The Story Behind KeyPay's Brand

Payroll has never been the most glamorous of industries, so when it comes to payroll software, it’s not likely to be described as “fun” or “sexy”. In fact - traditional payroll software has shown to be quite the opposite of fun. Clunky and complex, it’s unsurprising that the branding in this space is as stimulating as the boring manual work that is required.

We're different to traditional payroll software. We take the pain out of the pay run for accountants, bookkeepers, payroll bureaus and their clients by automating manual processes, empowering employees to manage their own data, and ensuring payroll compliance. We make pay day fun and we want to reflect that in everything we do, including our branding - helping our customers see that we differentiate from conventional platforms.

Where it all began

Back in 2012, when KeyPay launched in Australia, our brand looked very different to what it does now. With 3 of our 4 founders being developers, what was most important back then was getting the product right and ensuring it made things as easy as possible for our partners. Brand wasn’t a priority at that time, and you can see from our original look that it isn’t really distinguishable from any other payroll platform out there.

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But as the company grew, so did the need to evolve our image and brand to reflect our product and our attitude.

KeyPay’s brand makeover: Feng Shui, frogs, and fresh starts

To enhance our brand we had to transform our image into something fresh, fun and thought-provoking - starting with the logo. That frog’s foot that you see takes inspiration from Chinese Feng Shui: the money frog. The money frog is used traditionally in Feng Shui to attract wealth and prosperity. It symbolises the flow of money, which is what KeyPay does - streamlines payroll and helps people get paid in the easiest way possible!

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You might also notice that the frog’s foot doubles up as the ‘K’ in KeyPay depending on which way you look at it - a sort of mini optical illusion.

The birth of Bertie and KeyBot

We at KeyPay like to have fun with our work, and we wanted to reflect that in our content. So with the money frog at the core of our branding, our mascot Bertie the frog was born.

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We automate complex processes in the pay run that usually tend to frustrate employers - so it made sense to base our second mascot, KeyBot, on our awesome tech and automation capabilities. KeyBot is a robot who handles all of those manual processes, and together he and Bertie represent KeyPay’s easy, smart, efficient offering - and fun-loving attitude.

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Changing the way you work and pay

Not only do we transform business processes, but we practice what we preach every day, living and breathing the cloud with an agile team. We work hard and get the job done, but have a lot of fun in the process - and that’s core to our branding.

It certainly helps us stand out from the crowd at every conference we attend!