Openwagevs
Payactiv
Payactiv: If you need a US earned wage access product instead of a UK one
Openwage
UK earned wage access charging a transparent 1 percent transfer fee, free for employers
As of 1 September 2026, Openwage's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. A UK salary advance app that lets employees draw up to 50 percent of gross earned pay ahead of payday, with the employee paying a published 1 percent fee (minimum 1 pound) per transfer rather than the employer. Softwr lists it under Payroll. Openwage is available on Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What Openwage does
Openwage integrates with an employer's payroll and time and attendance systems so employees can request an advance on wages already worked but not yet paid, up to 50 percent of gross earned pay, with the balance settled automatically on the normal payday. It is explicitly structured as not a loan: no interest is charged and there is no credit check or impact on credit score. What distinguishes it is fee transparency: Openwage charges 1 percent of the amount transferred, with a minimum fee of 1 pound, and states plainly that the employer benefit itself is free. That is a rare instance in earned wage access of a clearly published unit cost rather than a marketing claim of being fee-free while burying the real charge elsewhere. Buyers are UK employers, again concentrated in sectors with large hourly or shift-based workforces, wanting to offer financial flexibility without taking on payroll cost or replacing their existing systems. The trade-off is the category-wide one: any earned wage access product depends entirely on accurate integration with payroll and time systems, and repeated heavy use by employees signals a pay adequacy problem the product is not designed to solve.
What people use it for
- A UK employer with shift or hourly staff wanting an on-demand pay benefit at no cost to the business
- An employee wanting to know the exact cost of an advance before requesting one, rather than an opaque fee
- A company already running standard UK payroll and time and attendance systems wanting straightforward integration
- An HR team comparing earned wage access providers on published unit economics rather than sales quotes
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Openwage.
- It is UK-only, tied to UK payroll cycles and regulation, so it is not usable for international workforces.
- Even a published, low fee still means employees effectively pay to access their own earned money, and frequent use compounds that cost over a year.
- The 50% cap on gross (not net) earned pay can overstate what an employee can actually draw once tax and deductions are accounted for, creating confusion at the point of request.
- As with all earned wage access, dependency on the product is a symptom of insufficient pay cadence or amount that the advance itself does not fix, and can mask a deeper compensation problem an employer should address directly.
- Accuracy is entirely dependent on the employer's payroll and time and attendance data being current, so errors upstream produce incorrect available-balance figures for employees.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of Openwage
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- OpenwagevsBranch App
Branch App: If you want a digital wallet and debit card bundled with the advance feature
Pricing
What Openwage costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
Openwage
On request
- Free for employers to offer
- 1% fee per transfer, minimum £1, paid by the employee
- No interest and no credit check
Capabilities
Features
On-demand pay
Access up to 50% of gross earned wages ahead of scheduled payday
Transparent per-transfer fee
1% of the amount transferred, minimum 1 pound, paid by the employee
Payroll and T&A integration
Connects to employer payroll and time and attendance systems to calculate earned amounts
No credit impact
Not a loan; no interest charged and no credit score effect
Automatic payday reconciliation
Remaining balance settled automatically on the normal pay date
Employer-free deployment
No subscription cost to the employer for offering the benefit
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Who pays the fee?
The employee, at 1% of the amount transferred with a minimum of £1; the employer benefit itself is free.
Is it a loan?
No, Openwage states it is not a loan or credit product; there is no interest and no credit score impact.
How much can an employee access?
Up to 50% of gross wages already earned in the current pay period.
Keep looking
Where to go from Openwage
- Openwage alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- Openwage pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- Openwage badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Payroll softwareThe full category
- Best Payroll softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Payroll software for
Compare Openwage with
- Payactiv
- Branch App
- Jify
- Hastee
- Wagestream
- SalaryFits
- Rain Instant Pay
- Refyne
- Immediate
- Clair
- DailyPay
- Payhawk
- Namely
- Nmbrs
- Omnipresent
- OnPay
- Oyster
- Papaya Global
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Pricing on request12 researched notes
Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Openwage, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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quoteDigital wallet and Mastercard debit card bundled with fee-free earned wage access for US workers
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