Your team, and what they are paid
Salaried or hourly, recorded to the cent and dated from their first day. A pay rise opens a new record rather than overwriting the old one.
Payroll for first-time employers
Payroll you can understand.
Built for people who have never run payroll. Every number is explained, and nothing is paid to anyone until you approve exactly what you have seen.
Free to try, no card. First step takes 3 minutes.
Photo by Alex Gruber on Unsplash
Photo by Elisha Terada on Unsplash
Photo by quentin touvard on Unsplash
On your phone
Built for the phone you actually have on you
Not a shrunken desktop. Every screen is designed for a narrow phone first, because that is where a lot of running a small business genuinely happens.
Try it free
One thing at a time, in the right order
Every step says how long it takes and why it is needed before you start it. Everything saves as you go, so you can stop whenever you like.
The deadline, not just the pay day
Money takes business days to move. Every pay date is offered with the date you have to approve by, worked backwards through weekends and non-banking days.
Employees and contractors, paid their way
Salaried or hourly, recorded to the cent and dated from their first day. Change someone’s pay later and it opens a new record, so last year still adds up the way it did last year.
Answers that remove work
Four questions at the start change what you are asked for. Say this is your first payroll and a fifteen-minute step disappears entirely.
Most payroll software assumes you already know how payroll works.
PayRole assumes you do not.
Nothing happens without you
No payroll is submitted and no money moves without your approval of the exact figures you were shown.
Plain words, not jargon
Every step says what it needs and why before it asks. "EIN" means nothing on your first day as an employer.
It admits what it cannot check
A check that could not run says so rather than showing a tick. An outage never looks like a mistake you made.
What you get
Every number will open upBeing built
Totals you can expand into the arithmetic behind them. The ledger underneath is built; the payroll run on top of it is not.
Workers will fill in their own detailsBeing built
Adding someone works today. Inviting them to enter their own address, tax choices and bank details is designed and not yet built.
A real ledger underneath
Double-entry bookkeeping, balance enforced by the database, every change written to an append-only audit trail. Whole cents throughout.
Roles that fit a small company
10 roles across 49 permissions — a bookkeeper who can see payroll but not approve it, a manager who only sees their own team. Approving payroll asks for your password again.
Set-up that adapts to your answers
Four questions at the start change the checklist. Say this is your first payroll and a fifteen-minute step disappears.
Deadlines, not just pay dates
Every pay date comes with the deadline for approving it, worked backwards through weekends and non-banking days.
Start in 3 minutes
Set-up is 11 steps, and you do not do them in one sitting. Everything saves as you go.
- 3 min
- to finish the first step
- 40 min
- of steps before you can run payroll
- Any time
- to come back and finish the rest
Make an account
Name, email, password. No card, no sales call, and nothing about your company yet.
About 1 minute
Tell us about the company
Its legal name, what kind of entity it is, and where it is registered. Addresses are checked against the postal service as you type.
About 3 minutes
The details payroll needs
Tax registration numbers and where your people actually work. Every field says what it is and where to find it, because “EIN” means nothing on your first day as an employer.
About 5 minutes
Decide how often you pay
Weekly, fortnightly, twice a month or monthly. Pick the first period and the first pay day, and every date after it is worked out for you.
About 3 minutes
Add the people you pay
Employees and contractors, salaried or hourly. We never ask you to type someone else’s Social Security number or bank details — they enter their own.
About 10 minutes
See where you stand
What is done, what is next, and how long is left. Come back whenever you like — it remembers.
All 11 steps
- 1Your company3 min
- 2Business details5 min
- 3Who signs for the company2 min
- 4How often you pay3 min
- 5Your first pay date2 min
- 6Where payroll is paid from5 min
- 7Tax registrations10 min
- 8Payroll already run this year15 min
- 9Pay, deductions and benefits8 min
- 10Your team10 min
- 11Check everything is ready5 min
Where this actually stands
Plainly, because a payroll product that oversells itself costs its customers money and penalties rather than just disappointing them.
Working now
- Accounts, sign-in with Google, and multiple companies per person
- Guided company set-up with the first five steps built
- Adding employees and contractors with their pay
- Pay schedules, pay dates and approval deadlines
- Roles, permissions, audit trail and the ledger underneath
Not yet
- Paying anyone. Moving money needs a licensed partner, not more code.
- Filing your taxes. That means acting as your reporting agent, which is a status granted by the tax authorities.
- Authoritative tax figures. Withholding rules come from a vetted provider — we will never guess at them.
- Benefits, time off and time tracking.
This is pre-release software
Payroll figures come from a clearly-labelled sandbox simulation with simplified assumptions. They are not based on current tax rules, no money moves, and nothing is filed. Do not use them to pay anyone or to make a decision with money attached.
Plans
7 of them, from free to no limit — including one for an owner-operator on their own and one for a business with no employees at all. Tell it how many people you pay and every plan reprices itself.
These prices are not final
Both the figures and what sits in each tier are provisional, and no tier is enforced by the product yet. Choosing a plan records your choice so we know what you wanted; it does not take a payment, because no payment provider is connected.
For 5 people, Go is the smallest plan that fits.
For a team
Free
Set up a company and see the whole thing before deciding.
Free
For 30 days, up to 2 people
- Guided company set-up
- Set-up that adapts to your answers
- Addresses checked as you type
- Your own logo on your company
- Works properly on a phone
Go
Fits your teamA first hire, or a handful.
$64.00/ month
$39.00 plus $5.00 per person
- Run payroll(being built)
- Run payroll from your phone(planned)
- Off-cycle and correction runs(planned)
- Federal and state tax filing(planned)
- Withholding from a vetted provider(planned)
Silver
Most chosenA growing team, with benefits and proper records.
$109.00/ month
$69.00 plus $8.00 per person
- More than one pay schedule
- Health, dental and vision(planned)
- 401(k) for your team(planned)
- Bring an existing plan across(planned)
- Offer letters and onboarding checklists(planned)
Gold
More states, more tools, more to keep straight.
$179.00/ month
$129.00 plus $10.00 per person
- Multi-state work locations
- Health reimbursement(planned)
- Time tracking that feeds payroll(planned)
- Time off and accruals(planned)
- Location-verified clock-in(planned)
Platinum
Large teams, several companies, and people outside the US.
$249.00/ month
$199.00 plus $10.00 per person
- Employees outside the US(planned)
- A named person to call(planned)
- Guided company set-up
- Set-up that adapts to your answers
- Addresses checked as you type
For one person, or no employees at all
Neither of these is the small end of the ladder above. They are different products, priced for a different problem.
Solo
You are the company. Your salary, your taxes, your retirement.
$39.00/ month
Flat. One person, no per-person charge.
- Guided company set-up
- Set-up that adapts to your answers
- Addresses checked as you type
- Your own logo on your company
- Works properly on a phone
Contractor
No employees. Pay contractors, file their 1099s, nothing else.
$25.00/ month
No base price — $5.00 per contractor you actually pay
- Guided company set-up
- Set-up that adapts to your answers
- Addresses checked as you type
- Your own logo on your company
- Works properly on a phone
Compare every plan side by side — or read everything it does, with each line marked built, being built, or planned.
Have a look for yourself
Create an account, set up a company, and see how far it gets you. Nothing is paid to anyone and nothing is filed.