Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) vs Zimyo: Pricing

Attendo (formerly Petpooja Payroll) and Zimyo solve different problems. Zimyo is a full HRMS platform that bundles payroll with performance reviews, recruitment, and employee engagement tools. Attendo is a focused attendance-to-salary system that ships its own biometric hardware and charges a flat annual fee instead of per-employee pricing.

If your business needs a complete HR suite with hiring modules and OKR tracking, Zimyo is built for that. If what you actually need is reliable attendance capture tied directly to salary processing, without paying more every time you add staff, Attendo is the better fit.

Where Do Attendo and Zimyo Differ?

What Zimyo offers

Zimyo positions itself as an end-to-end HR operating system. Its module list covers core HR records, onboarding, offboarding, helpdesk, asset tracking, performance reviews with 9-box matrices and bell curves, and a separate recruitment tool. The platform serves companies like Bajaj Capital, Yashraj Films, and Apollo Tyres, and reports over 500,000 employees managed across 2,500+ organisations.

What Attendo offers

Attendo started from the other end of the problem. Instead of building outward from HR records, it built inward from attendance hardware. The face scanner device at your office entrance records punch-ins, the software pulls that data into leave and overtime calculations, and the payroll engine processes salaries on top of it. No separate hardware vendor. No integration middleware. The system serves 30,000+ businesses, including L&T, Zepto, ISKCON, and Mapro, across manufacturing, retail, healthcare, logistics, and hospitality.

Why this matters for Indian SMEs

India’s HR technology market was valued at USD 1,208 million in 2025, according to IMARC Group, and much of that growth is driven by SMEs adopting cloud-based tools for the first time. Yet most Indian businesses with 10 to 80 staff still operate without a dedicated HR department. A textile unit in Vastrapur or a diagnostic lab in Pimpri does not need a 9-box performance matrix. They need the attendance register and salary sheet to talk to each other without manual data entry on the 28th of every month.

Attendo vs Zimyo: Feature Comparison

What the table cannot show is how these modules behave in daily use. Zimyo groups its stronger capabilities (roster management, overtime and incentive rules, selfie attendance) under the Standard and Enterprise tiers, which start at Rs.120 and Rs.160 per user per month respectively. With Attendo, geo-tagged attendance, shift management, and WhatsApp reports are all bundled within the single flat-fee subscription.

How Does Pricing Add Up Over 12 Months?

This is where the two billing structures diverge the most, and where the annual cost gap becomes visible.

Zimyo’s pricing (from their website as of May 2026):

Recruitment costs Rs.4,000 per recruiter per month extra. The learning module (LMS) is Rs.40 per user per month.

Attendo’s pricing:

Flat annual fee. No per-employee charges. The subscription includes the face scanner hardware with a lifetime warranty. Visit Attendo for current pricing.

Example: a 45-employee electronics store chain in Ahmedabad. On Zimyo’s Basic plan at Rs.80 per user per month, the annual cost works out to Rs.80 x 45 x 12 = Rs.43,200. On the Standard plan, it jumps to Rs.64,800 per year. If the business hires 10 more staff during Diwali season, the Standard plan cost rises to Rs.79,200 for those months. Attendo’s flat fee stays unchanged regardless of whether the team is 45 or 55.

At Petpooja, we have watched this pattern repeat across retail chains and quick-service restaurants where headcount swings by 15-25% between lean and peak months. A per-head billing model penalises growth; a fixed subscription absorbs it.

Why Does Attendance Hardware Matter in This Comparison?

Most payroll comparisons skip the question that comes before the software: how does attendance data get into the system in the first place?

Attendo’s approach

Attendo ships a face recognition scanner with every subscription. The device carries a lifetime warranty, connects to the software without third-party middleware, and works where fingerprint scanners fail, like commercial kitchens with wet hands or construction sites in Thane where dust coats everything by noon.

Zimyo’s approach

Zimyo does not manufacture or supply any attendance hardware. It connects with third-party biometric devices via API, which means the business sources the device separately and handles integration issues when syncs break. Since PF and ESI deductions depend on accurate attendance records (as outlined by EPFO), a hardware sync failure on salary day at a manufacturing unit running three shifts with 60 workers creates hours of manual corrections and potential compliance errors.

If your staff sit at office desks, the hardware question is less pressing. If they work on factory floors, behind retail counters, or in clinic reception areas, the device matters as much as the software. Our guide on face recognition attendance systems in India covers how devices perform across these settings.

Which Businesses Fit Which Product?

Instead of generic pros and cons, here is a breakdown based on business type and workforce structure.

Attendo fits better when:

• Your workforce runs on rotating schedules that change weekly. For example, a supermarket in Maninagar with morning, afternoon, and night shifts needs a system that calculates overtime from shift rules, not from manual timesheets
• You bring on seasonal workers regularly. For example, a catering operation in Pune that adds 20 temporary hands during wedding season should not pay Rs.80 per head per month for workers who leave in 8 weeks
• Your business lacks a dedicated HR department. The owner or an office admin handles attendance and salaries alongside their other responsibilities
• You need attendance hardware out of the box, without sourcing and integrating a separate device

Zimyo fits better when:

• Your organisation has 50 or more staff and needs structured HR workflows like onboarding checklists, exit interviews, and performance cycles
• You need a recruitment module to manage job postings and applicant pipelines
• Your team works primarily from desks (IT firms, agencies, corporate offices) where laptop-based check-ins or selfie verification are sufficient
• You plan to build an HR department and want a platform that grows into talent management and engagement over time

What Should You Watch When Switching Payroll Tools?

Migrating from one payroll system to another is where most businesses lose a month of clean data. Across the 30,000+ businesses on Attendo, these four steps prevent the most common migration errors:

1. Export your historical attendance data before the old subscription expires. Once access lapses, retrieving six months of punch records becomes a support ticket that drags on for weeks
2. Verify PF and ESI compliance settings in the new system against your latest challans before running the first salary cycle. Each tool stores statutory configurations differently
3. Check the latest contribution rates on the Ministry of Labour and Employment portal. Rates change periodically, and your new tool must reflect the current figures from day one
4. Start the switch on the 1st of a month. Running two systems in parallel for a split month creates duplicate entries and reconciliation headaches that take longer to fix than the migration itself

Conclusion

Zimyo and Attendo occupy different positions. Zimyo is a broad HR platform where payroll is one module among many. Attendo is a focused attendance-to-salary pipeline with its own hardware, flat pricing, and 24×7 support built for Indian SMEs that run on shifts and frontline staff.

If your primary need is getting attendance and salaries right every month without per-employee fees eating into your budget, Attendo is the more practical choice. If you need a full HR operating system with performance management and recruitment, Zimyo covers that ground.

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