A Case Study
Salary in Sight
In India, salary day is still a guessing game. RazorpayX can turn it into a moment of trust.
TL;DR
Employees don’t know if or when salary will credit. That uncertainty fuels anxiety, repeat HR tickets, and mistrust in payroll.
Ship a payroll tracker that surfaces the next salary window, explains deductions plainly, and nudges employees before they worry.
–30%
Payroll-related HR queries
Supports downstream trust and retention metrics.
Context
RazorpayX already powers payroll and compliance for 30,000+ Indian businesses. Yet for employees, payday remains a black box—will it credit at 9 AM, 6 PM, or slip to tomorrow? That opacity spawns duplicate HR queries, missed bill payments, and a quiet erosion of trust.
What Employees Are Saying
Synthesized from Reddit threads, Glassdoor reviews, and HR forums. These are not edge cases—they surface week after week.
🌀 Timing Anxiety
“Salary comes anytime after 6pm. Rent is due at 5. I sit refreshing my bank app.”
💸 Deductions Confusion
“PF, TDS, PT — the payslip looks like alphabet soup. Net is always less than expected.”
⌛ Request Black Hole
“Submitted reimbursement two weeks back. HR says ‘in process’. That means nothing.”
🔔 Escalation Fatigue
“Every time payroll slips, I raise a ticket. Feels like I’m managing HR, not the other way around.”
Across 40+ public comments, the pattern isn’t distrust of Razorpay’s tech. It’s distrust of the silence. Employees don’t panic when there’s a deduction or delay; they panic when there’s no clarity on what’s next.
Jobs to Be Done
Here’s how those pains translate into the jobs employees are “hiring payroll” to do:
When I wait for salary, I need to know exactly when and how much will credit, so I can pay rent or bills on time.
If unmet → support tickets, late fees, stress. If solved → predictable cashflow and trust.
When deductions happen, I want them explained simply, so I don’t assume payroll errors.
If unmet → resentment toward employer. If solved → tax compliance starts to feel like empowerment.
When I request advances or reimbursements, I need transparent progress, so I’m not chasing HR.
If unmet → duplicate work and escalations. If solved → HR bandwidth freed, faster employee satisfaction.
Solution: Salary in Sight
We designed a 7-screen employee app prototype. It’s minimal, fintech-grade, and consistent with Razorpay’s design language while borrowing the bold, friendly cues from our homepage.
Hello, Ramesh
Your September payout is on track.
Next Salary
₹58,000
Sep 30
Last Salary
₹55,000
Aug 31
Processing → Credited
ETA today 3–5 PM
MVP Scope
Next vs last salary, ETA window, and shortcuts to payslip + reimbursements.
Component breakdown with net pay in focus and one-tap PDF download.
Advances & reimbursements with color-coded statuses and promised-by dates.
PF/TDS demystified with actionable hints to optimize take-home pay.
Measurement & Causality
Experiment design
A/B test cohorts: tracker vs control, split by employee tenure to account for experience bias.
Primary metric
–30% payroll-related HR queries. Count via shared inbox tagging + call center dispositions.
Guardrail
No increase in payroll escalations or manual overrides. Monitor weekly variance.
Qual signals
“Salary confidence” pulse post-rollout plus usability interviews with finance & HR partners.
ROI Model
Method based on HR outsourcing costs in India; assumes 1,000 SMEs on RazorpayX payroll.
₹400
Cost per HR query
20%
Employees raising queries
30%
Target reduction
₹5.7 Cr
Annual savings
Competitive Lens
Payroll tools such as Zoho Payroll, greytHR, and Keka zero-in on compliance and accounting workflows. Few offer a real-time, employee-facing trust layer. RazorpayX can own that differentiator.
Beyond MVP: Expansion Path
Advance salary drawdowns (earned wage access) with guardrails tied to employer policy.
Salary-linked tax saving & investments—upload proofs, auto-calculate options to lift take-home.
Financial wellness dashboard with spend predictions, nudges, and bite-sized education.
Deeper HR analytics for employers—variance alerts, policy compliance, and ROI reporting.
Risks
Bank delays undermine credibility. Mitigation: show historical ETA bands, not false promises, and surface “bank pending” states explicitly.
Highlighting deductions triggers frustration. Mitigation: pair every deduction with a plain-language explainer and action to reduce it (upload proofs, adjust declarations).
Feature bloat creeps in. Mitigation: uphold MVP guardrails, releasing financial extras only after core clarity metrics improve.
Sources
- Payroll outsourcing cost India: Voltech HR (2025)
- India HR outsourcing market: TechSci Research (2025)
- Zoho Payroll overview: Zoho Docs
- greytHR, Keka: greytHR, Keka
- Employee complaints: Reddit, Glassdoor