Search for team management and you'll mostly get task boards. Those track work. They won't tell you when someone's probation ends, who approved a raise, whether a new hire has a laptop, or that your best engineer has looked exhausted for a month.
This page covers the people side: the roster, roles, onboarding, pay cycles, one-on-ones, burnout and hiring. It sets out when each one deserves a tool, what Gusto, Rippling and Deel publish, and what Nautis does and doesn't do. If you want task tracking, go to task boards instead.
What to add at each team size
Headcount is a rough guide, and it isn't a rule. Hiring across countries, or having a large contractor base, pulls everything forward. Use this as a default, and only move ahead of it for a reason you can name.
| Job | 1 to 5 people | 6 to 15 people | 16 to 40 people |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roster and records | A private spreadsheet | A people record with restricted access | HR system as the source of truth |
| Roles and access | Owner decides, in a doc | Role-based permissions in your main tools | Access changes tied to joining and leaving |
| Onboarding | A shared checklist | A reusable template with an owner per step | Automated steps for accounts and devices |
| Pay | Payroll provider or accountant from the first hire | Same, plus a compensation history | Payroll tied to HR records, with approval steps |
| One-on-ones | Informal, but weekly | A shared notes doc per person | A consistent format across managers |
| Team health | Ask directly | A regular pulse check | A survey with anonymity people believe in |
| Hiring | A spreadsheet and your inbox | A pipeline and a careers page | An applicant tracking system if volume justifies it |
A common mistake is buying the right-hand column at five people because an investor's portfolio company uses it. You'd pay for approval chains with nobody to approve. Our guide to the first 10 employees covers the hiring decisions behind these numbers, and the startup management platform page covers who owns what as a company grows.
What belongs in a roster, and who can see it
Keep one list, with one row per person: name, role, manager, start date, employment type, location, current pay, and links to the signed contract and any equity paperwork. That's enough until about 15 people. It's also the first thing an investor's diligence team or a new finance hire will ask for.
Access matters more than format. Pay and personal details should be visible to the founders and whoever runs people operations, and to nobody else. A spreadsheet in a shared folder is how salaries leak, so check the sharing settings today, and move it the day a second person needs to edit it.
Pay and compliance come first
This is the one area where you shouldn't improvise. Paying people correctly, withholding the right tax and filing on time carries legal consequences, so use a provider from the first employee. Here's what each published as of November 2026.
| Provider | Fits | Published price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gusto | Payroll and HR for small companies | Couldn't confirm: we couldn't read Gusto's pages | Check gusto.com directly for current plans |
| Rippling | Companies that want HR, IT and finance tied together | Plans start at $8 per employee per month, with a monthly base fee. Payroll and totals need a quote | Products include HRIS, Recruiting, Performance, Device Management, Identity and Access |
| Deel | Hiring across borders | Contractors $49 each, EOR employees from $599 each, US PEO $125 each, a month. No published HR price | Says it applies local rules and filings before payroll runs |
The decision is mostly about where your people are. All in one country with no contractors abroad: a local payroll provider, and your accountant will have a view on which. Hiring overseas without a local entity: an employer of record such as Deel, whose $599 per employee adds up quickly, so compare it with setting up your own entity once you have several people there. Our fully loaded employee cost calculator helps you budget beyond salary.
Onboarding someone without dropping things
Good onboarding is mostly a list with owners on it, and software only helps once that list exists. Write it down the next time you hire. Name who does each step and by which day. Then reuse it.
- Before day one: contract signed, payroll details collected, laptop ordered, accounts requested, and a buddy named. The founder or ops lead owns this.
- Day one: logins work, the manager has an hour blocked, and the person knows what they're expected to finish in week one.
- Week one: access to the tools they need and none they don't. A small real task shipped. A first one-on-one held.
- Day 30: an honest conversation on both sides. Ask what the documentation got wrong, then fix it for the next hire.
Rippling says it can automate onboarding and offboarding, including steps such as assigning devices. That's useful above about 25 people. Below that, a template takes minutes to run. Offboarding deserves the same list, and a tool like a shared password vault makes it faster to revoke access on the day someone leaves.
One-on-ones and burnout: what software can do
Not much, honestly. A one-on-one is a habit, and the most useful tool is a running shared document per person, with the next meeting's topics at the top. Dedicated apps add reminders and templates. Add one only if your managers keep skipping the meeting, and be aware that the app won't fix the reason they skip it.
Burnout is similar. Software can prompt people to reflect and show a trend. It can't tell a founder that the deadline is the cause. For a team under 15, the signal usually comes from noticing: late-night messages, quiet people in meetings, a good person going short. Ask them directly. Above that, a regular pulse survey helps, but only if people trust it's anonymous and see something change after they answer.
Hiring: how much tool do you need?
Under about five open roles a year, a pipeline with six stages and a careers link is enough. The bottleneck is usually finding people and deciding fast, neither of which an applicant tracking system solves. Start with a clear role description, and our job description generator can produce a first draft. Use the hiring plan calculator to check you can pay for the role before you post it.
Move to a dedicated tracker when you have several hiring managers, need structured scorecards, or receive more applications than one person can read. Rippling lists Recruiting as a product, and many dedicated options exist if you need more.
How Nautis handles team management
Nautis is an AI business operating system for startups, with four people modules. They're useful when you want them in the same workspace as everything else, and they fall short of a dedicated HR system in specific ways.
Employee management
Employee management keeps a private directory with work, personal and bank details, compensation revisions with a dated history, leave, and salary slips. You draft a Payroll run or a payout from the Payouts tab, and Process marks it as paid. It tracks pay runs. It doesn't move money or file statutory payroll, so you still need a provider such as those above. There's no bulk import yet, and your plan has a lifetime employee limit that includes people who have left, shown under App Usage.
Burnout radar
Burnout radar is a private weekly check-in of about 30 seconds, covering energy, stress, sleep, work intensity, decision fatigue and context switching, which gives a personal risk score and trend. Be clear on what this is: each person's score is private to them, so a founder can't see a team view. It helps an individual notice a bad stretch. It's not a team pulse survey, and you'd need another tool for that.
Jobs and recruitment
Jobs and recruitment gives you a public careers page and a board with Applied, Screening, Interview, Offer, Hired and Rejected stages. Generate drafts the description, Schedule Interview handles rounds, and Convert to employee carries a hire into Employee management. The application form asks for name, email, phone, resume and cover letter. There aren't custom screening questions yet.
Team chat and roles
Team chat has channels, direct messages, threads and Create task on a message. Under Roles & Permissions you assign ready-made or custom roles per module, with one role per person. Plans allow 5, 10 or 25 team members. The guides don't describe a one-on-one tool, performance reviews or benefits administration, so those stay elsewhere. A growing company with complex permissions will likely outgrow this. See Nautis pricing for plan limits.
A sensible setup by stage
- Two to five people, one country: a payroll provider, a private spreadsheet and a shared onboarding doc. You may not need a people tool at all, so don't buy one just because this page exists.
- Six to 15 people: add a people record and a hiring pipeline. This is where a founder workspace such as Nautis for seed-stage startups may fit, alongside your payroll provider, or use your payroll provider's HR features if it offers them.
- 16 to 40 people, or several countries: consider an HR system like Rippling, or Deel if you have international staff, and let it become the source of truth for joiners and leavers.
- Any stage: write the one-on-one habit into the calendar before you shop for anything to support it.
FAQ
What is startup team management software?
It's software for the people side of running a startup: the roster, roles, onboarding, pay cycles, hiring and team health. It differs from task or project tools, which track work. Most startups combine a payroll provider with a lighter tool for records and hiring until about 25 people.
When does a startup need an HR system?
Usually somewhere between 16 and 40 people, or earlier if you employ people in several countries. The signs are joiners and leavers being missed, access changes falling through, and managers asking for the same records repeatedly. Below that, a people record plus a payroll provider is normally enough.
Does Nautis run payroll?
It tracks pay cycles, payouts and salary slips, and Process marks a run as paid. It doesn't move money or handle statutory payroll filings, so companies still need a payroll provider for that. Treat it as your record of who is paid what, not as the system that pays them.
Can a founder see the team's burnout scores in Nautis?
No. Burnout radar check-ins are private to each person, and the dashboard shows only your own data. It's designed as a personal wellness tool, so it won't give a manager a team view. Use a separate pulse survey if you want team-level signals.