Rippling

Rippling was founded in 2016 by Parker Conrad (who previously founded Zenefits). The core insight: employee data touches many systems beyond HR—IT needs to provision devices and accounts, finance needs expense management, and operations need access controls. Rippling connects all of this.

The platform starts with HR: payroll, benefits, time & attendance, and compliance. But Rippling extends into IT management—device management, app provisioning, and identity management. And into Finance—corporate cards, expense management, and bill pay. All built on a unified employee graph.

The automation is where Rippling shines. You can build workflows like: "When someone joins the Engineering team in the US, enroll them in the standard health plan, provision a MacBook Pro, create accounts in GitHub, Slack, and AWS, and assign them to the engineering cost center." These compound automations save hours of manual work per employee.

Payroll runs in all 50 US states plus many countries globally. The PEO option (Rippling EOR) handles international employment for companies without entities abroad. Benefits administration is comprehensive—medical, dental, vision, 401(k), HSA, FSA, and commuter benefits.

Pricing is modular. The core HR platform starts around $8 per user per month, with additional costs for payroll ($8/month per employee), IT management ($8/month per user), and other modules. A typical mid-size company might pay $20-35 per employee monthly for the commonly used features.

The main downside is complexity. Rippling offers so many features that some companies don't use half of what they're paying for. Implementation also requires careful planning to take advantage of the cross-functional automations.