$163M/year Gusto of Australia
Jan-Erik Asplund
TL;DR: With Deel and Rippling invading Australia, Employment Hero is defending its core market for HR & payroll while opening a North American beachhead via its acquisition of Humi in Canada. Sacra estimates Employment Hero reached $163M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in January 2025, up from $155M in December 2024 and $110M in December 2023. For more, check out our full report and dataset on Employment Hero.
Key points via Sacra AI:
- Australia's 2009 Fair Work Act created one of the world's most complex employment frameworks, with 120+ industry-specific regulations around minimum pay, hours & conditions, forcing SMBs to either risk non-compliance penalties ($40K per breach) or hire expensive HR consultants—and inspiring Employment Hero (2011) to launch as a cloud-based HR & payroll platform that automatically calculates overtime, allowances, and penalty rates across every possible combination of rules. Employment Hero combines core HR and payroll software monetizing through per-employee SaaS fees ($19-49/month) with global Employer of Record services for international hiring ($399 USD monthly per hire) and an employee-facing app called Swag offering earned wage access (1.3-1.5% transaction fees) and a benefits marketplace (affiliate commissions).
- Geographic expansion has become the key for every HR & payroll player to grow its market, with Employment Hero expanding nearby to New Zealand, into Southeast Asia and then to the UK—with Sacra estimating that Employment Hero hit $163M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in January 2025, up from $155M at the end of 2024 and $110M at the end of 2023. Compare with Rippling at $570M ARR in February 2025, up from $532M at the end of 2024 (up 52% YoY), global payroll company Deel at $1B in annualized revenue in March 2025, up from $800M at the end of 2024 (up 70% YoY), and New Zealand-based incumbent Xero (ASX: XRO) at $1.19B in TTM revenue (up 16% YoY).
- Now geographic expansion has brought its competitors to Australia’s shores, with Deel and Rippling both invading Australia in 2024 going after Employment Hero's core geography where it serves 20% of all private companies. As a countermove, Employment Hero opened a beachhead in North America with its December 2024 acquisition of Canadian HR & payroll platform Humi ($15M in ARR at the time of acquisition) and with its product Swag, it’s mirrored Deel & Rippling by monetizing the employee side of payroll through earned wage access, spend accounts, and rewards marketplaces, with the upside of growing ARPU 5-7x via transaction fees, embedded products, and interchange.
For more, check out this other research from our platform:
- Contractor Payroll: The $1.4T Market to Build the Cash App for the Global Labor Market
- Ontop at $15M annualized revenue
- Matt Redler, co-founder and CEO of Panther, on building a modern employer of record
- Anthony Mironov, CEO of Wingspan, on building financial services for contractors
- Ved Sinha, Former VP of Product at Upwork, on gig marketplaces
- Dan Westgarth, COO of Deel, on the global payroll opportunity
- Matt Drozdzynski, CEO and co-founder of Plane, on global payroll post-COVID
- Wingspan's 992x growth in contractor payroll
- Matt Brown, Co-Founder of Bonsai, on the rise of vertical ERPs
- Gusto (dataset)
- Justworks (dataset)
- Rippling (dataset)
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