Pros & Cons
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- Fast, capable payroll processing
- Top-notch user experience
- Impressive flexibility and guidance
- Supports numerous vertical industries
- Exceptional employee portal
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- New pricing structure increases costs
- HR tools could be more robust
OnPay Specs
| 1099s | |
| Free Trial | |
| HR Add-Ons | |
| Mobile Admin Access | Responsive Site |
| Submits Federal, State, Local, and Payroll Taxes | |
| Time Tracking | |
| W-2s |
OnPay excels as online payroll software for both small and larger businesses because of its payroll processing expertise, ease of use, and help resources. It caters to companies in vertical industries but remains flexible enough to suit most businesses. The most significant change since our last review is a switch to modular pricing: You pay one monthly subscription price for Payroll Essentials and another for expanded HR tools. In addition, the app now supports automatic payroll and includes more educational resources. OnPay is a very capable service, but it is no longer an Editors' Choice winner due to its higher costs and lack of substantial updates relative to competitors. Gusto is our Editors' Choice winner because it offers an exceptional combination of payroll and HR depth and flexibility in the most engaging user experience we've tried.
Pricing and Subscription Plans: A New Subscription Model Increases Costs
OnPay used to be one of the best values of the payroll services I reviewed, costing just $49 per month, plus $6 per employee per month with no hidden fees. Now, you pay that same amount for the base plan, Payroll Essentials, which includes all of OnPay’s core payroll tools, such as benefits administration, hiring and onboarding, and integrations. The HR add-on costs an extra $15 per month, plus $2 per employee per month. Features here include document management, HR insights, PTO management, workflows, and e-signatures. For an additional $10 per month, OnPay offers state-by-state compliance alerts and other compliance resources. Live HR support (powered by HR industry leader Mineral) is $75 per month.
Patriot Software Payroll Premium costs less—$37 per month, plus $5 per employee per month. The Basic version is $17 per month, plus $4 per employee per month, though you have to be willing to submit payroll taxes and filings on your own (the app calculates them). Patriot Software also offers HR and Time & Attendance add-ons that each cost $6 per month, plus $2 per employee per month.
On the high end, Intuit's equivalent QuickBooks Workforce Premium tier comes in at $88 per month, plus $10 per employee per month. Gusto Plus is also expensive; it costs $80 per month, plus $12 per employee per month.
Interface and Ease of Use: An Approachable Design That Scales
OnPay is simple enough for a novice with a few employees to pick up quickly and can handle a workforce of hundreds. Every element of the site supports customizability. This flexibility extends to numerous vertical industries. It provides tools and expert support for agricultural companies, nonprofits, restaurants, and more.
OnPay's effective use of color, fonts, graphics, and navigation prompts contributes to an intuitive, attractive user experience. The application provides a pleasant, snappy environment that's simple to understand. Its opening dashboard displays the information you need access to quickly, such as details on the most recent and next pay runs, employee records, and to-do alerts.
Payroll can be a bear, so you might need help beyond what’s available on the site. OnPay offers free chat, email, and phone help in addition to its significant site guidance. Payroll tax information is available for all 50 states, and hundreds of step-by-step guides with screenshots can walk you through both simple and complex topics. During what can be an in-depth onboarding experience (especially if you’ve already been paying employees using a different method), OnPay’s trained specialists can help you set everything up at no charge.
You can do much of the setup work by yourself, though, such as establishing accrual policies for time off, providing company and employee information, and specifying earnings types. You can create multiple unlimited schedules and pay employees at different intervals. Custom fields are available for select functions, something some competitors lack. OnPay also integrates with related applications, such as Intuit QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks, and Xero (for which OnPay is a certified app partner), as well as other business services, such as third-party time-tracking apps. OnPay provides a special set of links under Reports that takes you to the pages you need to visit for setup.
Employee Records: Comprehensive Profiles You Can Tailor to Your Needs
OnPay’s employee profiles are thorough and well-organized. Creating them takes time, but payroll runs won’t be accurate unless you provide all the details they require. These include benefits (such as medical insurance and time off accrual), compensation, HR information (such as personnel files), and withholdings. There’s also a history section where you can access paychecks and the employee’s W-2 form. Like some other sections of OnPay, you have to do a lot of scrolling here because the records sprawl.
Data flows in and out of these records, since other elements of the site use them. Every worker gets a profile page that displays all their relevant details, such as earnings types and paycheck history. You create contractor records in a separate section, since they don't require as much information.
As you complete employee records, you need to outline the benefits you offer. OnPay offers an exceptional tool to help you select the best health insurance (medical, dental, and vision) for groups of employees. OnPay Insurance Agency, LLC administers this component, which includes detailed product information for all plans. OnPay’s licensed brokers are available at every step of the process, though employees can explore offerings on their own.
You can also bring your own benefits plans. In that case, OnPay will handle the calculation of employee withholding and employer contributions. It supports numerous types, such as Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), retirement plans, and union dues.
I can’t think of anything important that OnPay is missing in its employee profiles, but there are often details specific to an organization that you need to include. For this reason, OnPay offers custom forms. You can create these using conventions like drop-down menus, lists, and text boxes. You might, for example, create forms for equipment tracking, special skills, or t-shirt sizes. They’re very easy to assemble.
Worker profiles are primarily for employer use, but employees can sign into individualized, password-protected sites to view and edit portions of their records. The employee portals are excellent. They have everything you might expect, such as company files, job and benefit details, pay stubs, and time-off updates. Employees can also view their coworkers' profiles and access a space to converse with them.
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Running Payroll: A Transparent and Understandable Series of Steps
OnPay provides multiple ways to get employee hours into the payroll hours worksheet. You can import them from OnPay’s Time Tracking tool, pull them in from integrated third-party providers, or enter them manually. If you were conscientious about updating your employee records and hours, you shouldn’t have to do much more than look over your payroll before previewing and submitting it. Contractor payments also appear on this page.
If you need to consult an employee record or make changes to the paycheck profile, you can open an overlay page with payroll-related details during the payroll process. You can make edits there and even add earnings types on the fly without losing your place in the payroll. Not all competitors offer that capability. If you need to add pay items or fill in an amount for something like a bonus, you can do so in the panel that slides out from the right (you can preview the paycheck here, too). This is how OnPay deals with the same difficulty every payroll software faces: How do you display all the earnings types and deductions for each employee on one page? Unless you have an extremely simple payroll, you usually can’t. OnPay’s solution works.
Complete paycheck profiles for all employees and contractors are available on the next page via a link to a downloadable PDF file. You can also see totals for company costs and employee withholdings. This preview page provides several critical numbers and dates: direct deposit amount, direct deposit date, payroll debit date, and total cost, as well as totals for hours, wages, employer and employee taxes, employer contributions, and deductions. This should be enough information to satisfy employers before they click the Submit Payroll button.
Once you submit your payroll, OnPay displays your payroll costs and dates, with links to check printing and all the reports you need. You can also void your payroll run from this page. OnPay now supports automatic payroll, which can save you some time. I felt confident about running payroll in OnPay, and it prominently displayed the information I needed.
Reports: Effective and Flexible Enough for Small Businesses
Payroll websites don’t need to offer a ton of reports, but they should have enough to give you summaries and detailed looks at the data you enter. OnPay has enough to support its payroll information and functions. You can customize them with multiple filters, display them directly on the page, open them in Excel, and save them as PDFs.
Three of OnPay's reports are especially noteworthy. Your accountant can use the GL Summary to post your payroll balances to your accounting software. The Payroll Listing and Earnings Summary reports use OnPay’s powerful custom report designer. You can add up to 40 items by dragging and dropping them into position among the standard columns. I had a little trouble getting the hang of the custom reports, but they can be quite useful once you understand the process.
HR Tools: Enough for Some, But Lags Behind Category Leaders
As mentioned, OnPay now charges $15 per month, plus $2 per worker per month for most of its HR tools. Most payroll sites charge extra for HR resources, including ADP RUN and Gusto. OnPay’s HR Dashboard provides links to employee offers, pending onboarding tasks, and outstanding requests to files like the W-4. It also updates you on employees' time off and pending requests, displaying a list of workers out on specific days. The dashboard also shows conversations among staff.
This centralized set of HR pages offers links to other aforementioned tools, such as documents and records management, PTO and HR insight and engagement, and onboarding workflows and e-signatures.
OnPay’s HR content is not as robust as what you get with competitors, some of which (such as Patriot Software) partner with HR resources provider Mineral for their tools and data. New this year for OnPay users, though, are two additional paid products. For $10 per month, you get compliance resources. And managers can get personalized help from Mineral experts for $75 per month.
Compliance support includes the Compliance Checker, an interactive tool that asks questions about your employee benefits, headcount, and other coverage to determine your compliance status. It alerts you if, for example, a change in your headcount means you no longer meet requirements. Payroll guides for each state are also available. OnPay's live support staff is available to answer questions about compliance.
Mobile Experience: Works Well on Phones, Even Without a Full App
OnPay doesn't offer a mobile app for employers, but its site works web on mobile browsers. Some other payroll services go this route. You can run a payroll and even access the aforementioned employee background screens without losing your place. Employee profiles are thorough, and most HR resources are available, including custom forms, document templates (such as a work-from-home policy and a non-compete provision), onboarding tasks, and the org chart. A few elements are missing, however, including some reports. The available reports work surprisingly well on the small screen.
Employees can download a separate mobile app (available for Android and iOS). You can do everything on the app that you can on the desktop site: access bank account information, participate in conversations with co-workers, request time off, and view pay stubs. Both the browser-based site and apps look and work great. In fact, I prefer OnPay’s mobile experience to the desktop one because it’s so compact and doesn’t waste space.
Security: Is OnPay Safe to Use?
OnPay says it backs up all your data in real time and uses encryption to protect it. The software also supports multi-factor authentication.