# QuickBooks Payroll Premium Review: Pricing, Features, Alternatives QuickBooks Payroll Premium: Middle payroll tier for QuickBooks Online clients, adding time tracking and same-day deposit. Pricing from $88 / month, plus $13 per employee, SOC 2 unconfirmed, and how it compares to the alternatives, for US accounting and bookkeeping firms. Source: https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/quickbooks-payroll-premium/ --- [Accounting Tools](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/) · [Payroll & PEO](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/) # QuickBooks Payroll Premium Strong Option · Intuit Middle payroll tier for QuickBooks Online clients, adding time tracking and same-day deposit [Visit QuickBooks Payroll Premium](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/accountants/products-solutions/payroll/quickbooks-online-payroll/) [All 19 payroll & peo tools](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/) Best for QBO-native firms running client payrolls of 5 to 40 employees with hourly staff Starting price $88 / month, plus $13 per employee (ProAdvisor firm-billed price is $61.50/month plus $11.05 per employee) SOC 2 Unconfirmed Multi-factor auth Yes Ownership part of Intuit Integrates with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Time, Checkr, Mineral, Guideline, +1 more The read ## What QuickBooks Payroll Premium does Most firm-billed client payroll inside a QuickBooks practice ends up on Premium, and the reason is the middle two features rather than the top ones. Same-day direct deposit means a Monday afternoon approval still funds Tuesday, which removes the standing argument about cut-off times. Time tracking in the Workforce app, with schedules built by job or by shift, keeps hours inside the same system that will pay them, so nobody rekeys a spreadsheet. Around that sits full-service tax work, with Intuit calculating, filing and paying federal, state and local payroll taxes, e-filing 1099s for unlimited contractors, and running auto payroll for salaried staff on direct deposit. Premium reviews the setup after the firm builds it. HR content comes from Mineral as a resource center and handbook builder, plus recruiting, automated I-9, time off tracking and five customizable workflows. The partner decision matters more than the feature list. Firm-billed subscriptions carry the ProAdvisor discount at 30 percent off the base ongoing, which Intuit calls its only ongoing discount, and arrive as one monthly invoice covering every client. Client-billed at the direct discount gives the client 30 percent off for twelve months and then list price. Revenue share pays the firm 30 percent of base and 15 percent of per-employee fees for twelve months, but the subscription must be client-billed and cannot be paid by the firm, and revenue share is unavailable when moving an existing subscription across to client billing. Firm-billed Premium works out at $61.50 plus $11.05 per employee against list of $88 plus $13, and note that the head fee is discounted 15 percent, not 30, so wholesale margin narrows as headcount grows. Split billing, added in 2024, lets a firm carry the ledger and hand the client the payroll bill. The gap for a firm is batch processing. QuickBooks Online Accountant gives a client list, not a payroll console: there is no cross-client pay run, no after-the-fact payroll entry, no single screen showing which of sixty clients are approved for Thursday. Firms with heavy payroll volume drive that from a spreadsheet and a browser tab per client, which is exactly the workflow Payroll Relief and Accounting CS Payroll were built to remove. Premium also carries the standard accuracy guarantee rather than Elite's $25,000 penalty cover, so a firm that wants that protection is paying for HR modules it did not want in order to get it. Core is the honest comparison downward. It drops to next-day deposit and has no time tracking or HR workflows, and for a three-person S corp on fixed salaries that is enough. Upward, Elite buys done-for-you setup and a named HR advisor. Outside the family, Gusto and OnPay both publish flat pricing with year-end forms included and sync cleanly to QBO, and they win when the client is not otherwise tied to Intuit. Premium wins when the client already lives in QuickBooks Online and the firm wants one vendor, one invoice and no mapping to maintain. The tier moved up from dated. The evidence is a current product line, a payroll AI that gathers time data and flags inconsistent hours, and billing options Intuit expanded rather than froze. Capabilities ## What you get Federal, state and local payroll tax calculation, filing and payment Same-day direct deposit on submissions by 7:00am Pacific Time tracking in the Workforce app with schedules built by job or shift HR resource center and handbook builder supplied by Mineral Recruiting, automated I-9, time off management and five customizable HR workflows Pricing, security, integrations ## What it costs and what it connects to QuickBooks Payroll Premium starts at $88 per month, plus $13 per employee (ProAdvisor firm-billed price is $61.50/month plus $11.05 per employee). Pricing is per company per month plus per employee. A free trial is available: 30 days for clients enrolled through the revenue share program. We could not confirm a SOC 2 report for QuickBooks Payroll Premium from public sources, multi-factor authentication is available. Ask the vendor directly before it touches client data — an absence here means unverified, not absent. QuickBooks Payroll Premium connects to QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Supporting more than one ledger matters for firms whose clients are split across them. Beyond that: QuickBooks Time, Checkr, Mineral, Guideline and AP Intego. [Vendor pricing page](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/accountants/proadvisor/pricing/) · [Vendor security page](https://security.intuit.com/) Our rating ## Why we rate QuickBooks Payroll Premium a Strong Option QuickBooks Payroll Premium is rated Strong Option, alongside 8 other of the 19 payroll & peo tools in this directory. A credible choice that wins on a specific fit rather than across the board — a price point, a niche, a workflow, or an integration the top picks do not cover as well. [How these ratings are decided](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/methodology/). Same vendor ## More from Intuit ### [Intuit Accountant Suite](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/close-automation/intuit-accountant-suite/) Intuit's successor to QuickBooks Online Accountant, with a per-client close workflow module One to Watch ### [Intuit Tax Advisor](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-planning/intuit-tax-advisor/) Tax planning built into Lacerte and ProConnect at no separate charge Top Pick ### [Lacerte](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-preparation/lacerte/) Intuit's high-end desktop tax package for complex returns and multiple preparers Strong Option ### [Intuit ProConnect Tax](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-preparation/proconnect/) Intuit's browser-based professional tax product, priced per return with a published ladder Top Pick Alternatives ## QuickBooks Payroll Premium alternatives ### [QuickBooks Payroll Core](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/quickbooks-payroll-core/) Entry payroll tier inside QuickBooks Online, resold by ProAdvisors at a 30% ongoing discount Strong Option ### [QuickBooks Payroll Elite](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/quickbooks-payroll-elite/) Top tier of Intuit's payroll line, adding done-for-you setup and $25,000 penalty cover Strong Option ### [OnPay](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/onpay/) Flat-rate full-service payroll with a partner program that lets the firm bill and keep a share Top Pick ### [Patriot Payroll](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/patriot-payroll/) Low-cost US payroll sold to firms at a volume discount they bill on at their own rate Strong Option ### [Justworks Payroll](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/justworks-payroll/) Standalone payroll from Justworks, priced flat and sold without the co-employment contract Strong Option ### [Justworks PEO](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/justworks-peo/) Certified PEO for small employers, bundling benefits pooling with co-employment risk Top Pick [Compare all 19 payroll & peo tools](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/payroll/) Sources ## Where these facts came from Researched from public sources. Pricing and security claims change without notice, so check the vendor before you buy. Last reviewed September 8, 2026. ### [QuickBooks Online Payroll for accountants](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/accountants/products-solutions/payroll/quickbooks-online-payroll/) Retrieved 2026-09-08 ### [QuickBooks Payroll Premium product page](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/payroll/premium/) Retrieved 2026-09-08 ### [ProAdvisor preferred pricing](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/accountants/proadvisor/pricing/) Retrieved 2026-09-08 ### [ProAdvisor revenue share program](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/accountants/products-solutions/pricing-promotions/papp/revenue-share/) Retrieved 2026-09-08 Keep browsing ## Other categories [Practice Management (49)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/practice-management/)[General Ledger & Bookkeeping (26)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/general-ledger/)[Tax Workflow & Document Automation (26)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-workflow/)[Tax Preparation (18)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-preparation/)[Tax Planning & Advisory (13)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-planning/)[Tax Research (13)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-research/)[Month-End Close Automation (11)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/close-automation/)[Proposals & Engagement Letters (9)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/proposals-engagement/)[Spreadsheet Reporting & Ledger Sync (6)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/spreadsheet-reporting/)[Tax Resolution & IRS Representation (6)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/tax-resolution/)[AI Meeting Assistants (5)](https://node8.ai/accounting-tools/meeting-assistants/) ## Got the stack, still doing the work by hand? Node8 builds the automation and AI layer that sits between the tools a firm already pays for: intake, document extraction, review workflows, and the handoffs nobody has time to chase. [AI for accounting firms](https://node8.ai/acct) Book a strategy session