Paychex pricing in 2024: Is it worth the cost?

Paychex Flex is a cloud-based software that offers payroll services along with HR, employee benefits and insurance tools and services. The basic Paychex Flex plan costs $39 a month plus $5 per employee. While Paychex also provides a mid-level and top-tier Paychex Flex plan, you’ll need to call and speak with a sales representative to receive a custom quote.

In this guide, we will overview Paychex Flex’s pricing, features, advantages and disadvantages and what businesses would most benefit from it. 

Featured payroll software offers

OnPay

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Via OnPay’s website

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$40 per month plus $6 per employee

Direct deposit

Yes

SurePayroll

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Via SurePayroll’s website

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$29.99 per month plus $5 per employee

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Gusto

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Via Gusto’s website

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Starting at $40 plus $6 per month per employee

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Rippling

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Via Rippling’s website

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$35 per month + $8 per user

Direct deposit

Yes

Who is Paychex best for?

Paychex Flex is best for companies with growing workforces that want a customizable solution to meet their equally growing payroll and HR needs. Put simply, each tier of service increasingly offers the ability to create a custom bundled payroll with HR solution. 

Paychex Flex’s first-tier Essentials plan includes standard payroll processing features, such automated tax filing, direct deposit, garnishments and an employee self-service portal. As users upgrade plans, they access more HR tools such as new-hire screening tools, an HR library, employee onboarding tools and a learning management system. Companies can further create a custom solution by tapping into Paychex’s HR and benefits administration add-ons. 

Paychex overview

	ESSENTIALS	SELECT	PRO
Price	$39 per month, plus $5 per employee	Custom quote	Custom quote
Online payroll processing	✓	✓	✓
Payroll tax administration	✓	✓	✓
Variety of employee pay options	✓	✓	✓
Garnishment payments	✓	✓	✓
General ledger service	✓	Add-on	✓
Employee self-service account	✓	✓	✓

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Paychex Flex Essentials

Paychex Flex Essentials, its first-tier, is $39 per month plus $5 per employee and is designed for businesses with fewer than 20 employees. Among the features included in this plan are:

• Online payroll processing.
• Payroll tax administration for W-2 and 1099 workers.
• A variety of employee payment options, including direct deposit, pay cards and paper checks.
• Automatic garnishment deductions and payments.
• An employee self-service portal for viewing pay and tax information and completing tasks like updating contact information. 
• An employee learning management program available as an add-on. 
• Employee recruiting tools available as add-ons. 
• Employee onboarding digital workflow and experience tools. 
• An HR library of downloadable documents for HR team use.
• A central repository for company forms, policies, references and employee documents. 
• Workforce analytics and over 160 reports covering payroll, HR benefits and custom reporting.
• New hire reporting.
• Labor posters.
• 24/7 U.S.-based customer service and tech support.

Paychex Flex Select

Paychex Flex Select, its mid-level plan, is geared toward small to midsize businesses. It includes all the features of the Essentials plan, plus:

• Financial wellness and cash flow assistance to help employees meet their financial goals. 
• Learning management system to help employees develop skills, stay engaged with their roles and potentially take advantage of career growth opportunities.

Unlike in the Essentials plan, which offers Paychex’s garnishment payment service as an included feature, this feature is only available as an add-on in the Select plan. 

Paychex Flex Pro

Paychex Flex Pro, Paychex’s top-tier plan, is tailored to midsize to large businesses. The features in this plan include all features in the Select plan, plus:

• Garnishment deduction and payment services included (not as an add-on). 
• A general ledger service that allows you to transfer payroll data to your accounting software. 
• An employee handbook builder. 
• Pre-employment candidate screening tools, including post-offer, pre-hire and post-hire background checks. 
• State unemployment insurance service that helps businesses manage claims and processes. 
• Workers’ compensation payment service or report service that helps businesses pay premiums based on employees’ actual wages to avoid year-end policy audit payments. 
• Integrations with Quickbooks Online, Sage and Xero. 

All plans also offer the following add-ons, often for an extra undisclosed fee:

• Employee benefits. 
• Business insurance. 
• Retirement services. 
• Integrations (including accounting, hiring , HR and other API integrations). 
• Time and attendance tools for managing schedules and tracking employees’ time worked. 
• Job costing and reporting to aid in appropriate labor distribution among departments.
• Document management and storage tools. 
• Employee performance management tools. 
• Recruiting and applicant tracking tools.
• Job posting website integrations (including with Indeed), which allow businesses to post jobs, schedule interviews and manage hiring workflows. 
• Paycheck preview and approval tools that allow employees to see their paychecks before payday so they can request corrections as needed. 

Paychex drawbacks 

One of the drawbacks of Paychex is its lack of HR and workforce management tools in its plans. Features, such as employee benefits, recruiting and integration capabilities are only available as add-ons and often for undisclosed additional fees. 

In addition, some plans include features and others offer them as add-ons, often quite randomly. For instance, the garnishment payment service is an add-on for the Paychex Flex Select plan but it is included in the lower-tiered Essentials plan. In this way, upgrading to a higher-tier plan results in the loss of this feature.

Also, related services like employee benefits and time and attendance are add-ons for all three plans at Paychex. But, competitors such as Gusto and Quickbooks Payroll include these features in their plans.

Given some of Paychex Flex’s limitations, it may not be the best option for small, midsize and enterprise businesses needing a payroll service provider that offers HR and other complementary features at no extra cost. But it may be a good fit for small businesses that want basic payroll software and are willing to pay extra for add-ons that lend to a custom solution or to upgrade their solution as their budgets permit.

Paychex alternatives

Plenty of alternatives to Paychex are available for businesses small and large, including ADP RUN, Quickbooks Payroll and Rippling.

ADP RUN

With basic included functionality in each of its plans and plenty of add-ons, Paychex allows companies to sign up for basic payroll processing tools, then lean on add-ons and upgrades to develop a custom program to meet all their needs. It’s best for established companies that need a custom solution to streamline their processes and develop their workforces.

Instead of offering a means to build custom plans using add-ons, ADP RUN offers multiple plans for every stage of company development. Companies can, for example, start with ADP RUN’s single employer or contractor-only plan to manage one or two first hires. Then, you can upgrade to its Essentials plan to handle payroll for a developing workforce, and upgrade to bundled payroll and HR plans as needs become more complex. 

As such, companies that are starting out and need subsequent plans they can lean on as they develop should consider ADP RUN as an alternative to Paychex, which caters more to more established workforces.

For more information, read our ADP vs. Paychex comparison. 

QuickBooks Payroll

While Paychex Flex offers bundled HR and payroll plans, QuickBooks focuses on bundling payroll with accounting and expense management features. For example, while Paychex Flex offers an HR library, employee onboarding and new hire reporting in its first-tier plan, Quickbooks Payroll offers the ability to track income and expenses, capture and store receipts, track sales and sales tax and invoice clients in its first-tier plans. 

As such, Quickbooks Payroll is a good alternative to Paychex for companies that already have an HR solution, and so need bundled payroll and accounting features in payroll software. 

To learn more, read our Quickbooks payroll software review. 

Rippling

Rippling offers a global solution to handle payroll, HR, IT and finances for mid-sized or large enterprises. Companies can pay a global workforce in their own currencies, automate global compliance and enjoy automatic tax filing globally. To handle a large workforce, Rippling offers the ability to automate a plethora of internal workflows, such as new-hire onboarding and bonus disbursements. Advanced reporting and syncing ensure that company status reports are clear and accurate no matter how large the workforce. 

In contrast, Paychex offers payroll processing for U.S.-based businesses and primarily focuses on HR and payroll processing and tools. It also offers basic features in plans with plenty of add-ons to customize the solution for different use cases and growth stages. 

As such, Paychex is best for small U.S.-based companies looking for ways to encourage growth even when unique needs arise. In contrast, Ripping is a good alternative for mid-sized or large businesses that may have been leaning on a solution like Paychex thus far but are poised to expand to global markets (if they haven’t already) and need a solution that can help them take that leap and streamline operations as they do. 

For more information, read our Rippling payroll software review. 

Featured payroll software offers

OnPay

Learn More

Via OnPay’s website

Monthly fee

$40 per month plus $6 per employee

Direct deposit

Yes

SurePayroll

Learn More

Via SurePayroll’s website

Monthly fee

$29.99 per month plus $5 per employee

Direct deposit

Yes

Gusto

Learn More

Via Gusto’s website

Monthly fee

Starting at $40 plus $6 per month per employee

Direct deposit

Yes

Rippling

Learn More

Via Rippling’s website

Monthly fee

$35 per month + $8 per user

Direct deposit

Yes

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)