Payroll processing prices for small businesses usually rely on two numbers in most published price sheets: a base fee and a per-person fee. Six providers with full-service prices for 2026 show base fees in the $35 to $50 range on their entry plans. The per-person fees for those providers range from $5 to $6.50.
Those prices are a starting point. Additional features like add-ons, pay frequency, and support tiers increase the cost. The in-house option comes at a cost as well. If employment taxes are not paid on time, the IRS can charge a penalty of up to 15% of the unpaid employment taxes. This guide breaks down the pricing of payroll services, costs at various team sizes, and what fees to ask about before signing the contract.
Payroll pricing consists of three models. In a full-service model, a payroll provider calculates pay, files payroll tax returns, and pays the payroll taxes. In the software-only model, the payroll provider calculates pay, and the employer is responsible for filing the payroll tax returns and paying the payroll taxes. Quote-based pricing is mostly account-based, and there is no standard rate card.
Patriot Software offers both models of payroll pricing. Patriot’s Basic Payroll plan calculates pay and is priced at $17 per month plus $4 per worker. Its Full Service Payroll plan includes calculations, filing, and payment of payroll taxes and is priced at $37 per month plus $5 per worker.
ADP is the largest provider of payroll services using the third model, quote-based pricing. ADP’s payroll solution, RUN, serves businesses with 1 to 49 employees. ADP does not disclose standard pricing for RUN and asks customers to request a quote, according to a 2026 pricing guide published by Gusto. The same Gusto pricing guide series reports that Paychex asks customers to inquire about pricing for its payroll solutions.
The details surrounding billing units differ between payroll providers. Gusto says it only charges for active employees. Square bills its per-person fee for each person paid in the month. Patriot charges for payroll workers only, and in a month without payroll, bills the base fee only.
If a business only pays 1099 contractors, options are cheaper. Gusto Contractor Only plan costs $35 a month, plus $6 per contractor. Square also charges $6 per contractor paid and has no base fee. QuickBooks Contractor Payments costs $25 a month for up to 20 contractors, and $2 per additional contractor, according to Gusto’s August 2026 QuickBooks guide. None of these plans allow for W-2 employees.
The most common published structure is base-plus-per-employee. The base fee is for the account. The per-employee fee is based on headcount. The six plans shown below are priced between $87 and $115 per month at a headcount of 10 employees, at list price.
Figure 1. Entry full-service plans at 10 employees, published list prices.
Gusto’s pricing page on September 25, 2026, listed four plans: Simple, Plus, Premium, and Contractor Only. Simple cost $49 a month and $6 per person. Plus costs $80 and $12 per person. Premium costs $180 and $22 per person. Contractor Only costs $35 and $6 per contractor. Gusto’s website states that every plan allows for unlimited payroll runs and that accounts are month-to-month. The Simple base fee was $40 in an Internet Archive capture of the same page on January 13, 2025.
Intuit sells its payroll plans under the QuickBooks Workforce name. Monthly prices are $50, plus $6.50/employee for Workforce Payroll; $88 plus $10 for Workforce Premium; and $134 plus $12 for Workforce Elite. These prices are from Gusto’s guide published on 2 August 2026, which takes its info from Intuit’s pricing page, and Fit Small Business cites the same prices. Intuit announced pricing changes for 1 July 2026. Each plan includes one state filing.
Square’s site shows that the payroll with full services costs $35/month and $6/person paid. Contractor-only payroll costs $6/person paid. The full-service plan provides for unlimited pay runs and multistate payroll.
OnPay has a Payroll Essentials plan costing $49 plus $6/worker. OnPay’s plan provides for unlimited pay runs and multistate payroll.
Patriot Software’s website shows the Basic Payroll cost of $17/month and $4/worker. The payroll with all services included (Full Service Payroll) is $37/month and $5/worker. Patriot charges no setup fees, no per-payroll fees. Its examples have Full Service at $62/month for 5 workers and $162/month for 25 workers.
Roll is ADP‘s chat-based payroll app for small businesses. As of September 2021, TechRepublic and Capterra show it at $39/month plus $5 per employee. The first three months are free. No long-term contract is required. ADP’s larger RUN product is quote-based.
The base fee hits the smallest teams hardest. With 5 employees, the effective monthly cost is $16.50 per employee with QuickBooks Workforce Payroll and $12.40 per employee with Patriot Full Service. At 50 employees, the costs drop to $7.50 per employee with QuickBooks Workforce Payroll and to $5.74 per employee with Patriot Full Service. Of the 6 entry-level plans, the difference between the highest and lowest per-head cost narrows from $4.10 at 5 employees to $1.76 at 50 employees.
This trend continues at 25 employees. Patriot Full Service costs $162 a month, and Roll by ADP costs $164. Square costs $185. Gusto Simple and OnPay cost $199. QuickBooks Workforce Payroll costs $212.50.
Figure 2. Effective monthly cost per employee by headcount.
Plans charged by the month include unlimited payroll runs. Pay frequency does not affect the cost of the plan. A company paying weekly is charged the same plan as a company paying monthly.
Pricing per payroll run is different. The cost is charged for each payroll run. Fit Small Business reports that ADP quoted them a $49 base fee plus $2.50 per employee per week for a 25-employee business. ADP does not disclose this rate, and rates vary for each account.
Pay frequency multiplies the per-run charge. At a per-employee rate of $2.50 per run, 25 employees paid weekly creates 52 runs and a $3,250 annual charge before the base fee. The same employees paid biweekly create 26 runs and a $1,625 annual charge. Gusto’s Simple product at 25 employees is $199 a month or $2,388 a year at any pay frequency.
Per-run fees also show up in monthly plans. Gusto charges $90 for same-day pay and $100 for instant pay for plans that do not include the features. A biweekly employer using same-day pay would incur an additional $2,340 per year.
Add-ons are what cause a final bill to differ from the list price. Gusto’s add-on table has next-day pay at $15 a month with a $3/person add-on. Time and Attendance Plus is $6/person. Priority Support is $30/month with a $3/person add-on. With a Simple account at $109/month, adding time tracking and Priority Support raises the final bill to $229/month. Time tracking is included in Gusto Plus for the same team at $200. Priority Support is not included in Gusto Plus.
Most plans include payroll for a single state. QuickBooks Workforce Payroll and Workforce Premium charge $12 a month for each additional state. Gusto considers Simple payroll single-state payroll. And multistate filing starts on Plus. Square and OnPay include payroll for multiple states in their base plans.
Contractors paid through an employee plan are billed at the plan’s per-person rate. QuickBooks charges $6.50, $10 or $12 per contractor, depending on the Workforce tier. Gusto only charges the per-person rate for the plan in use to process US contractors when they are paid.
Extra charges on invoices add up. Every year Square charges $3 for each paper W-2 or 1099 they mail. QuickBooks lists background checks starting at $29.99. Gusto lists workers’ compensation starting at $14 a month and health insurance broker integration at $6 per eligible employee. QuickBooks and Square charge health insurance and retirement plan administrative fees separately from the payroll service fees.
In-house payroll means that the employer is responsible for payroll tax filings and calculations. Some businesses do payroll by hand. Others use a software-only payroll solution. With outsourced payroll, the provider is responsible for payroll tax filings and calculations and makes the payroll tax deposits.
Patriot’s two payroll plans charge a software fee for the handoff. At 10 employees, the Basic Payroll plan is $57 a month and the Full Service Payroll plan is $87 a month. The $30 a month, or $360 a year, difference covers tax filings and tax deposits.
The cost of a full-time payroll employee is far greater than the cost of either payroll plan. In May 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the median pay for payroll and timekeeping clerks was $28.01 per hour, or $58,260 per year.
Wages are only part of the cost of an employee. In BLS data for June 2026, wages and salaries accounted for 70.0% of private-industry employer compensation costs, and benefits accounted for 30.0%. Applying the average of that ratio to the median clerk wage comes to an estimated total cost of about $83,200 per year. The ratio is for private industry, and the cost of a single role will vary.
The risk of the penalty falls on the party that files. Failure-to-deposit penalties are charged by the IRS for employment taxes that are deposited late or in the wrong way or amount. The rate is 2% for deposits that are 1 to 5 days late; 5% for deposits that are 6 to 15 days late; and 10% for deposits that are more than 15 days late. The rate goes up to 15% if the amount is still not paid more than 10 days after the first notice from the IRS. The IRS has stated that the penalties replace each other and do not build on one another.
Figure 5. IRS failure-to-deposit penalty tiers.
Some providers support their filings with guarantees. As of Gusto’s 2 August 2026 guide, tax-penalty protection is guaranteed under Intuit’s Workforce Elite plan, up to $25,000 a year. It is subject to Intuit’s eligibility rules and notice deadlines. The terms set the limits of any guarantees. Employers should read the terms and consult a tax professional about their filing obligations.
Quotes can be compared more easily once they are converted to annual totals at the customer’s own headcount, pay frequency, and state totals. The table below provides those annual totals for published entry plans at 10 employees, before add-ons and promotions.
| Provider and plan | Base fee per month | Per employee per month | Total per month, 10 employees | Total per year, 10 employees |
| Patriot Full Service Payroll | $37 | $5 | $87 | $1,044 |
| Roll by ADP | $39 | $5 | $89 | $1,068 |
| Square Payroll | $35 | $6 | $95 | $1,140 |
| Gusto Simple | $49 | $6 | $109 | $1,308 |
| OnPay Payroll Essentials | $49 | $6 | $109 | $1,308 |
| QuickBooks Workforce Payroll | $50 | $6.50 | $115 | $1,380 |
Table 1. Published list prices as cited in this article; yearly totals are monthly totals multiplied by 12.
Discounted promotional pricing complicates the first-year comparison. Intuit offered 50% off the Workforce base fee for the first three months for qualifying new customers, per Gusto’s guide. Meanwhile, per-employee fees remained at regular rates. Gusto offered its Contractor Only base fee at $0 for the first six months, as of September 25, 2026.
These six questions cover the fees that usually sit outside a headline rate:
Annual payroll processing rates for small businesses are similar. Entry full-service plans for 2026 ranged from $87 to $115 a month for 10 employees. The biggest differences in rates are found in plans beyond the entry level. Gusto’s rate card shows the full-service Simple plan rising from $109 to $229 a month for 10 employees when time tracking and priority support are added.
There is as much importance to be placed on how a price is charged as on what the price is. Full-service plans charge a monthly fee, while per-run plans charge a fee for each pay period. Removing the full-service premium (an approximately $30 per month charge for 10 employees in Patriot’s plans) leaves the employer liable for IRS deposit penalties of 2% to 15%. A complete picture to compare across payroll service providers would be the total processed payrolls, considering the state and the pay cycle.
Expect published plans to charge $5 to $6.50 per employee, per month, and a $35 to $50 base fee. At 10 employees, that is $8.70 to $11.50 per employee.
Yes, if you purchase and install software to process payroll. Patriot’s Basic software is $30 a month less than their Full-Service option at 10 employees. The employer bears the filing and IRS deposit penalties of 2% to 15%.
Ask about per-run fees, fees for processing payroll in other states, faster-deposit fees, year-end form fees, setup fees, post-promotion pricing, and request a total for the year at your headcount and pay frequency.
