Questions about the product, answered completely
Is Capstan one product or a core with paid add-ons?
One product. Every plan, the free one included, is the complete platform: the HRIS and all fourteen modules, with no add-ons, no per-module purchase and nothing to switch on a piece at a time. The modules are not a paid tier. The free plan is capped at 20 active employees; a paid plan lifts that cap at one per-seat price on the people past twenty.
Is the core HRIS really free?
Yes. The complete core HRIS, people and org, time off, attendance, onboarding and exits, documents and letters, workflows, self-service and reports, is free for up to 20 active employees, on every plan including the free one. It is not a trial and it does not expire, and there is no subscription behind it, so nothing there can lapse.
What changes when I move to a paid plan?
One thing: the 20-employee limit goes away. Every plan already runs the identical product, all fourteen modules included, so nothing about the software changes. The paid plan, Growth, charges a per-seat rate on the employees past the first twenty, so 21 people is one billable seat rather than twenty-one.
How many modules are there, and do they cost extra?
There are fourteen modules and all of them are included on every plan, the free one included, at no extra charge. Nothing is bought, metered or cancelled module by module: the plan per-seat price is the only charge, and every workspace has the whole platform.
Do the modules come on the free plan too?
Yes. Every workspace has the entire platform, all fourteen modules, from the moment it is created, so a free workspace is the whole product rather than a stripped core. There is no per-module enablement step, no add-on to buy and no module wall. The only thing that separates a free workspace from a paid one is the 20-active-employee cap.
Does Capstan run payroll?
No. Capstan is partner-integration mode: it compiles every payroll input it already holds, attendance, leave, overtime, compensation, expenses and prorations, into a documented export for your payroll partner, and files the partner’s computed results back into the record. It holds no statutory rate, slab or formula and computes no gross-to-net anywhere.
Where does my data live?
In one self-contained region, the EU today: data and object storage in Frankfurt (eu-central-1) and compute in Amsterdam (eu-west-1). Each region is an isolated deployment with no cross-region service key, and there is no region chooser; the same stack is built to open in more regions as they come online. A full export in open formats is always available, including on non-payment and on the way out.
Is there an AI that scores or screens people?
No. No AI evaluates people anywhere in Capstan: no attrition scoring, no sentiment analysis, no algorithmic candidate screening. There is one optional assistant a workspace can turn on, and it answers only from aggregate figures a caller could already see, such as headcount by department, sent to OpenAI which does not train on the data. Nothing scores, ranks or screens a person.