HR Operations, embedded — for the team that can't justify an HR specialist
BUILT BY A FOUNDER WHO ANSWERS YOUR TICKETS

From job description to onboarding — and everything in between — automated.

The 8-step Candidate Pipeline Wizard drafts your JD, builds a structured scoring rubric, generates screen + interview question packs, synthesizes interviewer debriefs into a hire/no-hire call with divergence flags, writes the offer letter, and produces the full first-90-days onboarding plan. Plus AI-drafted performance reviews, 1:1 agendas, separation packets, resume screening with NYC LL144 audit logging, and a conversational Policy Q&A bot that answers from your KnowledgeByDesign articles.

8-step hire wizard · 5 manager AI tools · Cross-product BYOK (your keys, no markup) · NYC LL144 export · Pay-transparency disclosures · PTO + onboarding · Payroll exports (Gusto, ADP, QuickBooks) · Built for SMBs (1–100 employees) the big vendors won't call back.

Start free trial See how it works
Or try the free JD generator — no signup →
NEW · ZERO-SETUP ONBOARDING

Set up in 60 seconds. First hire in 8 minutes.

Drop your company URL on signup. While you make your coffee, our AI reads your website, identifies your industry, your team size, your state's pay-transparency rules, and your existing voice. By the time you sign in, your HR app is already personalized to your business — no setup wizard, no questionnaire, no consulting engagement. Then the Coach walks you through your first hire — JD → screening rubric → interview kit → offer letter → onboarding plan — automatically advancing each step as you act. Done in 8 minutes. No help docs. No tutorials. No 4-hour Friday lost to learning the tool.

Start free — first hire in 8 minutes
$90K
HR Specialist hire, avoided
8 + 5
Hire-wizard steps + AI tools, live today
< 10 min
From brief to posted JD
$249
Starting price / month
The Pain

"Can you draft a JD by Friday?" — for the seventh role this year.

"Sarah, can you also handle the offer paperwork? And run the PTO request through? And update the handbook for the new state we hired in?"

Every SMB hits the same wall. There's no HR specialist. The Operations Lead does benefits enrollment. The CEO writes the offer letter. The line manager drafts the JD on a Saturday morning. The handbook hasn't been touched since 2022. And every state you hire in adds three new compliance line items nobody owns.

Hiring a senior HR generalist costs $80–110K a year, plus benefits. Hiring a fractional HR consultant runs $4–8K/mo. Both are too expensive for an org that just wants their team to stop asking "what's our PTO policy" twelve times a quarter.

BambooHR and Rippling want $8–15 per employee per month plus per-feature add-ons that 2x the bill. They were built for the venture-backed mid-market. The setup wizard alone takes a week. The 1–100 employee org needs an HR system that does the actual specialist work — not a system that needs an HR specialist to operate it.

That's what we built.
What's In The Box

Hire. Pay. Develop. Comply. Four pillars, one suite.

BambooHR is a great record-keeping tool. Rippling is a great IT-provisioning tool. HRByDesign has opinions about HR work. AI doing the drafting, structured rubrics enforcing fairness, compliance baked in instead of bolted on.

✦ The Killer Feature

The Candidate Pipeline Wizard — brief to onboarded, in one flow

Open a role and walk through eight AI-assisted steps, all shipped and live today: draft the JD with bias-language scan, build a structured scoring rubric, generate phone-screen + interview question packs, synthesize interviewer debriefs into a hire/no-hire recommendation with divergence flags, generate reference-check question sets calibrated to the relationship type, write the offer letter with state-specific disclosures, then produce the full first-90-days onboarding plan (I-9/W-4 reminders, account provisioning, 30/60/90 check-in prompts). Each step is optional. Each persists. Each is reviewable. You're never staring at a blank canvas.

JD GeneratorScoring RubricScreen QuestionsInterview KitDebrief SynthesisReference CheckOffer LetterOnboarding Handoff
✦ Plus: AI Tools beyond hiring

Five more wizards for the work that happens after the hire

Performance reviews drafted from manager notes. 1:1 agendas that pick up where last week's meeting left off. Separation packets with state-specific final-pay rules baked in. Resume screening that logs every AI decision to your bias-audit table for the annual NYC LL144 auditor. A conversational Policy Q&A bot that answers PTO and benefits questions from your KnowledgeByDesign articles — never invented, always cited. All shipped today.

Performance Review Writer1:1 Agenda GeneratorSeparation PacketResume Screening + LL144 LogPolicy Q&A Bot (KM RAG)LL144 Audit Export
Hire

AI JD Generator

Title, level, and 3-5 bullets → complete, inclusive job description. Gender- and age-coded language scanned. Pay transparency disclosures applied automatically for CA, NY, CO, WA, IL, MD, RI, HI, MN, NJ, DC.

Hire

Resume Scoring + Bias Audit Log

Score candidates against a structured rubric. Every AI decision logs to hr_bias_audit_log. NYC LL144 audit data is one CSV export away — your auditor will thank you.

Hire

Debrief Synthesis

Drop three interviewer scorecards in. AI rolls them up into a consensus score, surfaces divergence flags, recommends strong-hire / hire / no-hire. Calibration meeting in 10 minutes, not 90.

Hire

Offer Letter Generator

State-specific disclosures (CA pay transparency, NY-WTPA, WA salary disclosure, etc). At-will employment, contingency on background check + I-9. Counsel reviews, you send. ~$300 saved per offer in legal time.

Operate

PTO Request → Approve

Request, manager approval, balance forecasting, accrual policies, calendar view. Slack notifications if you connect. Multi-state, multi-policy support. The boring core you can't ship without.

Operate

Onboarding Checklist

I-9 / W-4 / state-tax forms. Account-provisioning checklist items (Google Workspace, Slack — checklist tasks for the new hire's manager). First-week schedule template. Day-30 / Day-60 / Day-90 check-in prompts.

Comply

Compliance Docs

Handbook builder. Anti-harassment training (cross-product via Learning). State-mandated postings. Document renewal tracker for compliance documents you upload.

Develop

AI Performance Reviews

Self-review prompts, manager-review drafts, 360 collection, calibration. AI generates first drafts from objective notes — the manager edits to taste instead of staring at a blank text box.

Pay

Payroll Exports

Clean CSV for Gusto, ADP RUN, QuickBooks Payroll. We are not a payroll processor — we are the system of record. We hand off cleanly. Your payroll provider stays your payroll provider.

Cross-Product

BYOK AI Keys

Bring your own Anthropic + OpenAI keys. No markup, no lock-in. Connect once — same keys work in every ByDesign product you license. We never see them in plaintext. Your bill from the provider, not us.

The Pipeline Wizard, In Eight Steps

From open role → offer accepted, with the methodology in the software.

Each step has AI assist. None require you to be an HR specialist. The methodology — structured scoring, bias-language scanning, calibrated debrief synthesis, state-specific compliance — is baked in.

1

JD

Title + 3 bullets → full description with bias scan + EEOC + pay range.

2

Rubric

Structured scoring criteria with weights and pass thresholds.

3

Screen

Phone-screen question pack tied to the rubric.

4

Interview

Stage-specific question kits — technical, behavioral, culture.

5

Debrief

Synthesize interviewer scores into a consensus recommendation.

6

References

Generated question sets per relationship type. Red/green flag summary.

7

Offer

State-specific disclosures, at-will, contingencies. Counsel reviews.

8

Onboarding

Auto-hand-off: I-9, W-4, accounts, first-week schedule, day-30 check-in.

Who This Is For

Real people doing HR as one job among many.

SMBs (1–100 employees) don't have a Chief People Officer. They have an operations lead, an HR generalist-of-one, or a founder who'd rather not become one. We built for them.

Operations Lead

You inherited HR by default.

Hiring, PTO, onboarding, off-boarding, the handbook. None of these were in your job description. You spend ~30% of your week on HR work you weren't trained for.

"I drafted the last three offer letters from a 2019 Word template. I'm pretty sure half the language is wrong now."
HR Generalist of One

You ARE the HR department.

Benefits enrollment, performance reviews, training, compliance, hiring, PTO, off-boarding — all you. BambooHR is too expensive. ADP wants a 3-year contract. You need a real tool that doesn't need three certifications to use.

"I do the work of three FTEs and I'm 18 months behind on performance reviews. Something has to give."
Founder / CEO

You write the offer letters.

Twenty-person company. You make the hire decisions, you negotiate the salary, you send the offer. You'd rather not hire a fractional HR consultant for $6K/month.

"I sent an offer letter last week that I literally Googled a template for. I'm not proud of it."
Hiring Manager

You interview, but you don't HIRE.

You run the technical interview. You give your thumbs-up. But there's no structure. No rubric. No reliable debrief. You just write a Slack message saying "yes" and hope.

"Three of us interviewed her, all gave thumbs-up, and the calibration meeting still took an hour. There has to be a better way."
Compliance Owner

You worry about state-specific laws.

NYC bias audit. CA pay transparency. NY wage notice. WA salary disclosure. Every state you hire in adds another compliance line item. You need them automated, not memorized.

"We just hired our first NYC employee and I'm not sure if we're now LL144-required. I need a system that knows."
Office Manager / EA

You signed up for office stuff. Not benefits enrollment.

Somehow the new-hire paperwork lands on your desk. The PTO requests come to you. You're answering "how do I update my W-4" while ordering snacks. You need a system that takes the boring stuff off your plate.

"I shouldn't be the one explaining the dependent care FSA to a new hire. I shouldn't, right?"
The Math

One automated hire pays for the subscription. Three pay for the year.

Move the slider for hires you'll make this year. We assume ~20 hours of HR-specialist work per hire (JD drafting + screening + interview prep + debrief coordination + offer drafting + onboarding setup) at $80/hr loaded cost. With the pipeline wizard, that compresses to ~3 hours of review.

Without HRBD
$12,800
~160 hours @ $80/hr
With HRBD
$4,908
Tier 1 annual + ~24 hours of review
You save
$7,892
62% reduction
Assumes ~20 hours of HR-specialist time per hire end-to-end (JD, screening, interview kit, debrief coord, offer, onboarding) vs ~3 hours with the wizard. Does not include PTO admin, performance reviews, compliance work, or off-boarding — all of which are also included.
Compliance, Baked In

We can't make you compliant. We can make compliance unmissable.

The "I didn't know that was a law" excuse doesn't work when you have employees in seven states. HRByDesign surfaces the disclosures, retention timers, and audit trails state and federal law require — so your counsel reviews instead of researches.

What's automated, what isn't

Automated
NYC Local Law 144 audit log
Every AI-assisted screening decision logs to a structured table. Annual bias-audit data is one export away.
Automated
Pay-transparency disclosures
JD generator inserts salary ranges where state law requires (CA, NY, CO, WA, IL, MD, RI, HI, MN, NJ, DC). Offer letter generator does the same.
Automated
At-will language
Standard at-will employment statements in every offer. Counsel still reviews — but the boilerplate is correct out of the gate.
Surfaced
State wage notices
NY-WTPA, CA Wage Theft Notice, etc. — flagged as companion documents. We don't generate them; we tell you you need them.
Yours to own
Annual LL144 bias audit
If you use AI screening for NYC candidates, you commission an independent annual audit. We provide the data. You commission the audit and post the results publicly. (Happy to recommend auditors.)
The Founder

You'll know the guy who answers your tickets.

Thomas Christian, founder
Thomas Christian
Founder · HR / L&D / Operations

Twenty-five years building training, support, and operations functions for SaaS start-ups. Master's in Adult Education. Hired into HR-of-one and ops-of-one roles enough times to have opinions about both. Built HRByDesign because every SMB I've worked with had the same conversation: "We can't afford BambooHR's per-employee pricing, and we definitely can't afford an HR specialist. What's between those two?"

HRByDesign is a boutique lifestyle business — no investors, no IPO plan, no sales team. You'll know my name. When you escalate a support ticket, I personally read it within 24 hours. The first 50 customers lock Early-Adopter pricing, and the next 250 lock Founding-Member pricing, all Lifetime Charter — your rate locks for the life of your account, no annual hikes.

25y
In HR / Ops / L&D
8
Pipeline steps
11
States covered for pay transparency
24h
Founder response SLA
The Founder

You'll know the guy who answers your tickets.

Thomas Christian, founder
Thomas Christian
Founder · HR / Operations / L&D

Twenty-five years building HR, operations, and people functions for SaaS start-ups. Master's in Adult Education. Built HRByDesign because every SMB I've worked with has the same problem: they need to hire well, but they can't justify a $90K HR Specialist and can't stomach a $1,500/mo enterprise tool with a six-week implementation. So they wing it — and pay for it in bad hires, missed pay-transparency rules, and PTO chaos.

HRByDesign is a boutique lifestyle business — no investors, no IPO plan, no salesforce. You'll know my name. When you escalate a support ticket, I personally read it within 24 hours. The first 50 customers lock Early-Adopter pricing, and the next 250 lock Founding-Member pricing, all Lifetime Charter — your rate locks for the life of your account, no annual hikes, no contract negotiations, no upsells.

25y
In HR / Ops / L&D
MA
Adult Education
8 + 5
Hire-wizard steps + AI tools
24h
Founder response SLA
Pricing

Flat monthly. Lifetime Charter for the founding cohort.

FOUNDING 250
Lock your tier price. Forever.
The first 50 customers lock Early-Adopter pricing, and the next 250 lock Founding-Member pricing, all Lifetime Charter — whatever tier you pick, that rate locks for the life of your account. No annual hikes. No per-employee creep. No "you've grown out of this tier" upsells.

Early Adopter

$249/mo
Suggested: 1–25 employees
  • ✓ Full Candidate Pipeline Wizard
  • ✓ JD generator + bias scan
  • ✓ Offer letter generator
  • ✓ PTO + onboarding
  • ✓ Compliance docs + LL144 log
  • ✓ Payroll exports
  • ✓ BYOK AI (your keys, no markup)
  • Generous AI usage cap

Founder

$399/mo
Suggested: 26–50 employees
  • ✓ Everything in Early Adopter
  • ✓ Higher AI usage cap
  • ✓ Performance review drafts
  • ✓ Workflow rules

Standard

$499/mo
Suggested: 51–100 employees
  • ✓ Everything in Founder
  • ✓ Higher AI usage cap
  • ✓ Custom workflow rules
  • ✓ Priority founder Q&A

Unlimited AI

$699/mo
Suggested: 100 employees max
  • ✓ Everything in Standard
  • ✓ Unlimited AI usage
  • ✓ Workflow automation
  • ✓ Early access to V1.1 features

All tiers include the same feature set. Higher tiers raise AI usage caps and unlock advanced reporting + workflow rules. Most SMBs never hit Tier 1's cap. 14 days free + 3 candidate pipelines run end-to-end — you keep the JDs, rubrics, and offer letters forever, whether or not you subscribe.

The Ecosystem

HR feeds — and is fed by — every other ByDesign product.

HRByDesign is one product in the TranscendByDesign suite. New hires you process here flow into LearningByDesign for onboarding training and into KnowledgeByDesign for handbook attestation. Policy articles you write in KM are surfaced in offer letter footnotes and onboarding flows. Shared BYOK keys, shared org-wide glossary, consistent terminology across every employee touchpoint.

Learning
LIVE

Onboarding training. Compliance training. Cross-feeds from HR.

Knowledge
LIVE

SOPs, policies, handbook. Attestation campaigns cross-feed HR.

HR
YOU ARE HERE

Hire, pay, develop, comply — the full HR-specialist workflow.

CS
LIVE

Customer service that pulls from your KB + HR policies.

Start free. Run three pipelines. No card.

14 days free. Run three complete candidate pipelines through the wizard — JD, rubric, offer letter, onboarding handoff. Export the artifacts as PDF or Word. You keep them forever, regardless of whether you subscribe. We'd rather you try it and decide than gate it behind a payment form.

Start free trial Tour the features

Note on enterprise: We deliberately don't sell to 200+ employee orgs. The boutique relationship only works at small scale. Past our cap, you'll be better served by Rippling, BambooHR, or Workday. We also deliberately don't serve regulated industries that need HIPAA-grade or FINRA-grade HR (healthcare, financial services with broker-dealer reqs, federal contractors) — those need specialists.

Note on payroll: We are not a payroll processor. We are the system of record for HR data, and we export cleanly to Gusto, ADP RUN, and QuickBooks Payroll. Your payroll provider stays your payroll provider.