QuickBooks Payroll pricing, price hikes and cheaper alternatives
QuickBooks Payroll (quickbooks.intuit.com) is a payroll and HR platform. Monthly base fee plus a per-employee monthly fee, by tier (Workforce Payroll, Premium, Elite); can be bundled with QuickBooks Online.. No free plan.
What QuickBooks Payroll costs
- 10 employees: $115/mo (Workforce Payroll $50/mo + $6.50/employee x 10 = $115; full-service tax filing included. Payroll-only price derived from official bundles ($88 Payroll+Simple Start, $125 Payroll+Essentials) and matches third-party $50 base)
- 1 employee: $56.50/mo ($50 + $6.50 x 1 = $56.50)
- 50 employees: $375/mo ($50 + $6.50 x 50 = $375; no published volume discount)
Plan compared: Workforce Payroll (formerly Core), payroll only. Prices are USD per month on monthly billing (annual-only plans divided by 12): the base fee plus per-employee fees for full-service payroll for employees in one US state paid twice a month, or the core HR plan for tools that do not run payroll. Products not sold in the US use their home-market price converted to USD. Setup fees, benefit and insurance premiums and taxes are left out.
QuickBooks Payroll price hikes
No price hikes on record for QuickBooks Payroll.
Cheaper alternatives to QuickBooks Payroll
At a 10-employee company, QuickBooks Payroll costs $115/mo. 1 payroll and HR platform costs less:
- Gusto: $109/mo (Simple)
QuickBooks Payroll alternatives: 2 payroll and HR platforms compared, at every size.
Sources
Pricing page: quickbooks.intuit.com/payroll/pricing. Prices last checked Oct 16, 2026. The official pricing page now shows only payroll+accounting bundles (QuickBooks Workforce rebrand); payroll-only prices come from the bundle math and tech.co/dancingnumbers (Oct/Aug 2026). Elite's per-employee fee is disputed ($12 vs $17), and no price change could be sourced: the web search budget ran out before the price-increase search.