NepalHRM vs Keka
Keka is an HR, payroll and talent suite that says 12,500+ companies chose it, built around India's payroll rules. Here is what keka.com lists as of 5 November 2026, where its statutory engine and NepalHRM's part ways, and the cases where Keka is the better pick.
- Free up to 10 employees
- Free onboarding support
NepalHRM at a glance
Published price
Startup Program free up to 10 employees. Essential NPR 60 and Business NPR 99 per employee a month, billed from the first; 13% VAT on top
Setup fee
None on the subscription. Free onboarding imports employees and reinstalls the Nepal tax defaults
Statutory payroll
Built for Nepal: SSF, CIT, PF and TDS on every run, the eTDS file in the IRD format, and each employee's Tax Deduction Certificate printed with the deposit vouchers
Countries served
Nepal only, supported from Kathmandu, Sunday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM Nepal time
Payroll on Business and Enterprise plans
What a Nepali buyer is actually checking for
- eTDS
- Generated in the IRD format
- BS + AD
- Bikram Sambat fiscal year
- NPR 0
- Records and leave for up to 10 employees
- NPR 99
- Payroll per active employee, from the first
NepalHRM vs Keka
Short answer: Keka is the deeper suite for a company that pays people in India or the Gulf, and NepalHRM is built for payroll filed in Nepal. Keka's payroll page describes an engine designed for India's regulations: PF with ECR-ready reports, ESI, Professional Tax by state, quarterly TDS reports, Form 130 and the Labour Welfare Fund. Its pricing page names three HR and payroll plans, Foundation, Strength and Growth, shows no price for any of them, and says a nominal setup fee covers onboarding. NepalHRM prints its rates (Essential NPR 60, Business NPR 99 with payroll, per employee a month), deducts SSF and CIT where Keka deducts ESI and Professional Tax, and keeps every date in Bikram Sambat. Each Keka cell below names the keka.com page it came from, read on 5 November 2026.
| Capability | Keka | NepalHRM |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | None shown. Foundation, Strength and Growth each carry a Free Trial button; the Hiring plans do too, and the Projects plans say Talk to us (pricing page, read 5 Nov 2026) | Startup Program free up to 10 employees. Essential NPR 60 and Business NPR 99 per employee a month, billed from the first; 13% VAT on top |
| Setup fee | Yes. The pricing FAQ says a nominal setup fee covers guided payroll configuration, importing employee data and validating past salary records, without stating the amount (5 Nov 2026) | None on the subscription. Free onboarding imports employees and reinstalls the Nepal tax defaults |
| Statutory payroll | Built for India: PF with ECR-ready reports, ESI eligibility and contributions, Professional Tax by state, TDS with quarterly reports, Form 130 (earlier Form 16) and the Labour Welfare Fund (payroll page, 5 Nov 2026) | Built for Nepal: SSF, CIT, PF and TDS on every run, the eTDS file in the IRD format, and each employee's Tax Deduction Certificate printed with the deposit vouchers |
| Countries served | The region menu lists India, the United States, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, the Philippines and Global, with sales lines in seven Indian cities, Texas and New York. Nepal is not named (pricing page) | Nepal only, supported from Kathmandu, Sunday to Friday, 9 AM to 6 PM Nepal time |
| Calendar | Bikram Sambat dates are not mentioned on the pricing, payroll, attendance or home pages read (5 Nov 2026) | Bikram Sambat and AD across payroll, leave and reports, on the Shrawan to Ashad fiscal year |
| Attendance hardware | Biometric, smart card, RFID, facial recognition and NFC devices, with an alert when a device drops off the network; no brand named (attendance page). Selfie clock-in, location punching and geo-fencing come with Strength (pricing page) | ZKTeco, Hikvision and Sintech (Realand) devices; older ZKTeco machines join through an edge agent that keeps punches while the line is down |
| Several legal entities | Multiple Legal Entities (Pay Groups) is an add-on listed under Growth (pricing page) | Multi-company and multi-entity on Enterprise, at a custom rate |
| Performance | Goals and OKRs, performance reviews, calibration, PIPs and skills tracking in Growth (pricing page) | Performance reviews, OKRs and 360 feedback with anonymous peer answers, inside Business |
| Hiring | Sold as separate Hiring plans: Pro with AI job descriptions, resume parsing and at most five talent pools; Advanced adds CV-JD match scoring and video interviews (pricing page) | Recruitment inside Business: careers page, candidate pipeline and resume parsing. No AI screening of CVs |
| Sign-in and certificates | SSO and mobile OTP login in Strength (pricing page); ISO/IEC 27001 and GDPR badges on the payroll page (5 Nov 2026) | Two-factor sign-in on Enterprise, which a company can make required. NepalHRM holds no ISO/IEC 27001 certificate |
| Client projects and billing | A Projects & Timesheets suite with timesheets, resource management, billing and invoicing, priced on request (pricing page) | No client invoicing. The NGO module, on request, turns monthly timesheets into an effort certification and splits each pay run across projects and awards |
| Interface language | Each country edition in the region menu is marked (EN), for English (pricing page) | Web app in English or Nepali on every plan, switched from the account menu |
| Track record | Chosen by 12,500+ companies, its home page says, with logos including eBay, OnePlus, Randstad and Grant Thornton (5 Nov 2026) | Launched in 2026 in Kathmandu, with a much shorter public customer list |
Keka details were read on 5 November 2026 on keka.com: the pricing page, the payroll software page, the attendance management page and the home page. Keka publishes neither its plan prices nor its setup fee, so no Keka total appears here. NepalHRM prices exclude 13% VAT. Plans change, so confirm current prices and features with each vendor before you decide.
Built for Nepal, End to End
Four things NepalHRM puts in writing that a buyer usually has to ask a salesperson for.
A price before the first call
Essential NPR 60 and Business NPR 99 per employee a month, with no software setup fee and no minimum. Forty staff on Business paid yearly cost NPR 39,600 before VAT, and you can check that on the pricing page before speaking to anyone.
Nepal's deductions, not India's
The run deducts SSF and CIT where an Indian engine deducts ESI and Professional Tax, and it closes with the IRD's eTDS file and a Tax Deduction Certificate per employee instead of India's quarterly TDS returns and Form 130.
Shrawan to Ashad, natively
Pay periods, leave years and reports run on the Bikram Sambat fiscal year with AD dates beside them, so finance never maps an April to March year onto Nepal's.
CIT Optimizer
The Tax Planner shows the CIT contribution that minimises each employee's TDS before the pay run closes, a calculation specific to Nepal's Income Tax Act.
Switching HR Software Is Where the Pain Actually Is
Feature lists are the easy part of the decision. What decides whether a switch goes well is the migration itself, and almost none of it is about which platform has more modules.
- Moving mid-year means recalculating tax that has already been deducted
- Leave and CIT opening balances get rebuilt by hand in a spreadsheet
- Employee data leaves the old system in one shape and the new one expects another
- The old system stays open for months because nobody trusts the new numbers yet
Move at the Fiscal-Year Changeover
Ashad to Shrawan is the cleanest moment to switch. You start the new year with clean opening balances and skip the mid-year tax recalculation entirely.
What you get on the way in
- Free onboarding support imports employees and configures Nepal tax defaults
- One click reinstalls the Nepal tax slabs, so the first run starts from correct rates
- Most teams complete their first payroll run within their first cycle
- A 30-day free trial of every feature, so you can run a payroll before you pay
From Sign-Up to Your First Payroll Run
The same four steps whichever system you are leaving. Free onboarding support runs alongside all of them.
- Day 1
Set up the company
Sign up, add your company details, and reinstall Nepal tax defaults so the slabs, PF and SSF rates start from the current IRD figures.
- Week 1
Bring your people across
Free onboarding support helps import employees, salary structures and leave balances from whatever you are running today.
- First cycle
Run one period in parallel
Process a full payroll period alongside your current system and reconcile the two before you switch the old one off.
- Ongoing
Close the year in one place
The eTDS file in IRD format, payslips on the mobile app, and bank transfer files for NIC Asia, Nabil, Global IME, NBL and more.
Simple, Transparent Pricing
No Hidden Fees
The Startup Program is free forever for up to 10 employees, for records and leave. Essential (NPR 60) adds attendance and Business (NPR 99) adds payroll, billed per active employee from the first, with no minimum commitment and no per-module charges.
- All core HR modules
- Nepal payroll compliance
- PF, SSF, CIT & eTDS
- Biometric integration
- Free onboarding support
- Regular feature updates
- Multi-company on Enterprise
- BS + AD calendar
Free trial available, no card required · No software setup fee · Cancel anytime
What You Are Actually Switching To
Every module runs on the same employee record, so attendance, leave and payroll never need reconciling against each other.
Nepal payroll
PF, CIT, SSF and the eTDS file in IRD format, on Bikram Sambat periods.
Biometric attendance
ZKTeco and Hikvision devices, plus GPS punch from the mobile app.
Leave management
Policies, accruals and multi-level approvals on the Nepali calendar.
Recruitment
Jobs, candidate pipeline and interview scheduling in the same system.
Transparent NPR pricing
Every plan and what it includes, published in Nepali rupees.
Free for small teams
Up to 10 employees run the Startup Program free for life: employee records, leave and the mobile app, with free onboarding.
Switching for the new fiscal year? Read the fiscal-year switching guide for the order the migration should happen in.
Your Team Gets It on Every Device
Employees check in, apply for leave, submit claims and download payslips from the app. Managers approve from the same place, which is usually what decides whether an HR system still gets used after month one.
NepalHRM vs Keka, Answered
The questions buyers ask before they move, answered without a sales call.
Four cases, going by what Keka publishes. First, you also pay staff in India: its payroll page covers PF with ECR-ready reports, ESI, Professional Tax by state, quarterly TDS reports, Form 130 and the Labour Welfare Fund, none of which NepalHRM files. Second, you employ people in the Gulf or the Philippines: Keka's region menu lists UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the Philippines, while NepalHRM is built for Nepal alone. Third, you bill clients for project hours: Keka sells a Projects & Timesheets suite with resource management, billing and invoicing, which NepalHRM does not offer. Fourth, you want a deep talent suite with proof of scale: Keka lists calibration, PIPs and skills tracking, a hiring product with CV-JD match scoring and video interviews, and says 12,500+ companies chose it. NepalHRM launched in 2026 and does not screen CVs with AI.
Keka does not show prices. Its pricing page, read on 5 November 2026, names three HR and payroll plans (Foundation, Strength and Growth) with a Free Trial button on each, two Hiring plans (Pro and Advanced), and three Projects plans marked Talk to us. Its FAQ says a nominal setup fee applies to cover onboarding, without giving the amount. Ask for a written quote in the currency you would pay in, with the setup fee, add-ons such as Multiple Legal Entities or advanced shift management, and tax shown as separate lines.
Payroll needs Business, at NPR 99 per employee a month for 10 to 99 employees: NPR 3,960 a month for 40, so NPR 47,520 over twelve monthly bills or NPR 39,600 paid yearly, because a yearly plan is charged for 10 months. With 13% VAT the yearly bill is NPR 44,748, and there is no software setup fee. Attendance without payroll is Essential at NPR 60, or NPR 24,000 a year for 40 paid yearly. Keka's figure for the same team exists only once its sales team quotes it, so compare the two on the same module list.
The Keka pages read on 5 November 2026 describe a payroll engine designed for India's regulations and do not mention Nepal, the Social Security Fund, the Citizen Investment Trust or the IRD, so ask Keka directly before relying on it for Nepali payroll. NepalHRM deducts SSF, CIT, PF and TDS on every run, produces the eTDS file in the IRD format for you to upload, and pays a backdated raise as an arrears line on the next run while the months already paid stay locked.
Keka's attendance page says it works with biometric, smart card, RFID, facial recognition and NFC devices and alerts HR when a device disconnects; it names no brand on the page read. NepalHRM validates ZKTeco, Hikvision and Sintech (Realand) devices. Devices that can push send each punch directly, and older ZKTeco units connect through the NepalHRM edge agent on an office computer, which holds punches until the internet is back. If your machine is another make, ask either vendor before buying hardware.
Yes, though the Nepali fiscal-year changeover from Ashad to Shrawan is the cleanest moment, because opening balances start clean and no tax already deducted has to be recalculated. Export employee records, salary structures and leave balances from Keka; NepalHRM's free onboarding support imports them and reinstalls the Nepal tax defaults. Run one pay period in parallel and reconcile the two before you switch Keka off.
Looking at Other Options Too
Every comparison on this site states what NepalHRM delivers and points you at the vendor for theirs.
Or start from every HR software comparison in Nepal, grouped by whether the product was built for Nepali statutory rules or for another country’s.
Start the New Fiscal Year on NepalHRM
Every feature free for 30 days, with free onboarding support. The fiscal-year changeover is the cleanest time to switch.
- No credit card
- Free onboarding
- Nepal IRD compliant
- Cancel anytime