Payroll Software Providers for Entrepreneurs, Startups & Small Businesses

We earn revenue from affiliate links on our site. We strive to keep our site updated, so if you notice any broken links, please tell us.

Payroll companies make sure your employees get paid. You submit the funds to the payroll company and pay your employees. Some of them file and pay your taxes with the appropriate federal and state agencies on your behalf.

Pricing: some payroll companies charge per pay run, other per employee. So if you run payroll weekly on a lot of people, you should take a look at all the pricing structures before you decide.

Note that if you do the payroll for other companies because you are an accountant or bookkeeper, you can usually get free access or sometimes free payroll for your firm and discounts for your clients.

• Gusto: Very good reviews from small clients who have switched to them. They also have a very cheap option for start-ups with no employees who have to issue 1099s, which could appeal to a small business that only employs contractors. Gusto is a popular choice among small businesses because of its service and they also have a program for accountants. Visit the Gusto pricing page.
• Intuit Quickbooks Payroll: they can do the usual thing of paying your employees and paying your taxes, it would be a good fit for someone who wants integration into the Quickbooks ecosystem or who already uses it.
• OnPay: They have a single pricing scheme that will appeal to small businesses because everything they offer is built into one price, so you know exactly what you’re getting and for how much. The first month is free. Pricing.
• Zoho: a company that offers many products including CRMs, email marketing, inventory, and more. You can look into this is you want additional services that all work together.
• Square Payroll: run by the popular payment processor Square, they can do all the usual payroll stuff.
• Wave: A free accounting and invoicing app, it has a payroll plan and very transparent pricing.
• Sage: another accounting vendor that has built payroll into their product.
• Rippling: a payroll, benefits, and IT firm.
• ADP: The biggest player in the industry. They can handle payroll and have also branched out in HR and benefits.
• Paychex: Another big player, they do payroll as well as HR, benefits, and insurance.

Revenue Disclosure: We’re upfront people, so we want to be upfront with how we make money. We make money through affiliate links and ads. How do we NOT earn money? We DON’T get paid to add companies to our categories or sell email addresses. That means no one can pay us to put them on the list in any category, move them higher up the list, or change what we say about them. We want small businesses and entrepreneurs to trust us to point them in the right direction, and we’re proud of the fact that this is a guarantee you won’t see on other websites.