Usage-based ADP feature tracker for HR admins

The specific complaint driving this: 'Cost is rather prohibitive and there are many included services that aren't really needed' and 'the extra fees make us rethink implementing new features.' HR admins at small companies are enrolled in ADP bundles they don't fully understand, and nobody — not ADP, not the HR team — has a running record of which features inside the contract are actually being used, by whom, and at what frequency. This means every renewal conversation is guesswork: the HR admin can't walk into a negotiation with evidence.

This gap exists because ADP's customer portal shows you what you're enrolled in, not what you're actually using. Usage data, to the extent ADP tracks it internally, stays internal. The HR admin — who is typically not a data person at a 30-person company — has no systematic way to track this themselves, and no third-party tool has been built to fill that gap, partly because the ADP API access required is narrow and requires negotiation.

What's missing is a lightweight system that HR admins can use to log which ADP features are actively touched each month — payroll, time tracking, onboarding, compliance alerts, benefits enrollment, etc. — and which are dormant. Over 6-12 months, this builds a documented record of actual usage versus enrolled services, which becomes the HR admin's negotiating artifact at renewal: a concrete list of features they've never touched that justifies a downgrade or a price reduction request.

This is a business because the renewal recurs, the HR admin at a small company typically has no institutional memory of how the previous renewal went, and the difference between a well-prepared and unprepared renewal negotiation is often thousands of dollars annually. The habit of logging feature usage also creates network data — over time, aggregate usage patterns across many small businesses reveal which ADP modules are genuinely underutilized at certain company sizes, which can inform the negotiation recommendations.

What to build

Build a lightweight web app where HR admins log which ADP modules they actively used each month via a 5-minute monthly checklist, automatically generate a 12-month usage heatmap per feature, and export a renewal prep report showing dormant enrolled services with a suggested negotiation script tied to documented non-usage.

Where to start

Target HR admins who have publicly complained about ADP pricing in communities like Reddit's r/humanresources or HR-focused Slack groups — they're already motivated, already aware of the problem, and likely within 12 months of a renewal decision.

The hard part

The value only becomes clear after 3-6 months of consistent logging — getting HR admins to build the monthly habit before they've seen the payoff requires a strong early hook, which means the first renewal report has to be genuinely impressive or they churn before the product proves itself.

How it makes money

Free for the first 3 months to build the usage history, then $39/month per company — justified by a single renewal negotiation that recovers one dropped feature line.