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Where one vendor becomes cheaper than another

Of the 39 vendor pairs in this dataset that can be compared at all — same market, same category, both publishing a computable price — 13 change places somewhere between 1 and 250 employees. The other 26 do not: one of the two is cheaper at every headcount.

Each row below is the headcount at which the cheaper of two published prices changes. A pair appears more than once when a banded price sends the ordering back the other way further up. It is division, not a recommendation, and it holds only for the plans each vendor publishes today.

Every crossover in the dataset

EmployeesCheaper belowCheaper from thereMarketCategoryFull comparison
19XeroStaffologyUnited KingdomPayrollthe comparison
22StaffologyXeroUnited KingdomPayrollthe comparison
102Sage PayrollXeroUnited KingdomPayrollthe comparison
3OnfolkBreatheUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
3OnfolkCharlieHRUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
5CharlieHRBreatheUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
5CharlieHROnfolkUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
6OnfolkCharlieHRUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
15CharlieHREmployment HeroUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
16Employment HeroCharlieHRUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
151BreatheCharlieHRUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
200CharlieHRBreatheUnited KingdomPayroll + HRthe comparison
5Square PayrollRoll by ADPUnited StatesPayrollthe comparison
6SurePayrollSquare PayrollUnited StatesPayrollthe comparison
6SurePayrollRoll by ADPUnited StatesPayrollthe comparison
11SurePayrollWave PayrollUnited StatesPayrollthe comparison
11SurePayrollZoho PayrollUnited StatesPayrollthe comparison
20SurePayrollOnPayUnited StatesPayrollthe comparison
11HomebaseGustoUnited StatesPayroll + HRthe comparison

Why there are so few

Two prices of the same shape never cross: if one vendor has both a higher base fee and a higher per-person fee, it costs more at 1 employee and more at 250. A crossover needs the two to be shaped differently — a large base fee with a small per-person fee against the reverse — and most pairs in this market are not. That is the useful half of the finding: for most pairs, the answer does not depend on your headcount at all.

What it does not mean

A crossover says which of two published monthly totals is lower at a headcount. It says nothing about which product does the job, what the vendor charges for the things it does not publish, or what either would quote you. Put your own headcount into the calculator and read what the published figure leaves out before treating any of it as a budget.

Every figure on this page is computed from prices the vendors publish themselves, read between 2026-08-20 and 2026-09-06. Nothing here is a rating: we have not used these products and we do not score them. Where a vendor publishes nothing, it is absent rather than estimated.

Related

Written by Kaz, independent publisher. No commercial relationship with the companies named unless it is listed on the disclosure page.

Page last updated: 2026-09-07. Sources: vendor pricing pages only. Figures checked between 2026-08-20 and 2026-09-06. 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.