The Kenjo alternative without setup fees
Kenjo covers personnel files, absences and time tracking. At MetronHR project time, client allowances and duty planning come with it, with no one-off onboarding or integration fee.
All information about Kenjo comes from the official provider pages. As at:2. September 2026.
Features in detail
| Feature | MetronHR | Kenjo |
|---|---|---|
| Overtime (automatic calculation) | ~1 | |
| Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert) | ~2 | |
| Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time) | ~3 | |
| Project time tracking / budgets | 4 | |
| Allowances / hour packages | 5 | |
| Application hosted in Germany | 6 | ~7 |
| Hosting operator without a US parent company | 8 | ~9 |
| API | 10 | ~11 |
Sources and notes (11)
- 1. Kenjo, Overtime (automatic calculation): Kenjo has time tracking, billing management and payroll preparation. An overtime account with a balance, payout and time off in lieu is not named as a separate feature in the plan overview.
- 2. Kenjo, Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert): Kenjo calculates the overtime balance automatically and detects conflicts with rest periods and maximum working time. That works on the individual entry; warning levels on the account itself with an automatic alert are not mentioned on the product page (kenjo.io/de/zeiterfassung, retrieved 14 September 2026).
- 3. Kenjo, Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time): Time tracking and shift planning are included, and on the Connect plan additionally warnings about breaches of employment law. Configurable models for flexitime, trust-based working time or alternating weekly patterns are not mentioned in the plan overview.
- 4. Kenjo, Project time tracking / budgets: Kenjo records working time. Projects, clients, activities, budgets and hourly rates are not listed in the plan overview.
- 5. Kenjo, Allowances / hour packages: The plan overview lists billing management, time tracking, shift planning and reports. It mentions client-bound hour packages with renewal and carry-over on none of the three plans (kenjo.io/de/preise, retrieved 3 September 2026).
- 6. MetronHR, Application hosted in Germany: The application and customer data run at Hetzner Online GmbH in Nuremberg and Falkenstein, exclusively in Germany.
- 7. Kenjo, Application hosted in Germany: In its privacy policy for the application Kenjo writes that data is „as a rule hosted on ISO 27001 certified servers“. No country or data centre is named.
- 8. MetronHR, Hosting operator without a US parent company: The operator is Hetzner Online GmbH, a German company with no US parent. This marketing website is hosted with Vercel, Inc. (USA) in the Frankfurt region, where no employee data is processed.
- 9. Kenjo, Hosting operator without a US parent company: Not named. The provider is Kenjo GmbH in Berlin. As sub-processors the policy lists, among others, Chargebee, Sentry, Freshworks, HubSpot, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Slack.
- 10. MetronHR, API: The open REST API v1 is part of the Professional plan: readable are employees, departments, clients, services, projects, time entries, absences and published shifts, while clients, services, projects, time entries and absences can be changed, each secured by keys with permissions per resource. Outgoing webhooks and the MCP server for AI assistants also belong to Professional. Sign-in via Microsoft Entra ID comes with every plan. Further integrations are agreed individually in the Enterprise offer.
- 11. Kenjo, API: APIs and integrations belong to the Connect plan, whose price Kenjo quotes only on request.
~ = available with limits, the notes are below the table. – = no verified information is available for this provider on this feature. That is not a no: we only record a negative where we can cite a source.
An overview of which features exist at all, regardless of plan. The price-performance comparison is on the pricing page, the individual features in detail under Features.
Feature comparison as at September 2026. Information about competitors comes from publicly available sources, in each case the official provider pages with the date retrieved, and can change. Kenjo is a trademark of its respective owner.
MetronHR is also available as a native app for iOS and Android:
Where the data sits
Server location and operator are two different questions. A data centre in Germany does not remove the data from US law: providers with a US parent company fall under the CLOUD Act and the surveillance powers of FISA 702, regardless of where the servers stand. Microsoft's chief legal officer in France testified under oath before the French Senate's committee of inquiry on 10 June 2025 that he could not guarantee that data from European data centres would not go to US authorities (record of the Sénat). That is why both are shown side by side here, each with the source it comes from.
What is compared is what the provider documents for its own application, not the infrastructure of its marketing website. More about our own hosting is in the Trust Center.
MetronHR
- Server location of the application
- Hetzner Online GmbH, Nuremberg and Falkenstein. All servers stand exclusively in Germany.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Hetzner Online GmbH, a German company with no US parent and therefore beyond the reach of the CLOUD Act and FISA 702. No US provider sits in the data path for the application.
- Processors outside Germany
- None for the application. Payment is handled by Stripe Payments Europe (Ireland). This marketing website is hosted with Vercel, Inc. (USA, Frankfurt region), and analytics run through PostHog Cloud EU and the reverse proxy cdn.metronhr.de with a Cloudflare edge. No employee data is processed there.
- Source
- MetronHR privacy policyAs at 08/2026
Kenjo
- Server location of the application
- Not named. The privacy policy for the application only undertakes that the data sits „as a rule on ISO 27001 certified servers“, without naming a country, region or operator.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Not named. The provider is Kenjo GmbH, Donaustraße 44, 12043 Berlin.
- Processors outside Germany
- The policy for the application names, among others, Chargebee (payments), Sentry (error analysis), Freshworks, HubSpot, Google LLC, Microsoft Corporation, Apple Inc., Slack Technologies and JOIN Solutions AG in Switzerland, based on standard contractual clauses.
- Source
- Kenjo, privacy policy for the applicationabgerufen 02.09.2026
All information comes from the providers' publicly available privacy policies and security pages, and the date retrieved is on every card. Providers can change their infrastructure and their processors at any time. The adequacy decision on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework still applies, but is under legal challenge.
What MetronHR does better
No one-off fee for setup and payroll connection
Kenjo quotes two amounts that fall due before the first monthly fee: from 400 euros for guided onboarding and 600 euros for implementing the DATEV integration. For a business with 20 people on the Growth plan that is a one-off 1,000 euros on top of 200 euros a month. At MetronHR there is no setup fee: register, invite employees by email, and the public holiday calendar and approval rules are preset.
Project time with client, budget and hourly rate
Kenjo records working time for personnel administration, not for billing services. Projects, clients, activities, budgets and hourly rates are not in the plan overview. Anyone billing consulting, maintenance or agency work keeps that calculation elsewhere. MetronHR books every hour against client, project and activity and shows budget usage as a traffic light.
Client allowances with renewal and carry-over
Hour packages per client that renew monthly or quarterly and carry unused hours over are not provided for at Kenjo. MetronHR keeps them with a usage view, automatic renewal and a prepared invoice, so that at the end of the month it is clear without Excel what was drawn down and what lapses.
A server location with a name instead of a certificate reference
Kenjo undertakes that the data sits „as a rule on ISO 27001 certified servers“. Country, region and operator are not stated. For businesses that have to justify where personnel data sits, that is not enough. MetronHR names the operator and the locations: Hetzner Online GmbH, Nuremberg and Falkenstein, a German company with no US parent.
Price comparison
At Kenjo it is not only the monthly prices that decide, but the one-off fees for setup and the DATEV connection.
| Service | MetronHR | Kenjo |
|---|---|---|
| Personnel file, absences, time tracking, shift planning | Team 5 euros, shift planning on Professional 10 euros | Starter 6 euros |
| + onboarding and offboarding assignment, custom workflows, BI dashboards | Professional 10 euros | Growth 10 euros |
| Setup | none, self-service in a few minutes | from a one-off 400 euros |
| Recruiting | not available | Add-on 249 or 399 euros a month |
| API and integrations | REST API v1 and webhooks from Professional, Entra ID on every plan | only on the Connect plan, price on request |
| Project time with client and budget, client allowances | included in Professional | not available |
Personnel file, absences, time tracking, shift planning
- MetronHR
- Team 5 euros, shift planning on Professional 10 euros
- Kenjo
- Starter 6 euros
+ onboarding and offboarding assignment, custom workflows, BI dashboards
- MetronHR
- Professional 10 euros
- Kenjo
- Growth 10 euros
Setup
- MetronHR
- none, self-service in a few minutes
- Kenjo
- from a one-off 400 euros
Recruiting
- MetronHR
- not available
- Kenjo
- Add-on 249 or 399 euros a month
API and integrations
- MetronHR
- REST API v1 and webhooks from Professional, Entra ID on every plan
- Kenjo
- only on the Connect plan, price on request
Project time with client and budget, client allowances
- MetronHR
- included in Professional
- Kenjo
- not available
Prices per kenjo.io/de/preise, retrieved on 2 September 2026, per employee per month. With annual payment Kenjo grants a 10 per cent discount. The Connect plan has no list price; it is requested via a demo. Both providers offer a 14-day trial.
No credit card needed · cancellable monthly
FromKenjo moving to MetronHR
Your data comes with you.Kenjo hands them over as a file, MetronHR reads people, personal data, hours and absences out of it, and before anything is taken over you see row by row what will happen. For a team under thirty people that is a matter of one to two hours, most of it spent putting the file together.
- 1
AtKenjo export
- Employee data via More options and Download CSV
- The absence table as Excel via the export icon
- The payroll period as Excel or CSV
- 2
Load the template and map the columns
The template comes as Excel and as CSV, with a second sheet that states for every column whether it is required, its format, an example and the permitted values. If your file's header row matches, the mapping falls away entirely. Otherwise the assistant proposes the mapping and marks everything that did not match word for word.
- 3
Check, then take it over
The dry run is mandatory and writes nothing. It shows for every row whether it will be created, changed, skipped or rejected, naming the column and the value behind the finding. Only the second click takes it over, in one transaction. The default is "create new ones only", and an empty cell never changes a value that has been maintained.
Export routes fromKenjo according to Kenjo help centre, retrieved on06.09.2026.
Comes with you
- People, with staff number, work address and employment contract
- Remaining holiday and the overtime balance as an opening value per person
- Departments, clients, services and projects
- Time entries and absences for the current year
- Public holidays, including regions that differ
Does not come with you
- Files from the old personnel file, they are uploaded again
- The history of an hours account, MetronHR starts from the opening value
How the move works in detail, what the dry run shows and why no invitation email goes out with it is set out on the page switching time tracking.
Frequently asked questions
What you need to know about switching from Kenjo to MetronHR.
Kenjo costs 6 euros per employee per month on the Starter plan and 10 euros on the Growth plan, 10 per cent less with annual payment; the Connect plan has no list price. On top come a one-off 400 euros and up for setup and 600 euros for implementing the DATEV connection, plus recruiting as an add-on at 249 or 399 euros a month. MetronHR costs 5 euros on Team and 10 euros on Professional, with no one-off fees. As at 2 September 2026.
If personnel development and recruiting are to run in the same system alongside time and absence. 360-degree feedback, meeting templates, training administration, applicant management with a careers page and a whistleblowing system are part of Kenjo's offer; MetronHR deliberately limits itself to time management and personnel administration. The one-off costs belong with those topics there: from 400 euros for setup, 600 euros for the DATEV connection and 249 or 399 euros a month for recruiting as an add-on. MetronHR costs 5 euros on Team and 10 euros on Professional, with no setup fee.
Project time tracking with clients, projects and activities, project budgets with a target-actual traffic light, client-bound hour packages with renewal and carry-over, and day planning in 15-minute steps with activities, staffing rules and qualification requirements. An overtime account with a balance and time off in lieu is standard equipment at MetronHR and is not shown as a separate feature at Kenjo.
In its privacy policy for the application Kenjo writes that data is „as a rule hosted on ISO 27001 certified servers“, but names neither a country nor an operator. Sub-processors listed include Chargebee, Sentry, Freshworks, HubSpot, Google, Microsoft, Apple and Slack. MetronHR runs at Hetzner Online GmbH in Nuremberg and Falkenstein.
Yes, for master data, documents, absences and times. Kenjo offers reports and, on the Connect plan, an API. What cannot be carried over is performance reviews, applicant data and training administration, because MetronHR does not cover those areas. Anyone who still needs them should settle before switching which tool will take them on.
Question not answered here? Every step is explained in the help centre.
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