Northride

HRNZ Q/A

Describe your product or service and what it delivers:

Northride is a fully managed, IRD-approved salary-sacrifice bike benefit scheme.  

Employees get a new bike or e-bike through pre-tax salary deductions under New Zealand's Fringe Benefit Tax exemption, while Northride handles financing, bike cover, servicing and the employee app for you. 

What size business or organisation does your product/ service suit?

Northride suits employers of any size, from SMBs to large enterprises.   

Because Northride finances the equipment directly rather than requiring you to pay for it upfront, this is especially practical for SMBs who want to offer a meaningful, tax-efficient benefit but do not have the necessary cash flow to offer a similar scheme. 

The Northride digital platform handles quoting, approvals and lease administration, so your day-to-day workload is minimal whether you have 5 employees or 5,000. 

What kinds of organisations may be interested in your product/ service?

If you are wanting to strengthen your remuneration and total-rewards package without adding payroll cost, or focused on staff wellbeing, sustainability or reducing car dependency, Northride would be a good fit.  

 It suits workplaces with a genuine cycling interest or commuter catchment, as well as employers simply looking for an easy, no-cost way to offer cost-of-living relief.  

Since there is minimal employer financial exposure, it is equally attractive to budget-conscious SMBs and larger organisations running structured employee benefits programmes as part of their employee value proposition. 

How long has your product/ service been on the market?

Backed by Vapaus, who has delivered 32K+ bikes via successful workplace bike benefit salary sacrifice schemes across Scandinavia since 2018, Northride launched in New Zealand in 2026, following New Zealand's 2023 introduction of Fringe Benefit Tax exemptions for employer-provided bikes and e-bikes used for commuting. 

What does your standard product cost?

For employers with over 50 employees, there is no cost to the employer to offer Northride: no set-up fee, subscription or ongoing charge.   

Employees pay for their bike or e-bike (plus any optional bike cover, servicing or accessories) over the lease term, typically 24 months, through pre-tax salary deductions based on the cost of their chosen package. Through this process, your employees end up saving 25% + on their bike. 

For employers under 50, there is a cost-neutral $10 monthly management fee per bike (reduction in Kiwisaver and ACC levy contributions). 

Are there annual licensing costs? How are these structured?

No annual licensing fees.  

Is your product an off the shelf solution, or does it require customisation?

Northride's employer platform is off the shelf and designed for fast onboarding with no technical integration required.  

We understand every business is unique, so we allow employers to customise this scheme for your workforce. This allows you to manage guardrails, such as participants of the scheme and their eligibility, alongside maximum package value. 

Once registered, you can make the benefit available to some or all staff immediately. Employees customise their own package by choosing their preferred bike or e-bike and optional add-ons such as bike cover, servicing budgets and accessories.  

We worked with payroll specialists to create integration guides for New Zealand’s most commonly used payroll solutions (Xero, Payhero, MYOB, etc), making it easy to get it up and running. 

How long does your product take to implement? How does customisation impact this?

Employer registration is designed to be quick, with no complicated payroll system integration required beyond setting up a standard pre-tax salary deduction.   

As part of the onboarding process, we will require a credit check on the business as all bikes are fully financed. 

Because the platform is not customised for each employer, there is no lengthy build or configuration phase: your organisation is then onboarded, communicates the benefit to staff, and employees can begin requesting bikes through the app straight away. If you think you’ll require customisation, reach out to speak to our team about your requirements. 

Once set-up, your employees can go from bike selection to quote and sign-off as fast as their request is approved. 

There is no minimum implementation: a single employee scheme can be running within days of you deciding to offer it, and larger organisations rolling the benefit out across their whole workforce can scale communication and onboarding at their own pace, with no additional build cost from Northride. 

What is your post-implementation support? Are there costs to this or is the up-front cost inclusive of additional support?

Once live, ongoing administration is minimal for you: our Northride platform and app handle quoting, approvals, salary-deduction schedules and ownership transfer at the end of each lease.  

We manage app onboarding and educating your employees, offering opportunities for them to test ride bikes and find their perfect fit. 

There is no additional cost to you for this ongoing support, it is included as part of the standard Northride offering. 

We have a friendly customer support team based in New Zealand, who will be able to help with any further questions or issues. 

Would you be able to provide example customers/ organisations who would be willing to allow site-visits for potential customers to view a demonstration of the product or service in action?

We are happy to discuss case studies and implementation scenarios that best mirror your organisation’s needs, both from New Zealand and internationally. Please reach out to learn more.