Best Payroll and Benefits Software Solutions in 2026

It is able to handle centralized payroll for multiple entities, affordable compared to some competitor options, has views for both managers and employee self-service, and allows employees to review and ‘approve’ their paychecks in advance.

We have worked with Paycom for about 5 years. We had outgrown BambooHR (at least at the time, they didn't have integrated payroll) and then had a really bad experience with BeyondPay. We needed a combined HR/payroll system that could accommodate multi-state as well as multiple legal entities (we have affiliates managed by central HR/acct). Paycom was the most affordable option that could accommodate our needs at the time.

• The reporting functions aren't great: the filtering options rarely work as they are supposed to so we often do a workaround where we run a huge report file and then use XLS filters to get the data we need as opposed to producing a report from the system that is what you need from the start.
• Limited customization options: we have many things we’d like to track and there is cap on the number of custom fields that can be added.
• The clock in/out functionality is clunky: it works fine if people all work under one company code/work type. If you need to assign hours to different projects (say you want to track learning hours, or you have funding partners and you need to track hours on their grant) it’s very cumbersome for hourly employees.

How much customization do you need” is an important thing to consider and also whether you need data sync between other platforms. If so, Paycom may not be the best fit for you.

Honestly don't feel like they've evolved much in the time we've used them.

Small, fairly simple organizations

Deel makes it easy for us to pay our international contractors. It ensures we are adhering to each country's legal and compliance standards. It is very easy to process separate payroll along with our regular payroll system. The tool is affordable and straightforward, and it only charges us for what we use each month.

We implemented Deel in order to pay our international contractors. The software we were using did not offer international payroll services and it became a necessity for us to look for one that offered such a feature. In addition, we also had to adhere to the compliance and pay standards of other countries, so we needed a third-party payroll system. We've been using Deel for over 2 years now, helping us solve all the problems we had before.

It does not integrate with our HRIS, Rippling. It does integrate with several other HRIS tools, however. No other negative feedback to share.

I like how simple Deel is. I can create contracts and payment schedules for contracts easily. I can terminate a contractor quickly and I feel confident that I am doing so in a compliant way. It is easy for new admins to be added to the tool so my finance team is involved with payments and contracts.

You should use Deel if you have international contractors. If your current payroll tool does not offer an easy or affordable way to pay global employees, consider using Deel.

Some new features I've seen in the tool include an onboarding tracker and a global payroll feature with more robust offerings. They add new countries as well and service 90+ countries currently.

One with global contractors.

Justworks has excellent and responsive customer service. Their pricing tiers are very affordable. It is a comprehensive service that is friendly to those who aren't tech savvy.

We use Justworks to manage payroll and employee benefits. I manage the HR onboarding functions for all new employees. Justworks allows you to track compliance training deadlines. The service also gives regular webinars with tips and tools for managing your business effectively. I have used the service for 3 years.

Justworks offers a PEO service but it can be tricky to confirm details. The service requires payroll to be run with a longer lead time in case of issues. You have to make sure Justworks actually submits tax withholdings to the IRS in time.

Justworks is a great platform. Its interface is easy to navigate and their customer service puts them ahead of competitors.

Do I need a PEO for my employees? Do my programs integrate smoothly with Justworks platform?

Justworks has incorporated training and suggestions for employers on how to improve their business. Their webinars are very helpful, particularly if you are new to HR management.

Justworks is great for small businesses or independent contractors.

The platform makes it easy to build APIs that integrate with our other vendors. Customer service is consistently timely and helpful. The data insights platform offers detailed charts and tables without requiring the use of Excel.

We were looking for an HRIS that could manage the entire employee lifecycle, including an LMS, cloud storage for documents, FMLA tracking tools, and OSHA 300 tracking. After evaluating several HRIS systems, it became clear that Paylocity was the best all-in-one solution.

We chose Paylocity because it serves as the central hub for our team members, consolidating multiple HR functions into a single platform. We have been using Paylocity for a little under a year. Our team utilizes its payroll and HR, performance, learning, surveys, and scheduling platforms to streamline operations and improve efficiency.

The time and labor platform lacks forecast scheduling capabilities. It does not allow for the setup of custom rules, which can be limiting. Transferring employees between EINs within the company is difficult and time-consuming.

Paylocity stands out by continuously evolving and incorporating user feedback to improve its platform. They offer an early adopter program for users interested in trying new features. Their customer service is exceptional, with dedicated account representatives who respond promptly to inquiries. Paylocity is a comprehensive solution that covers everything from recruiting to compliance, training, and performance management.

The first consideration should be how to transfer data from your current provider to Paylocity, as this process can be time-consuming and may require external assistance. It is also important to assess how well your organization adapts to change, as implementing the system involves a significant amount of training in a short period.

Having a dedicated team available to support training and implementation is crucial for a smooth transition.

Paylocity continuously adds new features and enhancements based on user feedback. They actively listen to their customers and implement improvements to better meet business needs.

Paylocity is designed to be user-friendly, with extensive training resources available for users who need guidance. It can serve a wide range of industries, including companies that employ 1099 contractors, allowing for easy payroll processing.

Easy to use. Provided sign up incentives. Respected brand.

Colleagues had experience with ADP in the past and were lobbying for the company to make a change. We have made that change and then continued to increase the services that we were obtaining from them. It has been a positive experience. The vendor is exceeding our expectations. We don't foresee making changes in the near future.

It is a big company so you don't always feel like an important customer. We often deal with different people at the company. It would be nice to have one consistent contact.

The breadth of products that it offers is important to us. We know it has quality products and services.

A company with a long track record. Incentives to move to it. Suggested enhancements to the products.

It is continually updating its service offerings with improvements. It contacts us for associated products and services that may assist our business.

Small to medium business.

I liked the flexibility of the tool. I appreciated being able to manage employees across multiple states. I liked the ease of running payroll with one transaction.

My company used Paychex to manage payroll. The organization was multi-layered with many different types of employees (1099, salaried, unionized, etc.). Paychex allowed us to run payroll for all of them in one transaction instead of using multiple tools.

I used it for about a year before moving on to a new organization. I was the HR manager, so I was the one who set up and utilized the tool.

Paychex had slow customer support. The pricing was not entirely clear, and we ended up buying additional add-ons. Since I’ve used it, there has been a lawsuit related to data security.

Paychex seems to be more robust than competitors, but you pay for the additional benefits.

I would make sure to find a tool that is appropriately sized for your organization. Paychex was great for our purposes, but it could be overkill for smaller organizations. I would also consider how much work you are willing to do outside the tool without additional support.

I'm not sure as I only used Paychex for a year.

Paychex is great for a mid-sized company.

• I liked that Rippling made hour tracking easy from anywhere.
• We could meet at a park, and everyone could clock in without issues.
• The app was lightweight and simple to use.
• Geofencing helped ensure people didn’t just go hang out at McDonald's (which actually happened), so that feature was very useful.

We chose Rippling because I was working on a political campaign. It was temp work for most people, so there were rapid staff fluctuations as people found long-term work or decided it wasn’t a good fit. We needed documented proof of hours for campaign spending and couldn’t waste time on manual timesheets or handling payroll separately.

Before Rippling, field organizers were texting photos of paper timesheets. People made frequent errors, and with constant turnover and staff changing locations, some claimed hours they hadn’t actually worked.

With Rippling’s mobile app, staff could clock in and out with geofencing (so we knew they were actually at the doors), and hours were automatically tallied with fewer errors. Some people still missed clocking in or out properly, but the improvement was significant.

• Rippling was sometimes slow—if users didn’t wait a few seconds after clocking in or out, the app wouldn’t log it.
• The cost per user, instead of a flat rate, felt inefficient and made tracking costs more tedious.
• Geofencing didn’t always work properly; it sometimes lagged by as much as 15 minutes, which made locating workers difficult.

I haven’t used similar tools enough to compare. I’ve used Instawork briefly, but not to a degree that allows for meaningful comparison.

Rippling is great for field operations time tracking, as you can clock in and out from anywhere. The geofencing helps ensure people are where they’re supposed to be.

Support was responsive and helpful. Payroll reports could be generated in just a few clicks, saving a lot of time.

I don’t know. I used Rippling for a three-month period in 2024 and haven’t used it since.

Field operations—door-to-door sales or similar types of jobs can benefit from Rippling.

It's very intuitive, the UX/UI and design features are really amazing. It's also very well liked by our employees because of its ease of use. It's built to keep small companies in compliance -- Gusto really takes it a step further than most other Payroll platforms and gives you a bunch of compliance features and help. Gusto also has "next-day pay" features on some of the more premium tiers of membership; this is a really solid SLA and turnaround for payroll platforms, as this process (sending money to folks) isn't the easiest thing to do at scale.

We onboarded onto Gusto when the company first started back in 2016/2017. We didn't have a way to pay people, and Gusto offered an intuitive, small-business solution to pay employees, help us stay in compliance, and do all the heavy lifting for us in the Payroll and HR world. We've used Gusto for approximately 6 years and we still use it today to pay contractors, which is another benefit it provides.

Gusto is built for small companies so if your company grows quickly, it could easily outpace the features that Gusto provides. It doesn't integrate well/if at all with other softwares it doesn't already have a partnership with. It also has pretty limited reporting capabilities; the reports you can pull are nice, but there are limited types that you can choose from and building reports doesn't include all fields you might need.

It’s more intuitive, but not as scalable for large companies. I'd prefer the more intuitive tools to start with, and then once I wrap my head around how payroll works then I think switching to a larger, more scalable tool helps with understanding the big picture.

If you have a small finance/payroll/HR team, and want a tool to do a lot of the work for you, get Gusto. If you're a large team with a large company, I wouldn't recommend it.

For the most part, it's really improved its contractor payment system and also its compliance features. It still needs to work on allowing for more integrations with third-party tools.

Small organizations (1-100)

First, its ability to consolidate payroll and compliance. Second, the ease of use during our onboarding process for both employees and contractors. Third, the ability to manage employee benefits and time-off requests across multiple jurisdictions.

Our company operates in several jurisdictions, both in the United States and abroad. We needed an HR system that had extensive features but was also easy to use. Its ability to integrate payroll, compliance, and tax management in one place made it simple for our management teams in different jurisdictions to operate efficiently.

As our team consists not only of in-house employees but also contractors, temporary hires, and vendors, the ability for managers to view and manage this diverse group was critical.

Previously, we used a collection of different systems that did not communicate with each other in many of the jurisdictions where we operated. This led us to create our own spreadsheets and send them to a centralized person who would consolidate the data for tracking and reporting purposes.

In the two-plus years we have used Papaya—aside from the initial growing pains of adjusting to the layout—our organization has operated much more smoothly.

The platform has so many features that it can be overwhelming and occasionally clunky. It becomes easier to use over time, and the Papaya Academy is very helpful. The cost is higher than other solutions we have used.

A more subscription-based model that doesn't charge per employee might be better. Customer support can be inconsistent, with varied response times and occasionally unhelpful responses. I recommend that they create a standardized training program for their support staff, especially internationally.

Compared to other tools where we had to use different products in various locations, Papaya Global is the best at integration, and we no longer need multiple systems. It is number one for a reason.

First, consider the cost, which can be high for smaller companies.

Second, assess the size of your company and the jurisdictions in which you operate to determine if such a robust solution is necessary. If you're not operating in at least three different countries, this solution may not be right for you.

Third, the software is designed for companies with more complex needs than just running payroll. If you need a solution that combines payroll, HR, tax, and compliance, this is a strong option.

Papaya Global consistently update their solutions and have made improvements to customer support.

Medium to large-sized organizations operating in multiple countries will find Papaya Global useful. It is especially useful for those seeking a single solution for HR and payroll.

• Paycor allowed us to customize the platform based on our specific needs.
• We could configure features for designated functions.
• Having a dedicated super user to support our organization was highly beneficial.
• We also had a great test and sandbox environment before moving into production.

We switched to Paycor because we were looking for a more robust system covering everything from ATS to invoicing. I have used the product for about six months. We faced challenges with capturing all the data and storing it in a single location.

Paycor gave us the custom capabilities to support our organization’s unique challenges. We were also able to migrate data from our previous systems into Paycor.

• Paycor is still somewhat segmented when it comes to certain functions.
• It does not integrate well with some third-party systems.
• Response times were slow for some technical issues that arose.

Paycor is a strong partner and are willing to help optimize your use of their product.

Some factors to review when deciding include functionality, cost, and support.

It is helpful to dedicate an internal resource to serve as the primary point of contact.

Paycor continue to provide support as they roll out new functionality options.

Paycor is a good option for most organizations, whether large or small and across various industries.

• Easy Onboarding - Remote does make onboarding hires in remote locations quite easy.
• Online Portal - great to have all the hires from all international locations in one place.
• Expenses - easy for employees and companies to track/pay expenses.

With a shortage of talent in the U.S., our firm needed to hire in locations where we did not have an entity. Global EORs offer a way to do that without setting up a legal entity first. Remote was an up-and-coming player in the space that made getting setup much faster, less complex than traditional partners like Velocity Global. We have used the system for approximately 2 years now.

• Billing/Invoicing - Remote has had multiple billing errors in our invoices and their system is incredibly confusing for reconciling what is outstanding vs. the errors they have made.
• Management - Remote has changed management recently and they have changed terms & conditions from our original invoices and have taken away promotions by saying they were "introductory promotions" rather than the "negotiated terms" like we originally discussed.

Remote was a leader in simplicity when we first began using their services a couple of years ago. Now, I believe certain competitors have caught up and surpassed them.

• Cash flow - these services require upfront payment for payroll so be prepared to pay month end payroll by the 17th of that month.
• Terminating employees - Employment laws vary country by country. Remote is offering a service to make it easier on your company to hire elsewhere; however, terminating employees can be quite difficult.

Remote was very startup friendly 2 years ago. Their management has changed and their culture has changed drastically. It is no longer a customer-focused culture going above and beyond to win customers.

Remote is good for an established company in search of a way to explore hiring people in other regions of the world.

• QuickBooks is very affordable and reasonably intuitive.
• Out-of-box, it comes with a generous offering of features, and you are able to add more through its ability to connect with third-party applications (Bill.com).
• The online version allows us to access our financials from any computer, and there is a mobile app available for quick views and expense tracking.
• QuickBooks also has a fairly extensive self-help library if you are unfamiliar with certain features or processes.

My company was in the market for a new accounting software to handle AR, AP, and payroll. The software we used before QuickBooks Online was too complex and more robust than what we needed, and the pricing structure was simply unaffordable. We've been using QuickBooks Online for 3+ years. It handles all of our invoices and vendor payments, and also helps us manage and distribute our payroll.

• Unfortunately, QuickBooks has terrible customer service. In most cases, it is extremely difficult to contact a human customer service representative, and their support ticket system is very slow.
• QuickBooks also has issues connecting with smaller banks, so some features may not be available if you use a local bank or credit union.
• There are also a number of CSS and UX issues that hide certain Call To Action buttons or make them altogether unusable.

QuickBooks stands out from its competitors through its offering of a robust set of features at an affordable price. The price structure allows for affordable scalability, as you only need one license for each business entity. The interface is user-friendly and does not require a lot of details steps in order to customize your experience.

Before purchasing a license, you should think about how businesses you want to connect to the application. Other platforms may accommodate more elaborate business structures. You should also think about the total feature set you are looking to obtain. QuickBooks is great for general accounting, but its reporting capabilities are somewhat limited compared to other more customizable platforms.

QuickBooks continues to add integrations that increase the number of available features without directly altering the platform. Connections to third-party services like Bill.com allow you to do more than what is offered out of the box.

QuickBooks is great for small businesses and business owners that handle all of their own accounting needs.

Our company values OnPay’s affordability and the excellent customer service that comes with it. We appreciate how easy it is to run payroll and generate reports, and we find the self-serve onboarding feature highly convenient.

The interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy to locate, upload, and manage employee documents and files. OnPay simplifies our HR and payroll processes.

The company was looking for affordable payroll and HR management capabilities. OnPay provides exactly what the team needed: payroll, HR functionality, self-serve new employee onboarding, and excellent customer support.

We like that the interface is clean and easy to navigate. Payroll is simple to run every time—after completing three to five tasks, payroll is done. You enter employees’ hours, click “Pay Run,” review everything, and hit “Run.” The process is straightforward and intuitive.

The wait time for customer support can be lengthy at times. OnPay is currently updating its HR functionality—specifically in areas like performance management and PTO requests—which will come at an additional cost.

One downside is that setting up and inputting fields for the new hire application process can be somewhat cumbersome and time-consuming. It takes extra effort to configure everything before an application can be submitted.

OnPay compares very favorably to its competitors. The customer service is excellent—especially compared to some of the larger HRIS providers.

OnPay’s HR resource hub, Mineral, is one of the best I’ve seen in the industry. It offers a strong HR library, a robust employee handbook builder, and timely labor and employment law updates.

Companies should consider affordability and subscribe only to the tools that help their teams work efficiently. Avoid paying for features that aren’t necessary.

Customer service is another key factor—not only during onboarding but throughout the entire lifecycle of the product, including offboarding. The HRIS should also be user-friendly and accessible for both the company and its employees.

OnPay has expanded its offerings to include benefits and has enhanced its HR resource hub, Mineral, which is now more user-friendly.

They continue to improve their HR functionality by adding features such as performance management and training. I’m looking forward to seeing the completed HR functionality.

OnPay is a great fit for most organizations. I’ve used it with manufacturing companies, professional office environments, and small mom-and-pop shops, and it has worked well across all of them.

I liked how easy it made onboarding new employees.

The ability to manage and store electronic files was a significant advantage.

The reporting dashboard was clear and helpful for monitoring key metrics.

Employees found it easy to access their paystubs and tax information.

The interface, with its social media-like design, was user-friendly and relatable for many employees.

I consulted with an organization for about one year and administered Namely. They were a small but growing business in need of an HR and payroll solution to manage their expanding workforce.

Namely was chosen because it met the needs of various types of organizations and had the flexibility to grow alongside the company as their requirements evolved. I appreciated the compliance features, which helped me stay on top of regulations and deadlines.

The tool was also within the budget approved by the CFO and addressed the needs of both the HR department and employees effectively.

When I first used it, the platform was new and had some glitches.

Payroll processing was initially difficult for the payroll specialist to adapt to.

Learning which reports were essential versus optional required more guidance than was provided.

I would have appreciated more hands-on support during the implementation phase.

The search function did not perform as effectively as I would have liked at the time.

Namely has a more modern and visually appealing interface compared to some competitors.

It promotes diversity and inclusion through its design and functionality.

Its scalable features are suitable for small to mid-sized companies, though larger organizations may need to explore alternatives.

Compared to tools like ADP or UKG, Namely is a more affordable option, though it may lack some of the advanced features those platforms offer.

While Rippling is a strong competitor, I prefer Namely’s design and user-friendly interface.

It’s important to have an experienced payroll person or request training to ensure smooth adoption, as Namely may not be as intuitive as other platforms like UKG or ADP.

Fully prepare questions for your implementation specialist to maximize the benefits of the tool.

Be aware of the states where your employees work, as compliance requirements can vary significantly.

Understand your organization’s growth plans to ensure the tool can scale with your business effectively.

Namely has added new features, including AI-powered tools, to improve functionality.

The interface has become more user-friendly, addressing previous concerns about the search and self-service features.

Employees now find it easier to access essential HR and payroll information.

I think Namely is great for small to mid-size organizations, but I remember it was a tool that scaled to a limit, and if you got too big, a different solution would be better. It possibly would be at the point a larger org could use them, but not sure they are there yet.

I know one of their main competitors is Rippling, so a user or organization should research both before making a decision. I’d also find out if there is a specific person to contact or just a generic number for questions. Over the years, I have been using many tools, and I personally like a particular person or team to work with.