SmartHR AI features and pricing (November 2026)

SmartHR is a Japanese cloud platform for payroll, HR administration and talent management, built specifically around Japanese labor law and used by more than 80,000 companies. An AI assistant answers employee questions and helps HR compare and select staff from existing records.

SmartHR, headquartered in Tokyo, builds a back-office system covering labor and payroll administration, employee self-service, talent management, onboarding, year-end tax adjustments and recruitment for the Japanese market. The company reports more than 80,000 registered companies as customers, ranging from small businesses to enterprises with around 1,000 employees, across industries such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing and IT. Admins and employees can switch the display language, and help pages exist in English, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Portuguese, while the product itself is built for companies operating in Japan.

• Answers employee questions around the clockAn AI assistant embedded in the employee portal answers HR-related questions instantly, at any time of day, instead of routing every question to an HR staff member. This is meant to cut the volume of routine inquiries reaching the HR team.
• Reads resumes into the personnel recordThe AI resume reading feature uses Google's Gemini model to extract information from uploaded resumes and transfer it into the employee record automatically. According to the vendor, the extracted data is not shared with third parties or used to train the underlying AI model, and HR staff avoid retyping applicant details by hand.
• Finds employees with similar profilesThe AI similar-employee search analyzes stored employee data across multiple attributes and suggests people with a comparable profile to a selected employee, for staffing or role decisions. It is included in the HR Strategy and Talent Management plans, or as a paid add-on, and aims to make placement decisions more transparent and data-based.

• Built specifically around Japanese labor law and payroll rules, including year-end tax adjustment, rather than adapted from a global product.
• Offers a permanently free plan for businesses with up to 30 employees, with paid plans required for AI features like similar-employee search.
• The AI resume reader runs on Google's Gemini model under a stated no-training, no-third-party-sharing policy for extracted applicant data.

SmartHR is headquartered in Tokyo and, according to the company, serves more than 80,000 registered Japanese companies; the platform is built specifically around Japanese payroll and labor law.

Because SmartHR is built around Japanese payroll and labor law, with Japanese as the main support language, companies without staff in Japan should clarify whether it fits their setup at all. Confirm which plan tier is required for the AI features you want, since similar-employee search needs the HR Strategy or Talent Management tier or a paid add-on. Where AI-assisted staffing suggestions influence placement decisions, clarify internally who reviews the AI's suggestion before it is acted on.

• APPI under review, amendments expected by 2027
• AI Promotion Act favors guidelines over hard rules
• No works councils, but Article 36 agreements cover many workplaces

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