Best payroll software for agencies without a subscription

CheckMark Payroll

The long-running desktop option: CheckMark has sold payroll software since the 1980s and is one of very few vendors with a real native Mac application rather than a browser wrapper. You buy the calendar year's program outright, add as many employees and pay runs as you like, and W-2 printing and e-filing are bundled at no extra charge. It is the most expensive row here, and paying contractors is a separate purchase, because CheckMark sells its 1099 filing software as its own product.

PenSoft Payroll Professional

A Virginia company that has sold desktop payroll since the 1980s, aimed at employers who want tax tables for all 50 states and unlimited program support included in the price. PenSoft is the one vendor in this table that calls its annual fee a subscription outright, and the price is banded by headcount, so the figure shown is its smallest tier. Higher editions add job costing, client invoicing and 1099 handling, at roughly double to triple the cost.

PaycheckCity Payroll

Run by Symmetry Software, whose free paycheck calculators most people meet long before the payroll product. It is the simplest thing here: enter the hours, it does gross-to-net for all 50 states including multi-state staff, and hands you a completed 940, 941 and W-2 to file yourself. What you give up is everything around that, since it moves no money, has no employee portal, and its help centre says plainly that contractors are not supported.

Payroll Mate

A Windows-only desktop program from Real Business Solutions, pitched at small employers and at the bookkeepers who run payroll for several clients at once. The base price covers ten separate companies, which is unusual at this end of the market, and the feature list goes deep on awkward pay types: piece rate, pay per mile, tips, shift differentials, staff working across multiple job sites. The catch is that the headline figure is a base price, and direct deposit, contractor 1099s, state forms and MICR check printing are each separately priced options on top of it.

ezPaycheck

Halfpricesoft has sold ezPaycheck since 2005 and prices it below almost anything with the same feature list. It runs entirely on your own machine with no internet connection required, keeps W-2 staff and 1099 contractors in the same company file, and can e-file the 941 and 940 from inside the app. Direct deposit is the gap: it comes from ezACH, a separate Halfpricesoft purchase, and the licence has to be re-bought each January to keep the tax tables current.

Medlin Payroll

A family-run California outfit that has shipped the same kind of plain, fast Windows payroll program for over forty years, and by a wide margin the cheapest paid option here. Everything runs on your own PC, the federal forms print on plain paper, and the 940, 941 and 944 can be e-filed through NELCO. It is deliberately narrow: the interface looks its age, there is no Mac build, and contractor 1099s live in Medlin's separate accounting program rather than in the payroll one.

Payroll4Free

The genuinely free option, and the one most free-payroll roundups are pointing at. Payroll4Free pays W-2 employees and 1099 contractors, calculates federal, state and local taxes, and does direct deposit at no charge so long as the money moves through your own bank account. Two things bound it: the free tier stops at nine people paid no more than once a month, and the company funds itself by showing ads inside the software while you work. Having them deposit and file your payroll taxes, or move the direct deposit money for you, are the paid extras.