Your people, anywhere
The all-in-one HR platform, free up to 20 people
Capstan runs your whole employee lifecycle, people and org, time off, onboarding, documents and every module, in one system built for teams that stay lean and hire across borders. The complete core is free for up to twenty people, and one plan above that includes every module, with nothing held back to make you upgrade, no algorithm judging your people, and equity your team can watch vest.
The core is identical on every plan, from the free one up. Capstan is region-served: your workspace runs in a self-contained region, the EU today, with the same stack built to open in more.
The mess Capstan is built to end
Not the problems you will have in three years, the ones you have this week. If any of these is your Monday, this is the job Capstan does.
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Everything lives in spreadsheets
People, contractors and their records are scattered across sheets, shared docs and inboxes, and no version is the one everyone trusts. Capstan is one system of record: every person in one directory, changes effective-dated, so the history can be read as it stood on any date.
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Onboarding is improvised every time
A joiner’s first day gets reconstructed from memory, and something is always missed. Checklists start from the joining date and assign themselves to the right owners, so onboarding finishes, and an exit closes access and collects assets before it closes the record.
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Nobody can answer a simple question
Who is off next week, what someone earned two years ago, where a signed letter is. Leave, documents and approvals all read from the one record, and self-service means most of those questions never reach you, because the person can see the answer themselves.
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The team is split across time zones
Leave and working days are impossible to read across borders, and pay lands in three currencies. Work locations carry their own time zones and holiday calendars, and compensation carries its own currency, so a distributed team is one clean record rather than three.
A startup on its first HR hire, a team spread across borders: this is the job. See how Capstan fits a lean startup or a distributed global team.
See the actual product, not a promise
Real screens from the shipped product. One directory every other screen reads from, the view an employee gets of their own record, and the inbox an approver lives in.
The whole lifecycle, in one system your people carry in their pocket
The free core already runs people and org, time off, attendance, onboarding and exits, documents and letters, workflows, self-service and reports. A paid plan turns on all fourteen modules on top of it, from advanced time and attendance and payroll compiled for your partner to contractor invoicing, compensation and equity, reviews, analytics and alumni access. Every module is included, and every one publishes what it does not do.
Every question you have, with the page that answers it
Buying HR software is a trust decision. Here is the short answer to each thing you are about to ask, and the page that carries the long one.
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What does it do?
The whole employee lifecycle in one system: people and org, time off, attendance, onboarding and exits, documents, workflows and reports in the free core, and fourteen modules on top of it.
See the product -
What does it cost?
Free for up to twenty people. Above that, one per-seat plan that includes every one of the fourteen modules, with no add-ons and nothing bought a piece at a time. The number is adjusted by country and lives on the pricing page.
See the pricing -
Can I trust it with our people?
No algorithm scores, ranks or screens anyone. The entity behind Capstan holds ISO 27001 with the scope stated in full, your data sits in one self-contained EU region, and there is no surveillance: no keystrokes, no screenshots, no covert tracking.
Read the security page -
Can I leave if it is wrong?
A full export in open formats is one click, at any time, and it sits outside the billing check on purpose, so an unpaid invoice can never hold your data hostage. The switching guides cover what to pull from your current vendor.
How migration works -
Is there real support?
Documentation you can read without an account, and a real person on the other end of an email rather than a ticket maze that answers in a week. The core is built to run itself for a small team without an HR department behind it.
Talk to us -
Can I try the thinking first?
A set of free HR calculators and generators, with no sign-up, no email wall and no clock. They compute in your own browser, so nothing you type ever leaves the page you are on.
Open the free tools
And the problems you have not had yet
Nobody shops for these, because they arrive a year after you choose. They are also the expensive ones to fix late, so the core answers them from day one.
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The history you are not keeping
An auditor, an acquirer or a tribunal will ask what someone earned on a date two years ago. A spreadsheet overwritten in place cannot answer that. Changes here are effective-dated, so the record can be read as it stood.
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Your customers auditing you
Your first enterprise deal brings a questionnaire asking where employee data sits and who can reach it. Every workspace gets an exportable activity log, on every plan, so the answer is a file rather than a fortnight.
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The leaver who writes to you in 2028
Every exit adds someone who will one day need a payslip or a letter, from an address you no longer host. Alumni Access lets them fetch their own, so it never becomes a standing tax on whoever answers the email.
Where payroll stops, and your partner starts
Capstan is the system of inputs and the system of record. Your payroll partner is the system of computation. That boundary is deliberate, and it is why you can change payroll provider without changing where your people live.
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Capstan holds
Attendance, leave, overtime, comp changes and expenses, already on the record.
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Capstan compiles
One documented export, every line traceable to where the number came from.
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Your partner computes
Gross to net, statutory deductions and the filings, in their system.
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Capstan files it back
Payslips and results land on each person, reconciled against what was sent.
And the things we will not build, on purpose
- We hold no tax rate, slab or formula, in any country, so we can never be quietly wrong about your statutory position.
- We move no money, there is no payout rail and no client funds ever sit here.
- We employ nobody on your behalf, this is not an employer of record and will not become one.
- We run no surveillance, no keystrokes, no screenshots, no covert tracking of anyone.
- We say what is not built, on the page that covers it, rather than leaving you to find out.
Questions, answered before you ask
Is Capstan really free, or is it a trial?
The complete core HRIS is free for up to twenty active employees, with no clock and no expiry. It is not a trial and there is no subscription behind it, so it cannot lapse. Someone serving notice or already gone does not use up one of the twenty. The one thing the free plan cannot do is turn on the module suite, which needs a paid plan.
What does a paid plan cost, and what do I get?
A single per-seat plan, priced per country, that charges only on the employees past the first twenty and includes every one of the 14 modules at no extra charge. There are no add-ons and nothing is bought module by module. The figure is on the pricing page, because it is adjusted by country and belongs in one place.
Does any AI screen candidates or score employees?
No. Nothing in Capstan uses AI to evaluate people: no attrition scoring, no sentiment analysis and 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, sent to OpenAI, which does not train on the data. Nothing scores, ranks or screens a person.
Is Capstan GDPR compliant?
We do not claim GDPR compliance, and we would rather say so than imply a certification we do not hold. What we can show is concrete: the entity behind Capstan holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 with the scope stated on the security page, your data sits in one self-contained EU region (Frankfurt storage, Amsterdam compute), and a full export is always available.
Does Capstan run payroll?
No. Capstan is partner-integration mode: it compiles every payroll input it already holds, attendance, leave, overtime, compensation and expenses, 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.
Can I get my data out if I leave?
Yes, in one click and at any time. A full tenant export is a single archive in open formats, and the export endpoints sit outside the billing check on purpose, so an unpaid invoice cannot stop you taking your data, including on your way out.
Start with the complete core, free for up to twenty. See every price before you decide.