Where does Capstan host our data?

Your data and object storage sit in Frankfurt and the compute that serves your workspace runs in Amsterdam, both inside the EU. This is the single region live today, served from the EU rather than from a separate German deployment, and the footer on every page names it because a region is listed only once it is actually serving your data.

Does Capstan make us GDPR compliant?

We do not hand you a compliance badge; we tell you where your data is and what we hold, and leave the compliance judgement to you and your data-protection officer. Your data lives in the EU, it is encrypted under per-tenant keys, every sub-processor is listed and scoped to the region, and there is a data processing agreement you can read before you sign.

Who runs our German payroll?

Your Steuerberater or your Lohnbüro does, as most German companies already arrange it. Capstan compiles the inputs into a documented export and files the computed results back onto the employee record. It holds no Lohnsteuer or Sozialversicherung tables, runs no Lohnabrechnung, and files nothing with ELSTER or any authority.

Does Capstan work with a works council?

Capstan is the system of record and the workflow around it, not a co-determination tool. A Betriebsrat has co-determination rights over an HR system, and the consented, time-boxed, audited access and the per-tenant isolation Capstan publishes are exactly what a works council and a data-protection officer review before it goes live.

Germany

HR software for Germany

Capstan is all-in-one HR software for Germany and for teams hiring into the country. It is a complete core HRIS, free for up to twenty active people, with all fourteen modules on every plan, and it is built the way a German company already works: your data in one EU region, and the Lohnabrechnung left with your Steuerberater or Lohnbüro while Capstan holds the record.

Prices are adjusted by country and live on the pricing page alone, and appear nowhere else on the site.

Where does your data live? In the EU.

Your data and object storage sit in Frankfurt and the compute that serves your workspace runs in Amsterdam, both inside the EU. For a German buyer who treats EU hosting as a baseline rather than a nice-to-have, that is the answer up front: one self-contained region, served from the EU, with no runtime path for your data to leave it.

Data and files in Frankfurt, the eu-central-1 region; compute in Amsterdam, the eu-west-1 region.
A self-contained stack with no global control plane and no cross-region keys, so residency is where the database actually is, not a line in a policy.
The region is settled before you sign up, because the app you sign into is your region, and it does not change afterwards.

How the region is built, and why a residency commitment is only real if it cannot be quietly changed, is on the security page and the dedicated EU data residency page.

German data protection, in plain terms

We do not hand you a compliance badge; we tell you where your data is and what we hold, and leave the judgement under the GDPR and the BDSG to you and your data-protection officer. The obligation to process employee data lawfully is yours, and Capstan is built so the facts that obligation rests on are written down rather than left to a questionnaire.

Per-tenant encryption and database-enforced tenant isolation, described on the security page.
Every sub-processor is named and scoped to the live region, and the data processing agreement is public, so you can review both before you commit.
Access by our staff exists only while you have granted a time-boxed consent, masked by default and audited on both sides; nobody holds standing access to your tenant.

How employee data sits under the GDPR, in plain terms, is in the GDPR and employee data guide.

Payroll stays with your Steuerberater or Lohnbüro

Your German payroll is run by your Steuerberater or your Lohnbüro, which is how most German companies already arrange it, and Capstan is built for exactly that handoff rather than against it. It is the system of record and inputs; the computation and the filing stay with your provider.

Capstan compiles joiners, leavers, pay structure, leave, attendance and adjustments into a documented export for your provider, then files the computed results back onto the employee record.
It holds no Lohnsteuer or Sozialversicherung tables, runs no Lohnabrechnung, makes no ELSTER submission, and does not file with any authority. The statutory content is your provider's and your advisers', not ours.
Because the record feeds the pay run rather than competing with it, a new hire or a salary change is one dated entry your provider works from, not a figure retyped into a second system.

Why payroll belongs with a partner and not inside the HR software is set out in this piece.

Works councils and co-determination

Capstan is the system of record and the workflow around it, not a co-determination tool. A Betriebsrat has co-determination rights over the HR system a company runs, and the controls Capstan publishes are written to survive exactly that review rather than to work around it.

The consented, time-boxed and audited staff access, the per-tenant isolation and the sub-processor register are what a works council and a data-protection officer actually examine before a system goes live.
Capstan records and routes the work; it does not score, rank or screen your people, and no decision about a person is made by software inside it.
The agreement your Betriebsrat reaches about the system is yours to hold; Capstan neither adjudicates nor replaces it.

How the product is built so no software judges a person, and what that means for a review, is on the product page and the security page.

What do you get on every plan?

Every plan, the free one included, carries the whole platform. There is no core-only tier and no module held back for a paid plan, so an all-in-one HR platform here means the full product for a German team, not a stripped sample of it.

The complete core HRIS: one directory for every employee and contractor, with records, documents, self-service and reporting.
All fourteen modules, from onboarding and leave to attendance, workflows and alumni access, with nothing sold module by module.
The same feature set on the free plan and on a paid plan. A paid plan lifts one thing, the twenty-active-employee cap, and changes nothing about the software.
A German public-holiday set an administrator can import for the year in one click and then edit, so the state holidays that differ by Bundesland are yours to adjust.
The product in English: the interface is English only, so a German team and anyone managing it from abroad read the same screens. There is no German-language version today, which is worth knowing before you commit.

What the platform covers is on the product page, and how it is built rather than priced against the tools you are probably weighing is on the comparison pages.

Where is the price, and how is it billed?

The price lives on the pricing page, and only there. It is billed monthly, in arrears, per chargeable seat above the first twenty free, with no annual contract, no prepaid term and no lock-in.

One per-seat figure above the first twenty active people, billed monthly for the seats you actually use.
The currency follows your billing country, and the figure is one link away on the pricing page.
No minimum term, no renewal to sign, and downgrading to Free keeps all fourteen modules intact.

Capstan in other markets

Capstan is a global product, region-served from the EU, and it is written for the same shape of team wherever they hire. If your people sit outside Germany as well, the other market pages follow the same structure. Browse every market from the HR software by country hub.