Best Payroll Software in 2026

Automatic Data Processing (ADP), headquartered in Roseland, New Jersey, is the largest payroll and HCM provider by revenue among those reviewed. Its fiscal 2026 annual report (year ended 30 June 2026) records total revenues of US$21.95 billion, more than 1.1 million clients in over 140 countries and territories, and more than 42 million workers paid worldwide, about 26 million of them in the United States. The company traces its origins to 1949 and had about 67,000 associates at fiscal year-end.

ADP sells payroll through several platforms by client size. RUN Powered by ADP, for businesses with 1–49 employees, serves more than 980,000 small businesses and is sold in four packages from Essential Payroll to HR Pro Payroll & HR. ADP Workforce Now serves more than 90,000 mid-sized and large businesses in North America, and ADP TotalSource is a PEO supporting more than 770,000 worksite employees. Its scale brings broad tax-jurisdiction coverage and 24/7 phone support on RUN. The main limitations are opacity on price, since no package price is published, and the fact that features are split across products, so moving between platforms as a business grows can mean a migration.

Paychex, Inc., incorporated in 1979 and with dual headquarters in Rochester, New York, and Cincinnati, Ohio, is the second-largest US payroll processor reviewed. Its 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 May 2026 reports total revenue of US$6.51 billion, up 17% from US$5.57 billion, about 840,000 customers of which about 800,000 are payroll clients, and about 2.6 million worksite employees supported through its HR outsourcing business. It had about 17,600 employees.

Its proprietary HCM platform, Paychex Flex, serves small and medium-sized businesses with payroll, HR, benefits and time tools. On 14 April 2025 Paychex completed the acquisition of Paycor, an HCM and payroll software vendor for mid-sized employers, which accounts for much of the revenue growth. Paychex also owns SurePayroll, a self-service online payroll brand for very small businesses with published pricing. The breadth of the group lets a client move from SurePayroll to Paychex Flex or the PEO without changing vendor. Paychex Flex prices are not published, and the coexistence of three platforms (Flex, Paycor, SurePayroll) means product choice depends heavily on the sales channel.

Paycom Software, founded in 1998 and headquartered in Oklahoma City, sells a cloud HCM suite built on a single database covering payroll, time, talent and HR. Its 10-K for 2025 reports total revenues of US$2.05 billion, up 9.0% from US$1.88 billion in 2024, about 39,200 clients (about 20,300 when grouped by parent company) and 5,770 employees. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PAYC.

Paycom's distinguishing product is Beti, which lets employees review and approve their own paychecks before payroll is submitted, so that errors are corrected before funds move rather than through off-cycle runs. The company targets organisations with 50 to 10,000 or more employees and says it will continue to focus on businesses with more than 1,000 employees. Global HCM extends some functions to more than 190 countries. Paycom does not publish prices; its suite is sold as a whole platform rather than a cheap payroll-only tier, which makes it less suitable for very small employers.

Paylocity Holding Corp., headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, provides cloud payroll and HCM software to US employers. Its 10-K for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2026 reports total revenue of US$1.77 billion, up 11% from US$1.60 billion, approximately 44,400 clients (excluding clients gained through acquisitions) and about 6,900 employees. Clients typically have between 10 and 5,000 employees.

The platform combines payroll, time and labour, benefits administration, talent management and employee communication tools. In October 2024 Paylocity acquired Airbase, a spend-management company, extending its product into expense management and accounts payable, which lets finance teams manage payroll and non-payroll spend from one vendor. Paylocity positions itself on employee experience and modern interfaces for mid-sized firms. Pricing is not published and is quoted per employee per month. The service is US-focused, so companies with substantial foreign headcount need a separate global payroll provider.

Gusto is a privately held US provider of cloud payroll, benefits and HR software for small businesses. Its payroll runs on a tiered subscription that includes federal, state and local payroll tax filing, new-hire reporting and employee self-service, with health benefits and 401(k) plans available through the platform. Gusto's own pricing and about pages refused automated access during research for this list, so its company figures are omitted here.

According to an iTechGuides breakdown updated 12 November 2026, Gusto's three payroll plans cost US$49 per month plus US$6 per person (Simple), US$80 plus US$12 per person (Plus) and US$180 plus US$22 per person (Premium). The same source reports that the Simple base price rose from US$40 to US$49 in 2026 and that, according to Gusto's help centre, the contractor-only plan closed on 1 October 2026, which affects sole traders who pay only 1099 workers. Gusto is widely integrated with accounting software and is a common default for US startups. Its per-person fee on the Plus and Premium tiers is higher than most small-business competitors, and it is a US-only payroll product.

Rippling is a privately held workforce platform co-founded by its CEO Parker Conrad, with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Bangalore, Sydney and other cities. It sells modules on one employee record: HR (benefits, recruiting, performance, learning), IT (identity, access and device management), spend (corporate cards, expenses, procurement, bill pay, travel) and payroll for employees and contractors worldwide, including global payroll, employer of record and contractor of record. Its payroll product calculates taxes and files them with federal, state and local agencies, and pays employees and contractors from the same system.

Rippling's argument is that payroll errors and admin work are reduced when the employee record drives every downstream system, so a hire or termination can update payroll, benefits, device assignment and system access together. The company lists more than 600 app integrations. Pricing starts at US$8 per employee per month plus a monthly base fee that is not published; payroll, global payroll and EOR prices require a quote. Eligible US venture-backed startups can receive six months of free access. The modular model can make the total cost harder to predict, and buyers who need only payroll may pay for a platform base they do not use.

QuickBooks payroll is Intuit's payroll service for US small businesses, sold in November 2026 as QuickBooks Workforce Payroll bundled with QuickBooks Online accounting plans. Bundling payroll and the general ledger means payroll journals post directly into the books, removing the manual entries needed when payroll and accounting run on separate systems.

Three bundles were published: Workforce Payroll + Simple Start at US$44 per month plus US$6.50 per employee; Workforce Payroll + Essentials at US$62.50 plus US$6.50 per employee; and Workforce Premium + Plus at US$101.50 plus US$10 per employee, with 50% off for three months for new customers. The entry tier offers next-day direct deposit, while Essentials and Premium allow same-day deposit when payroll is run by 7:00 am. Premium adds an expert review of payroll setup, time tracking, hiring and onboarding, time-off management, automated I-9 and a handbook creator. An Elite tier with setup by QuickBooks is mentioned but its pricing was not shown. HR tools are limited on the lower tiers, and the page shows two different price columns without explaining the relationship, so buyers should confirm the billed amount.

Deel, founded in 2019, is a privately held global HR and payroll company. It reports more than 40,000 customers and more than US$20 billion of global payroll processed, and says it can hire and pay in 150 countries (some of its pages say 130+). Deel combines several services that multinational employers otherwise buy separately: global payroll through the client's own entities, contractor payments, employer-of-record employment, a US PEO and US payroll.

Its global payroll product shows payroll status, variances and workforce cost across countries on one dashboard, applies local compliance rules before each run, and lets each country be run self-serve or managed by Deel; payouts can be made in multiple currencies and optionally in cryptocurrency. Deel lists SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification and integrations with Workday, SAP, Oracle and NetSuite. Published prices start at US$49 per contractor per month, US$125 per US PEO employee and US$599 per EOR employee per month; global payroll and US payroll prices are not published. The headline country count differs between pages, and costs rise quickly for companies employing many people through EOR.

Remote is a privately held global employment company offering global payroll, employer of record, contractor management and a US PEO. It reports that more than 30,000 companies use it and names GitLab, Miro, Heineken and Vercel among them. Its global payroll product covers more than 100 countries and jurisdictions for employers that own a local entity, and is offered self-serve or fully managed.

Remote calculates gross-to-net pay in local currency, handles statutory deductions and remittances in-country, runs off-cycle payments on one calendar, and supplies audit logs and general-ledger exports. It integrates with Workday, BambooHR, Personio, HiBob, NetSuite and Xero, holds SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification, and is a regulated payments institution in Canada, the UK and the EEA. Pricing is published as starting figures: global payroll from US$19 per employee per month with no base platform fee, EOR from US$599 per employee per month on annual contracts, contractor management from US$29 per contractor, and the US PEO from US$99 per employee. Final prices require a demo, and the US$19 figure applies only to countries where the client already has an entity.

Xero is a cloud accounting platform, operated in the UK by Xero Limited, that includes payroll inside its accounting plans. In the United Kingdom, payroll is built into its accounting plans and priced per person paid: the Grow plan (£39 per month) includes payroll for one person, Comprehensive (£55) for five people and Ultimate (£70) for ten, with additional people costing £1.50 each (£1 on Ultimate); on the Ignite plan (£18) payroll is optional at £1.50 per person. New UK customers were offered 90% off for the first six months with a promotional code.

Because payroll sits inside the accounting software, wage journals post automatically and payroll costs appear in management reports without exports. The UK product files Real Time Information reports with HMRC after each pay run, calculates automatic-enrolment pension contributions and sends them to Nest or The People's Pension, and gives employees payslips and P60s in the Xero Me app. Xero payroll suits firms with simple payrolls and few employees; businesses with complex pay rules, multiple pay frequencies or more than a few dozen staff typically move to a dedicated payroll product. This entry describes the UK product; payroll availability and pricing differ in other Xero markets.

Zoho Payroll is the payroll application of Zoho, the software group that also sells Zoho Books and Zoho People. In the United States it is sold in two plans. Standard costs US$39 per organisation per month billed monthly (US$29 billed annually) plus US$6 per employee (US$5 annually) and covers single-state payroll in all 50 states; Professional costs US$59 (US$49 annually) plus US$8.50 per employee (US$7 annually) and adds multi-state payroll.

A 14-day free trial with full access requires no credit card. Zoho Payroll's main advantage is integration with the wider Zoho suite: payroll data flows into Zoho Books for accounting and draws employee records from Zoho People for HR, which suits companies already standardised on Zoho. As a newer entrant to US payroll than the processors above, it has a shorter operating record in multi-jurisdiction tax filing, and its local-tax coverage and support model should be checked for each state. Multi-state employers must buy the Professional plan.

Square Payroll is the payroll service of Square, the payments and point-of-sale business. It is aimed at hourly workforces in restaurants, retail and services where staff clock in on Square's point-of-sale or team-management tools, so hours flow into payroll without re-entry. Full-service payroll costs US$35 per month plus US$6 per person paid, and includes multistate payroll and support for multiple tax jurisdictions. A contractor-only option costs US$6 per contractor per month with no base fee, and contractors are paid from the Payroll section of the Square Dashboard.

For businesses already using Square for card payments, the service removes a separate vendor relationship and lets tips recorded at the point of sale feed into pay. The contractor-only plan is one of the cheapest ways to pay a small number of 1099 workers. Square Payroll is a US product focused on small employers and offers fewer HR, benefits and reporting tools than dedicated payroll and HCM vendors; the pricing page does not list the states it supports.

Wave Payroll is the payroll product of Wave Financial, a Canadian small-business software company backed by H&R Block that says it has helped more than 5.9 million small business owners in the US and Canada since 2010. Wave is best known for its free accounting software, and payroll is one of its paid add-ons.

For customers signing up after 2 April 2025, US payroll costs a US$40 base fee plus US$6 per active employee and US$6 per contractor paid; in Canada it costs C$25 plus C$6 per employee or contractor, in every province and territory except Quebec. Wave now offers its tax-filing service in all 50 US states at the same price, having previously offered it only in some states; existing customers in states that newly gained the service saw a price increase. After the first payroll is processed, customers can use the service for up to 30 days without commitment. Payroll entries post into Wave's accounting ledger. The product is aimed at very small employers and has limited HR, benefits and time-tracking features compared with larger providers.