A small publication with one subject: payroll

Who runs this site

The site is edited by M. Zarif and run by a small team — deliberately small. We are not part of any payroll company, we are not owned by a media group with a hundred other categories to feed, and no provider has a say in anything published here. When you read a verdict on this site, it came from our published scoring model, not from a sales department.

Why this site exists

Payroll is a minor category for the giant comparison sites. Their payroll pages are often generic, lightly maintained, and — worst of all — stale: prices that changed months ago still presented as current. That matters more in payroll than in most categories, because the "price" is a formula (a base fee plus a per-person fee, changing as your team does), and because providers in this space adjust their pricing often.

A specialist can do the unglamorous work a generalist skips: re-check every price every month, work the per-employee math out in the open, and keep tracking plan changes after the headline review is written. That is the entire idea behind this site. Our comparisons are also written for the business owners who actually buy this software — people choosing between Gusto and Rippling at 11 pm before a hiring decision, not procurement departments.

What we publish

Head-to-head comparisons like Gusto vs Rippling, a maintained roundup of the best payroll software for small businesses, and single-provider reviews such as our Patriot review — each with strengths and weaknesses side by side, and each stamped with the month its prices were last checked.

How we make money

Plainly: referral fees. Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click one and sign up with that provider, the provider may pay us a fee for the referral.

Three things about that fee matter, and we state them without fine print:

• It never changes your price. You pay the provider's normal price — the same price you would pay arriving any other way. The fee comes out of the provider's marketing budget, not your pocket.
• It never buys a ranking. Scores come from our published methodology. Providers cannot pay for placement, a higher score, or a softer review — our #1 pick's price increases and support complaints are printed right next to its ranking.
• It is our only revenue from readers' choices. We do not sell reader data, and we do not take payment to feature a product.

We think this model aligns us with readers about as well as publishing allows: we earn money when we help someone choose a service they keep, and nothing when we don't. If you ever think a page on this site reads like it was written for a provider instead of for you, tell us — that is exactly the failure this page exists to prevent.