9 Best Payroll Services For Small Business Of 2024

Top payroll services for small businesses include OnPay, Gusto and ADP RUN. Traditional companies offer customizable plans to fit your needs while platforms tailored for startups offer straightforward pricing and all-inclusive packages you can get up and running in minutes. Most payroll services also include benefits administration, so you can use the platform to set up paid time off, retirement plans, insurance and other benefits for employees and integrate benefits with payroll. TriNet offers three plans ranging from $8 per employee per month to $33 per user per month when billed monthly. However, unlike many competitors on this list, only the most expensive plan offers payroll features. To access payroll features in the first two tiers, you have to first purchase the core plan and then pay $6 per employee per month more to access the payroll add-on.

Please note that this is available as a separate QuickBooks feature. You can take advantage of QuickBooks offers, where you can either get a 30-day free trial or a 50% discount on base fees for three months of service. Of course, you need to sign up with QuickBooks partners that administer these plans. For instance, workers’ compensation is powered by AP Intego and health benefits are provided in partnership with SimplyInsured. Depending on your plan, you’ll get direct deposits for either the next day or same day. With Premium and Elite, experts will review your payroll setup so you’ll know it’s done right.

Business stage

Paycor offers a testing account with sandbox data, and I found the system interface to be clean and intuitive to navigate. Since I was given the option to send them an invite to input their own information, I would have preferred to only input about half of this data before sending the invite. However, I only had to click a box and click “submit” to send an invite to my employee. Still, the process did not require any technical knowledge and each step was intuitive to complete. The dashboard felt cluttered when I landed, but it did offer many tools that I needed at my fingertips. By clicking “run payroll” from the dashboard, I completed a payroll run in just a few clicks.

• If you have budget constraints, you can also look at the free payroll apps available.
• For example, you will find a company directory on the upper right-hand corner of the software that includes a list of all employees.
• We considered features such as payroll, benefits administration, HR tools, reporting and integrations.
• The feature can help with job costing for project-based businesses like landscaping companies, where employees work in different locations depending on the project.
• Besides a fixed monthly cost, online payroll services often charge per transaction or employee payment.

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Payroll Tax Support

You can play around with the software to get a feel for it before running your first payroll or adding your employees. Intuit has created an ecosystem of its own when it comes to apps for small businesses. For other plans, you need to integrate payroll with Facebook’s Time Meter or any other time tracking app. QuickBooks Payroll automatically calculates payroll so you don’t need to worry about how to calculate payroll every month. All you need to do is enter the details of all your employees, set up payment rules and fix the day their payroll must run.

Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Most of the features in the more expensive plans are available as an add-on option, with pricing available directly from Paychex Flex. You’ll also pay more if you add additional features, such as Time and Attendance, HR, and Employee Benefits Administration. Paychex Flex offers easy system navigation from the user dashboard, which displays current payroll information while offering easy access to system functions. QuickBooks Online Payroll does offer HR features, but they are only available in the Premium and Elite plans.

What Are Payroll Services?

Positive reviews suggest that the software is easy to use and valuable if you are already within the QuickBooks ecosystem. Complaints include customer service issues, feature limitations, and high pricing. QuickBooks Online Payroll only offers HR support on its Premium and Elite plans. Core plan users will get no such support but can upgrade their plan to use the platform’s HR features. Compared to other top payroll options with transparent pricing such as Gusto or OnPay, QuickBooks Online Payroll’s pricing is a bit on the higher end. For example, neither OnPay nor Gusto charges you extra to offer direct deposit for contractors.

You can do it yourself or let us help with expert migration assistance, step-by-step guides, demos, and free phone and chat support. We also offer expert-led webinars, easy-to-use guides with no additional cost. Learn more about migrating, including our assisted migration process where we do the work for you. Get access to expert setup, tax penalty protection, and a personal HR advisor for your firm by adding QuickBooks Online Accountant.

In addition, they offer an employee portal, a nice feature for any payroll service, and particularly nice for a free service. RUN Powered by ADP offers four plans, with many of its more powerful features only included in the top two plans. The application also offers a mobile app for iOS and Android devices, though it is not included in the base pricing. There is also an employee portal available so your employees can access pay stubs and tax forms. All plans include a mobile app for both iOS and Android devices.

The Better Business Bureau gives Intuit QuickBooks a good rating overall, but if you delve deeper into the reviews specifically for the payroll program, things turn ugly in a hurry. A QuickBooks Online Payroll API for time tracking and deductions is available on the platform’s developer sandbox. While the people on the other end of the phone/chat/screen are well-intentioned, very few of them are actual payroll experts. Overall, QuickBooks Online Payroll boasts a range of features that make it a great option for businesses already within the QuickBooks ecosystem.