OnPay Alternatives: 10 Platforms Compared
OnPay alternatives compared for small employers: rates read off vendor pricing pages, what the bill looks like as you hire, and who each one suits.
Almost nobody leaves OnPay because it broke. In the years I have watched small employers move payroll, the departures I see from this particular product are quiet ones: the pay runs kept working, the filings kept landing, and then the plan stopped fitting. This comparison is for that moment: ten payroll platforms a US small business can realistically move to, each matched to the situation it is built for.
What changed was on the buyer's side. Somebody hired their tenth hourly employee. Somebody needed an HR layer and found it was a separate line item. Somebody had a payroll question at 9pm on a Friday.
That makes this a harder comparison to write than most. There is no scandal to point at and no obvious failure mode, so the honest version has to be specific about the four things that actually push people out: the shape of the per-worker fee, the modules that sit outside the base price, the time clock that costs extra, and the support window, plus the one thing that is genuinely not a problem here.
Every rate below was read off the vendor's own pages, normally its pricing page, rather than repeated from a roundup, and the total bill was worked out at three headcounts, so you can see what a move costs as the team grows.
Why small employers leave OnPay
Four reasons, and two of them are not about money. OnPay sells one payroll plan at $49 per month plus $6 per worker, which is a fair price for what it does. The friction shows up at the edges of that plan: what the per-worker fee does as you grow, what sits outside the base price, where the time clock comes from, and when the phones are answered.
The per-worker fee has no ceiling and no floor
Payroll Essentials costs $49 plus $6 per worker per month with no volume break published anywhere. At 10 employees that is $109, at 25 it is $199, and at 50 it is $349. The curve is not steep by category standards, but it never flattens, and there is no cheaper entry tier underneath it either. A two-person consultancy pays the same $49 floor as a 40-person one.
That cuts both ways depending on which end you are at. If you are a one-employee business, the floor is the problem and cheaper published options exist. If you are heading past 40 people, the slope is the problem, and the answer is usually a platform whose pricing model changes shape rather than one that shaves a dollar off the same model.
The modules that are not in the base price
This is the one that surprises people. OnPay prices its HR module as an add-on at $15 base plus $2 per worker per month, and that module is where PTO requests and approvals, the org chart and employee directory, custom onboarding workflows, and unlimited custom eSignature documents live. Compliance Resources at $10 base and Live HR Support at $65 base sit on top of it.
Hiring basics, benefits administration, and the employee document storage at the core of document management are in Payroll Essentials, so the surprise is rarely the whole HR layer. It is time off approvals and onboarding workflows turning up as a second line item.
Time tracking is an add-on, not part of the plan
OnPay's base plan has no time clock. Time Tracking is a $15 base plus $4 per worker add-on with time clocks, timesheets, and supervisor approval, and it lists no scheduling. The alternative is an integration, with QuickBooks Time, Deputy, and When I Work listed in the Time Tracking section of the vendor's app directory.
For a salaried office team, the time tracking gap is irrelevant. For anyone paying hourly staff, it means a second line item at best, and at worst a second subscription, a second login, and a second place for the numbers to disagree. This is the most common functional reason I see employers move.
If you are running a restaurant, a shop, or a clinic, the schedule and the time clock are the product and payroll is downstream of them. A platform that sells hour capture as a separate module and leaves scheduling to another vendor is solving the smaller half of your problem. There are time tracking tools good enough that pairing them works, but it is still two bills.
Support runs long weekdays and stops at the weekend
OnPay publishes extended hours of 9am to 8pm on weekdays with phone, email, and chat available to all clients rather than gated behind a higher tier. That is genuinely better than the tiered support models most of this category sells, and it deserves credit. It is also a weekday window, and payroll problems have an unhelpful habit of surfacing on a Sunday when Monday is a pay date.
What is not a reason to leave
The costs around the subscription itself are not a reason to leave. OnPay charges no implementation or integration fees, includes free account setup and data migration, and gives new customers a month free.
W-2s, 1099s, and year-end filings sit inside the base price rather than arriving as a January invoice, and payroll in as many states as you need is included at the published rate. Several products further down this list charge separately for at least one of those, so compare the whole bill rather than the base fee before you move.
10 OnPay alternatives at a glance
Seven of these ten publish a rate on their pricing page that you can read without talking to anyone. Three do not, and that difference matters more than any feature comparison when you are leaving a product whose price was always on the page.
| Product | Best For | Published Price | Pricing Model | Rate Published | Time Clock at Entry Price | Current Offer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gusto | The same rate with a tier to grow into | $49 + $6/person | Base + PEPM | Free until first run | ||
| Patriot | The lowest published bill | $37 + $5/worker | Base + PEPM | 30 days free | ||
| Square Payroll | Hourly and tipped teams on Square | $35 + $6/person | Base + PEPM | No trial listed | ||
| Homebase | Scheduling and the time clock first | $49 + $6/employee | Add-on PEPM | 14-day trial | ||
| SurePayroll | Two-person shops and households | $29 + $7/worker | Base + PEPM | Promo only | ||
| QuickBooks | Books already in QuickBooks | $50 + $7/employee | Base + PEPM | 30-day free trial | ||
| Justworks | Benefits priced off a bigger pool | $50 + $8/employee | Base + PEPM | None listed | ||
| Rippling | Payroll wired to HR and IT | From $40 + $8/user | Modular | Demo first | ||
| ADP RUN | Growing past a self-serve product | Quote | Quote | Promo only | ||
| Paychex Flex | A named person to call | Quote | Quote | Quote only |
How we compared them
Every platform here was assessed for a US small business that already runs its own payroll and is considering a move rather than buying for the first time. That framing rules out a lot of otherwise good products.
The 10 alternatives reviewed
The platforms that publish a rate on their pricing pages come first, starting with Gusto as the closest like-for-like swap, and the three whose pricing pages carry no rate close the list. Each review opens with a card showing the price, the monthly bill at three headcounts, and the current offer.
Gusto Simple charges exactly what OnPay charges: $49 per month plus $6 per person, which means a 10-person company sees an identical $109 either way. Nobody should migrate for that.
The argument for Gusto is what sits above Simple. Plus is $80 plus $12 per person and includes time tracking, scheduling, and project tracking. Simple customers can buy the Time & Attendance Plus add-on at $6 per person instead, and either route adds the scheduling that the OnPay time tracking add-on does not list.
The trade is that Gusto keeps more behind add-ons and higher tiers. Priority support is a $30 plus $3 per person add-on on Simple and Plus, HR expert help and HR document tools are reserved for Premium, keeping your own benefits broker costs $6 per eligible employee, and state tax registration is an add-on on every tier. OnPay gives you phone support at its only price.
If you are leaving over the feature ceiling rather than the bill, Gusto is the shortest move. If you are leaving over unbundling, read its add-on list carefully first.
Patriot is the cheapest full-service payroll in this comparison that still publishes its rate. Full Service is $37 per month plus $5 per worker paid and covers federal, state, and local tax filings and deposits with year-end payroll tax filings at no additional fee. That is $22 a month less than OnPay at 10 employees and $62 less at 50, on essentially the same job.
Two details decide whether the saving survives contact with reality. Each state beyond the first is $12 per month, so a two-state employer gives back half the gap and a three-state employer gives back all of it, where OnPay includes every state at its published rate.
The second detail is the add-ons: Patriot sells its HR and Time and Attendance modules at $6 per month plus $2 per employee each, which is the same unbundling that pushed you out in the first place, just cheaper. Basic at $17 plus $4 leaves you making tax deposits yourself and is a false economy for most employers.
Square Payroll has the second-lowest published base of any full-service plan here at $35, behind SurePayroll at $29, and it closes the exact gap that sends hourly employers away from OnPay. Time tracking is in the plan, not beside it. Scheduling comes with it, multi-state payroll is included, direct tips are tracked and imported, and federal and state filings are automated at the same price.
The contractor-only plan drops the base entirely and charges $6 per person paid, which makes it the cheapest legitimate way to run 1099 payments in this comparison. The catch is the obvious one: the value case is strongest if your point of sale is already Square, because that is where the timecards and the tip data come from. Standalone, it is a competent payroll product with a good price and a narrower feature surface than the generalists.
Homebase inverts the model. Scheduling and the time clock are the product, and payroll is an add-on at $49 per month plus $6 per employee paid. The Basic plan is free for one location with up to 10 employees, which means a 10-person shop can run scheduling, time tracking, and full payroll for $109 a month, the same as OnPay charges for payroll alone.
Above 10 people or beyond one location you move to a paid tier, published at $30 per month for Essentials, $70 for Plus, and $120 for All-in-One, each priced per location. That per-location structure is the thing to model carefully if you run more than one site, because no other product in this comparison prices by location.
For a single-site hourly business leaving OnPay because of the time tracking gap, Homebase is the most direct answer available.
SurePayroll has the lowest base fee of any full-service plan here at $29, which is the answer to OnPay's $49 floor if you employ two or three people. It is also the only product in this comparison with a dedicated household plan at $39 a month including one employee, which matters if you are paying a nanny or a caregiver rather than staff.
The per-worker fee of $7 is the highest among the budget options, so the ranking flips as you grow: cheaper than OnPay at 10 employees, more expensive by 25. Multi-state is $9.99 a month, and year-end forms are billed annually at a $50 base plus $5 per W-2 or 1099-NEC, which OnPay includes. Time clock integration starts at $5 a month plus $3 per employee. Read the add-on list before the base fee sells you.
The reason to choose this one has never changed: if your general ledger is already QuickBooks Online, payroll entries land in the books without an export, a mapping step, or a monthly reconciliation argument. Workforce Payroll is $50 per month plus $7 per employee, which is more than OnPay at every headcount in this comparison.
You are paying that premium for the integration, not for the payroll engine. Intuit also sells the product primarily in bundles with its accounting tiers, so the number you see first on the pricing page is usually a combined figure rather than payroll alone. Introductory discounts hide the real cost while they last, so budget from the regular rate.
Two products under one name, and the distinction decides everything. Justworks Payroll at $50 per month plus $8 per employee is straightforward software that includes HR tools, expert support, and access to time tracking, which is more than OnPay bundles at a slightly higher price. That alone is a reasonable swap for a team that wants the time clock included.
The PEO, short for professional employer organization, is a different proposition. At $79 per employee per month for Basic and $124 for Plus, it is a co-employment arrangement rather than a subscription, and the reason companies buy it is access to health plans and benefits administration priced off a much larger risk pool.
At 25 employees Justworks costs $1,975 a month on PEO Basic and $3,100 on PEO Plus, the tier that adds medical, dental, and vision administration, against $199 for OnPay. The PEO only makes sense if benefits access is the actual problem.
Rippling sells a single employee record that spans HR, payroll, and IT, so hiring someone can provision their accounts, ship their laptop, and set up their pay in one action. For a company where onboarding currently touches four systems, that is a real reduction in coordination work rather than a feature list.
The pricing page asks for a work email, full name, company name, employee count, headquarters, and phone number, then promises a custom quote. No dollar figure appears anywhere on the page, which says only that most products are billed per employee per month with some carrying a monthly base fee.
Rippling does print a starting point away from the pricing page. Its small-business page starts payroll plans at $8 per user per month plus a $40 monthly base fee, and its blog prices the core platform at $8 per employee and the payroll module at $8 billed annually or $10 billed monthly, so treat those figures as the floor of a quote rather than the bill.
Moving to Rippling from a product whose price was always visible is a change in how you buy as much as what you buy, and modular pricing means the number depends on which modules you switch on. It is the right platform for a scaling technology company and an awkward one for a small business that just wants payroll to run.
ADP says every RUN package calculates, files, deposits, and reconciles payroll taxes, answers taxing agency inquiries, and pays the resulting fines if ADP makes a filing error. For a company crossing state lines or adding local jurisdictions faster than it can track them, that service is the entire argument. Rate changes reach the filing engine without anyone at your company reading a state register, which is worth real money once multi-state payroll stops being hypothetical.
The cost is opacity. No rate is published on the payroll product page, and the route to a number is a Get Pricing form or a phone call.
ADP does print that RUN needs no signed contract and can be ended at any time, but prices and add-on fees are settled in the sales conversation, which is a different world from a product whose price sat on the page. Worth a quote if you have outgrown self-serve; not worth the call if you have not.
Paychex competes on the same terms as ADP: a service relationship rather than a software subscription, with a named contact at the higher tiers. If your reason for leaving is the weekday support window, this is the category that answers it, because you are buying a person rather than a queue.
Everything else about the purchase is the opposite of what you have now. The small business payroll page carries no dollar amount at all, only Get a Quote Now, Request Pricing, and Contact Sales. Paychex also owns Paycor, so the two names in your shortlist may resolve to the same company.
For an employer who wants advice on payroll compliance rather than a help article, trading the visible price for a named contact is defensible. For anyone who liked seeing the price on the page, Paychex will not feel like an upgrade.
Dwight SchruteSales3 people
Darryl PhilbinWarehouse1 person
Kelly KapoorCustomer Service1 personWhat each one costs as the team grows
Starting prices are close to meaningless in payroll, because the per-person component takes over within a year of hiring. The table below works the real monthly subscription from published base and per-person rates, with OnPay included as the baseline you are measuring against.
| Product | 10 employees | 25 employees | 50 employees | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patriot Full Service | $87 | $162 | $287 | Plus $12 per month for every state beyond the first |
| Square Payroll | $95 | $185 | $335 | Time tracking and multi-state payroll on full service |
| SurePayroll | $99 | $204 | $379 | Plus $9.99 multi-state; year-end forms billed yearly |
| OnPay | $109 | $199 | $349 | The baseline: one plan, all states, year-end included |
| Gusto Simple | $109 | $199 | $349 | Identical rate; time tracking is a $6 add-on or the Plus tier |
| Homebase | $109 | $229 | $379 | Free Basic to 10 people, then a paid tier per location |
| QuickBooks Workforce | $120 | $225 | $400 | $50 base plus $7 per employee; $12 per extra state |
| Justworks Payroll | $130 | $250 | $450 | $50 base plus $8 per employee |
| OnPay plus the HR add-on | $144 | $264 | $464 | What OnPay costs once the HR module is switched on |
| Gusto Plus | $200 | $380 | $680 | The tier that adds time tracking and project tracking |
| Justworks PEO Basic | $790 | $1,975 | $3,950 | Co-employment, 24/7 support, and 401(k); medical plans start on PEO Plus |
| Rippling, ADP, Paychex | Quote | Quote | Quote | No rate on their pricing pages; Rippling prints only a starting rate elsewhere |
Three things fall out of this. The cheapest single-state option, Patriot, saves $62 a month at 50 employees against OnPay, which is real but smaller than most people expect from a product that looks 25 percent cheaper on the sticker. Gusto Simple is a dead heat at every headcount, so the swap has to be justified by the upgrade path rather than the price.
The row that should change the conversation is the one for OnPay with its HR module switched on, at $464 for 50 employees, because that is what a lot of readers are actually paying today.
The second state is where the ranking reorders. OnPay lists payroll in as many states as you need at its published rate. Patriot and QuickBooks charge $12 per month for each state beyond the first, and SurePayroll charges $9.99 for multi-state.
Gusto Simple covers one state, so a second state means Plus, and Gusto sells state tax registration as an add-on on every tier. If a second state is plausible within a year, model that cost before the headline one.
Names that did not make the shortlist
Four products come up constantly when small employers shop for an OnPay replacement, and none of them is in the ranking. Two of them fail the same test: if you are leaving a subscription whose price was printed on the page, a form and a sales call is a downgrade in how you buy, whatever the product does.
| Product | What it is | Why it is not in the ranking |
|---|---|---|
| TriNet HR Platform | Zenefits under its current name, after TriNet acquired Zenefits | Now sold within TriNet HR Plus, priced per employee per month by quote, with no self-serve signup |
| Paylocity | Payroll and HCM (human capital management) aimed at growing and midsize teams | The pricing page routes to a Get Pricing request rather than a rate |
| Paycor | HCM for small and midsize businesses, now owned by Paychex | Small business plans start at $99 a month plus $5 per employee, and Paychex positions Paycor for larger businesses with more complex needs |
| Wave Payroll | Payroll attached to Wave accounting at $40 a month plus $6 per active employee | Sensible if Wave is already your ledger; payroll is a side module of the accounting product |
The Zenefits name is worth a sentence because it still circulates. That platform is now the TriNet HR Platform, sold within TriNet HR Plus, the administrative services offering that TriNet prices by quote rather than publishing a rate. If a comparison article quotes you a per-employee price for Zenefits, it is quoting a product configuration that no longer exists under that name.
What switching payroll providers actually involves
The clean answer is that January 1 is the easiest date to move and the start of any calendar quarter is the workable alternative. Switching mid-quarter splits year-to-date wages, deposits, and withholding history across two systems, which is where duplicate filings and missing deposits come from.
| Decision | The safe answer | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| When to move | January 1, or the first day of a quarter | Keeps year-to-date wages and tax history inside one system per period |
| Who files the current quarter | Agreed in writing before you sign | The most common source of a duplicate or missing quarterly return |
| What to export first | Payroll registers, filed returns, employee records | Access to the old system usually ends when billing does |
| Who stays liable | You do, always | Outsourcing payroll does not transfer the employer tax obligation |
| How long to keep records | At least three years for payroll records | Federal recordkeeping rules apply regardless of which vendor holds the data |
That fourth row is the one employers underestimate. The IRS states that employers are ultimately responsible for the payment of income tax withheld and both the employer and employee portions of Social Security and Medicare taxes, and that a provider default leaves the employer liable for deposits and returns. Your payroll records are your evidence in that scenario, which is why exporting them before you cancel matters more than the migration itself.
On retention, Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet 21 sets a three-year minimum for payroll records and two years for the wage computation records behind them, such as timecards and wage rate tables. Deposit schedules and the returns themselves are covered by the IRS employment tax rules.
Year-end W-2 submission runs through the Social Security Administration rather than the IRS, so confirm that your new provider handles electronic W-2 filing rather than handing you a file to upload. OnPay includes year-end filings in its base price, and not every alternative does.
How to choose an OnPay alternative
Start from the complaint, not the feature list. Each of the five questions below routes to a different answer, and the wrong starting point produces a migration that solves nothing.
Before you choose
FirstHR is an onboarding and HR platform, not a payroll provider, so it sits beside whichever OnPay alternative you pick. Running payroll, filing payroll taxes, and administering benefits stay with the provider you choose from the list above.
What it covers is the people work around the pay run: onboarding workflows that put the I-9 and W-4 on each new hire's first-day task list, with the completed forms kept in the employee file, e-signature on offer letters and acknowledgments, employee records, and document management, at a flat $98 a month for up to 10 people or $198 for 11 to 50.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best alternative to OnPay for a small business?
Gusto, if you are leaving over capability rather than cost. Gusto Simple charges the identical $49 plus $6 per person, but Plus at $80 plus $12 includes time tracking and project tracking, and Simple can add time tracking for $6 per person, so there is somewhere to go without changing vendors again. If cost is the reason, Patriot Full Service at $37 plus $5 per worker paid is the cheapest published full-service option here.
How much does OnPay cost per month?
Payroll Essentials is $49 per month plus $6 per worker: $109 at 10 employees, $199 at 25, $349 at 50. That covers unlimited pay runs, federal, state, and local filings, W-2s, 1099s, year-end filings, and payroll in as many states as you need. The HR module is priced separately at $15 base plus $2 per worker, time tracking at $15 base plus $4 per worker, Compliance Resources at $10, and Live HR Support at $65.
Why do small businesses switch away from OnPay?
Four reasons: the per-worker fee has no volume break and no cheaper entry tier, the HR module carrying PTO approvals and onboarding workflows is a paid add-on, time tracking is a second paid add-on with no scheduling, and support runs 9am to 8pm on weekdays with no weekend coverage. Setup costs are not among them, because account setup and data migration are free and OnPay charges no implementation or integration fees.
Is there a cheaper payroll service than OnPay?
Yes. Patriot Full Service is $37 plus $5 per worker paid, Square Payroll is $35 plus $6 per person paid, and SurePayroll is $29 plus $7 per worker. The savings narrow once states are added, since Patriot charges $12 per additional state and SurePayroll charges $9.99 for multi-state, where OnPay includes every state at its published rate.
Does OnPay include time tracking?
No, not without paying extra. The OnPay Time Tracking add-on costs $15 base plus $4 per worker and lists no scheduling, and integrations with QuickBooks Time, Deputy, and When I Work are the other route. Square Payroll includes time tracking at $35 plus $6, Homebase is built around scheduling with payroll at $49 plus $6, and Justworks lists time tracking access on its Payroll tier.
Do Rippling, ADP, and Paychex publish payroll pricing?
No, not on their pricing pages. All three route a price for your company through a form or a phone call. Rippling asks for company details and promises a custom quote, though its small-business page prints a payroll starting point of $8 per user per month plus a $40 monthly base fee. ADP shows a Get Pricing button and a sales number but no rate, and Paychex offers Get a Quote Now with no dollar figure anywhere. Any other number you see attached to them elsewhere is a third-party estimate.
Should I move to a PEO instead of another payroll product?
Only if benefits access is the reason you are moving. Justworks publishes PEO Basic at $79 per employee per month and PEO Plus at $124, against $199 a month for OnPay at 25 employees. Co-employment transfers real compliance work, and PEO Plus unlocks larger-group health plans, but it is a structural change rather than a software swap, and it is an expensive way to fix a payroll processing complaint.
When is the best time to switch payroll providers?
January 1, with the start of any calendar quarter as the practical alternative. Moving mid-quarter splits year-to-date wages and tax history across two systems. Export registers, filed returns, and employee records before you cancel, and agree in writing which provider files the quarter in progress. Outsourcing does not transfer liability, and federal rules require payroll records to be kept for at least three years.
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