What’s the best payroll software? (2024)

Payroll software solves this problem for companies of any size, and you can find a software option with just about any features your business needs to get up and running or continue to grow.

The 10 best payroll software options of 2024

OnPay: Best for combining payroll and HR needs

Founded in 2011, OnPay is an online payroll platform service born out of a long-standing family-owned payroll business. Prior to building out its digital payroll system, the company serviced 200 small businesses. Now, the company headquartered in Atlanta, provides payroll services to more than 20,000 businesses throughout the United States.

Why we picked it

OnPay tops our list of best payroll service companies because of its abundance of features, competitive pricing, and a generous 30-day free trial. Without any extra charges, the payroll service integrates with benefits administration platforms and time tracking tools. It also supports independent contractor payments without additional charges. OnPay technically offers one plan option, and the cost scales up as you add additional users.

Unlike many of its startup competitors, OnPay has its roots in payroll services and has a deep understanding of the challenges accountants deal with in managing payroll manually.

The company offers free account setup, data migration, and support for setting up integrations but, best of all, it guarantees calculation accuracy for automated taxes. That peace of mind can go a long way for small businesses less versed in tax codes.

Plans, features, and pricing

Justworks: Best for remote teams

Founded in 2012, Justworks is an online payroll service company catering to small business needs. Headquartered in New York, the company supports over 8,000 businesses and over 100,000 employees with its payroll and human resources (HR) management platform.

Prior to launching Justworks, the company’s founder Isaac Oates, co-founded Adtuitive, which was later acquired by Etsy. During his time with Adtuitive and Etsy, Oates became inundated with the paperwork and tedious tasks involving payroll and other administrative tasks, which inspired him to build a platform to automate the process.

Why we picked it

Justworks is one of the best payroll services because its features and support check all of the necessary boxes, and it has multiple plans to match your business’s needs. The plans are designed to support companies with as little as one employee to others with more than 100. Through its professional employer organization (PEO) or co-employment, Justworks can support all of your human resource (HR) needs from onboarding and health benefits to payroll and contractor payments.

Top features include advanced people analytics (insights on time off, compensation, and benefits); HR consulting (guidance from experts to align with industry best practices); and health advocacy services (ability to generate a summary of your company’s benefits quickly and share it with prospective hires).

Plans, features, and pricing

Rippling: Best for international payroll

Founded in 2016, Rippling is an all-in-one HR, information technology (IT), and finance management system designed to support businesses of any size almost anywhere. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York; London; Dublin; Bengaluru, India; and Sydney; the company has a global presence that spans multiple continents. Rippling supports over 8,000 companies and 300,000 employees.

Why we picked it

Rippling is one of the best payroll service companies on the market because it allows for international payrolls to be processed without additional charges—a service many of its competitors don’t offer. The platform also integrates with over 500 applications to allow companies to have all of their existing tools work seamlessly with their HR tool.

Rippling also has an edge over many of its competitors because of its services beyond payroll. The company offers IT cloud services that support app, device, and inventory management; and finance services, which includes corporate credit card support.

Plans, features, and pricing

Roll by ADP: Best for small businesses

Founded in 1949, Automatic Data Processing (ADP) is one of the longest-running and arguably the largest payroll and HR management companies in the U.S. Headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey, ADP supports over one million clients, including most Fortune 500 companies, across 140 countries globally.

ADP offers several payroll service options for clients under different names, including ADP Run and ADP Workforce. Unlike the company’s other products, which support large companies with enterprise solutions, Roll by ADP is designed to support smaller businesses.

Why we picked it

Roll by ADP is one of the best payroll services because of its intuitive mobile app, affordable pricing, and advanced generative artificial intelligence (AI) integration. The AI chatbot comes standard without any additional charges, allowing small business owners to get answers to their HR-related questions quickly. Time saved can lead to higher productivity for solopreneurs and other small business owners who need to wear many hats. Additionally, this isn’t a new startup looking to ride the wave of today’s AI trends. Roll is backed by one of the most successful payroll and HR management services in the industry. That name should hold some weight when deciding which company you want to manage payment for your employees and deducting taxes and benefits.

Roll by ADP also offers a 90-day free trial to allow businesses to give the app a test drive before fully committing.

Plans, features, and pricing

Gusto: Best for freelancer and contractor payments

Launched in 2012, Gusto Inc. is a cloud-based payroll and HR management software company headquartered in San Francisco. The company, formally known as ZenPayroll, has had plenty of success, reportedly generating over $500 million in revenue in a recent fiscal year. Gusto serves more than 300,000 businesses in the U.S., and processes billions of dollars in payroll annually, according to the company’s website. Gusto provides payroll, employee benefits, and other HR services for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to solopreneurs.

Why we picked it

Gusto is a great payroll and HR management software for SMBs because it is rich in features and competitively priced. However, most importantly, the company offers a number of plans to fit your business needs that you can grow with and switch to a higher tier when needed.

It even offers an affordable Contractor only plan, which can be an ideal option for many solopreneurs and other businesses that do not have W-2 employees.

Gusto has a demo available for potential customers to get a glimpse of how the platform looks and feels and offers free account setup to help you get started. There’s no long-term contract, and you can cancel your account anytime.

While Gusto is great for solopreneurs, and other small to midsize companies, it isn’t set up to be the best payroll platform for larger companies.

Plans, features, and pricing

Workful: Best for integrated time-tracking features

Founded in 2017, Workful is a human resources, payroll, and timesheet management company headquartered in Augusta, Georgia. According to the company’s website, Workful’s roots derive from TaxSlayer.com, TaxSlayer Pro, and LegalSpark. Its owner and chief human resources officer (CHRO), Ashleigh Wilder was previously the CHRO of TaxSlayer, LLC.

The company, which has a much smaller market share than most of its competitors on this list, prides itself on being a small business that provides solutions for small businesses.

Why we picked it

Workful is one of the best payroll services available because time tracking features are included, while many of its competitors charge extra or don’t offer them at all. The time tracking tool automatically calculates overtime and time accrual, which can save business owners from tedious math.

While Workful does not have the same footprint as companies, such as ADP, Gusto, and Paylocity, its simple and intuitive services should meet the needs of most small businesses. The company also makes available a 30-day free trial for potential customers to test it out before committing.

Workful plans, features, and pricing

QuickBooks Payroll: Best for QuickBooks users

Intuit, founded in 1983, introduced QuickBooks in 1992 for individuals and small businesses to do their own taxes and bookkeeping easily. QuickBooks gained popularity for its computer applications. Now, most of its services are cloud-based.

Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Intuit and its QuickBooks subsidiary have become household names in accounting software. The parent company has over 15 million customers globally.

Why we picked it

With its long-standing track record of supporting individuals and businesses with accounting needs, QuickBooks Payroll is one of the best payroll options available. The company offers plenty of cloud-based plans to choose from, but we’ve decided to focus on their three Essentials plans. Each includes unlimited payroll runs, automated tax calculations, employee portal, payroll reports, and is available in all 50 states.

Potential customers can get a live expert to assist for free for the first 30 days. A 30-day free trial is also available, and customers can cancel anytime. However, the cost is higher than many of its competitors.

QuickBooks Payroll plans, features, and pricing

QuickBooks does not offer its payroll product as a stand-alone. Instead, it’s an add-on to the well-known accounting platform—which offers multiple plans and pricing of its own. For the purposes of this article, we are utilizing the Essentials plan for the base accounting software price ($60 per month) and then adding a payroll plan to that monthly cost.

Users can choose to either get a free trial or an introductory discount, but cannot take advantage of both offers.

SurePayroll: Best for users who can handle their own tax filing

Founded in 2000, SurePayroll is a subsidiary of Paychex, a payroll and HR service that has been around since 1971. SurePayroll is an online payroll platform designed to support small businesses with their accounting needs. Headquartered in Highland Park, Illinois, SurePayroll is one of the smaller companies on our list of best payroll services. However, its parent company serves over 700,000 clients throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Why we picked it

Like Roll by ADP and QuickBooks Payroll by Intuit, SurePayroll is backed by one of the larger parent companies in accounting services. That alone should give you assurances that the cloud-based service is set up to support your payroll needs accurately. In addition, while SurePayroll features may appear to be somewhat limited relative to its competitors, the no-frills plans come at a far more affordable monthly price.

If you’re looking for a bare-bones payroll and HR management tool where you don’t pay for features you won’t use, SurePayroll might be your best option. Still, the plans offer unlimited payroll runs, free two-day direct deposit, and an HR advisor.

SurePayroll plans, features, and pricing

Patriot Software: Best for low rates

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Canton, Ohio, Patriot Software has provided payroll and other HR management services to tens of thousands of businesses across the U.S. The company, which has 180 employees, reached a milestone last year by processing over $13 billion in payroll and payroll tax dollars since 2018, according to its website.

Why we picked it

Patriot Software is one of the best payroll services, especially because of its extremely affordable pricing. Despite the low monthly cost, the two plans—Basic Payroll and Full Service Payroll— are equipped with plenty of features including unlimited payrolls; time and attendance integration; and Free payroll setup assistance, 401(k) integration, and workers’ comp integration.

There are also demos available, and a 30-day free trial for potential customers so you won’t buy into the service without knowing what you’re getting yourself into. While Patriot Software says its payroll platform is designed for companies with as many as 500 employees in all industries, it is not available for companies with staff working outside of the U.S.

Patriot Software plans, features, and pricing

Paylocity: Best for larger, global companies

Founded in 1997 under the name Ameripay Payroll Ltd. and renamed Paylocity in December 2005, Paylocity is a cloud-based payroll and HR management service. As one of the more recognized names in the cloud-based accounting industry, Paylocity serves more than 33,000 companies including familiar names, such as the YMCA and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, the payroll company employs over 6,000 people, according to its website.

Why we picked it

Over the last couple of decades, Paylocity has positioned itself as one of the premier cloud-based payroll and HR management platforms in the industry. The company is designed to support all business sizes, especially larger companies and those with a global presence. Its features include customizable workstreams; general ledger (GL) mapping for activity, such as earnings, deductions, and taxes; and paycheck accuracy to give businesses peace of mind.

The features may be over the top for solopreneurs and small businesses with a limited number of employees. However, businesses with staff operating in multiple countries across the globe may find Paylocity to be the best option for their needs.

Plans, features, and pricing

Pricing is not available on Paylocity’s website and can vary based on the size of your company and which modules and services you need. You need to contact Paylocity for a quote and demo.

What is payroll software?

Payroll software is any platform a company can download or access online that facilitates payments to employees. It helps anyone in the company track hires, employee hours, and salaries, and make payments to employees by check or bank account deposit. Payroll software generally calculates and makes payments for payroll and employee income taxes to federal, state, and local tax agencies.

Many payroll software options also help companies manage employee benefits, such as health insurance plans and 401(k) contributions, track time off, and manage reimbursem*nts for employee expenses. They can also be used to manage contractor payments and generate payroll reports for the company.

How payroll software works

Ideally, payroll software automates all of a company’s processes surrounding employee payment, benefits, and compliance tracking. Its purpose is to make payroll management easier by taking care of the calculations and processes involved.

The most manual part of payroll software is the initial setup and employee or contractor onboarding. A company representative has to enter company details to create an account, and they have to enter any existing employee details. For a new company or one that is getting started with hiring, this process is fairly simple. It might require more time for an existing company with hundreds or thousands of employees.

Upon setup, a company can choose to integrate payroll software with an existing time tracking system and human resources (HR) software or choose payroll software that has those tools built in. A company representative will need to enter basic company information, such as administrator contact details as well as financial information, including a bank account to be the source for payments and the company’s tax identification number (TIN).

If a company is moving onto payroll software from a previous software or other payroll processing system in the middle of the tax year, they’ll need to enter year-to-date (YTD) payroll information for each employee to ensure accurate reporting and tax forms at the end of the year.

When a company adds a new employee or contractor, they can usually add their name and email to the payroll software and share an invitation for the worker to enter contact and banking details and submit a W-4 or W-9 tax form. Allowing workers access to a self-service portal is a simple way to empower them to ensure their details are always up to date for tax and payment purposes. Only an authorized company representative will have access to updated details, such as salary and access to benefits.

Either employees or employers can keep track of an employee’s work hours (if they’re paid hourly) during a pay period. At the scheduled interval for payroll, such as monthly, twice monthly, or every other week, payroll software calculates employee paychecks automatically based on their salaries or hours worked plus bonuses or commissions and deducts retirement contributions and income and payroll taxes. Some payroll software makes tax payments to the proper agencies automatically as well.

At the end of the tax year, many payroll software options can generate W-2 and 1099 forms automatically for workers, submit them to tax agencies, and distribute them to workers. This is often a significant time and cost savings for a company as well as a simple way to ensure compliance with various tax requirements. With a self-service portal, workers can access their tax forms as well as pay stubs through the software anytime, including after they’ve left the company, freeing HR, accountants, and other employees from needing to provide these forms upon request.

Who needs payroll software?

Any company, including a company of one, can benefit from using payroll software to automate and simplify payroll processes. Large companies tend to use enterprise-level payroll software to facilitate payroll and benefits managed by an in-house HR department

A small company or self-employed individual can manage payroll manually, but software can do it more efficiently and ensure compliance with federal, state, and local tax and employment laws you might not be aware of. The monthly subscription fees for payroll software are much lower than the cost of hiring someone full-time or part-time to manage payroll, which could be important for a very small company where many business functions could fall to just one or two people.

If you’re self-employed as a sole proprietor and don’t ever hire employees or contractors, you probably don’t need payroll software to manage your income and taxes. But if you run your business as an S-corp or C-corp for tax purposes, even if you’re the sole full-time employee, payroll software can reduce tax headaches without adding a significant cost. If you only pay contractors through your business, payroll software can make it easy. Contractor-only accounts are usually very low cost because the software doesn’t have to manage tax payments or benefits. They facilitate payments and compile 1099s.

As payroll and benefits management becomes more complex in a business, especially as the size of the company grows, it might benefit from working with a professional employer organization (PEO) rather than managing its own payroll software. While payroll software can be beneficial for any size business with simple needs, a PEO is ideal for small businesses (up to 50 employees) and medium-sized businesses (51 to 200 employees) that have complex payroll, benefits, and compliance needs but don’t necessarily need a full in-house HR department.

How to choose the best payroll software

Look for these features when choosing payroll software for a small business:

• Automation and compliance: The purpose of payroll software is to take tasks off your plate. Good software should handle payroll automatically without a lot of manual input (aside from employee time tracking). It should be able to check a company’s details for compliance with tax and employment laws and alert you to anything that needs your attention.
• Employee self-service portal: Especially for small businesses with limited resources, a self-service option adds significant ease and saves time for a company and reduces headaches for workers. Paired with automatic alerts, it can also ensure workers keep their contact information up to date before tax forms are filed and distributed.
• Benefits and HR management: For businesses with health insurance benefits, retirement contributions, paid time off, and other benefits, look for payroll software that has the option to manage these all in one place. Some payroll software companies help small businesses sign up for health insurance and retirement plans right through the software, and some simply allow you to manage an external plan through the software. Either way, putting this in one place adds ease for both administrators and employees.

Is free payroll software any good?

Few viable free payroll software options exist for United States–based businesses. Those that do might require significant technical expertise to set up, come with a clunky user interface (UI), or be restricted to very few employees. They tend to have very limited features to lure users to sign up and charge extra for basics, such as direct deposit and tax management.

Payroll software alternatives

As mentioned above, businesses with complex payroll or benefits needs might be better served by a PEO or third-party vendor rather than using payroll software in-house. Small businesses with just a few employees may get along just fine with something as simple as a spreadsheet.

PEO

A PEO is a firm that provides HR services by acting as a co-employer for a company. They provide payroll and benefits administration and can save a company money by giving it access to group health insurance and retirement plans that wouldn’t otherwise be available to a small business. They also provide access to experts who can help a company manage compliance and risk through employment best practices. A company might access a PEO through software that works similarly to payroll software. They often provide portals for administrators and employee self-service, so the experience for most employees is similar to that of any payroll software.

The biggest difference between a PEO and payroll software is cost. Both typically come with a monthly fee based on number of employees and other features. With payroll software, a company is only paying for the software, while it pays for service and expertise from real humans with a PEO.

Spreadsheets

On the opposite end of the cost spectrum, a company might forgo payroll software altogether and track employee payments through a simpler system, such as a spreadsheet or database. This option is usually free (if you use software, such as Google Sheets or Notion), so it could be attractive to very small businesses. However, these systems only handle calculations—and only the ones you build them to handle. You’ll need separate systems for keeping track of employees’ contact information, bank details, tax rates, and other compliance requirements. You’ll have to fill out and file tax forms each year manually, which might come with a fee. You’ll have to file payments for payroll and income taxes manually.

Hire a third-party service

If you don’t want to use payroll software but don’t want to handle all of these details yourself, you could hire a payroll service, accountant, or bookkeeper to manage some or all of the process for you. This could be a good option for a small business with some complexity but not enough to justify using a PEO—or if you prefer to give your business to another small business owner instead of a tech company. Otherwise, payroll software is usually a more efficient and lower-cost option than a labor-intensive payroll service.

Our methodology

The Fortune Recommends team researched 48 plans from more than 20 companies to compile this list of the best payroll software. Our team took care to find the features that matter most to both business owners and employees, aiming to provide solutions that meet the needs of users at all points in the payroll process. These are the categories that were utilized in our ranking:

• Pricing transparency (10%): Companies that clearly define how much their software costs received higher scores than those that require you to contact a salesperson to get a quote.
• Free trial (10%): Bonus points were awarded to platforms that allow users to set up a free trial to test out the software before making a purchasing decision.
• Customer support (15%): We tallied up the number of ways a user can contact the company for support, as well as how many hours they are available.
• Employee self-service portal (15%): Ease of use is crucial, and few things make life simpler for payroll departments than providing the ability for employees to log in and view/edit their own information.
• Reporting features (15%): We looked for companies that offer comprehensive ledger reports, payroll analytics, and more.
• General features (20%): Standard features that should be included in most platforms, such as direct deposit, tax filing assistance, and automated payroll were scored in this category.
• Additional features (15%): We also scored each software’s ability to process benefits administration, time tracking, employee reimbursem*nts, contractor payroll, and international payroll. Companies received points for this even if the feature is only available on high-tier plans, but higher points were awarded if the features are available on entry-level plans.

The takeaway

Payroll software is designed to streamline and simplify a core part of managing any business: paying workers. Employee and contractor payment involves much more than handing over money, such as benefits management and taxes, and payroll software ensures all of the details are handled and in compliance with federal, state, and local tax laws so business owners can focus on other areas of the business.

Choose payroll software that can automate every part of the payroll process, so administrators aren’t saddled with manual tasks. Also, look for an employee self-service portal to allow workers to keep their information up to date and retrieve documents as they need to. Payroll software that lets you add on HR and benefits management will be able to grow and scale with your company, so you don’t have to adopt a new system down the road.