Aptera builds first-of-its-kind “solar electric vehicles” that drive up to 40 miles per day powered by nothing but the sun, with a range of 400 miles per charge as an EV. “The people who join and stay with us love the mission,” said Sarah Cravens, Aptera’s Head of Employee Experience, “which is doing what we can to make a positive impact on the planet and be more conscious about how we use our resources.”

But as a resource-conscious startup—one that’s almost entirely crowdfunded and has close to 50,000 vehicle pre-orders that it’s eager to get on the road—Aptera doesn’t want to devote chunks of time and money to admin work. Aptera initially offloaded HR, payroll, and compliance tasks to a PEO through Insperity, but “it didn’t work for us,” Sarah said. “It had too much control over how we did things… Our hands were tied, limiting our options to make business-related decisions.“

That said, the thought of taking on HR, payroll, and compliance in-house was daunting. In past roles, Sarah drained hours a week troubleshooting payroll issues and fielding employee concerns when they weren’t accurately compensated. “You mess with people’s money, you start to lose their trust,” she said. In her current role at Aptera, she worried about managing payroll on top of tax registrations for employees across five different states, compliance, and benefits… all while steering the employee experience. 

For the autonomy, automation, and support she needed, she found Rippling.

Aptera left Insperity’s PEO and adopted Rippling’s Administrative Service Offering (ASO). Now, Sarah can confidently run HR and error-free payroll by herself—with more control and less compliance busywork than with past solutions. “Rippling has made it possible for me to manage all things HR, Payroll, and IT as a team of one,“ she said. My entire career I’d been looking for something like Rippling,” she said. “It checked all the major boxes for me.”

We’re going to be in compliance because of Rippling. There’s a lot of ‘I can sleep at night,’ comfort because I rely that much on Rippling and have yet to be let down.

Sarah Cravens

Head of Employee Experience at Aptera

With Rippling ASO, Aptera gets end-to-end compliance and HR support. “I can run a clean and compliant system for our startup,” Sarah said. The system handles federal, state, and local tax account registrations in every jurisdiction the company hires—so she doesn’t have to drain countless hours researching varying tax laws and managing every account. “I don’t spend time on that. It’s done. It’s automated,” Sarah said. Ditto for legally required workplace trainings, which Rippling’s Learning Management System (LMS) administers to employees automatically. “It’s one less thing to worry about. We set it up and Rippling does the rest,” Sarah said. 

“We’re going to be in compliance because of Rippling. There’s a lot of ‘I can sleep at night,’ comfort because I rely that much on Rippling and have yet to be let down.”

Rippling ASO also gives Aptera access to expert compliance support whenever needed. Instead of going through an expensive employment law firm like she’s done in the past, Sarah used Rippling’s partner, Mineral to update Aptera’s employee handbook for 2025. Through Rippling, she can also speak with an HR advisor whenever she has questions about dealing with performance issues, employee relations, or anything else that comes up. “Their expertise is really invaluable,” she said. “It’s super meaningful to have someone I consider a colleague available to help make difficult decisions.” According to Sarah, Mineral and HR advisors save the company $10,000 a year.

When Aptera decided to break away from its PEO in March of 2022, Sarah promised one of the co-founders she’d implement an alternative HR solution by July. Within those few months, she joined Rippling, found a benefits broker, went through open enrollment, and got every employee in the system—with the plans they wanted— by the deadline. “That was only possible through Rippling,” she said. “We gave our brokers access and they set up the whole thing. It was magical.” 

The startup prides itself on offering a great benefits package to employees, which it pays for out of its own pocket and administers on its own terms. Sarah appreciates how Cobra, HSA, FSA, and commuter benefits are all in the same platform and easy to update. “Rippling is my benefits manager,” she said. “Anyone who walks into my office and is confused about something, I open up Rippling and 99 percent of the time get an answer.” 

Rippling does so much that it spares Sarah from making a full-time hire. “I don’t have a benefits person. Rippling eliminates the need for a higher-level specialist or manager which would require a salary between $100,000 and $130,000.”

Sarah oversaw payroll in past roles at prior companies and found it a constant headache. During one stint, because of an unreliable payroll provider, she had to run corrections every pay run. She’d spend 20 hours a week fielding employee complaints and trying to pinpoint how errors kept occurring. “When I got to Aptera, I said I’m not doing payroll. It’s a nightmare,” Sarah said. Then she found a solution that handled the most cumbersome parts of it for her. “It’s a dream with Rippling.”

Rippling Payroll automatically deducts the right tax withholdings from employees’ paychecks—no matter where they live. And if the company makes a mistake and needs to run a correction, Sarah can handle it in seconds instead of hours. “It’s a manual process with other systems. With Rippling, if we’re short four hours on an employee’s paycheck, we put in the correct information, and across the board, every withholding autocorrects.” 

Just like Rippling ASO saved Sarah from making a full-time benefits hire, Rippling Payroll saved Sarah from making a full-time hire dedicated just to paying employees. “Without Rippling, I could not have done payroll,” she said. “I’m not a tax person. I’m not a payroll person. I’m able to essentially fill that role for the company without having to pay someone to do it. I’m saving us an entire headcount’s salary. On the cheap end, that’s $85,000 for a role that Rippling fills for us.” Sarah also appreciates that she doesn’t have to duplicate any work across her HRIS and payroll platform. For example, when she changes an employee’s salary in the HRIS, Rippling automatically updates the payroll data to match.

“People who have actually done HR work created Rippling’s solutions,” she said. “You can feel it because it automatically solves everyday problems that I’ve had to handle manually or outside of any other system that I’ve used.”

• Headcount and compliance savings: Rippling saved Aptera $225,000: one full-time headcount salary for benefits ($130,000), one for payroll ($85,000), and legal costs for guidance on HR issues through a third-party law firm ($10,000).
• Time-savings: With Rippling, Payroll only takes Sarah one to five minutes every pay run, saving her 20 hours a month.
• Win-win HR: With Rippling ASO, Aptera doesn’t have to sacrifice support for control. The startup moved off its PEO and runs HR how it wants—all while leaning on trusted expertise when needed.