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HR software for Canada

Capstan is an all-in-one HR platform for Canadian teams. It gives you the complete core HRIS in one place, free for up to twenty people, with all fourteen modules on every plan and monthly billing that never asks for an annual contract.

A conceptual map for Canadian buyers, not a rate card. Prices sit on the pricing page and nowhere else, because they belong in one place.

Is Capstan HR software, an HRMS, or an HRIS?

It is all three names for the same all-in-one platform, and Canadian teams use each label. Whether you searched for HR software, an HRMS, or an HRIS, Capstan is one system of record for every Canadian employee and contractor: a single directory, records and documents, self-service, and reporting, without a second tool stitched to the side.

  • The complete core HRIS: people, roles, documents, leave, attendance and reporting in one workspace.
  • All fourteen modules, from onboarding and leave to workflows and alumni access, included on every plan with nothing sold separately.
  • The same feature set on the free plan and a paid plan. A paid plan lifts one thing, the twenty-active-employee cap, and nothing else about the software.

Where is Canadian employee data stored?

Your data is served from a single EU region today: data in Frankfurt and compute in Amsterdam. It is worth saying plainly that this is not Canada-local storage. If your procurement, a provincial rule or a client contract requires employee data held inside Canada, you should know that before you choose us.

  • One region, the EU, with residency that cannot be quietly changed later, because the app you sign into is your region.
  • A single data-protection standard applied uniformly, where Canada layers federal privacy law under PIPEDA over provincial regimes such as British Columbia and Alberta PIPA and Quebec's Law 25, so where your data lives matters to more than one authority.
  • Employee data kept in one controlled place rather than scattered across drives and inboxes. The practices worth insisting on are in our note on HR data security and compliance.

Is it good HR software for Canadian startups and remote teams?

Yes. Capstan is built for lean, distributed teams, which describes most Canadian startups and any company with people spread across provinces or across borders. The whole platform is free up to twenty active people, so an early team runs on the full product rather than a trimmed free tier, and a chargeable seat only appears once you grow past that line.

  • Free for teams of up to twenty people, with no time limit and no feature withheld.
  • One directory for a team spread across provinces and time zones, with self-service so people maintain their own records wherever they work.
  • The reasoning behind charging for seats and never for a feature is in the manifesto, and the full tour is on the product page.

Can it manage Canadian contractors and global hiring?

Yes. Contractors live in the same workspace as your employees, and the contractor module, included on every plan, adds their portal, invoices and payout register on top. That fits a Canadian company hiring across provinces and countries, where treating someone as an independent contractor who the CRA or a provincial board would call an employee is the most common and most expensive mistake.

  • Employees and contractors in one system of record, not two disconnected tools.
  • Contractor tax content is a country pack you configure per jurisdiction, so you update a rate yourself rather than waiting on a software release.
  • The wider picture of hiring across the country is in our guide to hiring employees in Canada.

Does Capstan run Canadian payroll?

No. Capstan is in partner-integration mode: it holds no CRA tax tables, computes no source deductions, and files no returns. It compiles the inputs to payroll into a documented export for your Canadian payroll provider, who performs the statutory calculation and filings, and their computed results come back onto the employee record.

  • Capstan is the system of inputs around the calculation, so your record and their filings stay in agreement.
  • The export is the same shape everywhere, carrying day counts and pay components rather than any federal or provincial logic.
  • CPP, EI and federal and provincial income tax source deductions, the T4 and T4A, and the record of employment belong with your Canadian payroll provider, who keeps up with them.

How much does it cost in Canada?

The price lives on the pricing page, and only there, because it belongs in one honest place. It is billed monthly, per chargeable seat above the first twenty free, with no annual contract and no lock-in.

  • Published as flat figures in two currencies, US dollars and Indian rupees, with a Canadian buyer billed in US dollars.
  • The price you start at is the price you keep, because the price book is append-only.
  • How Capstan compares to the tools you are probably weighing is on the comparison pages.

Capstan across North America and beyond

Capstan is one global product, region-served from the EU today, and it is written for teams across many markets. If you hire across North America, the same platform covers people in Canada as easily as in the United States, and the market pages below take it from another angle.

The country guides behind this page are hiring employees in Canada and hiring employees in the US. See the whole platform on the product page and the numbers on pricing.

Start free for up to twenty people, then pay monthly for the seats you use.

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