Employment Hero vs VIVA HR
Features, use cases, pros and cons, and pricing side by side — and which one to pick.
Quick verdict: Pick Employment Hero if you want HR, payroll, and hiring unified in one platform; pick VIVA HR if you're a small business that just needs fast, simple hiring.
Best for: Australian SMEs that want HR, payroll, and hiring under one roof, Businesses hiring at volume that need faster candidate screening
Read the full Employment Hero reviewBest for: Small business owners who hire without an HR department, Dental practices and medical offices hiring clinical staff
Read the full VIVA HR reviewCommission may apply at no extra cost
Employment Hero vs VIVA HR: features compared
Compare key features side by side
Feature Comparison Summary
Which should you choose?
Choose Employment Hero if
- You want HR, payroll, and hiring in one system
- You need automated award interpretation and payroll checks
- You're hiring overseas without setting up local entities
Choose VIVA HR if
- You only need hiring software, not full HR
- You want 20-minute setup and no contracts
- You rely on BambooHR, Rippling, or Slack integrations
Employment Hero vs VIVA HR: pros and cons
Employment Hero
Employment Hero bundles HR, payroll, hiring, rostering, and benefits into one AI-powered platform, with transparent entry pricing from $10 a month and an employer-of-record service covering 180+ countries. User minimums, per-seat add-ons, and quote-only top tiers can inflate the bill, though. Overall, it's a strong pick for growing teams that check the fine print first.
Pros
- Consolidates HR, payroll, hiring, rostering, and benefits into one platform, so employee data flows from offer letter to final payslip without manual re-entry between systems
- AI Recruitment Agent screens candidates into ranked shortlists and runs 24/7 video interviews, drawing on a pool of 2.3M+ job seekers — vendor-reported to cut screening time by 90%
- Automated award interpretation, leave accruals, and payroll anomaly detection (e.g., overtime spikes) catch errors before the pay run, with same-day payments via New Payments Platform infrastructure
Cons
- HR and Payroll plans require a minimum of 10 users, and billing is based on the higher of contracted or active user count — a real cost trap for small or fluctuating teams
- Most add-ons (Chat, Rostering, Managed Payroll, HR Advisory, EAP, LMS) carry monthly minimums of $20–$400, so the real bill can climb well beyond the headline per-employee rate
- HR Elite and Employment Unlimited are quote-only, so you can't budget without talking to sales, and no money-back guarantee is advertised
VIVA HR posts your job to 100+ boards in one click and scores every applicant with plain-English reasons. Pricing is per company with a 7-day trial, though speed claims come from the vendor and Max pricing needs a sales call. Overall, it's a solid pick for small teams hiring without an HR department.
Pros
- One-click syndication to 100+ job boards including Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn, with postings live in about 60 seconds — AvaHR is an Indeed Platinum Partner, which the vendor says drives 5x more completed applications on Sponsored Jobs
- Every applicant is scored automatically on arrival and ranked into a shortlist with plain-English explanations of why each candidate fits, plus suggested interview questions — so owners review ranked candidates instead of digging through raw resumes
- Ava, the built-in AI assistant, drafts complete job posts from a single sentence (by voice, chat, or SMS) and coaches you before publishing, flagging below-market pay, overly strict requirements, and postings losing momentum
Cons
- Performance claims like the 11-day average time-to-hire, 40% faster hiring, and 5x application lift are the vendor's own figures and are not backed by independent review data — no G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot reviews were available to verify user sentiment
- Entry-level Lite plan is tightly capped at 3 live job postings, 1 seat, and 1 location, which limits its usefulness even for very small teams with concurrent openings
- Ava's AI scoring drives the candidate shortlist, so teams skeptical of automated screening will need to sanity-check rankings rather than trust them blindly
Employment Hero and VIVA HR in detail
Employment Hero
Employment Hero is an all-in-one employment platform covering HR, payroll, recruitment, rostering, and benefits. Its AI agents screen candidates, answer HR questions, and run payroll calculations. A managed service called HeroForce handles employment in 180+ countries. It's built for SMEs and growing companies, from startups to larger businesses, across industries like healthcare, retail, hospitality, construction, and tech.
Standout features
- AI recruitment that screens for you
- HR answers without the ticket queue
- Payroll with a built-in second pair of eyes
- Everything in one system, from offer to payslip
- Hire in 180+ countries without setting up entities
Use cases
- Hiring at volume, minus the screening grind
- Fielding the same HR questions every day
- Catching payroll errors before pay day
- Hiring overseas without opening an entity
VIVA HR
AvaHR is hiring software — an applicant tracking system with a built-in AI assistant named Ava. It's aimed at small and growing businesses without a dedicated HR team: dental practices, home services, law firms, med spas, construction, and general small business. Ava drafts job posts, coaches you on pay and requirements, scores applicants, and writes interview summaries. The company says 5,000+ businesses use it.
Standout features
- Meet Ava, your AI hiring assistant
- Get coached before you post
- Open the app to a shortlist, not an inbox
- Automation that keeps candidates moving
- Hire as a team, without the logins
Use cases
- Post a job in minutes
- Skip the resume pile
- Keep trade roles moving
- Hire discreetly, together
Pricing compared
List prices from each vendor's pricing page, before taxes and add-ons. Costs are per month.
| Pricing compared | Employment Hero | VIVA HR |
|---|---|---|
| From (cheapest paid plan) | $2/mo Chat (add-on) · per user | $119/mo Lite |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Free trial | Yes | 7 days |
| Money-back guarantee | Not stated | Not stated |
| Annual billing savings | — | Up to 17% |
| Pricing model | Per user | Flat price |
| Cost for 1 user | $2/moCheaper Chat (add-on) plan, billed monthly | $119/mo Lite plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 5 users | $10/moCheaper Chat (add-on) plan, billed monthly | $199/mo Plus plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 10 users | $20/moCheaper Chat (add-on) plan, billed monthly | $399/mo Premium plan, billed monthly |
| Cost for 25 users | $50/moCheaper Chat (add-on) plan, billed monthly | $399/mo Premium plan, billed monthly |
| Plans | 15 | 4 |
| Prices checked | Checked Oct 12, 2026 | Vendor page checked Sep 30, 2026 |
| Price history | Tracking prices since Sep 9, 2026. No price change detected yet. | Tracking prices since Sep 8, 2026. No price change detected yet. |
- Cheapest plan that fits each team size. Per-user plans are multiplied by the number of users (respecting stated minimums and seat packs). Plans that include some users cost their base price plus the extra-user price for each user beyond those included. Flat-priced plans with no stated user limit are counted as one licence per user.
Cheaper for your team size
For 5 users (billed monthly), Employment Hero costs $10/mo vs VIVA HR at $199/mo.
- Employment Hero is cheaper at every team size we checked (1 to 25 users).
- For 1 user (billed monthly), Employment Hero costs $2/mo vs VIVA HR at $119/mo.
- For 10 users (billed monthly), Employment Hero costs $20/mo vs VIVA HR at $399/mo.
- For 25 users (billed monthly), Employment Hero costs $50/mo vs VIVA HR at $399/mo.
Computed from published list prices on the dates shown. Excludes taxes, add-ons and promotions.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do both tools handle payroll?
No. Employment Hero runs payroll with automated tax, award interpretation, and anomaly flagging. VIVA HR is hiring-only software, though it connects with payroll tools like Rippling and BambooHR.
Can I try them before paying?
Yes. Employment Hero offers a free hiring-hub sign-up with AI-scored shortlists. VIVA HR offers a 7-day free trial on every plan. Neither advertises a money-back guarantee.