Free plan
Free HR software for up to 20 people
Capstan is free HR software for teams of up to twenty active people. It is the complete platform, all fourteen modules included, not a trial and not a stripped-down tier, with no card to enter and no clock running.
It stays free with no time limit. When you grow past twenty, the price is one link away on the pricing page.
Is it really free, or a trial? Really free.
It is free with no clock and no expiry, not a trial that converts. There is no subscription sitting behind it, so it cannot lapse, and you never enter a card to start.
- No trial period and no countdown to a paywall.
- No card required to sign up, and nothing to cancel later.
- Signup is self-serve: a passwordless email code, two steps, and your workspace is live.
What is included on the free plan?
The whole platform. The free plan carries the complete core and all fourteen modules, the identical product a paid plan runs, with nothing held back for a higher tier.
- The complete core HRIS: one directory for every employee and contractor, time off, documents and e-sign, onboarding and exits, the approvals inbox, workflows, self-service and reporting with an exportable audit log.
- All fourteen modules, from attendance and performance to recruitment, learning, expenses and alumni access, with nothing sold module by module.
- The same feature set a paid plan runs. Paying lifts one thing, the twenty-active-employee cap, and changes nothing about the software.
- A one-click export in open formats, yours whether or not you owe us anything.
How is this different from other free HR software?
Free can mean three different things in this category: a trial that expires, a core tier with the useful parts behind a paywall, or a plan capped so low it is really a demo. Capstan's free plan is none of those. It is the complete product for up to twenty active people, with every module on.
- It is the full product, not a core with the modules switched off.
- The cap counts people active at once, so someone who has left or is serving notice does not use up one of the twenty.
- The reasoning, and what a free plan should actually mean, is in this piece.
What happens at person twenty-one?
The twenty-first active employee moves you to the paid plan, and the twenty free seats come with you, so you are billed for one seat and not twenty-one. There is no cliff at the boundary and nothing about the software changes.
- You pay per seat above the first twenty, billed monthly, with no annual contract and no lock-in.
- The paid plan runs the identical product; it only lifts the cap.
- Every figure is public on the pricing page, so you can total your own number without a call.
If we grow and then shrink, do we lose anything? No.
Dropping back below twenty-one active people puts you on the free plan again with the whole platform intact. Nothing is switched off and nothing is taken back.
- Downgrading to Free keeps all fourteen modules and all your data.
- A one-click export in open formats is always yours, including while a workspace is suspended.
- So trying the paid plan is never a one-way door.
How this sits beside the tools you are probably weighing is on the comparison pages, and the complete core is laid out on the product page.
Who is the free plan for?
Small and growing teams that want one real HR system from the first hire, not a spreadsheet and not a demo. It is built to run without an HR department, so the buyer is usually a founder or an operations lead.
- A startup that does not want to outgrow its first HR tool: see HR software for small business.
- A team that wants month-to-month terms: see HR software with no annual contract.
- A distributed team running employees and contractors together: see solutions.
Start free for up to twenty people. No card, no clock, the whole platform.