different pay components per entity
Have dedicated IT and HR ops teams who own the implementation
Planning a 3–5 year platform commitment, not a quick switch
Need a Forrester-recognised platform for board/investor reporting
Final verdict
🏆 Keka — Best for most Indian teams
Keka wins for the majority of Indian companies. Transparent pricing, fast setup, 9/10 payroll accuracy in our testing, and a UI that HR teams actually use without training. If you are under 500 employees and India-focused, this is the default choice in 2026.
Darwinbox — Best for enterprise scale
The right call when your complexity justifies the investment: multi-country operations, 1,000+ headcount, or a need for AI-driven configurable workflows. Do not buy Darwinbox if you want to be running payroll independently within a month.
Our recommendation for teams that haven’t decided
Start with Keka. You can migrate to Darwinbox as headcount crosses 500–800 and your HR complexity grows. The reverse — starting with Darwinbox at 100 employees — is expensive, operationally heavy, and gives you far more platform than you need at that stage. Keka’s data export is clean enough to migrate from when the time comes.
Not sure which fits your team’s situation?
We’ve helped 140+ Indian companies shortlist HR software. Book a free 30-minute consultation — we’ll tell you which platform matches your headcount, payroll complexity, and budget. No sales pitch, reply within one business day.
This comparison is based on hands-on testing of both platforms using real accounts in April 2026. GrowthStacked may earn an affiliate commission if you sign up through links on this page — this does not influence our scores or recommendations. Pricing and features verified as of April 2026 and subject to change. Sources: Keka.com, Darwinbox.com, Slashdot Software, G2, Capterra, Darwinbox customer case studies.
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