Rippling Review 2024: Features & Hidden Costs Explained

Juggling multiple payroll and HR systems can be a nightmare for businesses of any size. Manual data entry, time-consuming administrative tasks, and worries about errors can slow productivity, increase costs, and harm employee satisfaction.

Rippling offers an attractive solution with its all-in-one platform to manage global and UK payroll and HR tasks, control spending, and improve data security. Read on for our review of Rippling’s services, and explore how UK businesses can benefit from its comprehensive HR and payroll software offerings.

Key Takeaways

Rippling offers an all-in-one HR platform that includes payroll, benefits, onboarding, and more.
Rippling offers scalable solutions for businesses of all sizes, including both UK and global payroll solutions for larger businesses with multinational workforces.
Rippling uses end-to-end encryption to protect customer data and employee information, minimising the chances of data theft or breaches.
Its user-friendly interface and automation capabilities enhance efficiency and reduce errors, saving time, effort, and money.

Rippling: An In-Depth Review

Rippling aims to simplify HR management by consolidating a wide range of basic and advanced features and services into one easy-to-use platform. It’s well reviewed, with 4.4 stars on Trustpilot out of over 1,000 ratings.

Rippling offers four main products: human capital management (HCM), a payroll solution for small businesses that can also cater to the needs of bigger firms, an information technology (IT) platform, and a spending management option. Let’s break down the differences between these offerings.

Human Capital Management (HCM)	Payroll
Rippling’s HCM platform offers employee data management, compensation options, time and attendance tracking, scheduling, recruiting, performance management, employee surveys, education, and benefits administration.	Rippling’s payroll services include UK payroll, global payroll (for multinational businesses), employer-of-record hiring options, global contractors, payroll management, contractor payment, tax planning and preparation, information filing, and more.
Information Technology	Spend
Rippling offers IT features such as identity protection, access management, device management, and inventory management.	Rippling offers granular control over company spending, with expense management, bill paying, and global spending controls.

Rippling Human Capital Management (HCM) Features

Rippling offers human capital management (HCM) software that seeks to make HR more strategic for businesses. This software offers time-saving automation options, better decision-making with visibility into actionable data, and a modern, intuitive user experience that simplifies the process for businesses and employees.

The platform also offers control over HR management, talent acquisition, benefits administration, and workforce management, and is designed for businesses of almost any size. Let’s break down the HCM features that Rippling offers.

Human Resources Information System (HRIS): Manage HR tasks like employee onboarding, salaries, health insurance, retirement plan administration, and paid leave. Also manage recruiting tasks such as posting job listings, fielding applicants, conducting interviews, conducting background checks, and sending offer letters.
Recruiting: Rippling helps you post job listings online, manage applicant tracking, conduct interviews, manage team growth and headcount needs, and optimise team dynamics. Its helpful data and reporting also simplify the task of understanding and meeting your hiring needs.
Workforce Management: Manage headcounts, team budgets, workforce spending, budget allocations, and more all in one place. Managing your workforce appropriately ensures your teams remain well staffed, able to meet goals and deadlines, and satisfied with their work/life balance.
Performance Management: Easily track employee performance, set goals, and provide feedback with built-in performance management tools and employee portals.
Compliance: Automated tax calculations, payroll taxes, and information reporting help ensure your business remains compliant with HMRC regulations.
Documentation: Manage sensitive business and employee documents in a secure location with end-to-end SSL encryption.
Time Tracking: Allow your HR staff to monitor employee time and attendance easily. If your business already uses time-tracking software, you can use third-party integrations to connect it with Rippling’s software.
Employee Surveys: Easily create and disseminate surveys to employees to better understand their sentiments, engagement, and satisfaction. Surveys can be anonymous, allowing you to get real data from workers.
Employee Education: Assign and manage the ongoing education of your employees.

Rippling Payroll Features

Rippling’s Payroll platform offers payroll processing features, payroll filing, compliance management, tax calculation and reporting, various payment options, and more. Its built-in automation options allow you to save time and money by automating as many parts of the payroll process as possible.

Rippling offers the following payroll features:

Payroll Automation: Rippling allows users to automate payroll calculations, deductions, and direct deposits, saving you and your team time and money every pay period.
Automatic HMRC Regulation Updates: Rippling regularly updates its software to reflect the latest HMRC regulations and tax law changes.
Various Payment Options: Offer employees and contractors the convenience of direct deposit, cash or check payments, salary sacrifice schemes, and other flexible payment options.
Detailed Reporting: Access detailed payroll reports and analytics to gain insights into workforce productivity, costs, and budgeting.
Benefits: Manage the disbursement of employee benefits such as paid leave, retirement account contributions, health insurance, and more.

Managing payroll with Rippling. Source: Rippling

Rippling IT Features

While information technology (IT) might not seem payroll or HR-related, it’s an important element of both areas. Businesses need to ensure the digital and physical security of employer and employee information at all times.

Rippling’s IT is designed to ensure that information remains secure, that user access controls can be maintained, and that devices containing sensitive information are managed appropriately. Let’s explore the specifics below.

Identity and Access Management: Rippling allows users to track and manage the identities and access abilities of all employees and contractors, regardless of their location. Additional standout features include dynamic multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO).
Device Management: Rippling’s device management features include automated device monitoring, dynamic security policies that update to suit the device being used, visibility and reporting on devices with software access, Apple and Windows mobile device management (MDM), endpoint protection, zero-touch deployment, and more.
Device Inventory Management: Rippling can help track and manage shipping and retrieval of business devices like laptops, phones, checkout systems, card readers, and hard drives. It can warehouse as well as digitally wipe, physically clean, and test devices on behalf of your business, so you know that each device is ready for the next employee.

Managing a device with Rippling. Source: Rippling

Rippling Spend Features

In addition to payroll and HR, Rippling offers features like expense management, payroll expense tracking & data, headcount cost planning, bill payment solutions, and comprehensive spending data and reports. These features allow you to centralise your spending, save time and money with custom workflows, and reduce software costs.

Here are the main features included in Rippling’s spending management software:

Expense Management: Rippling allows users to track and automate expenses, block out-of-policy expenses, create spending policies and terms, set up expense approval chains with role-based rules, and give teams instant visibility into their spending.
Payroll Expense Tracking and Data: Develop a better understanding of your business’s payroll expenses, including base pay, overtime, bonuses, taxes, health insurance, paid leave, and retirement contributions.
Headcount Cost Planning: Gain visibility into your total, group, and team headcounts and the costs related to employing and contracting these workers. Develop a better understanding of each team’s efficiency and strategise ways to reduce costs while maintaining efficiency and output.
Bill Payment Solutions: Rippling’s bill pay software allows businesses to pay, track, and manage any bill from anywhere in the world. Users can generate bills with the click of a button, pay vendors using any method (credit card, check, bank transfer, and more), and pay vendors in their local currency—wherever they are.

Rippling's headcount planning tool. Source: Rippling

Rippling’s Pricing

Rippling uses a quote-based pricing model, so you’ll have to contact it to get a quote tailored to your budget, business needs, and workforce size. The benefit is that you’ll only pay for what you need and use. The downside is that you won’t know the cost upfront, which can make it difficult to compare Rippling with other HR and payroll providers.

Be warned that Rippling doesn’t offer a free trial and requires users to agree to minimum contracts. This means you could be locked into a year-long contract even if you realise another HR or payroll provider is better suited to your business.

Rippling’s Customer Support

Rippling employs an excellent customer service team that can answer questions and help solve problems with your HR, payroll, IT, and spending plans. It can handle most issues right away and solve more complex issues within 24-48 hours.

The customer service team can be accessed via several methods: phone, live chat on the website, email, or online help centre. Rippling also provides a helpful blog where you can ask questions, a resources library to learn about Rippling and find a solution to your problem, and a “recipe” library you can use to streamline the service and solve hundreds of common and advanced scenarios.

Rippling: The Pros and Cons

Now that we understand Rippling’s offerings, features, and pricing, let’s summarise the pros and cons so you know why you should (or should not) use it for your business.

Rippling: The Pros

✅Highly Capable Payroll Processing

Rippling offers a highly capable payroll process with numerous useful automations. Payroll can be processed in one click, and users can run payroll not just in the UK, but anywhere on earth, and in any currency. This is great for businesses of nearly any size, from a midsize business in Sheffield to a multinational corporation with operations in London, Singapore, and New York.

✅Top-Of-The-Line HR Capabilities

Rippling’s HR capabilities are top-notch as well. You can use a comprehensive HR interface to manage hiring, promotions, benefits, team dynamics, headcounts, growth projections, and more, all in one place. Administrators can easily access employee and team portals, and employees can manage their information via custom portals on both web and mobile applications.

✅User-Friendly Interface

Rippling’s PC and mobile interfaces are user-friendly, allowing businesses to easily perform HR and payroll tasks. Both administrators and employees can access customised portals from anywhere and at any time, making interacting with the software—and each other—a breeze.

✅Attentive Customer Service

Rippling’s customer support is excellent, and there are multiple ways to access the customer service team, learn about Rippling, and find solutions. It also offers a blog, resource library, Rippling recipe library, and more to help customers resolve issues quickly.

Rippling: The Cons

❌Higher Prices Compared to Competitors

In some ways, bespoke pricing is a pro, because you only pay for the features you’ll use. However, our research indicates that Rippling’s services are on the higher end of the scale for HR and payroll software providers. This will be especially true for small to midsize companies. However, you do get what you pay for.

❌Lack of a Free Trial

In addition to a reportedly high price, Rippling doesn’t offer free trials. This could drive away some customers who prefer to test software before committing to a pricing structure.

How Did We Review Rippling?

We regularly research a wide range of market-leading payroll products and services to evaluate them in terms of functionality, usability, data security, and customer support so we can make the most useful recommendations for UK businesses.

Our rigorous research process means these products have been scored and rated in five main categories of investigation and 10 subcategories – in fact, we covered 56 areas of investigation in total. We then gave each category score a ‘relevance weighting' to ensure the product's final score perfectly reflects the needs and requirements of Expert Market readers.

Our main testing categories for payroll products and services are:

Control: the level of customisation and flexibility provided by the payroll software in managing and processing payroll, such as the ability to define pay periods, set up tax withholding rules, and manage employee data.

Data Security: the measures and protocols implemented by the payroll software to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive payroll information.

Expertise: the level of knowledge and guidance provided by the payroll software vendor or support team. This can include resources such as documentation, tutorials, and training materials.

Scalability: the ability of the payroll software to accommodate the growth and changing needs of a business, including the capacity to handle an increasing number of employees and support multiple locations or entities.

Customer Support: the various channels and methods available for users to seek assistance and support from the payroll software vendor, such as email or ticket-based support, phone support, or live chat.

Verdict

Managing HR and payroll tasks can feel overwhelming, especially for businesses juggling multiple systems and spreadsheets. Rippling offers a compelling solution by streamlining payroll, benefits, hiring, and HR functions into a single, user-friendly platform.

Rippling’s services may feel unnecessary for small to mid-sized businesses, those with simple HR and payroll needs, or those with smaller budgets. But for large businesses, Rippling could be a perfect solution to improve HR and payroll and streamline operations.

FAQs

What is Rippling’s pricing model?

Rippling’s pricing structure is bespoke, which means you have to request a custom quote for your business. Rippling likely charges a subscription fee based on the services you require, plus a per employee per month fee each time you run payroll.

Can Rippling handle complex payroll scenarios, such as multinational and multi-currency payroll runs?

Yes, Rippling can handle virtually any payroll scenario, from a small local business with employees in one location to a large multinational corporation with payments in multiple currencies.

Rippling Review 2024: Plans, Features, and Pricing