Payroll · ranked shortlist
Best Payroll software for Startups in 2026
20 approved payroll listings, ordered by published rating with the method stated below rather than assumed. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
- Tools ranked
- 20
- Entry price range
- $11.99-$299
- Publish a $0 plan
- 4 of 20
How this ranking is derived
The sort key
Published rating, highest first. Ties break on the number of ratings behind the score, then on product name so the order never depends on what the API happened to return first. That is the whole rule, there is no weighting, no score of our own, and nothing paid: no sponsored slot runs on these pages.
Where the ratings come from
No listing in this set carries a rating, so the order falls back to name. Those scores are aggregated from public sources rather than collected here, Softwr hosts no reviews of its own, which is also why no rating on this page is marked up as ours in structured data.
What the pool is
Approved payroll listings, capped at 20 per page; 20 came back for this one. It is not the whole market, and a tool being absent means we hold no record of it rather than that it failed a test. The unranked full set is on the payroll category page.
The ranking
Each entry lists why it sits where it sits, drawn from its own published rating and pricing.
- #1
Branch App
Highest rated hereDigital wallet and Mastercard debit card bundled with fee-free earned wage access for US workers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
- Billing
- Free for employers, fee-free standard access for workers
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, digital-wallet, payroll, Gig Economy
- #2
Clair
On demand pay advances funded by a partner bank with no fee to the employee
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, On Demand Pay, Embedded Finance, Hourly Workforce
- #3
DailyPay
On demand pay integrated with United States payroll and time systems
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, On Demand Pay, Hourly Workforce, Financial Wellbeing
- #4
EnKash
Indian corporate card and spend management platform holding an RBI prepaid payment instrument licence
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- corporate-cards, spend-management, expense-management, india
- #5
Extend
Virtual card issuing and spend controls layered onto existing business credit cards
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Publishes a $0 plan, with paid tiers from $11.99 a month.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- Per user per month, free starter tier
- Published tiers
- 3 tiers
- Tags
- Virtual Cards, spend-management, expense-management
- #6
Hastee
United Kingdom earned wage access, now part of the Zellis group
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, Financial Wellbeing, uk, Payroll Benefit
- #7
Immediate
On-demand pay, off-cycle payments and digital tips for US hourly employers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, On Demand Pay, Tips, payroll
- #8
Jify
Earned wage access and financial wellness for Indian employers, backed by Moneyview
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, payroll, india, Financial Wellness
- #9
Mooncard
French corporate card and expense management platform built on the Visa network
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- corporate-cards, expense-management, France
- #10
Omnipresent
Employer of record with a service-led model and a mix of owned and partner entities across 160 countries
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 2 tiers
- Tags
- Employer Of Record, eor, Global Employment, International Payroll
- #11
Openwage
UK earned wage access charging a transparent 1 percent transfer fee, free for employers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- Per-transfer fee, paid by the employee
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, payroll, uk, Financial Wellness
- #12
Payactiv
Earned wage access and financial wellness benefit, free to employers and free for standard transfers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
- Billing
- Free for employers, fees apply only to expedited transfers
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, payroll, Financial Wellness, Hourly Workforce
- #13
PayFit
Native payroll and HR for small and mid-sized companies in a small number of European countries
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- payroll, europe, France, Spain
- #14
Payhawk
Modular spend management combining corporate cards, accounts payable, procurement and travel
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Paid from $299 a month, with no free plan.
- 4 published tiers, topping out at $499.
- Billing
- Per module per month
- Published tiers
- 4 tiers
- Tags
- spend-management, corporate-cards, expense-management, accounts-payable
- #15
Rain Instant Pay
US earned wage access with a free ACH option and a paid instant transfer
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, payroll, On Demand Pay, Hourly Workforce
- #16
Refyne
Earned wage access for Indian employers, with a per withdrawal convenience fee
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, Financial Wellbeing, india, Payroll Benefit
- #17
RemoFirst
Low-cost employer of record and contractor payments across a very wide country list built largely on partner entities
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 2 tiers
- Tags
- Employer Of Record, global-payroll, Contractor Payments, eor
- #18
SalaryFits
Brazilian employee benefits and earned wage access app, owned by Serasa Experian since 2024
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Free, no paid tier is published at all.
- Billing
- Free for employers, fees apply to advances and loans
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- employee-benefits, Earned Wage Access, brazil, payroll
- #19
Volopay
Corporate cards, multi-currency accounts and accounts payable automation for Asia-Pacific businesses
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- spend-management, corporate-cards, multi-currency, accounts-payable
- #20
Wagestream
Financial wellbeing platform with flexible pay, savings and coaching for UK and US employers
- No rating on record, so it ranks below everything that has one.
- Its top tier is unpriced and sold by quote.
- Billing
- quote
- Published tiers
- 1 tier
- Tags
- Earned Wage Access, Financial Wellbeing, payroll, Shift Work
What payroll software costs
Counted from the published pricing of the 20 listings on this page. A tool counts as free only where it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence or a starting price of zero.
- Paid entry price
- $11.99Extend
- Publish a $0 plan
- 4of 20
Paid payroll plans in this set start anywhere from $11.99 a month for Extend to $299 for Payhawk. The median entry price across the 2 tools that publish one is $155.50, half of them start below that figure and half above it.
Entry price is not the ceiling. The dearest published tier anywhere in this category is Payhawk's at $499 a month, 1.7× the highest entry price on the page. Read the top of each ladder as well as the bottom, because that is where you land after two years of growth.
4 of 20 publish a $0 plan, and 3 of those charge nothing at all. 1 tool has no free tier of any kind.
16 of 20 keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote, which in practice means the number you end up paying at the top end is not on this page or on theirs.
How these vendors bill
The billing model each of the 20 payroll listings publishes, counted. Two tools at the same headline price are not the same purchase if one of them charges per seat.
- quote
- 14
- Free for employers, fee-free standard access for workers
- 1
- Free for employers, fees apply only to expedited transfers
- 1
- Free for employers, fees apply to advances and loans
- 1
- Per module per month
- 1
- Per user per month, free starter tier
- 1
- Per-transfer fee, paid by the employee
- 1
Separately, 16 of 20 publish at least one tier with no price attached. Those are sold by quote, so the top of the ladder is negotiable, and unknowable, until you talk to sales.
What “Payroll” covers in practice
The subject tags that recur across these 20 listings, with the number of tools carrying each. A category label is a filing decision; this is the closer read of what is actually filed under it.
- Earned Wage Access12
- payroll9
- Hourly Workforce5
- corporate-cards4
- expense-management4
- Financial Wellbeing4
- On Demand Pay4
- spend-management4
- employee-benefits3
- Financial Wellness3
- india3
- accounts-payable2
Carried by a single tool: brazil, Contractor Payments, Embedded Finance, Global Employment, International Payroll, procurement, Shift Work, Spain. If one of those is the reason you are here, the category page is the wrong lens, go straight to that product.
How to choose between them
Four things the numbers above should change about your shortlist.
Start with the free tiers if there are enough of them
4 of 20 payroll tools here publish a $0 plan, which is enough to run a real trial without a purchase order. A free tier is worth more than a free trial when you are evaluating: a trial expires on the vendor's schedule, a free plan expires when you outgrow it. The thing to check before you commit is which of the capabilities below sit above the free line, starting with no employer subscription cost, the single most frequently named capability in this category's published tiers.
Read the spread before you read the features
$11.99 to $299 is a $287.01 spread on entry price alone, and a spread that wide is never about polish, it is about who the vendor built for. Tools at the bottom of this ladder are priced for one person or a small team; tools near $299 are priced for a department with a procurement process. Decide which of those you are before you compare capability, or you will shortlist four tools that were never competing for the same buyer.
Check which tier you actually land on
2 of 20 tools here publish three or more tiers, and the median vendor in this category ships 1 of them. The advertised price is the first rung, and the things teams tend to need, no employer subscription cost, multi-currency payments, are named in higher plans far more often than in entry ones. Price your shortlist at the tier that contains what you need, not at the tier on the pricing page's left edge.
The billing model matters more than the headline number
This category splits across 7 billing models: quote on 14 listings, Free for employers, fee-free standard access for workers on 1, and 5 other arrangements across the rest. A per-user price and a flat subscription at the same headline figure are not the same purchase, the first one grows with headcount and the second does not. Multiply by your real team size before you compare two numbers side by side.
Compare payroll tools directly
Every pairing below is a full comparison: the same checklist applied to both, so a gap in one is a gap in the other.
- Branch App vs Clair
- Clair vs DailyPay
- DailyPay vs EnKash
- EnKash vs Extend
- Extend vs Hastee
- Hastee vs Immediate
- Immediate vs Jify
- Jify vs Mooncard
Go straight to the numbers
- Branch Apppricingalternatives
- Clairpricingalternatives
- DailyPaypricingalternatives
- EnKashpricingalternatives
- Extendpricingalternatives
- Hasteepricingalternatives
Questions people ask about payroll software
Answered from the listings on this page, and nowhere else.
- How is this payroll ranking decided?
- Mechanically. The 20 approved payroll listings on this page are sorted by their published rating, highest first, with the number of ratings behind each score as the tie-break and the product name as a final tie-break so the order is stable. Those ratings are aggregated from public sources, not collected from Softwr readers, this site hosts no reviews, so the order is a summary of what is already published elsewhere, not a verdict of our own. Nothing on this page is paid placement.
- Is this list re-ordered for startups?
- No, and it would be dishonest to imply otherwise. The catalogue records no data about which team sizes or roles each tool suits, so the ranking is the same published-rating order as the unsegmented list. What the startups framing changes is which of the figures below matter most. Startups are buying for a headcount they do not have yet, which makes the second and third tier of each ladder more important than the first. Check what the price becomes at ten people.
- How much does payroll software cost?
- Across the 20 payroll tools listed here, paid plans start between $11.99 and $299 a month, with a median entry price of $155.50. The most expensive single tier published in the category is $499 a month (Payhawk). 4 of 20 also publish a $0 plan.
- What is the cheapest payroll software?
- 3 of the 20 tools listed here cost nothing at all. Among the ones that charge, Extend has the lowest published entry price at $11.99 a month. Cheapest and best value are different questions: check which tier the capability you need actually appears in before you compare starting prices.
- Is there free payroll software?
- Yes, 4 of 20 tools in this category publish a plan priced at $0. 3 of them are free outright, with no paid tier above. A tool is only counted as free here when it publishes a $0 plan, an open-source licence, or a starting price of zero, a free trial does not count.
- How is payroll software usually billed?
- quote (14), Free for employers, fee-free standard access for workers (1), Free for employers, fees apply only to expedited transfers (1), Free for employers, fees apply to advances and loans (1), plus 3 less common arrangements, counted across the 20 listings on this page. The distinction that costs money is per-seat versus flat: a per-user plan at the same headline price scales with your headcount and a flat subscription does not. 16 of 20 tools also keep at least one tier unpriced and sold by quote.
- What does payroll software actually cover?
- The 20 tools on this page do not describe themselves the same way. The subject tags they carry most often are earned wage access (12), payroll (9), hourly workforce (5), corporate-cards (4), expense-management (4). That spread is the honest answer to what the category means in practice: it is not one product shape, and two tools filed under payroll may overlap on very little.
- How many pricing tiers do payroll tools offer?
- 20 of 20 tools here publish a plan breakdown, and the median one has 1 tiers. 2 of 20 publish three or more. More tiers is not generosity, it usually means the capability you are buying for sits two rungs above the advertised price, so price your shortlist at the tier that contains it.
- How many payroll tools are listed on Softwr?
- 20 approved payroll listings appear on this page, including Branch App, Clair, DailyPay, EnKash. Each links to a full breakdown with its pricing tiers and plan detail, and the category can be filtered by price and sorted by rating above. You can also read the shortlist view at /best/payroll, which ranks the same set by published rating.
Keep reading
Neighbouring categories
Adjacent in the same taxonomy, not a ranking.