Justworks Payroll

Justworks built its reputation on co-employment, and Payroll is the unbundled version of that: the software and the tax filing without the PEO contract, the master medical plan or the shared workers' compensation policy. Pricing is published at $8 per employee per month plus a $50 monthly base fee, which is unusually transparent for this category and cheap for a client with fifteen or twenty staff. The product covers multi-state payroll with automated filings, multiple pay rates, custom pay periods, off-cycle runs, W-2 and 1099 filing, employee onboarding and offboarding, and basic timecards and PTO tracking that several competitors charge extra for. Reporting includes cash flow forecasting. Health insurance, 401(k), domestic and international contractor payments and fuller time tracking are add-ons, and benefits enrollment carries a separate $25 per enrolled employee per month charge that changes the arithmetic quickly on a client that actually offers coverage.

For a firm, the relevant question is what the partner arrangement looks like, and here the answer is partly published and partly not. Justworks runs an accountant program with, by its own count, more than 700 partner firms. Partners get a single sign-in advisor dashboard across all their client accounts, a dedicated relationship manager, a partner relationship management tool for tracking referrals, and access to the expense management, time tracking and R&D tax credit pieces. Compensation is described as partner revenue share or client rebates that scale with the partnership. No percentages, no thresholds and no wholesale rate card are published. There is no stated option for the firm to buy at a wholesale price, bill the client itself and keep the spread, which is the arrangement Gusto Pro puts in writing.

The processing model is client-first rather than firm-first. Each client runs its own payroll in its own account and the firm watches through the advisor dashboard. There is no batch run across a book and no after-the-fact payroll entry for write-up work. That makes this a product a firm recommends and supports rather than one it operates at scale, and it caps how many clients one person can carry. The other limitation is focus: Justworks' centre of gravity remains the PEO, and Payroll is the newer, lighter sibling, so features and depth generally land in the PEO context first.

Against Gusto the comparison is close on software and clearly worse on partner economics, since Gusto publishes three billing models and Justworks publishes none. Against OnPay it is similar in price and simpler in scope. Against Justworks PEO itself, the split is straightforward: a client that needs group medical it could not otherwise buy belongs on the PEO, a client that already has a broker and just needs payroll run properly belongs here.

Strong option is the right tier and the inherited value stands. The security position supports it, with SOC 1 and SOC 2, IRS CPEO certification, ESAC accreditation and multi-factor authentication documented on the trust page. What holds it back from a top pick is not the software but the channel: a firm cannot see, before it signs a partner agreement, whether the economics are worth the referral.