Comparison

A Truein alternative when your workforce has a gate

Truein turns any phone or tablet into a face-recognition time clock — "No special hardware needed" — and for contractors, cleaning crews and site labour with no fixed entrance, that is a genuinely good design. This page is for the other half of Indian employers: the plant, school, hospital or office with a door, where a purpose-built terminal on the wall and a payroll behind it are the job. Every Truein fact below is from truein.com as published in September 2026, quoted so you can check it.

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Truein is phone- and tablet-based face-recognition attendance with GPS geofencing, offline capture and spoof detection, built "for Contract & Distributed staff use cases"; it supports no biometric terminals by design, has no payroll module (it exports "payroll-ready reports" for integration), and its published India price (September 2026) is ₹250 per user per year plus a ₹69,000 per year base fee on the Time Capture plan. AionHRMS is the terminal-and-payroll product: eSSL, ZKTeco and Realtime fingerprint, face and RFID terminals push to one cloud register, employees are enrolled once and synced across devices and sites, and the same punches compute shift-wise salary — for a flat free up to 10 employees, then ₹25,000 a year up to 100 employees and ₹50,000 a year up to 500, exclusive of GST, invoiced only after the devices are live. Truein is the better buy when there is no gate and the supervisor's phone is the only realistic capture point; AionHRMS is the better buy when there is a door, a terminal on it, and a wage bill that must come out of the register.

Terminal on the wall

purpose-built fingerprint, face and RFID devices — no employee phone required

₹25,000 a year

to 100 employees, versus ₹69,000 base + ₹250 per user per year

Payroll built in

shift-wise salary computed, versus payroll-ready exports to another system

Honest gap

Truein has geofencing and offline phone capture; we do not ship geofencing yet

What Truein is, fairly — and where it is simply better

Truein (truein.com) claims "500+ Customers Globally", "10,000+ locations" and "500,000+ Users", and is explicit about its audience: "AI-Powered Time Tracking for Hourly & Multi-site Workforce", "Purpose-built for contractors, temp staff, and site-based workforce with complex schedules." For that audience it has features we do not.

  • Face recognition on any Android or iOS phone or tablet, with spoof detection against photos and proxy punches — a shared kiosk tablet, the employee's phone, or a supervisor's phone
  • GPS geofencing so staff "can clock in only from approved locations", and offline clock-ins that sync when the network returns — both shipped, both things AionHRMS does not have today
  • Real credentials: "ISO 27001:2022 certified, and is SOC 2 Type II compliant", data "hosted on the AWS and Google Cloud in India data centers", GDPR in its DPA — credited plainly, and ahead of our SOC 2 readiness
  • A 14-day free trial with full features, published pricing in INR and USD, billing "based on the number of users, not attendance devices or locations"
  • If your people are on construction sites, in client buildings or on the move, with no fixed gate, Truein is the right shape and you should evaluate it seriously

The gate is the difference

Truein's pitch is "No bulky machines or wiring needed." Ours is the opposite, on purpose: for a fixed workplace, a terminal on the wall is faster, needs no employee phone, no data plan, no app update, and gives you access control — the door itself — in the same register as attendance. Truein supports no biometric terminals at all; that is a design choice on their side, and the whole of our product on ours.

  • eSSL, ZKTeco and Realtime terminals — fingerprint, face, RFID and PIN — push punches to the cloud over their own protocol; nothing installed at the site
  • A worker without a smartphone, a phone in a locker, a dead battery, a shared phone — none of these stop a punch at a terminal
  • Lock or unlock a person on every terminal from the dashboard; denied attempts are logged; doors can be released remotely — attendance and access are one decision
  • Templates stored centrally and re-pushed across devices and brands: enrol once, and a replaced terminal inherits everyone
  • Purpose-built face terminals verify in a fraction of a second at a busy entrance, which is what a 7 a.m. shift change looks like at a plant gate

Pricing: a base fee plus per user, versus a flat band

Truein's published India pricing (September 2026): Time Capture at "₹ 250 /user/year + ₹69000 /year (base price)", Advanced — which adds shift scheduling and overtime rules — at "₹ 350 /user/year + ₹69000 /year (base price)", where "the base price is a fixed fee charged per customer, regardless of the number of users or locations." Leave management is ₹60 per user per year extra; live tracking ₹200. AionHRMS is free up to 10 employees, then ₹25,000 a year up to 100 employees and ₹50,000 a year up to 500, exclusive of GST, invoiced only after the devices are live. At list price, before taxes and add-ons:

  • 100 employees on Time Capture: ₹69,000 + 100 × ₹250 = ₹94,000 a year. AionHRMS: ₹25,000 a year.
  • 500 employees on Advanced (the tier with shifts and overtime): ₹69,000 + 500 × ₹350 = ₹2,44,000 a year. AionHRMS: ₹50,000 a year, shifts and overtime events included.
  • The base fee means Truein's entry cost is ₹69,000 before the first user — heavy for a 30-person site; AionHRMS's smallest band is ₹25,000 all-in
  • Truein bills per user regardless of devices; AionHRMS bills per headcount band regardless of devices or sites — similar philosophy, different numbers
  • Where Truein's price is fair: it includes geofencing, offline capture and spoof detection for a distributed workforce, which a terminal product cannot offer at any price

After the punch: payroll built in versus payroll exported

Truein does not do payroll. Its own pages say: "Export payroll-ready reports for integration with any third-party or in-house HRMS and Payroll solution", with API and FTP integrations listed under the Enterprise tier and a logo wall of payroll systems it feeds. AionHRMS computes the salary from the punch itself.

  • Per-employee duty times; single or double shift with a separate salary per shift; punches bucketed to the right shift automatically
  • Grace periods, late-count thresholds, penalties as a flat fine or fraction of a shift; paid leave capped at working days; advances tracked and settled
  • One monthly payroll report and per-employee attendance calendar — reviewed, not rebuilt in Excel from an export
  • Not included, plainly: PF, ESI and TDS filing, and leave request and approval workflows (Truein sells leave management as an add-on; we apply paid-leave allowance but have no approval flow)
  • If you already run payroll in another system and only need clean timesheets into it, Truein's export model is adequate — and so is our partner API

Security: both sides published, precisely

This is a comparison where the competitor publishes more certifications than we do, and the honest thing is to say so. Truein: ISO 27001:2022 certified, SOC 2 Type II compliant, India data centres on AWS and Google Cloud, GDPR commitments in its DPA, biometric data used only for attendance. Ours:

  • Attendance data on infrastructure in India — stated outright, the same as theirs
  • Biometric templates stored as mathematical features on the terminal and centrally; never displayed, exported or available through the API
  • AIONDATA is ISO 9001:2015 certified (quality management — not equivalent to ISO 27001), CMMI Level 3 appraised, and SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA ready — readiness, not an issued attestation
  • One structural difference in the data itself: a terminal-based system never touches an employee's personal phone, camera or GPS; a phone-based system by design does, with the consent and device-management questions that follow
  • Ask both vendors the same written questions; this page holds either way

Truein versus AionHRMS, line by line

Truein rows are from truein.com as published in September 2026. Price arithmetic is ours at list price, before taxes, add-ons and discounts.

AionHRMSTruein (published, Sept 2026)
Capture deviceeSSL, ZKTeco, Realtime terminals: fingerprint, face, RFID, PIN.Any Android/iOS phone or tablet; "No special hardware needed." No terminals.
Built forWorkplaces with a gate: plants, schools, hospitals, offices, warehouses."Contract & Distributed staff": contractors, sites, field teams.
Geofencing / offline phoneIn development — not shipped.Shipped: geofenced clock-ins, offline capture, spoof detection.
Access controlLock/unlock per person on every terminal; remote door release.Not a terminal product; not published.
Pricing modelFlat annual by headcount band; unlimited terminals and sites.₹250/user/year + ₹69,000/year base (Time Capture); ₹350 + base (Advanced).
100 employees, list price₹25,000 a year.₹94,000 a year (Time Capture).
500 employees, list price₹50,000 a year.₹1,94,000 (Time Capture) / ₹2,44,000 (Advanced) a year.
PayrollShift-wise salary computed from punches.None; "payroll-ready reports" exported to another system.
CertificationsISO 9001:2015 certified; SOC 2 Type II/GDPR/HIPAA ready; India residency stated.ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2 Type II stated; AWS/GCP India data centres stated.
Right choice whenThere is a door, a terminal on it, and a wage bill on the punch.There is no gate; phones and tablets are the only capture point.

Frequently asked questions

Is AionHRMS an alternative to Truein?
For a fixed workplace, yes: purpose-built terminals instead of phones, one register across sites and brands, access control, and payroll computed from the punch, at a flat annual price. For a distributed workforce with no gate, no — Truein's phone face recognition, geofencing and offline capture are the right tools, and AionHRMS does not ship geofencing today.
How does Truein pricing compare with AionHRMS?
Truein publishes ₹250 per user per year plus a ₹69,000 per year base fee on Time Capture, and ₹350 plus the base on Advanced (September 2026) — ₹94,000 a year for 100 users on Time Capture at list price. AionHRMS is ₹25,000 a year for up to 100 employees and ₹50,000 for up to 500, unlimited terminals and sites, invoiced only after the devices are live.
Does Truein work with eSSL or ZKTeco biometric machines?
Not per its own site — Truein's design is "No special hardware needed": phones and tablets running its app. If you already own terminals, or want a device on the wall that does not depend on employees' phones, that is AionHRMS's territory: eSSL, ZKTeco and Realtime terminals repoint to our server from their own settings menu.
Does Truein do payroll?
No. Truein's pages describe "payroll-ready reports" and API/FTP integrations with third-party payroll and HRMS products. AionHRMS computes shift-wise salary itself — duty times, double shifts, grace, late penalties, paid leave, advances — though it does not file statutory returns; that part stays with your accountant or filing tool either way.
Can we use both — terminals at the plant and Truein for field staff?
Technically yes, with two registers to reconcile. Our honest advice: pick by where most punches happen. If most people pass a gate, run AionHRMS and wait for our geofenced marking rather than running two systems; if most people never see a gate, run Truein. Talk to us about the split before buying either.

Related

A terminal on the wall, a salary from the punch

Tell us your headcount and sites; we will suggest terminals if you need them, or repoint the ones you own, and quote in writing.

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