Independent payroll price comparison

Payroll software pricing by employee count

Compare the monthly bill and the effective cost per employee with the base fee included. US and UK prices stay in separate currencies and tables.

Published list prices recorded on the dates beside each vendor. Taxes, optional add-ons, promotions and custom quotes may change the bill. See the calculation and limits.

United States: published domestic payroll prices

USD per month. Ordered by the 10-person monthly bill within domestic payroll. This compares published cost, not product quality or payroll features.

Monthly totals include the published base fee. Each headcount uses the lowest computable plan for that vendor at that size, so the plan can differ from the 10-person plan named in the first column. Open the vendor detail for eligibility and billing terms.

Vendor and 10-person plan	3 people	10 people	25 people	Next step
Patriot SoftwareBasic Payroll at 10 people $17 base + $4.00/person checked 2026-09-27	$29 $9.67/person	$57 $5.70/person	$117 $4.68/person	See official pricing ↗
Roll by ADPRoll by ADP at 10 people $39 base + $5.00/person checked 2026-09-06	$54 $18.00/person	$89 $8.90/person	$164 $6.56/person	See official pricing ↗
Square PayrollFull-Service Payroll at 10 people $35 base + $6.00/person checked 2026-09-06	$53 $17.67/person	$95 $9.50/person	$185 $7.40/person	See official pricing ↗
SurePayrollSmall Business Payroll at 10 people $29 base + $7.00/person checked 2026-09-06	$50 $16.67/person	$99 $9.90/person	$204 $8.16/person	See official pricing ↗

Compare more United States providers at your headcount →

United Kingdom: published domestic payroll prices

GBP per month. Ordered by the 10-person monthly bill within domestic payroll. This compares published cost, not product quality or payroll features.

Monthly totals include the published base fee. Each headcount uses the lowest computable plan for that vendor at that size, so the plan can differ from the 10-person plan named in the first column. Open the vendor detail for eligibility and billing terms.

Vendor and 10-person plan	3 people	10 people	25 people	Next step
Sage PayrollPayroll Essentials at 10 people £12 base + headcount tiers checked 2026-09-07	£12 £4.00/person	£24 £2.40/person	£49.50 £1.98/person	See official pricing ↗
XeroIgnite (+ Payroll add-on) at 10 people £18 base + £1.50/person checked 2026-09-27	£22.50 £7.50/person	£33 £3.30/person	£55.50 £2.22/person	See official pricing ↗

Compare more United Kingdom providers at your headcount →

How to use this

1. Put your headcount into the calculator. Not a round number — the number of people you actually run payroll for.
2. Read the per-employee column, not the headline price. Every vendor page has one, and why the advertised per-employee fee is never the price you pay explains the gap in one page.
3. Check the date next to each figure. If it is old, we say so rather than letting you assume it is current.

Start here

Questions this site answers

Browse all side-by-side vendor comparisons

How published payroll prices work

• Why payroll costs more than the advertised $6 per employee
• Base fee or per-employee fee — which one decides your bill
• Payroll vendors that publish prices vs quote only
• What payroll software pricing includes
• How to read a payroll pricing page without being misled
• The cost of switching payroll providers mid-year
• Why US and UK payroll prices cannot go in the same table

Getting started and choosing a provider

• What does payroll software do, and where does a payroll service take over?
• What should you compare before picking a payroll provider?
• What does a small business need before it runs its first payroll?
• Should payroll and HR live in the same software?
• Is free payroll software still free after the first few months?

What the provider does and what stays with you

• Does a full-service payroll plan really take every payroll tax task off your hands?
• If you outsource payroll, what is still your responsibility?
• Which payroll records do you have to keep, and what do you do when a filed Form 941 turns out to be wrong?
• What does a payroll bureau need in place before it runs payroll for clients?

Features and connections

• What can employees do on their own in a payroll self-service portal?
• How much of a payroll run can actually happen without anyone touching it?
• Do payroll and accounting software need to come from the same company?
• What do you compare instead of price when a company with hundreds of employees shops for payroll software?

Types of workers and other countries

• Do you need global payroll or an employer of record to pay someone abroad?
• Do you actually need a payroll service to pay your nanny?
• When a server also picks up kitchen shifts, how does payroll software work out the overtime and the tips?
• Can a US payroll system pay staff in the UK, Canada, India, the UAE, or New Zealand?
• If you pay both employees and contractors, are you charged payroll fees for both?

Vendor against vendor

• Gusto vs QuickBooks Payroll: $55 against $94.50 at one employee, $39.50 to $89 apart at every size
• Gusto vs OnPay: both $49 + $6, so the $0 gap comes down to multi-state, year-end forms and a free first month
• Gusto vs Patriot Software: no headcount where Gusto is cheaper, $13 to $232 a month apart
• Gusto vs Square Payroll: $14 a month apart at every headcount, $35 apart on contractor plans
• Gusto vs SurePayroll: level at 20 employees ($169 each), Gusto cheaper from 21
• Gusto vs Roll by ADP: $39 + $5 with three months free against $49 + $6, a $507 gap in year one at 10 employees
• Justworks PEO vs Gusto: $79 per employee against $49 + $6, a $681 a month gap at 10 employees
• Justworks vs Deel PEO: $79 or $124 per employee against $125, one dollar apart at the top tier
• Deel US Payroll vs Gusto: $29 per employee is below $49 + $6 only at 1 or 2 employees, and the $29 was off the page on 2026-10-03
• Gusto vs ADP RUN: $109 a month at 10 employees on one side, \"Get pricing\" on the other, and the six items a quote has to answer
• Gusto vs Paychex pricing: Paychex Flex publishes no price; the one Paychex-owned figure, SurePayroll at $29 + $7, is below Gusto's $49 + $6 up to 19 employees and meets it at 20
• Gusto vs Rippling pricing: Rippling withdrew its $8 starting price on 2026-09-06; Gusto's three tiers are published, from $55 at 1 employee to $2,380 at 100
• Square Payroll vs Homebase: $35 + $6 against $49 + $6 with a $0 to $120 plan fee underneath
• Paychex vs ADP RUN pricing: neither publishes a dollar figure; their published siblings, SurePayroll at $29 + $7 and Roll by ADP at $39 + $5, cost the same $64 at 5 employees

Prices by situation

• Payroll for one employee: $21 to $94.50 a month at list price across 12 US vendors, and the cheapest row does not file your taxes
• Contractor-only payroll cost: Square $18, Gusto $53, Remote $87, Deel $147 a month for three contractors, and contractor-of-record plans from $597
• PEO pricing per employee: $79 to $125 a month where published, TriNet and Rippling by quote only
• Nanny payroll services by price: SurePayroll $39, Poppins $49, HomePay $59 and $75 a month, and what year one costs once the free months are counted
• Year-end W-2 and 1099 fees by payroll vendor: included at OnPay, Patriot, QuickBooks and Wave, $3 a form at Square and Zoho, $50 plus $5 a form at SurePayroll ($100 for 10 forms)
• Multi-state payroll fees by vendor: Patriot $12 per extra state, SurePayroll $9.99 a month, Gusto Simple to Plus is +$91 at 10 employees, and who includes it
• Payroll plus HR pricing in the US: 12 published plans from $109 to $400 a month for 10 employees, including Paycor's $99 + $5 small-business tier
• Global payroll pricing per employee: $29 at Deel, Remote and Papaya Global, against $499 to $699 for an employer of record, at 5 and 10 employees
• Payroll software trials, promos and contract terms by vendor: 30 days at Patriot, 3 months free at Roll by ADP, 6 months at Homebase, and what year one costs for 10 employees
• Quote-only payroll vendors (ADP RUN, Paychex, Paylocity, Rippling, TriNet): the seven line items to ask for, with published prices at 25 employees ($117 to $250.50) as the yardstick

What changed lately

1 entries across 1 vendors in October 2026: 0 on the vendor's own page, 1 correcting a figure we held. Every entry keeps the old figure, the new one and the date we saw it: the price history lists them by month, and there is an RSS feed if you would rather be told than remember to look.

What we measured ourselves

Three things fall out of this dataset that no vendor page will tell you: how much of a payroll bill the base fee actually is, how many of the six figures each vendor publishes, and every headcount at which one vendor becomes cheaper than another. All three are recomputed on every build from the same published prices.

What this is not

It is not a review site. We have not used any of these products and we do not rate them. There are no stars, no badges and no “editor's choice”. If you want to know whether a payroll product is pleasant to run, this is the wrong site.

It is not complete. It holds 35 vendors, of which 10 publish no figure at all and 4 publish only a starting price or a calculator, so none of those can be put in a price-ordered table here. The list says which is which.

And no vendor has paid to be on it, to be ordered above another, or to have anything removed. That is the whole of our method, and the method page sets out the arithmetic in full so you can check it.

Start here

• Every vendor, and which of them publish a price
• Payroll cost calculator
• How the ordering is produced
• Why the advertised per-employee fee is never the price you pay
• Base fee or per-employee fee: which one decides your bill
• How to read a payroll pricing page without being misled
• The cost of switching payroll providers mid-year
• Why US and UK payroll prices cannot go in the same table