Small businesses sometimes don’t want to spend a great deal of money on payroll services when they start out. Fortunately, you have many free payroll services available to help you.
Below are some quick links to some free payroll services that may be helpful to you.
Payroll4Free: All-around best free payroll software
It’s always nice when a business’s name can describe exactly what it is that the business does. At the risk of sounding redundant, Payroll4Free is a free payroll software for small businesses. The catch is that it is only free for businesses with under 25 employees (after that, it’s $35 a month). If that’s you, you’ll get access to a nice set of features, including:
- Payment delivery via paper check or direct deposit into the business owners bank account (though you’ll have to pay an additional $12.50 per month to have paychecks deposited into individual employee accounts). Note that you can also print checks with Payroll4Free.
- The ability to pay W-2 workers (full-time employees) and 1099 workers (contractors).
- Calculation of federal, state, and local tax deductions. Payroll4Free will also file your payroll taxes for an additional $12.50 per month.
- The ability to set up benefits deductions to be calculated each payroll period.
- Time tracking of PTO and sick leave.
- An employee portal where employees can print pay stubs and W-2s, review their accrued vacation time, make changes to their personal information, and more.
- A reporting suite where you can view details on earnings, taxes, benefits, accrued time, payroll journal reports, and more.
- Integrations with a variety of accounting software, banks, and benefit companies. You can also import employee hours from a time clock file.
- Customer support via phone, email, and live chat.
Overall, Payroll4Free provides a lot of useful features for a free service. If you’re wondering how they can afford to offer all of this at no charge, it’s because Payroll4Free is paid by other vendors to place ads within its software. As long as that doesn’t bother you, this is a really nice option for businesses with fewer than 25 employees.
Pricing
Free for 25 or fewer employees. For $15 per month, Payroll4Free will file and deposit payroll taxes, as well as process year-end tax forms. Business owners can pay another $15 per month, if they’d like, to use Payroll4Free’s bank for direct deposit.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Calculates federal, state and local taxes.Will file payroll taxes and process year-end tax forms for a monthly fee.Direct deposit.Can set up benefits deductions.Track sick time, vacation time and PTO.Employee portal provides access to paystubs, W-2s, vacation time and personal info.Customer service available via phone and email.Better Business Bureau accredited company with an A+ rating. | 25-employee cap.Ads.Only works with Windows; not cloud-based. |
Feature overview
Compared to other free payroll software products, Payroll4Free’s tax filing options really set it apart. For one, it protects a business from making mistakes that can prove costly. It also saves the business owner a great deal of time. According to the company, the majority of its free payroll software clients pay to enroll in the service. Though Payroll4Free doesn’t let employees clock in and out or record their hours within the system, the software can import employee hours from outside files. Despite its features, the product isn’t a good fit for business owners who are averse to Windows or have more than 25 employees.
TimeTrex: Best time tracking and scheduling features
Pricing
Open-source Community Edition is free. Quote-based plans that include a mobile app, facial recognition capabilities, job costing, applicant tracking and more are also available.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Calculates federal, state and local taxes.Calculates direct deposit.Can set up benefits deductions.Track employees’ hours, attendance, overtime and vacation time.Employee portal provides access to sick day and vacation time accruals, as well as pay stubs.Automatic scheduling capability.HR management.No cap on the number of employees.Cloud-based. | Does not file payroll taxes.Does not file direct deposit.Customer service limited to support forum. |
Feature overview
Compared to Payroll4Free, TimeTrex’s community edition payroll software offers more time-tracking, scheduling and HR features, and it’s cloud-based. On the downside, it falls short on tax filing. While it will generate tax reports, business owners should be comfortable filing their own payroll taxes. Likewise, TimeTrex will calculate and prepare your direct deposit, but it’s up to the business to remit the file to the bank. The software also works alongside other popular payroll software products in case you’d only like to use it for, say, time-tracking.
HR.my: Best multilingual capabilities
HR.my
HR.my offers payroll services and additional HR tools at no cost. Similar to Payroll4Free, HR.my is supported by ads, as well as some crowdfunding. There is no limit to the number of employees you can have on payroll with HR.my, and you can also use HR.my to process payroll for international employees. Here’s a complete list of what you can do with HR.my:
- Deliver payment to your employees via direct deposit, check, or cash. Payroll schedule can be set up to run monthly, semi-monthly, weekly and biweekly.
- Manually set up salary adjustments, deductions, and bonuses for each employee. HR.my cannot support any tax or benefits administration.
- Employees get access to their own HR.my account when you onboard them into the system. From here they can view and print out their most recent pay stub, clock in and out of shifts, request PTO and sick leave, and check their vacation balance. Managers also have the ability to approve or deny vacation requests.
- Use the vacation/sick leave planner to set employee schedules.
- Import timesheets, expense reports, and purchase requests for manager approval using HR.my’s Document Workflow. You can also share documents within the organization, such as the employee handbook and company policies.
- Connections to HR.my are encrypted with SSL protocol. HR.my data is secured with daily off-site backup and data export.
- There is a user guide on the HR.my website, but no other type of customer support is offered.
This is a decent small business free payroll software option for those who may work with employees based outside of the United States. You won’t get the same range of features as you would with Payroll4Free, but you can run payroll for however many employees you need, and never have to worry about paying a cent. Just be sure you stay on top of tax and benefits compliance.
Pricing
Free.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Time tracking features let employees clock in, clock out and record their locations.Employee portal provides access to time-off requests, PTO balances, personal info and discussion forums.Expense claim management.Multi-user HR management system.Cloud-based.No cap on the number of employees.Supports 65 languages in addition to English. | No direct deposit.No dedicated customer support aside from the forum.Ads.Does not calculate or file payroll taxes. |
Feature overview
HR.my earns a spot on this list for its multilingual capabilities and HR features. In addition to letting employers track their mobile workforce by collecting geolocation data, the platform lets them assign employees different levels of access to the employer account. This is especially useful for businesses that have an HR staff or administrators. Employers can also set up claim approval workflows to ensure documents get sent to the right person the first time around. The product’s biggest drawback is its lack of tax calculation and filing services. If the business owner doesn’t have prior experience calculating and filing payroll taxes on their own, this is not the right product for them.
ExcelPayroll
If you’re currently doing your payroll calculations in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, consider upgrading to ExcelPayroll. This is a free software you can download that is essentially an Excel spreadsheet with additional payroll features. All you need to do is punch in your employees’ earnings and deductions and then ExcelPayroll will do the calculations for you. Here is more detail on how it works:
- Process payroll in accordance with any cycle you like and for up to 50 employees. Then print checks using a laser printer and valid bank paper check stock.
- Manually enter federal, state, and local tax information, as well as vacation and overtime accruals. ExcelPayroll cannot perform tax or benefits administration.
- Import and export data in any format that Excel accepts, such as CSV and XLS.
- Generate reports on tax compliance and workers’ compensation.
- Generate accounting entries.
- Customer support via email only.
This product is fairly bare-bones, and if you’re not an Excel user you’ll probably have a hard time with it. But for those that do use Excel, ExcelPayroll could be a great free payroll software for your small business.
RiseLite
If your small business has 20 employees of fewer, RiseLite is a great free payroll software option for you. The catch is, they’re only an option for businesses in Canada as of now. The service is completely free for businesses with 20 of fewer employees, but you’ll have to pay for the service if your small business increases.
They have good reviews from their customers and other sites. They have a 4.3 out of 5 star-rating from G2 and a 4 out of 5 stars from Software Advice.[1] The RiseLite software allows you to get set up and start processing payroll quickly. It also allows customers in Canada to automate their tax forms and saves users time when it comes to sorting through commissions, deductions, and bonuses. RiseLite features include:
- Ability to pay employees whenever you want—you can make payments between regular pay period, cancel a payment add bonus pay, and more.
- Create personalized payroll reports for your business so you can keep close track of the information that’s most important.
- The platform offers reminders so you never miss a payment and keep your employees happy.
- RiseLite is a cloud-based platform so you can access it from anywhere and stay on top of things even without access to your computer.
The one drawback here is that they only currently work with businesses based in Canada, but if your small business is Canadian then you’re in luck and can use RiseLite and all of its great features.
eSmart Paycheck: Best payroll calculator
Pricing
Free.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Calculate federal and state payroll taxes.Generate payroll tax forms.Option to e-file taxes for a fee.Print paychecks. | Limited functionality.May require more manual data entry than the alternatives. |
Feature overview
The online payroll calculator eSmart Paycheck lets you create paychecks, print them and calculate federal and state payroll taxes. Generating tax forms, like W-2s, is free and users can pay a fee to file them through a service called eSmart Payroll. The site says private information is not saved, which may require more manual data entry from one payroll period to the next. This tool can be used on its own or paired with another free payroll software. It’s especially useful if your current payroll software doesn’t automatically calculate taxes.
Best free payroll software trials
Before paying for a subscription, you can try the following payroll software products for free:
- Gusto: This exceptional payroll and HR platform doesn’t require you to pay anything until you’re ready to run payroll. For more information, read NerdWallet’s review of Gusto.
- Patriot Payroll: The company, which also sells accounting software, gives clients unrestricted access to its payroll platform for 30 days. For more information, read NerdWallet’s review of Patriot Payroll.
- OnPay: With one base fee instead of multiple plans, this option skips confusing pricing structures. You can try it free of charge for 30 days. For more information, read NerdWallet’s review of OnPay.
- Wave Payroll: Known for its free accounting software, this platform also has base fees instead of multiple plans. Clients can try its payroll software for free for 30 days. For more information, read NerdWallet’s review of Wave Payroll.
- QuickBooks Payroll: Business owners interested in this product have to choose between a free 30-day trial or saving 50% for three months. For more information, read NerdWallet’s review of QuickBooks Payroll.
Conclusion
Small business owners are always looking for ways to cut costs and control expenses. When it comes to running payroll, you’ll typically end up paying hundreds of dollars each month for software that does little more than taking information from your employee timesheets and spitting out your payroll checks.