The 6 top payroll providers [2024]

A payroll provider is the software or system a business uses to manage—and often automate—the process of paying its workforce. The best payroll software should make this as easy as possible, helping you streamline the most mundane and tedious parts of the process, like calculating deductions, filing taxes, and remaining compliant with applicable laws.

While payroll software isn’t the most glamorous aspect of running a business, it’s one of the most important. And whether you’re implementing a payroll tool for the first time or looking to switch providers, you need a software solution that meets your unique business needs while offering an intuitive and user-friendly experience.

With Rippling, you can quickly and accurately pay employees. Leave manual payroll behind and enjoy automated compliance work, calculations, and deductions.

Before you go all-in on a payroll solution, here are six of the top payroll providers to consider, including their pros and cons, key features, and more.

1. Rippling

Rippling is a full-service payroll software that makes running payroll so simple and fast you may wonder if you missed a step. Used and loved by thousands of companies around the world, Rippling offers instant and reliable service with employee and contractor payments in just 90 seconds. You can sync all your business’s HR data with payroll and automate your calculations and deductions for a seamless pay run every time. Because compliance work is automated, you can rest assured that you’ll remain compliant with the right federal, state, and local laws no matter where you hire. 

Rippling Payroll can also integrate with any tool your payroll system depends on—with over 500 available integrations, including Quickbooks and Netsuite. But that’s not all: Rippling is so much more than just payroll software—it’s built on a single source of truth that unifies HR, IT, and Finance in a single place. Administer benefits, manage time and attendance, reimburse expenses, and set up employee devices all in one platform. 

With a dedicated mobile app, Rippling offers comprehensive self-service features on the go. Employees can clock in and out, request time off, see their paystubs, view their W-2s, and more.

For companies anticipating growth, Rippling is perfect because it’s built to support everything from startups to international enterprises. Regardless of your business size, it has all the tools you need to effortlessly onboard, manage, and pay your employees.

Rippling key features

• Rippling is meant for businesses of all sizes, from small startups to large, international enterprises.
• Automate and localize payroll tax filing at the federal, state, and local levels.
• All garnishment types are supported—Rippling can even pay them out on your behalf.
• Automatically onboard new hires to payroll, prorate their first checks, calculate and add their deductions, and more.
• Build a report with any data you want using Rippling’s library of pre-built reports, or build one from scratch with integrated payroll, HR, and Finance data.
• Receive automatic updates when employees get raises, take time off, enroll in benefits, move to new states, or make any other changes.
• Enroll in optional “pay-as-you-go” workers’ compensation insurance.
• Effortlessly track employee hours and PTO, with both automatically synced to payroll—no more manual data entry or spreadsheets needed.
• Employees can clock in and out, submit PTO requests, and view pay stubs using the mobile app.
• Track your employees’ time with job costing and multiple pay rates—by location, client, task, and more.
• Employees can opt to receive their pay via direct deposit or checks.
• Unify payroll with Finance, IT, and HR tools so you can manage employee benefits, expenses, devices, apps, and more in one system. 

2. ADP Workforce Now

ADP Workforce Now is a cloud-based HR and payroll solution from ADP, a legacy name in the workforce management space. With more than 70 years of experience and 90,000 clients, ADP Workforce Now is one of the most recognizable names in payroll software—and it offers more than just payroll, with additional features for managing time and attendance, benefits administration, talent acquisition, and more.

ADP Workforce Now offers localized and automated tax filing, which ensures that all your taxes and deductions are recorded and filed for you at the federal, state, and local levels. Another of its standout features is its mobile app, which offers an employee portal with robust self-service tools. Employees can use the app to view their payments and tax documents, clock in and out, schedule PTO, and more.

While nearly 75 years of experience can seem beneficial, it can actually be the opposite for software. ADP was originally built as a punch-card payroll system, and over time, tacked on 19 modules through acquisitions to build its current software system. The result? A disjointed platform where payroll data is siloed from employee and HR data, modules don’t communicate correctly with one another, automations break down, and the user experience suffers. Support tends to be slow—this is ADP Workforce Now’s #1 complaint on review sites like G2. And because data is siloed, their automation and reporting capabilities are severely limited.

ADP Workforce Now key features

• ADP Workforce Now is aimed toward midsize businesses.
• Payroll taxes and new hire reporting are filed automatically at the state and federal levels.
• Employees can utilize self-service tools, including a mobile app for viewing pay stubs, W-2s, and more.
• Access analytics and insights to help your team make data-driven decisions, including nearly 200 pre-built reports.
• Add on optional HR features, including time tracking, benefits administration, and talent acquisition through integration with ZipRecruiter.

3. Gusto

Gusto is an online payroll software provider that also offers HR support and tools, primarily for startups and small business owners. Running payroll with Gusto is easy and can be tailored to your business’s needs; you can set salaries or hourly wages and run payroll as often as you want with unlimited pay runs. Plus, you can fully automate the entire process with Gusto’s Autopilot feature. Gusto also automatically calculates and files payroll taxes on your behalf to keep your business compliant with tax laws at every level.

In addition to its payroll features, Gusto stands out for its benefits administration. Gusto helps employers find and purchase small group benefits, including health insurance, for their employees. It even designs custom benefits packages that include wellness stipends, commuter benefits, college savings, charitable giving, and more.

While one of the best things about Gusto is its ease of use, the flip side is that it lacks the complexity and scalability that growing companies require. Overall, Gusto is a great solution for small businesses with simple needs. But businesses with lofty goals to scale will likely outgrow it quickly, while other payroll solutions can grow with them.

Gusto key features

• You can choose between manual or automated payroll for employees and contractors in all 50 states.
• Automate payroll tax filing at the federal, state, and local levels to ensure your business stays compliant with all relevant tax laws.
• File employee W-4s and contractor W-9s, and distribute year-end tax returns automatically (plus new hire reports, if you choose to have them filed) when employees are set up in the system.
• The benefits administration feature comes with customizable plans that include unique, in-demand benefits.
• Integrate Gusto with popular accounting and bookkeeping tools like Quickbooks, Xero, etc. 
• Add on optional features, such as recruiting, onboarding, and more.

4. Paylocity

Paylocity is a cloud solution that offers HR and payroll management services for a wide variety of business sizes and industries, from small businesses and nonprofits to enterprises. The payroll solution includes expense management, tax and compliance services, and integration with Paylocity’s time-tracking tool to reduce manual data entry and human error.

One standout feature Paylocity offers is On Demand Payment, which allows employees to access their earned wages before payday without impacting your payroll process or cash flow. You can set the system up to require certain permissions—or not. Paylocity is pretty customizable.

One of the downsides to Paylocity, though, is that customizing your payroll processes often requires working with their support team. You’ll have to work with Paylocity experts to configure check types, general ledgers, time off accruals, and reporting—and even simple updates like creating or editing a security profile require you to contact Paylocity for assistance.

And then there’s Paylocity’s support itself. On review sites, many customers point out that they can’t resolve issues quickly. Support can’t instantly direct you to the right specialist, chat with you live inside the product, or see your screen. Every module has its own specialist, which means getting transferred, waiting on hold, and repeatedly describing issues.

Paylocity key features

• Simplified payroll for employees is available in the US, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
• Global payroll is available through a partnership with Blue Marble.
• Tax audits for each employee are based on their location to ensure they’re paying the correct taxes—plus Paylocity files all necessary tax documents for all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local tax laws.
• Built-in expense management automatically adds reimbursements to employees’ paychecks for you.
• Wage garnishments are processed on your behalf.
• Employees can access their earned wages before payday with On Demand Payment.
• Customizable payroll options allow you to base your account on your company’s pay structure and schedule, plus automation tools help you save time and manual data entry.

5. Paycom

Paycom is a human capital management (HCM) provider that offers payroll and a full suite of other HR management tools. It advertises “stress-free payroll,” and one of its most popular features is “Beti.” Beti is an employee self-service tool that provides employees with an automated assistant that guides them through managing, troubleshooting, and verifying their own payroll before submitting it for approval.

Paycom’s payroll offerings include payroll tax management to ensure employees’ taxes are filed and paid compliantly, plus built-in garnishment administration and expense management tools.

Paycom also offers flexible payment options (it can issue payments via check, direct deposit, or payroll card with its own Vault Visa) and easier check reconciliation for customers who use Paycom Pay—a service that issues employee paychecks via a Paycom bank account.

All these features come at a cost, though: Paycom’s per-employee per-month pricing adds up quickly. And for all that Paycom does offer, it’s missing some key features other payroll providers have, namely, customization and reporting. Paycom can be customized to an extent, but it’s far more rigid than the other payroll providers on this list and may not be the right fit for a business that needs a flexible solution for its unique needs. As for reporting, Paycom can pull any data into a report—but it doesn’t offer features like formula fields or pivot tables, so you’re limited in how you can work with and present the data.

Paycom key features

• Employees can manage their own payroll, catch mistakes, troubleshoot, and submit it for approval via the automated self-service tool.
• The payroll tax management feature files and pays employees’ taxes to ensure compliance.
• Paycom offers built-in garnishment administration and expense management tools.
• Flexible payment options are available, including payroll cards.
• Customers who issue employee checks using a Paycom bank account get easier check reconciliation.
• You can pay employees their earned wages daily.

6. UKG

UKG offers two HCM solutions: UKG Ready for small businesses and UKG Pro (formerly UltiPro) for midsize business to enterprise organizations. Both solutions offer a full suite of HR tools in addition to payroll, including employee recruiting and onboarding, compliance management, and analytics.

The payroll part of the solution is flexible and customizable to meet each organization’s needs. One of the standout features of UKG is the deep insights it offers—you can look up your payroll history, employee data, pay and tax reporting data, and other insights, plus view real-time analytics for visibility into your payroll and people data.

However, one of the basic features a payroll solution should offer is tax compliance, and UKG falls short here. With UKG, tax compliance responsibilities fall to the company admin. For example, if you hire an employee in a new state, you’ll have to stay on top of the paperwork to do a state filing, whereas other payroll solutions (like Rippling) will proactively prompt you to enter all the details needed for a new state filing.

On top of that, UKG’s two separate solutions make it difficult to scale—if you start with one solution and later need to scale up or down to the other, it’s extremely cumbersome because of the custom setup required to get up and running.

UKG key features

• There’s a full suite of HCM tools that include payroll, but no standalone payroll solution.
• Reporting and analytics features are extremely robust, so you can access deep insights about your payroll and people.
• Built-in compliance tools make sure you follow employee data privacy laws.
• Financial well-being tools like advance access to earned wages, charitable giving options, and take-home pay calculators help employees feel financially secure.

Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for tax, legal, or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, and accounting advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.