Zoho People and Zoho Payroll Pricing in the UAE (AED)
Zoho People costs AED 5 to AED 16 per user per month in the UAE, billed annually, with a minimum of 5 users. Zoho Payroll UAE costs AED 35, 55 or 75 per organisation per month billed annually depending on plan, each covering 5 employees, plus a per-employee charge above that. Both exclude 5 percent VAT. All figures checked on Zoho's UAE and global pricing pages on 21 August 2026.
The two products are separate subscriptions. You can buy either on its own. Most UAE companies that want an HR system and WPS-compliant salary processing buy both, so the combined table below is the number to plan against.
Zoho People pricing in the UAE
Zoho People is billed per user per month, in AED for UAE customers. Zoho's People pricing page opens in US dollars, so switch the currency selector to AED to see these figures.
| Plan | Billed annually (AED/user/month) | Billed monthly (AED/user/month) | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 0 | 0 | Up to 5 users. Employee database, time-off, document management |
| Essential HR | 5 | 5.50 | Onboarding and offboarding, HR reports, Zia AI bot |
| Professional | 7 | 9 | Attendance management, timesheets, roster management |
| Premium | 11 | 13 | Performance management, compensation management, employee engagement, advanced analytics |
| Enterprise | 16 | 18 | HR help desk, learning management system, sandbox |
| Zoho People Plus | 33 | 37 | Bundles People with Recruit, Payroll, Expense, Connect, Cliq and Vault |
Paid plans have a 5-user minimum. A three-person company on Professional pays for five seats, so the real floor is AED 35 per month, not AED 21.
The free edition is genuinely free and not a trial, but it stops at the employee database, leave, and document storage. There is no attendance, no timesheets, no performance cycle. It works as a staff record system for a small team and nothing more.
The jump most UAE companies need is Free to Professional, not Free to Essential HR. Attendance and timesheets sit in Professional, and attendance is usually the reason a company buys an HR system in the first place. Budget AED 7 per user per month, not AED 5.
Paid plans come with a 30-day trial. If you are still deciding whether you need an HR system at all, our guide to what an HRIS is and what it replaces covers the decision before the pricing.
Zoho Payroll pricing in the UAE
Zoho Payroll is priced differently. It is billed per organisation with a bundled block of 5 employees, then per additional employee.
| Plan | Annual: base per org/month | Annual: per extra employee | Monthly: base per org/month | Monthly: per extra employee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | AED 35 | AED 7 | AED 45 | AED 9 |
| Professional | AED 55 | AED 11 | AED 65 | AED 13 |
| Premium | AED 75 | AED 15 | AED 90 | AED 18 |
The base fee looks like a complication. It is not. Do the arithmetic and the two-part price collapses into a flat per-employee rate at any headcount of 5 or above:
- Standard: AED 35 + (n - 5) x AED 7 = AED 7 per employee per month
- Professional: AED 55 + (n - 5) x AED 11 = AED 11 per employee per month
- Premium: AED 75 + (n - 5) x AED 15 = AED 15 per employee per month
So the base fee is a minimum charge for companies under 5 employees, not a platform fee on top. A 40-person company on Standard pays AED 280 per month. You can price Zoho Payroll UAE in your head: headcount times 7, 11 or 15.
Zoho Payroll offers a 14-day trial, shorter than People's 30 days.
What you get in each Zoho Payroll plan
The plan split matters more here than in People, because the cheapest plan already covers UAE compliance.
Standard (AED 7 per employee) covers automatic payroll calculation and payslips, WPS, pension and gratuity compliance, auto-generated SIF files for salary payments, custom salary components, salary revisions and arrears, loans and salary advances, an employee self-service portal, employee documents with expiry notifications, an audit trail, and integrations with Zoho Books, Zoho People and Zoho Expense.
Professional (AED 11) adds bonus and off-cycle pay runs, pay run and salary revision approvals, formula-based and scheduled salary components, salary hold, custom fields, custom roles and permissions, and reporting tags.
Premium (AED 15) adds leave and attendance management (custom leave types, holiday management, LOP calculation, attendance regularisation, overtime calculation), advanced pay run and salary revision approvals, custom functions and schedulers, incoming and outgoing webhooks, custom modules, validation rules and record locking.
UAE compliance sits in the cheapest plan. WPS and SIF download, pension calculation (GPSSA and ADPF) and end-of-service calculation are all in Standard. You do not pay more to be compliant. You pay more for approvals, off-cycle runs and automation.
Watch the overlap in Premium. Payroll Premium includes leave and attendance, the same capability you pay People Professional for. If payroll is your only requirement, Payroll Premium alone at AED 15 per employee covers attendance without buying People at all. For most companies People Professional plus Payroll Standard is still the better buy at AED 14 combined, because People adds onboarding, document management, HR reporting and self-service that Payroll has no equivalent for. Price both before you default to one.
What both cost together
Assuming Zoho People Professional plus Zoho Payroll Standard, both billed annually, which is the common setup for a UAE SME:
| Employees | Zoho People Professional | Zoho Payroll Standard | Total per month | Total per year | Per year incl. 5% VAT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | AED 35 | AED 35 | AED 70 | AED 840 | AED 882 |
| 10 | AED 70 | AED 70 | AED 140 | AED 1,680 | AED 1,764 |
| 25 | AED 175 | AED 175 | AED 350 | AED 4,200 | AED 4,410 |
| 50 | AED 350 | AED 350 | AED 700 | AED 8,400 | AED 8,820 |
| 100 | AED 700 | AED 700 | AED 1,400 | AED 16,800 | AED 17,640 |
A 25-person Dubai company runs its HR system and WPS payroll for AED 4,410 a year including VAT. That is under AED 15 per employee per month all in.
Those are subscription costs only. Setup is a one-off cost on top: WPS and bank details, salary components and templates, leave policies, gratuity rules, opening balances, and the Payroll to Books mapping. Do it in-house or pay a partner, but budget for it once.
If you move both to Premium plans (People Premium at AED 11 plus Payroll Premium at AED 15), the same 25-person company pays AED 650 per month, or AED 8,190 a year with VAT.
VAT and what lands on your invoice
Zoho's UAE payroll pricing page carries the line "Price exclusive of VAT", and the Zoho One pricing page says the same. Add 5 percent. If your company is VAT-registered with the FTA, you recover it as input tax on your return, so the effective cost is the list price. If you are below the registration threshold, the 5 percent is a real cost.
Annual billing saves between 9 and 22 percent against monthly, depending on plan. The biggest cut is 22 percent, on Zoho People Professional (AED 7 against AED 9) and Zoho Payroll Standard (AED 35 against AED 45 for the base fee, AED 7 against AED 9 per extra employee). The smallest is 9 percent, on People Essential HR at AED 5 against AED 5.50. Pay annually unless you have a specific reason not to.
When Zoho One is the better buy
Zoho One in the UAE is AED 135 per employee per month billed annually on the All Employee plan, or AED 329 per user per month on the Flexible User plan. It includes Zoho People and, per Zoho's own application FAQ, all Professional plan features of the UAE edition of Zoho Payroll.
For a 25-person company that is AED 3,375 per month against AED 350 for People plus Payroll. Zoho One is roughly ten times the price for the HR piece alone, so do not buy it for HR.
Zoho One makes sense when HR is one of five or more Zoho apps you need. If you are already paying for CRM, Books, Desk, Projects and Campaigns separately, the bundle usually wins. Add up your current and planned Zoho subscriptions first. Our Zoho One UAE pricing breakdown works through the All Employee versus Flexible User decision, which is where most UAE companies get the sums wrong.
One caveat on the All Employee plan: you must license every employee in the company, not just the ones who use the software. For a business with 80 warehouse staff and 12 office users, that rule alone rules Zoho One out.
What Zoho People does not do
Zoho People is not a payroll engine. It has no salary calculation, no WPS, no SIF file. If you buy People expecting payroll, you have bought the wrong product.
It also does not do accounting. Payroll journals post to Zoho Books through the built-in integration. Without Books or another accounting system, your payroll runs sit outside your books.
Recruitment sits in Zoho Recruit, a separate product. Zoho People Plus at AED 33 per user per month bundles Recruit, Payroll, Expense, Connect, Cliq and Vault with People. At 25 people that is AED 825 per month against AED 350 for People Professional plus Payroll Standard, so buy People Plus for the recruitment and expense side, not to save money on payroll.
Gratuity is calculated by Zoho Payroll, but the calculation follows the rules you configure. UAE end-of-service rules changed under the labour law that took effect in February 2022. Check the setup against your actual employment contracts and current Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation guidance rather than trusting the defaults.
How to choose
5 employees or fewer and you only need staff records and leave: Zoho People Free, and Zoho Payroll Standard at AED 35 per month if you need WPS.
5 to 50 employees with attendance tracking and WPS payroll: Zoho People Professional plus Zoho Payroll Standard. AED 14 per employee per month.
50 or more employees, or you run appraisal cycles and multi-step pay approvals: Zoho People Premium plus Zoho Payroll Professional. AED 22 per employee per month.
Already running three or more other Zoho apps: price Zoho One before you buy anything separately.
You can verify every figure above on Zoho's UAE payroll pricing page and Zoho People pricing page. Zoho changes prices, so check the date on this post against today's.
FAQ
How much does Zoho People cost in the UAE? Zoho People runs from AED 5 per user per month on Essential HR to AED 16 per user per month on Enterprise, billed annually, with a minimum of 5 users. Monthly billing costs 10 to 29 percent more depending on the plan. There is also a free edition for up to 5 users.
How much does Zoho Payroll cost in the UAE? Zoho Payroll UAE is AED 35, 55 or 75 per organisation per month billed annually for the Standard, Professional and Premium plans, each including 5 employees, plus AED 7, 11 or 15 for every additional employee. At 5 or more employees this works out to exactly AED 7, 11 or 15 per employee per month.
Does Zoho Payroll handle WPS in the UAE? Yes. The UAE edition generates the Salary Information File (SIF) for the Wage Protection System and handles pension and gratuity calculations. This is in the Standard plan, so you do not need to buy a higher tier for WPS.
Are Zoho's UAE prices inclusive of VAT? No. Zoho's UAE pricing pages state that prices exclude VAT, so add 5 percent to every figure. If you are VAT-registered in the UAE you recover it as input tax on your return.
Is Zoho Payroll included in Zoho One? Yes. Zoho One includes all Professional plan features of the UAE edition of Zoho Payroll, along with Zoho People. Zoho One costs AED 135 per employee per month billed annually, so it is only worth it if you use several other Zoho apps as well.
Where Maxwize fits
Maxwize is a certified Zoho Partner and sets up Zoho People, Zoho Payroll and Zoho One for UAE businesses, including WPS and SIF configuration, leave policy setup, gratuity rules, and the Payroll to Books posting. If you are weighing separate subscriptions against the bundle, we will price both against your headcount and app list before you commit. See our Zoho One implementation service or get in touch.