Our top pick for payroll software in Malaysia is PayrollPanda, free for any number of employees with EPF, SOCSO, EIS and PCB built in. If you want payroll bundled with leave, claims and HR records in one app, Swingvy is the stronger pick from RM8.50 per employee a month. Prices checked 16 September 2026 directly on each vendor's own pricing page, not a reseller or review site.
We checked each vendor's own pricing page on 16 September 2026 and quote what we found exactly; we have not tested any of this software ourselves, and none of the links below carry an affiliate commission yet (our rule is to apply for a referral programme only after a guide proves it earns real search traffic). This page carries affiliate links on some vendor buttons in future; for now every link goes straight to the vendor's own site.
Contents
- Best for Free, Unlimited-Employee Payroll: PayrollPanda
- Best for Combined HR and Payroll: Swingvy
- Best for SQL Account Users: SQL Payroll
- Best for No Monthly Subscription: ActPay Payroll
- Best for a Full HR Suite: BrioHR
- Also considered
- How we chose
- How to choose payroll software in Malaysia
- Frequently asked questions about payroll software in Malaysia
Best for Free, Unlimited-Employee Payroll: PayrollPanda
PayrollPanda answers the question most small Malaysian businesses actually ask: can payroll be free before it needs to be good? For a single company that just needs EPF, SOCSO, EIS and PCB calculated correctly every month, yes, and there is no employee cap on the free tier. It will not hold your leave records or performance reviews, that has to live somewhere else, and the moment you want e-Invoice-ready accounting bundled in, this is not that product.
2 more points
PayrollPanda's core payroll is genuinely free with no employee cap. Paid-upgrade pricing is not published, you contact sales for a quote.
Best for Combined HR and Payroll: Swingvy
Swingvy is the pick once payroll on its own stops being enough. It puts payroll, leave, claims and employee records in the same login, so a small HR team is not juggling three logins to answer one question about one employee. The catch is the 5-employee minimum, which rules it out for a business that is still just the founder and one hire.
2 more points
Payroll and HR Hub together from RM8.50 per employee per module, per month. Minimum 5 employees.
Best for SQL Account Users: SQL Payroll
If your bookkeeping already runs on SQL Account, SQL Payroll is the path of least resistance: it shares the same vendor and the same data, so payroll numbers land straight in the books you already keep. It is a weaker choice if you are starting from nothing, since the cloud plan's pricing jumps in steps by staff count rather than scaling smoothly.
2 more points
Cloud plan from RM69 a month for up to 20 staff, or a one-time permanent licence on request.
Best for No Monthly Subscription: ActPay Payroll
ActPay is for the business owner who has decided, on principle, not to add another recurring bill. It sells a licence once and charges a much smaller annual renewal after that, which is unusual in a market where everyone else has moved to per-employee monthly pricing. What you give up is the modern, cloud-first interface and any leave or claims module, this is payroll and nothing else.
2 more points
One-time licence from RM250 for up to 10 staff, plus a small annual renewal, instead of a monthly bill.
Best for a Full HR Suite: BrioHR
BrioHR is the pick for a business that expects to outgrow payroll-only software within the year. Performance management, recruitment and training modules sit on the same platform, so you are not migrating data again when HR grows past payslips. The RM200 a month minimum contract means it is not the cheapest way to run payroll alone.
2 more points
Payroll bundled with leave and onboarding from RM7 per employee, but a RM200 a month minimum applies.
Also considered
Kakitangan.com: free and PDPA-compliant, and the one worth checking if your company has fewer than 5 employees, since Swingvy's minimum shuts that door. We have no merchant listing for it yet, so there is no button here, only the name.
Talenox: an online HRMS that Google's own AI Overview names alongside PayrollPanda and Swingvy for this search. We have not reviewed it directly and have no merchant relationship with it, so we are naming it rather than recommending it.
How we chose
We checked each vendor's own pricing page directly on 16 September 2026, in ringgit, rather than relying on review sites or reseller blogs. Where a vendor does not publish a price (PayrollPanda's paid upgrades, SQL's permanent licence), we say so rather than estimate one. We did not buy or trial any of this software ourselves. PayrollPanda, Swingvy, SQL, ActPay Payroll and BrioHR are the five vendors ProductNation has an existing merchant listing for in Malaysia; that is why they carry a button and Kakitangan.com and Talenox do not.
How to choose payroll software in Malaysia
Do you need payroll only, or a full HR system?
PayrollPanda and ActPay Payroll do payroll and nothing else, which keeps the learning curve short. Swingvy and BrioHR add leave, claims and (on BrioHR) performance and recruitment, worth the extra cost only once payroll alone stops being the whole problem.
Subscription or one-time licence?
PayrollPanda, Swingvy, SQL and BrioHR bill monthly or per employee. ActPay Payroll is the one exception: a single licence fee plus a much smaller annual renewal, which suits a business that has decided against another recurring bill.
Does it handle EPF, SOCSO, EIS and PCB automatically?
All five vendors on this list calculate Malaysia's statutory contributions automatically and are LHDN-approved where that applies. That is the baseline any payroll software sold in Malaysia should clear; if a vendor cannot confirm it, do not use it for anything beyond a trial.
Frequently asked questions about payroll software in Malaysia
What are the top payroll software options in Malaysia?
For most small businesses it comes down to PayrollPanda (free, no employee cap), Swingvy (payroll plus HR in one app), SQL Payroll (if you already use SQL Account), ActPay Payroll (a one-time licence instead of a subscription) and BrioHR (payroll as part of a wider HR suite).
Which software is best for payroll specifically, not HR in general?
PayrollPanda and ActPay Payroll are built around payroll alone rather than a wider HR suite, which keeps them simpler if payroll is the only problem you are solving. Swingvy and BrioHR are worth the extra cost only if you also want leave, claims or performance tools in the same place.
What are the best HR apps in Malaysia, not just payroll?
Swingvy and BrioHR both bundle payroll into a wider HR app covering leave, claims and (on BrioHR) performance and recruitment. Kakitangan.com is a free HR-only option worth a look if your team is under 5 people.
Can I just do payroll in Excel instead of buying software?
You can, and plenty of very small Malaysian businesses do, but Excel will not update itself when EPF, SOCSO, EIS or PCB rates change, and a manual formula error is the kind of mistake that surfaces months later as a LHDN or KWSP query. A free tool like PayrollPanda removes that risk at no cost, which is why we would not recommend Excel once you have even one employee on the books.
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Updated 16 September 2026: rechecked pricing on all five listed vendors directly from their own sites (all were unpriced placeholders from 2021-2023), replaced their cover images, added the FAQ section above, and removed five vendor listings (Frontier e-HR, Info-Tech, HR2eazy, BOSS Solutions, Netiquette) we could not re-verify. Kakitangan.com stays as a named mention rather than a card since we have no merchant listing for it.
