Employee management software for a small business that doesn’t want to pay per employee, per month.

Employee records, attendance, leave, payroll figures, performance reviews and documents — one offline app for a company under 25 people, built to replace six spreadsheets, not to replace your payroll provider.

Try the live demo Buy now — $ 49.00
OwnDesk Team dashboard, showing employee records, attendance and who is out today
No subscription No cloud account Works offline One-time payment
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One-time payment

Never another per-employee, per-month bill. The price you see is the whole price.

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Employee data, one record

Contact info, pay rate, department, documents and history per employee — not six spreadsheets that disagree with each other.

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Performance reviews with a paper trail

Cycles, goals and notes stay attached to the employee record, not a folder nobody can find.

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No cloud account

Employee records stay on your own computer — nothing to sign up for, nowhere for a breach to happen.

What it does

Employee data, attendance, leave, payroll figures and performance — on one screen.

Dashboard with team KPIs • employee records & departments • attendance & leave calendar • payroll figures • performance reviews • documents with expiry reminders • tasks & reports.

One employee record, not six spreadsheets

Contact details, pay rate, department and documents live on the same record, so "what do we pay her" and "when does his ID expire" are both a click away, not a search across files.

Attendance and leave that agree with each other

Day view, month view and a leave calendar built from the same records, so the holiday balance is never argued about.

Payroll figures, not payroll software

Hours, overtime, deductions and totals per period, ready to hand to your accountant. It calculates; it does not pay.

Performance reviews with a paper trail

Review cycles, goals and notes stay attached to the employee record instead of a folder nobody can find.

Why small companies switch

You’re not really choosing between two employee management apps.

You’re choosing between paying once and paying per employee, per month, for a self-service portal a 15-person company never opens.

 OwnDesk TeamA full employee management platform
Price $ 49.00 once $6–$12/employee/mo
Employee records & attendance Included Included
Performance reviews Included Often included
Your data Stays on your own computer Lives in their cloud
Staff self-service portal & phone app Not included — a manager enters records Often included, at a price
Setup Unzip, open, go Account sign-up, onboarding

Competitor pricing is a general market range for small-business HR/employee management platforms (BambooHR, Gusto, Rippling, Deputy and similar), not a quote from any single company — check current pricing on each site. OwnDesk Team does not run payroll, file taxes, administer benefits, or give employees their own login; it is single-computer by design, with a backup file to move between devices.

From payment to your first employee

Three steps, about two minutes.

1

Pay with card

Checkout runs on Stripe. Your card details never touch this site.

2

Download and open

The link appears the moment payment clears. Double-click the file — it opens in your browser, no install, no internet needed after that.

3

Clear the sample team, add your own

It opens with a sample team already loaded so you can see how it works. Clear it in one click from Settings and add your first employee.

14-day money-back guarantee Plus support from Adrián, usually the same working day

If OwnDesk Team isn’t right for your team, email me and you get a refund — no questions. If something’s confusing, you’re writing to the person who built it, not a queue. English and Spanish, both spoken here.

14-day refund Reply usually same working day Built for teams under 25 people

Questions

Before you buy.

What is the best employee management software for a small business?
Below about 25 people the honest problem with BambooHR, Gusto, Rippling and Deputy is not the features, it is the pricing model: $6–$12 per employee per month means a 15-person company pays $1,000–$2,000 a year to store fifteen records. OwnDesk Team keeps employee records, attendance, leave, payroll figures, performance reviews and documents for a single payment. What it does not do is actually run payroll, file taxes or administer benefits — those need a licensed provider, and you should keep one. This replaces the spreadsheet and the folder, not your payroll company.
Is there simple employee data management software for a small team?
Yes — one record per employee holding contact details, pay rate, department, documents and history, instead of that information living across a contract folder, a payroll spreadsheet and someone’s inbox. It is not a database with an API or a place other systems can query; it is a record-keeping app for a person who needs the answer on screen, not a webhook.
What is employee performance management software, and does this include it?
It usually means running review cycles, tracking goals and keeping notes tied to each employee instead of a folder nobody can find — that part, OwnDesk Team does. What it is not is a 360-feedback platform, an OKR tool with dashboards for a VP, or anything with workflow approvals across managers. For a company small enough to not need those, it is the same job without the seat price.
Is this the same as employee experience management software?
No, and it is worth being precise about the difference. Employee experience platforms run pulse surveys, engagement scores and culture analytics. OwnDesk Team does not survey anyone — it gives whoever manages the team one clean record of hours, leave, performance and documents instead of six spreadsheets. If you searched for the first thing, this is not it; if you meant the second, it is exactly this.
How does it handle employee leave management?
Attendance, a month view and a leave calendar are all built from the same records, so the holiday balance is a calculation rather than an argument. Requests carry a type and a date range, approvals are logged, and the dashboard shows who is out today. There is no phone app for staff to request leave from — a manager enters it, which is the trade-off of an app with no cloud account.
Is it cloud based?
No, and that is deliberate. It runs on your computer and keeps records on your own disk, so employee data — salaries, sick notes, ID documents — never sits on someone else’s server. The trade-off is real and you should know it: there is no phone app for staff, no self-service portal, and no live sync between two managers. If you need staff to book their own leave from a phone, buy a cloud HRIS.
Is there free employee management software?
There are free tiers, and they are usually capped at five or ten employees, which is exactly the point at which a spreadsheet was still working fine. The paid tier arrives at the moment you actually need the software. This is paid once, with no employee count, no seats and no upgrade path to be moved along.
Does it calculate payroll?
It calculates payroll figures — hours, overtime, deductions and totals per period — and prints or exports them for whoever runs your payroll. It does not pay anyone, file with a tax authority, or replace an accountant. The distinction matters: it does the arithmetic and the record-keeping, not the legal filing.
What do you get, and what do you need to run it?
The complete application as one HTML file, a Quick Start guide, a lifetime licence for one company and a demo team already loaded. Any modern browser — Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox — on Windows, Mac, Chromebook, iPad or Android. Nothing to install, no account, no internet connection after the download.

See your own team in it before you decide.

The live demo has real screens and a sample team loaded — no sign-up, no credit card. If it fits, buying takes about a minute.

Try the live demo Buy now — $ 49.00

14-day money-back guarantee · instant download · one-time payment

Live demo Buy — $ 49.00
OwnDesk

Small-business software you buy once and keep. It runs on your own computer, works offline, and does not phone home.

contact@theowndesk.com

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