9 Best Payroll Services for Small Businesses in 2023

Nikola SucurBookkeeping

best payroll solutions for small businesses

Gusto is made for startups and growing small businesses with a mix of employee- and contractor-based workforces. Gusto includes features that might appeal particularly to modern startup workers, including automated charitable donations. Plus Gusto’s Wallet app gives employees greater control of and access to their money. You need to call and talk with a sales representative to understand the platform’s features and cost. There are no contracts and set pricing tiers listed online, which start at $5 a month. Another difference in Paycor is that instead of paying a monthly subscription, you are paying for payment cycles.

  • The best payroll services for small businesses offer an automated solution that records employees’ time, calculates and processes payroll, and includes free end-of-year tax filings.
  • Key features include three-day direct deposit, time tracking, a self-service portal, and a free payroll trial.
  • The base price ($40) and per-employee price ($6) never change—but neither do the features.
  • Morgan’s low cost retirement plans are built for you and your employees.

Alana is the deputy editor for USA Today Blueprint’s small business team. She has served as a technology and marketing SME for countless businesses, from startups to leading tech firms — including Adobe and Workfusion. She has zealously shared her expertise with small businesses — including via Forbes Advisor and Fit Small Business — to help them compete for market share.

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If you need more than basic features to run payroll each month and can pay a little more for those features, consider competitors such as Gusto or Rippling. If your business offers employee benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans, you can create records that outline the cost to employees and any company contributions. Or, in the case of payroll solutions like Intuit QuickBooks Payroll and Rippling, you can work with a third-party provider.

best payroll solutions for small businesses

Even the cheapest plan, Core Payroll, includes HR perks like employee onboarding, health care compliance forms, and a regular HR checkup. And if you want more than the HR basics to support your growing team, ADP’s more expensive plans include employee background checks, ZipRecruiter assistance, and dedicated HR assistance. For instance, multi-state payroll tax filing costs an extra $9.99 Whai is Law Firm Accounting: Best practice a month. And SurePayroll lacks the expansive employee benefits, scalable plans, and HR perks you’ll get with Gusto or Paychex—another reason it works best for the smallest of small businesses. With self-service online payroll software starting at $19.99 a month and full-service software starting at $29.99 a month, SurePayroll is one of the most affordable payroll systems in our top 10.

Why More than 730,000 Businesses Use Paychex

Most also allow businesses to process payroll for independent contractors and employees. Its full-service payroll processing module calculates wages and taxes; remits payments to federal, state and local agencies; and pays employees via direct deposit or paper checks. https://1investing.in/accounting-financial-planning-services-for/ The operating system (Rippling Unity) supports HR teams with robust workflow automations and permission management policies. In addition, small businesses can store documents, track time off and integrate Rippling with over 500 third-party applications.

This article is not intended, directly or indirectly, to provide legal or tax advice. If you have questions about what might be legally required by federal or state law, you should consult an attorney and/or tax expert. An Online Solution will work with both the Standard Solution and Total Tax Solution. Answer a few short questions, and we’ll recommend the right services for your business. To find the average state salary for accountants, we used data from the US Bureau of Labor’s annual occupational employment stats. To get our rankings, we compared each state’s average accounting salary to the state’s overall salary.

Best for basic payroll services

A basic payroll solution helps you pay employees and, on some platforms, contractors. Use it to facilitate direct deposit as well as to manage payroll checks, taxes and reporting. Some payroll services offer automated payroll, so you can set worker pay and employees can track their time (if necessary) and the service runs payroll on schedule. The services let workers enter direct deposit information, and you connect a business bank account on the employer end, so payroll runs without you having to print and deliver checks. Deluxe uniquely offers the option to use its HR features in conjunction with your existing payroll provider. This means you could integrate capabilities like benefits administration and paid time off (PTO) tracking without disrupting your existing payroll service.

  • Now, cloud vendors simply update their products as laws change, and the changes are reflected in users’ systems automatically—with no need to buy anything new.
  • Intuit’s QuickBooks Payroll offers a competitive price, a solid service, and overall is a good fit for just about anyone, especially if your company already uses QuickBooks.
  • User testimonials cite flexible payroll options for processing paychecks for independent contractors, both domestically and internationally.
  • With a monthly base price of just $17 plus $4 per employee, Patriot Payroll’s self-service plan is one of the cheapest out there.
  • Paying employees can be challenging, especially for employers who don’t know how to handle payroll, and partnering with a reliable payroll service eliminates the need for manual pay calculations.

Compare savings accounts and find the right business savings account for you. You’ll need to do some calculations for each employee to determine what to pay them and what to withhold for payroll tax purposes. Roll by ADP integrates with QuickBooks Online, allowing your payroll data to flow into your accounting system. Paychex was honored by the Ethisphere Institute as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2023. Being an 15-year honoree underscores Paychex’s commitment to ethical business standards and practices, ensuring long-term value to key stakeholders including customers, investors, and employees. This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks.

Square Payroll Pricing

If you need a capable and easy-to-use payroll software solution for a business with scale potential, Gusto could be the perfect fit. Gusto is our best overall payroll service because it is easy to use and provides an all-in-one solution that works for most businesses. The pricing is competitive, and it features everything businesses without an internal payroll team will need. You can automate your entire payroll, file your payroll taxes automatically, and integrate health insurance, retirement plans, time tracking, paid time off, and more.

best payroll solutions for small businesses

If you need job costing, geofencing, invoicing, expense tracking, and recruiting tools, you have to get the higher tiers of its paid version. Most of the Square Payroll reviews online are positive, with users highlighting its ease of use, affordability, and the integration between Square products as its best features. However, others dislike its limited timecard editing options and the support team’s slow response times. Overall, Square Payroll earned an average rating of 4.45 out of 5 on G2 and Capterra (as of this writing). Some competitors offer more features to attract, retain and manage large workforces, albeit at higher price points, including Gusto and Rippling.