Payroll · United States

Patriot Software pricing: what it actually costs per employee at 5, 10, 25 and 50

At 10 employees, the cheapest plan Patriot Software publishes is Basic Payroll: $57 a month — $5.70 per employee per month, base fee included.

Price statusPublished list price
Prices read onchecked 2026-09-27
Last recorded changenone recorded since we started checking

See official pricing

Your headcount

No vendor we hold publishes a cheaper monthly total at this headcount.

On its cheapest published plan, Patriot Software costs $57 a month for 10 employees, which is $5.70 per employee per month.

At 5 employees the same plan works out at $7.40 per employee — the headline figure of $4 assumes the base fee is spread over more people.

What the vendor publishes

Source: Patriot Software pricing page. checked 2026-09-27
Plan	Base / month	Per employee / month	Eligibility as published	What the vendor states
Basic Payroll	$17	$4	No headcount condition published	Standard price; billed in arrears; promo "30 days free + 50% off for 3 months" (no end date shown) (promo: $8.50/mo + $2/worker)
Full Service Payroll	$37	$5	No headcount condition published	Standard price; billed in arrears; $12/month per additional state filing beyond first state; promo "30 days free + 50% off for 3 months" (no end date shown) (promo: $18.50/mo + $2.50/worker)

Setup fee: not stated in the vendor's published documentation (checked 2026-09-27).

Minimum contract: not stated in the vendor's published documentation (checked 2026-09-27).

Add-on fees the vendor publishes

These are the extra charges Patriot Software states on the same pricing page, for things the headline price does not cover. They are the only add-on figures we hold for Patriot Software: anything else it charges is not published, and we do not estimate it. The calculator can add them for your headcount under its advanced options.

As stated on the vendor's pricing page. checked 2026-09-27
Plan	Item	Fee	Charged	The vendor's wording
Full Service Payroll	Multi-state payroll	$12	a month for each state after the first	$12 a month per additional state filing beyond the first

What that works out at per employee

Vendors quote a per-employee fee and a base fee separately. What you actually pay per employee is both of them divided by your headcount, so the smaller your team, the further the real figure sits above the advertised one. This table is Patriot Software's published prices put through that division.

Effective cost per employee per month, by headcount. Computed from the published base fee and per-employee fee — not a figure the vendor publishes. “n/a” means the plan is not available at that headcount. Contractor-only plans are excluded — they do not run employee payroll. checked 2026-09-27
Plan	1	5	10	25	50	100	250
Basic Payroll	$21.00	$7.40	$5.70	$4.68	$4.34	$4.17	$4.07
Full Service Payroll	$42.00	$12.40	$8.70	$6.48	$5.74	$5.37	$5.15

Columns are employee counts. Scroll sideways on a phone.

monthly total = base fee + (per-employee fee x headcount) effective PEPM = monthly total / headcount annual total = monthly total x 12 + setup fee three-year cost = annual total x 3

No other adjustment is applied. We do not add estimated tax-filing fees, discounts, or promotional pricing. The full method is at Method.

Where the base fee stops mattering

On Basic Payroll, the $17 base fee is 46% of the monthly bill at 5 employees and 8% at 50. That is the whole of why the effective figure falls as a team grows: the fee does not change, the number of people carrying it does.

Who this suits, and who it does not

If price is the only thing you are deciding on, Patriot Software is the cheapest published option we hold for payroll in this market at 10 employees.
If your headcount is under 5, the base fee of $17 dominates the bill. Check the per-employee column at your actual size before comparing anything.
If you are not ready to decide, wait. Published prices change without notice and the figures here are only as current as 2026-09-27. Confirm on the vendor's own page before you sign.

Where each figure comes from

Every figure above is either a number Patriot Software publishes or a gap it leaves. Field by field: what we hold, which of the vendor's own pages it was read from, the day it was read, and the vendor's wording where we have it. Nothing in this table comes from a third party, and no blank is filled with an estimate.

Show the source of every figure on this page (21 fields)

Default source: https://www.patriotsoftware.com/pricing/. checked 2026-09-27
Plan	Field	What we hold	Read from	Read on	The vendor's wording
—	Setup fee	Not stated in the vendor's published documentation	the pricing page	2026-09-27
—	Minimum contract	Not stated in the vendor's published documentation	the pricing page	2026-09-27
—	Free trial	30 days	the pricing page	2026-09-27
Basic Payroll	Monthly base fee	$17	the pricing page	2026-09-27
Basic Payroll	Per-employee fee	$4	the pricing page	2026-09-27
Basic Payroll	Tax filing	Not included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	Full Service Payroll is listed as "Everything in Basic, PLUS" "Federal tax filings & deposits", "State tax filings & deposits" and "Local tax filings & deposits"
Basic Payroll	Direct deposit	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Free direct deposit"
Basic Payroll	Year-end forms	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Electronic or printable W-2s"
Basic Payroll	Off-cycle runs	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Unlimited payrolls"
Basic Payroll	Contractor payments	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Pay contractors in payroll"; the per-worker fee is charged "per worker paid"
Basic Payroll	Conditions on the price	—	the pricing page	2026-09-27	Standard price; billed in arrears; promo "30 days free + 50% off for 3 months" (no end date shown) (promo: $8.50/mo + $2/worker)
Full Service Payroll	Monthly base fee	$37	the pricing page	2026-09-27
Full Service Payroll	Per-employee fee	$5	the pricing page	2026-09-27
Full Service Payroll	Tax filing	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Federal tax filings & deposits", "State tax filings & deposits", "Local tax filings & deposits"
Full Service Payroll	Direct deposit	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Free direct deposit"
Full Service Payroll	Year-end forms	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Year-end payroll tax filings at no additional fee"; "Electronic or printable W-2s"
Full Service Payroll	Multi-state filing	Add-on	the pricing page	2026-09-27	$12 a month per additional state filing beyond the first
Full Service Payroll	Off-cycle runs	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Unlimited payrolls"
Full Service Payroll	Contractor payments	Included	the pricing page	2026-09-27	"Pay contractors in payroll"; the per-worker fee is charged "per worker paid"
Full Service Payroll	Multi-state payroll (add-on)	$12 a month for each state after the first	the pricing page	2026-09-27	$12 a month per additional state filing beyond the first
Full Service Payroll	Conditions on the price	—	the pricing page	2026-09-27	Standard price; billed in arrears; $12/month per additional state filing beyond first state; promo "30 days free + 50% off for 3 months" (no end date shown) (promo: $18.50/mo + $2.50/worker)

The same record, for every vendor, is the sources column of plans.csv on the data page.

Where to check this yourself

Go to Patriot Software and open its pricing page. Everything above comes from https://www.patriotsoftware.com/pricing/, read on 2026-09-27.

Written by Kaz, independent publisher.

Page last updated: 2026-10-03. Sources: vendor pricing pages only. Figures checked between 2026-08-20 and 2026-10-03. I have not used these products. Nothing here is a personal test result.

Ranking method and formulas: Method. Listing position on this site is not for sale.

Corrections: contact form.