Best payroll apps in 2024

Beyond just payroll, Rippling provides a complete platform for a number of different facets of your business, including HR, IT and finance. Its Unified Workforce Platform combines all of those elements into a single system, though you can also choose to only use one or some of its services, starting at $8 per month per user.

Its payroll services and app all fall under the banner of its HR Cloud service. It provides payroll services both in the U.S. and internationally, with full support for federal, state and local tax filing and payment by check or direct deposit. Rippling provides complete time tracking tools that are fully automated and a robust suite of tools for employee benefits tracking and commuter benefits debit cards to automated ACA and COBRA compliance and reporting.

The company also offers a robust employee portal where your personnel can log in and check on or manage their benefit plans, including 401(k) and medical.

Learn More: Read our full Rippling review.

Homebase’s payroll services put a premium on automation. The company will take a number of the normally tedious, manual elements off your plate and complete them automatically. This includes automatically converting employee timesheets into hours and calculating payment accordingly, distributing payments to both employees as well as the IRS and the state and even issuing W-2s and 1099s to employees when tax time rolls around.

Homebase aims to simplify the process from square one through to disbursement. It allows employees to clock in through their system so hours, including breaks and PTO, can be calculated without any third-party software or onerous manual record keeping.

You can even set payroll to run automatically, without any further input, with Homebase’s “zero-click” system, and there’s also a robust suite of tools to help you deal with any compliance tasks, including new hire reporting and payroll taxes.

Learn More: Read our full Homebase Payroll review.

Gusto features some handy automatic options. Beyond running payroll automatically, Gusto can also fully calculate and then automatically file your payroll taxes with the appropriate government agencies every time you run payroll for no additional fee. Gusto also boasts some significant third-party integrations with other business management apps and software, including Xero, QuickBooks and Clover.

Gusto also offers support for ensuring your international employees are paid what they’re owed on time. Its Gusto Global service tracks both local and international employees on the same platform and allows you to pay team members overseas in their local currency.

Gusto can distribute payments to employees in more than 120 countries and also offers a number of employee-facing tools to help them manage their tax information and even keep tabs on their finances with Gusto’s Wallet app. Additionally, Gusto offers a debit card that employees can use to get immediate access to their funds on payday.

Learn More: Read our full Gusto review.

Workful aims to simplify payroll runs by integrating a number of options into a single, easy-to-use interface. Its payroll platform will sync automatically with your employees’ time clocks, specific reimbursement requests, as well as time off requests, so you don’t have to worry about entering all of that data manually and separately.

Workful will also manage expense requests, your employee’s time sheets and tax calculations automatically, and promises running payroll can be accomplished in under five minutes.

One standout of Workful’s platform is the ability to pay employees multiple pay rates. If you employ contractors or any other employers that do different kinds of work for different rates, Workful lets you easily differentiate and track those multiple rates without having to set them up as multiple employees. Workful can also distribute pay stubs online and allow your employees to clock in and out, submit their expense reports, request time off and manage their tax information.

Learn More: Read our full Workful review.

OnPay promises to handle all of the heavy lifting for payroll management for your small business so you can focus on other priorities. The platform will handle all of your tax filings and payments for you, and it offers services tailored to specific business types like restaurants, non-profits and religious organizations like churches.

OnPay’s payroll software will deal with everything from wage garnishments, unemployment insurance withholding and multiple pay rates/schedules for individual employees to remove some of the most complicated elements of getting your team paid on time.

OnPay also features a number of employee-friendly options. Employees can be paid by direct deposit, check or debit card, and employees can enter and review their information at any time. There are self-onboarding tools, access to employment docs and tax information and the option to view their pay stubs even after they’ve left the company. OnPay also integrates with finance software like QuickBooks, so you can add functionality without having to enter data multiple times on multiple platforms.

Learn More: Read our full OnPay review.

QuickBooks may be best known for its accounting software but has expanded to offer comprehensive payroll tools to help manage paying employees as well as your finances. QuickBooks can calculate, file and pay your payroll taxes and guarantees their accuracy. It offers up to $25,000 in tax penalty coverage.

Naturally, its payroll software integrates with other QuickBooks products, so time tracking and accounting data from other programs can be automatically pulled into the payroll app.

QuickBooks also offers a wide variety of reporting options to keep track of your payroll and all of the associated expenses. You can customize and run a report to quickly get information on everything from payroll contributions and deductions, multiple worksites, tax liability and vacation and sick leave. All of its plans, even the lowest tier, also include guided setup help, in which a QuickBooks expert will walk you through creating your account and some best practices.

Learn More: Read our full QuickBooks Payroll review.

Roll by ADP is the company’s chat-based payroll software that takes advantage of artificial intelligence to intuitively complete payroll tasks. Roll allows you to make use of natural language to access payroll information or even complete a full payroll run in much the same way that you’d text a friend. It’s powered by GenAI, a generative AI tool that allows you to do things like give an employee a bonus or a raise or get a better understanding of 401k deductions just by texting the Roll app.

Roll is a complete payroll platform and also offers tons of features you’d expect from the best payroll software. It can automate all of your payroll taxes for you, give your employees self-service access to update their information and tax withholding settings, enable same-day direct deposits, integrate with QuickBooks software and calculate automatic deductions for benefits and retirement plans.

Due to the emphasis on leveraging AI for ease of use, however, all of those features are more accessible than in many other payroll apps or platforms, and all of them can be managed through GenAI chat functionality.

Learn More: Read our full Roll by ADP review.

Wave Payroll is an approachable payroll platform with a focus on employee satisfaction. The company allows employers to give employees access to a portal where they can view pay stubs, update their contact information, change their direct deposit and payment details and check the status of their salary and vacation info.

Wave also includes the suite of tools and features you’d expect from a leading payroll platform, and that includes paying both W2 and 1099 employees, automatic tax filings and payments and the ability to track leave time and vacation accruals. Note, however, that Wave currently only includes state tax services in 14 states, though the company says that expanded support is coming. However, its services are cheaper in states where the company doesn’t offer tax processing.

While Wave doesn’t feature an automatic payroll option, it does support a one-click run. Just review the details of your payroll for the current pay period, and you can get your team paid with a single click. There’s a focus across the platform on small businesses, and Wave also offers accounting, payment and invoicing software that integrates with its payroll platform for complete business management.

Learn More: Read our full Wave Payroll review.

Justworks differs from the other payroll platforms on our list in that it’s a professional employer organization or PEO. This means that you outsource some elements of your business to Justworks, and it handles them for you in their entirety, freeing you and your staff up to focus on other concerns.

Justworks is easily the priciest of the payroll platforms on our list, starting at $59 per month per person for its lower-priced plan. Its Plus plan is priced at $99 per month per person. Part of the inflated cost of Justworks’ services is that the company doesn’t just provide payroll support but also handles HR, benefits and compliance tasks at the Basic level, as well as providing medical, dental and vision insurance through the Plus plan.

Enrolling with Justworks means that they will handle payroll and all of its permutations for all of your employees, as well as vendor and contractor payments, off-cycle payments, payroll reporting and tax filings. You’ll additionally receive HR consulting services and access to an HR resources center.

SurePayroll is a payroll platform with a clear focus on small businesses and ease of use. The focus is on quickly getting customers set up in its system and running payroll quickly, and SurePayroll also offers an automatic payroll option to automate the process without any additional input from you or your team.

SurePayroll also offers tax support and can file and pay taxes on your behalf, including a guarantee that if any error committed during the process incurs a penalty fee, SurePayroll will pay said fee in full. There’s also HSA and FSA fund management, wage garnishment calculation and the option for SurePayroll to handle 401(k) deductions for your business as well.

Interestingly, SurePayroll also has services specifically dedicated to paying nannies and household staff. This includes Nanny Share setup, whereby multiple families hire a nanny and split the cost of the nanny’s services. SurePayroll has even prepared a guide to nanny taxes to help its customers understand the details and requirements of the nanny tax.