COBRA and Billing Services: 10 Providers Compared

Search for COBRA and billing services and you do not get a buying guide. You get vendor service pages and participant login portals, written for people who already made a decision. I build HR software for small businesses, and this page is the buying guide I would want an owner or office manager to read before calling any of those vendors.

The vendor pages win because the phrase reads like a product name rather than a category label: administrators sell the bundle under near-identical names, WEX's COBRA and direct bill among them. What the phrase actually describes is two jobs sold together.

COBRA administration is the compliance work triggered when someone loses coverage: notices on federal deadlines, election tracking, premium collection, carrier updates. Billing services, usually labeled direct bill or retiree billing, is the same premium collection for people off active payroll for other reasons. The mechanics overlap enough that almost nobody sells them separately.

This comparison covers ten providers a US business can realistically buy from, the fee lines that decide your actual bill, what the category costs at 10, 25, and 50 employees, and the question that comes before all of it: whether federal COBRA applies to you at all. For a business under 20 people it frequently does not, and the answer is often a different and cheaper obligation.

What COBRA and billing services actually covers

The bundle contains one legal obligation and one operational convenience, and it is worth knowing which half you are buying. COBRA carries federal deadlines and penalties. Direct billing has no equivalent set of legal rules; it is simply the job of collecting money from someone your payroll system no longer deducts from.

Do you have to offer COBRA at all?

Federal COBRA applies to employers that had 20 or more employees on more than half their typical business days in the previous calendar year, per the U.S. Department of Labor. Below that line you are not subject to it. This question comes before vendor selection, and a surprising number of buying guides skip it.

The counting rule trips people up. Both full-time and part-time employees count, with each part-timer counted as a fraction equal to their hours divided by full-time hours under the Treasury regulation on COBRA coverage.

A company with 16 full-time staff and eight people working half-time, 20 hours a week, counts as 20 and is subject to COBRA. Because the test looks back at the prior calendar year, crossing the line in one year creates the obligation for the next.

Being under 20 employees does not mean no obligation. Many states have mini-COBRA or state continuation laws that reach the insured group policies of employers with fewer than 20 employees, meaning health plans bought from an insurance carrier. Each law sets its own durations and deadlines. Texas, for example, gives nine months of state continuation to someone not eligible for COBRA, against the federal 18 months.

For a small business this state rule is often the one that actually governs, and it is the part most national guides handle worst. Several administrators on this page confirm they administer state continuation; others do not say on their public pages, so ask.

One more distinction is worth drawing before you shop. If your real problem is that two people on unpaid leave still owe premiums and nobody is invoicing them, you need billing services and not COBRA administration. That is a materially smaller and cheaper purchase, and buying the full compliance bundle to solve it is overkill.

The fee schedule nobody publishes

Almost every vendor in this category quotes a per-employee-per-month (PEPM) rate and stops there, but the PEPM rate is rarely what you pay. At small headcount the monthly minimum sets the price, and per-event charges decide how much the bill swings from month to month.

10 COBRA and billing providers at a glance

The table covers both groups: dedicated administrators that do COBRA and adjacent compliance work, and payroll platforms that bundle COBRA into a broader package. The columns are the ones that actually differ, since the notice-and-collect workflow is close to identical everywhere.

How we evaluated these providers

Feature lists in this category are nearly interchangeable, because federal law defines the work. We applied four tests instead, weighted toward what a US small business without a dedicated HR person needs.

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Dedicated COBRA and billing administrators

These providers do continuation coverage as a core business, usually alongside pre-tax accounts and other compliance services. If COBRA is your only problem and you do not want it tied to a payroll contract, start here.

CobraHelp was founded in Denver in 1984 as an insurance brokerage and pivoted to COBRA administration when the law took effect in 1986, which makes it nearly as old as the obligation itself. It does continuation coverage and nothing else, and the positioning shows: dedicated account managers rather than a call center, notices tailored to your plan structure, and transfer of existing participants from a prior administrator at no added cost.

Two things make it a reasonable default for a small employer. It charges no setup fees and states that it has no contract lock-ins, so the cost of switching to it, or away from it, stays low for a company with a handful of benefits-eligible staff. And it administers state continuation, including for employers below the federal threshold, which several larger platforms treat as an afterthought.

The trade-off is that everything is quoted, and a narrow specialist means one more vendor relationship if you also want pre-tax account administration.

Anuvi is the only dedicated administrator here with a public rate sheet: $1 per benefits-enrolled employee per month at 10 to 75 enrolled employees, falling to $0.65 above 500. It charges no setup, implementation, minimum, or renewal fees, and it states that 96 percent of new groups are fully installed within one business day of contract signature.

The product is built around the parts of COBRA that go wrong: next-day electronic notification instead of mail-only, mobile-first election and payment for participants, and explicit confirmation of adds, changes, and deletions with the carrier rather than assuming the file landed. Anuvi is also the administrator running COBRA behind Gusto, so a large number of small businesses already use it without knowing the name.

Anuvi integrates with common small business HR platforms and benefits administration systems through electronic data interchange (EDI) connections. The honest caveats are scope and carrier feeds. COBRA is its only focus, so pre-tax accounts and other compliance work stay with another vendor. And its rate sheet includes electronic 834 carrier feeds, the standard file for sending enrollment changes to carriers, only for groups above 500 employees.

TASC, short for Total Administrative Services Corporation, traces its roots to an insurance agency founded in 1975 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and is headquartered in Madison. It describes itself as the largest privately held third-party benefits administrator in the country, with more than 80,000 clients.

Continuation services sit on MyTASC alongside more than 50 other benefit accounts, which is the pitch: one portal, one app, one card for COBRA, FSA, HSA, ICHRA, and the rest. TASC also states it will configure a solution whether an employer has one employee or one million, so size is not the barrier here.

TASC retains the 2 percent administrative fee from COBRA participants where the law allows, which is standard practice worth knowing. The structural trade-off is the fee schedule: its COBRA proposal template lists a one-time setup fee, a fee per benefit-eligible employee with a monthly minimum, an annual renewal fee, and $30 for each participant taken over from a prior administrator.

WEX sells this bundle as COBRA and direct bill. It reports more than 25 years administering COBRA and more than 330 carrier integrations that use EDI 834 files to update eligibility automatically.

WEX also integrates with the employer's payroll or HRIS vendor to receive new hire and qualifying event data. Employers work in the LEAP portal, and participants get a COBRA and direct bill mobile app with one-time ACH, recurring ACH, check, and card payment options.

The commercially useful question is what the fee includes. WEX publishes no fee schedule, so ask in writing whether implementation, renewal, carrier notifications, and takeover from a prior administrator sit inside the base rate. Per-event fees are how quotes in this category drift upward.

WEX has also been folding acquired brands into its platform. UnifyHR's site now leads to WEX's own COBRA pages, and Chard Snyder now operates as a WEX company, so employers arriving through those relationships should expect WEX systems.

Benefit Resource, usually written BRI, was founded in 1993 in Rochester, New York, is now part of Inspira Financial, and administers COBRA alongside its pre-tax account business. Employers get a single BRIWEB login covering both, with single sign-on into the COBRA and direct bill management portal.

Each employer also gets an assigned account manager plus a dedicated COBRA administrator, and phone support from 8am to 8pm Eastern on weekdays. Participants get a portal and a mobile app for one-time or recurring premium payments.

BRI's client range runs from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies, which cuts both ways: the platform is proven at scale, and the smallest employers are not the center of the product.

The clearest reason to pick BRI is consolidation. If you already want tax-advantaged account administration and continuation coverage handled together, running both through one account team removes a coordination problem that otherwise surfaces every time a participant elects COBRA for a plan tied to an FSA or HRA.

Ameriflex reports more than 20 years in COBRA administration and leads with risk rather than features. It states that employers are held harmless for any negligence on its part, meaning Ameriflex carries the cost of its own mistakes. It backs the service with an in-house compliance team and an attorney who specializes in ERISA, the federal law behind employer benefit plans.

Ameriflex also commits to responding to client emails in under six hours. Notices go out the day after it receives employee data, which starts the 60-day election clock as early as possible. It is a named COBRA partner for Aetna and a preferred partner for Humana.

Two limits matter for a small employer. First, the state continuation service Ameriflex publishes covers Texas, where it administers the six- and nine-month extensions under Texas law. An employer below the federal 20-employee threshold in another state should confirm coverage before shortlisting it. That makes Ameriflex a strong option once federal COBRA clearly applies to you, and one to question closely before that.

Second, Ameriflex does not pay carrier bills. You pay the carrier as usual and are reimbursed through its monthly premium remittance, which arrives by the 15th of the following month.

BASIC was founded in 1989 in Portage, Michigan, and has more than 35 years in benefits administration. It supports over 15,000 employers across FSA, HSA, HRA, COBRA, ACA reporting, ERISA services, and FMLA administration. Its Consumer Driven Accounts platform combines COBRA, state continuation, and retiree billing with active benefit accounts behind a single sign-on, which removes the usual annoyance of switching systems mid-task.

The participant side is unusually well built for this category: a single app covers all BASIC accounts and COBRA plans, and participants can pay premiums from a MyCash balance, by card, or on autopay.

BASIC also administers state continuation for employers with fewer than 20 employees, so a smaller employer is not shut out. If you want one vendor covering several compliance obligations rather than four separate vendors, BASIC is a strong consolidation play.

Payroll platforms that bundle COBRA

The qualifying event that starts COBRA is almost always a termination, and terminations are already recorded in payroll. That adjacency is the entire argument for buying COBRA from your payroll provider: one less file transfer, one less place for a date to be wrong.

Gusto

Best for small businesses already running payroll on Gusto

Pricing

No separate charge when Gusto brokers your health benefits; $30 per company monthly with the broker integration

Covers

Federal COBRA and state continuation, administered by Anuvi

Best for

Small businesses already using Gusto for payroll and benefits

Gusto has the cleanest commercial terms in this comparison, which is rare enough to note. If Gusto brokers your health benefits, COBRA administration is included at no additional cost and you are onboarded automatically. If you keep your own broker and use the broker integration, it is $30 per company per month, flat, regardless of headcount. Anuvi does the administration. Gusto syncs employee and eligibility data daily, and election notices go out two to three days after a qualifying event.

For a small business this is frequently the cheapest correct answer, and the flat structure means the cost does not move as you hire.

The real cost is elsewhere. COBRA here is a consequence of a payroll and benefits decision, not an independent one. The broker integration itself needs the Plus plan or above and runs $6 per eligible employee per month on top, and switching payroll later means switching COBRA administrator too. If your benefits administration is going to sit somewhere else, the bundle argument weakens considerably.

Paychex

Best bundled into a broader small business HR package

Pricing

Quote only; included in HR Pro, HR Partner, and PEO packages, also sold standalone

Covers

Federal COBRA notices, elections, premium payments, and remittances

Best for

Employers who want HR support and COBRA from the same provider

Paychex sells COBRA administration alongside its payroll and HR services. It handles the initial program setup and sends COBRA notices to qualified beneficiaries automatically when you process terminations through Paychex Payroll. It also manages participant payments, elections, and remittances, and assigns a dedicated COBRA specialist who monitors regulatory changes.

The distinguishing feature is packaging rather than product. COBRA is included in HR Pro, HR Partner, and the PEO offering, which means the buying decision is usually about the HR package, with COBRA arriving as one line among many.

Bundling is efficient if you want the package and opaque if you do not, because there is no published standalone rate to compare against a dedicated administrator. Paychex does sell it standalone to businesses that offer group health, dental, or vision plans.

ADP

Best for organizations standardized on ADP payroll and HR

Pricing

Quote only

Covers

COBRA administration integrated with ADP payroll and benefits; marketplace partners available

Best for

Companies already running ADP that want payroll and COBRA from one vendor

ADP offers COBRA services through ADP Comprehensive Services, whose benefits administration specialists handle COBRA event triggers and administration. The qualifying event therefore starts from the termination or hours change already recorded in ADP. For an organization already standardized on ADP, that continuity is the argument: fewer file transfers, fewer timing errors, one place to look when someone asks what was sent and when.

Two things to check before assuming it is included. First, ADP is a large portfolio rather than one product, and the COBRA offering varies by which platform and service tier you hold. ADP Insurance Agency, for one, states plainly that it does not handle COBRA administration itself and will connect you with a partner.

Second, several third-party administrators, including Benefit Resource, distribute through ADP Marketplace rather than being native ADP services. Confirm in writing who the actual administrator is, because that determines who is accountable when a notice is late.

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What COBRA administration costs at 10, 25, and 50 employees

At these sizes only Gusto and Anuvi publish a price; everyone else will only give you a quote. The table below models monthly administration cost at all three sizes. It is deliberately sparse, because a table full of invented numbers would be worse than an honest one full of the word quote.

Two things stand out. First, the absolute numbers are small relative to the risk being managed: a service in the range of tens of dollars a month sits against penalty exposure measured in hundreds of dollars per day.

Second, at 10 to 25 employees the monthly minimum, not the PEPM rate, is what you are buying. That is why the two vendors that publish flat or minimum-free pricing look disproportionately good at this size and unremarkable at 500 employees.

Outsourcing does not move the liability

Outsourcing COBRA administration does not move the legal liability off you. This is the most important thing on the page and the thing vendor content is least eager to say clearly. Under ERISA's definitions, the plan administrator is whoever the plan document designates, and where the document designates nobody, it is the plan sponsor, which is normally you.

Contracting a third-party administrator to perform the work does not change who the statute holds responsible. ADP states the same in its own compliance guidance: employers remain responsible for benefits compliance even when using brokers, third-party administrators, or payroll providers.

The last row is the one that should shape your decision. Statutory penalties have daily limits and, for failures due to reasonable cause, an annual cap; a serious claim incurred by someone who should have had coverage has neither. What a good administrator buys you is not immunity but evidence: proof of what was mailed, on what date, to what address.

Some vendors go further and offer contractual indemnification, a written promise to cover your losses from their own negligence, which is worth asking about by name. But indemnification is a private contract between you and the vendor, and it does not bind the IRS or a court.

The practical implication is that your side of the workflow still matters. The administrator can only act on the qualifying event once you report it, so the gap between someone's last day and the date that reaches your vendor is your exposure, not theirs. That makes a reliable offboarding process part of the compliance chain rather than an administrative nicety.

Before you choose

FirstHR covers the layer that feeds a COBRA administrator. It is an HR platform for US small businesses that holds employee records, runs task workflows for offboarding, and handles e-signature, at a flat $98 a month for up to 10 people or $198 for 11 to 50.

FirstHR also includes document management, so the signed paperwork around a departure sits next to the employee record. Election notices, premium collection, and remittance to carriers come from the administrators above or an equivalent.

The split between keeping the records and administering COBRA matters most for one specific reader: the employer under 20 people who arrived here assuming they needed a COBRA vendor and discovered they are governed by state continuation instead.

If your actual problem is that terminations are tracked in three places and nobody is certain when someone's last day of coverage was, a COBRA administrator does not fix that, because it can only act on what you report to it.

How to choose a COBRA and billing provider

Five questions settle this faster than any feature grid, and the first two eliminate most of the market before you take a call.

A closing note on sequencing: before you sign anything, ask your prospective administrator to walk through a real qualifying event from your last year and tell you exactly which notices would have gone out, on which dates. Vendors that answer that question precisely are the ones you want. It costs nothing and it predicts the relationship better than any feature list.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are COBRA and billing services?

A bundled service combining COBRA continuation administration with premium billing for people not on active payroll. COBRA administration covers notices on federal deadlines, election tracking, premium collection, carrier updates, and termination for non-payment. Billing services, sold as direct bill or retiree billing, is the same collection work for retirees and staff on unpaid leave. Vendors bundle them because the mechanics are nearly identical, and several market the bundle under names built from the same words.

Does my business have to offer COBRA?

Only with 20 or more employees on more than half your typical business days in the previous calendar year. Part-time employees count as fractions of full-time, which catches employers who assume the test means full-time headcount. Below the threshold, many states have mini-COBRA laws creating similar rights with different durations and deadlines, so the answer for a smaller business is usually not federal COBRA but often something.

How much do COBRA administration services cost?

Pricing is usually a monthly fee per employee, on eligible or enrolled headcount, and a floor often decides what a small employer pays. Anuvi publishes a rate sheet from $1 per enrolled employee monthly, with no minimum and no implementation fee. Gusto is free when it brokers your benefits or $30 per company monthly otherwise. Expect possible charges for implementation, per-notice mailings, returned payments, and reinstatements on top of the base rate.

What is the difference between COBRA and direct bill?

COBRA is a federal obligation with fixed deadlines and penalties. Direct bill is an operational service with no equivalent statutory framework. Both collect premiums from someone off active payroll, which is why they are sold together, but only one carries regulatory risk. If your only need is invoicing two people on unpaid leave, you need billing services rather than COBRA administration, and that is a smaller purchase.

What happens if we get COBRA wrong?

Two penalty regimes apply at once: up to $110 per day per qualified beneficiary under ERISA section 502(c)(1), and a $100 per day excise tax per qualified beneficiary under Internal Revenue Code section 4980B, capped at $200 per day where several family members lose coverage through the same event.

The excise tax falls away for a failure with reasonable cause that is put right within 30 days of being found, or of when it should have been found. The larger exposure is usually liability for medical claims incurred while someone was wrongly uncovered.

Can our payroll provider handle COBRA?

Often yes, and for a small team it is usually the least painful route, because the qualifying event already lives in payroll. Gusto includes it when it brokers your benefits and charges $30 per company monthly otherwise. Paychex includes it in HR Pro, HR Partner, and PEO packages. ADP offers it through ADP Comprehensive Services. The trade-off is that bundled pricing is hard to compare, and switching payroll later means switching administrators.

What is mini-COBRA and does it apply to us?

Mini-COBRA is the informal name for state continuation laws extending COBRA-like rights at employers too small for the federal rule, and many states have one. Duration is often far shorter than the federal 18 months, notice deadlines differ, and self-funded plans fall outside them because states regulate insured policies. For a small business this is frequently the rule that governs, so confirm in writing that your administrator covers your state.

Does outsourcing COBRA remove our legal liability?

No. Unless your plan document designates otherwise, the ERISA plan administrator is the plan sponsor, which is normally the employer, and courts can assess notice penalties against you even where a third party was contracted to do the work. A good administrator reduces the chance of failure and documents what was sent and when. Some offer contractual indemnification against their own negligence, but that is a private contract and does not bind a regulator.