Updated August 5, 2026 — every price below was verified against each provider’s published pricing on the date shown.
Payroll is the first back-office system most startups buy, and the most annoying one to switch later. Every provider on this list files your federal, state, and local payroll taxes automatically. The differences are price, multi-state handling, contractor support, and how much HR comes bundled. This is a straight comparison of the eight services startups actually use.
Best overall for most startups: Gusto — easiest setup, transparent pricing, handles the 90% case
Best if payroll should live inside your HR/IT stack: Rippling
Best for international contractors and global teams: Deel
Cheapest full-service payroll: Patriot ($37/mo + $5 per person) or OnPay ($49/mo + $6 per person)
Best PEO if you want big-company benefits early: Justworks
Best if you already run QuickBooks: QuickBooks Payroll
Whatever you pick: register for state payroll tax accounts *before* your first pay run, and claim the R&D payroll tax credit if you qualify — early-stage startups can offset up to $500,000 per year in payroll taxes.
Head-to-Head Comparison
Price | Multi-state | Contractors | International | Benefits admin | Best for | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Gusto | $49/mo + $6/person (Simple) | Plus tier ($80/mo + $12/person) | Yes, included | Contractor payments in 120+ countries | Yes | Most startups' first payroll |
Rippling | Quote-based; roughly $8/person/mo + platform fee | Yes, all tiers | Yes | EOR + global payroll add-ons | Yes | Payroll + HR + IT in one system |
Deel | Contractors $49/contractor/mo; EOR $599/mo; US payroll quote-based | Yes | Yes | Best-in-class: EOR in 130+ countries | Via add-ons | Global and contractor-heavy teams |
OnPay | $49/mo + $6/person, one plan | Yes, included | Yes, same price | No | Yes | Lowest cost without feature cuts |
Justworks | PEO from $79/person/mo; Payroll $50/mo + $8/person | Yes | Yes | Contractor payments; EOR add-on | PEO-grade | Startups that want a PEO |
QuickBooks Payroll | $50/mo + $6.50/person (Core) | Extra fee on Core tier | Yes | No | Limited | Teams already on QuickBooks |
Warp | $89/mo + $35/person (Starter) | Yes, automated registrations; all 50 states on Pro | Yes | Contractors in 200+ countries | Yes | Lean startups tired of state paperwork |
ADP Run | Quote-based | Yes | Yes | Via ADP global products | Yes | Startups planning to scale past 50 fast |
Prices verified August 2026. Per-person fees apply to each employee and, unless noted, each contractor paid that month. QuickBooks and Patriot run frequent 50%-off promotional periods; the numbers here are list prices.
Gusto
Gusto is the default answer for a reason. Setup is self-serve in an afternoon, pricing is public, and the Simple plan at $49 per month plus $6 per person covers full-service payroll: automatic federal and state tax filing, W-2s and 1099s, direct deposit, and employee self-onboarding.
The catch to know about: Simple is single-state. The moment you hire in a second state — which for most startups is the moment you make your first remote hire — you need Plus at $80 per month plus $12 per person. Budget for the Plus tier if you are hiring remote from day one. Gusto also handles health insurance brokerage in most states, 401(k) integration, and files the R&D tax credit payroll offset.
Gusto pays contractors in 120+ countries, but it is contractor payments only — no employer-of-record option for hiring international employees.
Choose Gusto if your team is US-based W-2 employees plus some contractors and you want the least setup friction per dollar.
Rippling
Rippling treats payroll as one module in a larger employee system: the same record that runs payroll also provisions laptops, manages app access, and administers benefits. Payroll runs in 90 seconds once onboarding data is in, multi-state tax registration is handled at every tier, and the platform's automation rules are the strongest of any vendor here.
Pricing is quote-based, starting around $8 per person per month for payroll plus a platform fee, and it climbs as you add modules. Rippling is a bigger commitment than Gusto — more powerful, more to configure, and more expensive once you stack HR, IT, and benefits modules.
Choose Rippling if you are past ~15 employees or want payroll, device management, and app provisioning in one system instead of three.
Deel
Deel started as the way to pay international contractors and grew into full global payroll. Contractor management runs $49 per contractor per month with compliant localized contracts in 150+ countries. Employer-of-record — Deel legally employs your international hire so you don't need a foreign entity — is $599 per employee per month, with volume discounts negotiable at 20+ headcount. Deel also runs US payroll and a US PEO, both quote-based (third-party estimates put US payroll around $19–24 per employee per month).
The compliance depth is the moat: localized contracts, misclassification protection, and in-house entities in most countries rather than partner networks. Two costs to model before committing: employer taxes and statutory benefits on EOR hires add 13–40% on top of gross pay depending on country, and FX conversion runs roughly 0.5–1% above mid-market.
Choose Deel if a meaningful share of your team is outside the US, or you want one platform that can take a contractor in Brazil, an EOR hire in Poland, and a W-2 employee in Texas.
OnPay
OnPay is one plan at $49 per month plus $6 per person, and the plan includes what Gusto charges Plus-tier prices for: multi-state payroll, unlimited pay runs, W-2 and 1099 workers at the same per-person price, and benefits administration in all 50 states. An optional HR module adds $15 per month plus $2 per person.
What you give up is ecosystem: fewer integrations, no international anything, and no ambitions to run your IT stack. For a US startup that just wants payroll done correctly at the lowest full-service price, that trade is often fine.
Choose OnPay if you want multi-state payroll without tier upgrades and the lowest total cost from a full-service provider.
Justworks
Justworks is a PEO: it becomes the co-employer of your team, which pools your startup with thousands of other companies to get large-group health insurance rates that a 6-person company cannot get alone. PEO Basic is $79 per employee per month, and PEO Plus — the tier that adds medical, dental, and vision access — is $109, with rates stepping down at 25+ and 100+ employees. Justworks also sells standalone payroll at $50 per month plus $8 per person if you want the software without co-employment.
The PEO trade-off: less control over benefit plan choices, an extra layer in employment paperwork, and a per-person cost that gets heavy past ~30 employees, which is when many startups graduate to software plus a broker.
Choose Justworks if competitive health benefits in your first hires' offer letters matter more than per-seat cost.
QuickBooks Payroll
If your books are already in QuickBooks, adding its payroll gets you same-day direct deposit on some tiers and payroll entries that book themselves. Core is $50 per month plus $6.50 per employee after the May 2026 price increase, with frequent 50%-off promotional pricing for the first three months; Premium ($88 + $15) and Elite ($134 + $19) add HR tooling and tax-penalty protection.
The gotchas: multi-state filing costs extra on the Core tier, contractor and HR features are thinner than Gusto's, and if you ever leave QuickBooks accounting the bundle logic evaporates.
Choose QuickBooks Payroll if you run QuickBooks accounting, your team is in one state, and bookkeeping automation is the priority.
Warp
Warp is built specifically for startups and leans hard on one pain point: state registrations. Hire in a new state and Warp handles the payroll tax account registrations automatically — the paperwork that generic providers hand back to you — with filings across 10,000+ tax jurisdictions, next-day payroll, and contractor payments in 200+ countries. Starter is $89 per month plus $35 per person and covers up to 3 states; Pro is $129 per month plus $50 per person for all 50 states, AI tax-notice resolution, and dedicated support.
Note the math: a 5-person team on Starter runs $264 per month versus $140 on Gusto Plus. Warp is the premium option here, and it is the youngest company on this list — the bet is that automated compliance and never touching a state registration form is worth the difference for a remote team.
Choose Warp if you are a small remote startup and state registration paperwork is the thing you most want to never think about.
ADP Run
ADP is the incumbent: fifty years of payroll, every edge case handled, HR support lines, and a product ladder that goes from 1 employee to 100,000. Run, its small-business product, is quote-based — expect to negotiate, and expect the price to be higher than the startup-native options for the same headcount.
Startups usually pick ADP when a parent company, PE sponsor, or experienced CFO standardizes on it, or when they expect to blow past 50 employees within the year and want a provider they will never outgrow.
Choose ADP Run if you value an unbounded upgrade path and phone support over startup-native UX and transparent pricing.
How to Choose
Four questions settle it:
Where is your team? All US, one state → OnPay, Patriot, or QuickBooks Payroll. US but multi-state remote → Gusto Plus, OnPay, or Warp. Meaningful international headcount → Deel, or Rippling with global add-ons.
Employees, contractors, or both? Every provider here handles both W-2s and 1099s, but pricing differs: OnPay charges the same $6 for either, Gusto includes contractors on all tiers, and Deel's $49-per-contractor price only makes sense when those contractors are international.
PEO or software? Use a PEO (Justworks) when recruiting requires big-company health benefits before you have big-company headcount. Use payroll software (everyone else) when cost and control win. The common path: PEO for the first 20–30 hires, then graduate to software plus a benefits broker.
How much system do you want? Payroll only → OnPay or Patriot. Payroll + light HR → Gusto. Payroll + HR + IT + device management → Rippling.
And in every case: before your first pay run in any state, register for that state's employer withholding and unemployment insurance accounts. It can take days to weeks, it blocks your first compliant payroll, and it is the single most common payroll mistake first-time founders make. (Warp and Rippling automate it; everyone else mostly leaves it to you.) And if you plan to hire someone to own payroll in-house, our guide to payroll certifications explains what credentials like the CPP actually signal.
FAQs
Gusto for most US startups: transparent pricing ($49/mo + $6 per person), full-service tax filing, and the easiest setup. Rippling if you want payroll inside a broader HR/IT platform, and Deel if much of your team is international.
Patriot Payroll's Full Service plan at $37 per month plus $5 per person is the cheapest that still files taxes for you — note it adds $12 per month for each additional state. OnPay ($49/mo + $6 per person) is the cheapest that includes multi-state payroll and benefits administration in one plan with no add-on fees.
Gusto Simple or OnPay. At that size you are paying roughly $85–110 per month all-in, both file everything automatically, and both take under a day to set up. Skip quote-based enterprise providers at this headcount — you will pay more for capacity you don't use.
Six steps: (1) get an EIN if you don't have one; (2) register for employer withholding and unemployment insurance accounts in the state where your employee works — not where you incorporated; (3) collect a W-4 and I-9 from the employee; (4) pick a payroll provider and connect your business bank account; (5) set a pay schedule that complies with your state's pay frequency law; (6) run payroll — the provider calculates, withholds, and files the taxes. Budget a week, most of it waiting on the state accounts.
Use payroll software by default — it is cheaper and you keep control. Choose a PEO (Justworks, ADP TotalSource, Rippling PEO) when you need large-group health insurance rates to compete for hires, or when multi-state HR compliance is eating founder time. Many startups start with a PEO for benefits and switch to software around 25–30 employees when the per-person PEO fee stops paying for itself.
All eight on this list do. The pricing detail that matters: OnPay charges the same per-person fee for both, Gusto includes 1099 filing on every tier, and QuickBooks handles 1099s but with thinner contractor onboarding. If contractors are international, that is Deel's home turf.
Deel — localized compliant contracts in 150+ countries, misclassification protection, and payment in local currencies at $49 per contractor per month. Gusto can pay international contractors in 120+ countries but without the compliance layer. If you later convert a contractor to a full employee abroad, Deel's employer-of-record makes that a menu option instead of a foreign-entity project.
The same as any other startup — Delaware incorporation does not create Delaware payroll obligations unless someone actually works in Delaware. You register for payroll taxes in the states where employees physically work. A Delaware C-corp with two founders in California and an engineer in Texas registers in California and Texas, not Delaware. Any provider on this list handles this; what you owe is the state registrations.
Gusto Plus, OnPay, or Warp. The feature that matters is multi-state tax registration and filing: OnPay includes multi-state in its single plan, Gusto requires the Plus tier, and Warp automates the state account registrations themselves — the step every other provider leaves mostly to you.