5 Best Free Payroll Software for 2024

The free plan, or Community Edition, includes basic time and attendance, scheduling, leave management, HRM tools, and payroll. If you need more, its paid plans come with customer support, a mobile app (for iOS and Android devices), and advanced functionalities, like facial recognition clock-ins, geofencing time tracking, expense management, and online tax forms.

Pricing for the below plans covers up to 10 employees. Contact TimeTrex if you require a quote for large teams.

• Professional Edition: Starts at $30 per month
• Corporate Edition: Starts at $50 per month
• Enterprise Edition: Starts at $80 per month

TimeTrex also offers installation support and initial setup support for new users for a fee.

• Feature-rich free tier: Even at its free level, TimeTrex lets you create schedules, capture clock-ins/outs, monitor PTO, pay employees, track performance reviews, and record staff information in a centralized database. This is more than what Payroll4Free (it doesn’t have free HR tools) and HR.my (lacks performance reviews) offer as part of their forever-free solution.
• Online time tracking: TimeTrex has robust time tracking capabilities—making it one of our best time and attendance software for small businesses. Its web browser-based time clock allows you to turn computers into employee time tracking devices. Payroll4Free, by contrast, will integrate with a separate time clock.
• Pay processing: TimeTrex’s free edition covers all day-to-day payroll basics, from paid time off (PTO) accruals to automatic tax calculations and custom deductions. It also offers electronic pay stubs, free direct deposit for small businesses, and paychecks you can print in several formats.
• Third-party software integrations: TimeTrex integrates with QuickBooks, ADP, Paychex, Ceridian, and Sage. The other providers on our list don’t have this functionality, while Payroll4Free.com has limited options and connects with other software through payroll data exports and time data imports.

You can use its platform at no cost, provided you only pay 10 or fewer unique individuals (not number of employees) per calendar month. Payroll4Free charges a fee of $10 per payroll batch if you pay 11 up to 25 workers per month. On the other hand, if the employees you pay in a calendar month exceed 25 unique individuals, Payroll4Free will bill you a processing fee of $35 per payroll batch for that month.

The provider also offers several add-on services to help streamline your payroll processes. You can check the full fee schedule on its website, but the most important add-ons are below:

• Payroll tax payments and filings: $35 monthly
• Direct deposit transfers using Payroll4Free’s bank account Direct deposit services require a security deposit equal to the highest estimated net payroll you plan to process in a seven-day period. : $35 monthly
• Bundle payroll tax and direct deposit services: $40 monthly
• Live training: $100 per hour
• Employee data setup or reprocessing This is optional and only if you need assistance entering a new employee's data into Payroll4Free. The same also applies if you require changes to the original system setup information after the initial setup has been completed. : $100 per hour

• Pay processing: It allows you to track PTO time on the system and will consider that when calculating payroll. Payroll4Free also computes taxes and integrates with time clocks (something eSmart Paychecks cannot). Unlike TimeTrex, it charges you if you want to use them for direct deposit or provides a free ACH file so you can use your own bank free instead.
• Check printing setup assistance: Payroll4Free.com can help set up its software to add any data you want to appear on the check. You won’t get the said free service with both HR.my and TimeTrex, although eSmart Paycheck does have a simple check setup.
• Employee portal: Unlike eSmart Paycheck and ExcelPayroll, Payroll4free has an online employee portal where they can check accrued PTO, see and print pay stubs and W2/1099 forms, and update personal information.
• Access to payroll and tax experts: Payroll4Free offers unlimited customer support and has a team of experienced payroll and tax specialists you can contact if you need payroll advice. However, it doesn’t have the community forum that TimeTrex and HR.my offer, which allows you to get input from other business owners and HR professionals.

While HR.my offers HR and small business payroll software free with 6GB of storage, it also has a sponsorship program. For $5 monthly, you get ad-free web accounts, early access to new features, an additional 3.5GB of online storage, and one extra “HR Role” user seat per unit of sponsorship. Note that for a 12-month sponsorship package, you get the same perks but with 7GB of additional online storage (instead of 3.5GB) and two extra “HR Role” user seats (instead of just one).

• Payroll processing that includes expenses: HR.my accounts for employee leave transactions, lets you import time, has automatic pay runs, and offers online payslips. It even includes employee expenses in pay runs, unlike TimeTrex, which offers expense management tools in its paid version.
• Employee portal: While TimeTrex has an employee portal as well, we liked HR.my’s because it also allows for expense management, including uploading receipts via mobile. Employees can also manage documents and forms, view past and future PTO, and of course, see pay information.
• Cloud-based and mobile-accessible: HR.my is the only payroll software free both on the cloud and on mobile on our list. Payroll4Free and eSmart lack mobile apps, while TimeTrex’s free Community Edition doesn’t come with a mobile app.
• Multilingual platform: While its default language is English, you can change HR.my’s system setting to any of 66 languages, like Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Vietnamese. TimeTrex has some additional languages, but many have been discontinued because of a lack of upkeep.
• Feature-rich free HR solution: In addition to free payroll, HR.my offers time tracking, PTO management, and even incident reporting tools. It sets alerts for important events like expiring contracts or work visas, probation or performance reviews, and even employee anniversaries (which can affect pay scale).

eSmart’s free plan is limited to creating and printing a single paycheck or pay stub at a time. If you wish to have paid payroll services, they offer annual subscriptions based on the number of employees you have. These run $75 to $450 a year and include:

• Unlimited paycheck preparation
• Payroll tax calculations
• Printing checks and pay stubs
• Printing and filing tax forms

It also offers these add-ons:

• Deposit federal taxes automatically: $35
• Deposit state taxes as applicable: $30
• Print state payroll forms: $20 per type
• E-file state payroll forms as applicable: $20
• E-file W-2 to states, as applicable: $20 + $2 per form
• Print and mail W-2: $2 per form

• Simplicity: Compared to the others on our list, eSmart Paycheck’s free plan is the simplest of all. It is designed to let you create and print a single paycheck. You put in the information, and it does the calculations.
• Easy to customize: If you need to add a deduction, garnishment, bonus, or expense, it’s as simple as adding a line in the appropriate section. eSmart will ask you whether it’s taxable and make calculations accordingly. You can also set the pay cycle from weekly to annually as needed.
• Print checks or stubs: You have the option of printing a simple pay stub (to use the information for Direct Deposit and to give to your employee), printing a check on blank paper, or using a company-printed paycheck.

ExcelPayroll is completely free to use and will update with federal tax schedules. However, for state tax table updates, you have to pay $50 per state except for Alabama (which costs $100).

• Powerful processing: ExcelPayroll lets you add applicable pay rates, timecard information, and deductions. It can handle payroll on a per-employee basis but can do it in batches, as well as reprocess previous payrolls—something Payroll4Free may charge you for.
• Employee profiles: It can store up to 1,000 employee profiles in its database, although it will only accept 50 active employees at a time. Profiles include contact information, payment details, deductions, and tax information.
• Paycheck printing: Like eSmart Paycheck, ExcelPayroll only prints checks. However, it is not tied to a particular period, so you can print a check whenever you need to. It can also collate payment information for direct deposit payouts like Payroll4Free does.
• Time card: While ExcelPayroll does not integrate with time clocks, it does have a timecard feature where you can input hours, and it will do the calculations accordingly.

The most common requirements that a small business will need include an employer identification number (EIN), the employees’ pay rates, and a bank account with sufficient funds to pay employees. You also need to understand payroll compliance regulations, such as the required payroll deductions, tax payments at all levels (federal, state, and local), and the tax forms you need to submit. Further, you need a payroll expert or payroll software that can handle and streamline your company’s pay processes.

First, check federal and state laws, as some states may have payday schedules for specific types of employees. Next, take a look at the payroll frequencies that best fit your business and workers—the options are biweekly, weekly, semimonthly, and monthly.

You can manually calculate payroll with a calculator or use Excel to compute all earnings and deductions. There are also online payroll calculators you can use for free, but you have to input the salary information one employee at a time to get each worker’s net pay (like eSmart Paycheck). Note that while these options can save you money since you don’t have to pay a software provider or a payroll accountant to handle it—we only recommend these to businesses with up to 10 employees.