Paycor Review: Pricing, Features, Pros, Cons & More

Paycor is a payroll and human resources (HR) software that works well for companies that want all their HR tools in one system. It provides tax and compliance support, onboarding, time tracking, performance reviews, and access to HR pros who can offer expert advice in handling employee issues. Its plans are tiered for growing companies, and pricing starts at $99 plus $5 per employee monthly. In our evaluation of the best payroll software for small business users, Paycor earned an overall score of 3.86 out of 5.

Paycor

Overall Score: 3.86 / 5

RATING CRITERIA	Pricing		2.75 / 5
	Payroll features		4.00 / 5
	HR features		5.00 / 5
	Reporting		5.00 / 5
	Ease of use		3.50 / 5
	Expert review		3.75 / 5
	Popularity		5.00 / 5

What We Like

• Payroll and HR features are integrated
• Easy to set up and use
• Customizable pay grid and pay stubs
• Wide range of HR solutions (e.g., time tracking, scheduling, compensation planning, learning management, and career planning)
• Setup fees are waived (as of this writing)

What's Missing

• Pricey for mom-and-pop businesses (up to 10 employees)
• Does not support international businesses; lacks global payroll capabilities
• PTO tracking and HR tools are available only in premium plans
• Recruiting, benefit administration, and time tracking tools are paid add-ons
• Customer support delays; long wait times, plus some reps are slow to respond

Deciding Factors

• Ease of use: Its platform is relatively simple to learn and use, provided you have basic knowledge of HR processes and how to run payroll
• Pricing:
  • Businesses with up to 49 employees can choose from four Paycor pricing plans with monthly fees that start at $99 plus $5 per employee
  • For companies with 50 and more workers, it offers a midmarket plan that’s custom priced
  • Setup fees are waived on all plans and new users get three months free (these may change at any time; visit Paycor’s website to view the latest promotional offers)
• Software setup: Hands-on guidance is provided to new clients with expert support and online tools to ensure successful implementation and software setup
• Customer support: Via phone support and email; online chatbot with option to chat with a live person

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What We Recommend Paycor For

Paycor is one of our top picks for small business payroll software because it provides powerful online tools for companies that want a wide range of integrated payroll and HR solutions. Its starter Small Business plan comes with basic payroll and tax processing while higher tiers include HR features like compliance support, onboarding, career planning, reporting, and analytics. It also has customizable pay grids, enabling you to fully configure data fields for pay runs.

In short, Paycor is best for:

• Businesses with complex payment processing needs: Paycor can support a wide variety of payment processing functions such as managing garnishments, child support, 401(k), benefits, and tax deductions. It also provides a dedicated certified HR professional you can consult with if you have HR and payroll-related queries—provided you sign up for either its Core or Complete plan.
• Companies with 50-plus employees: Past the 50-employee mark, companies have a bigger need for the HR and payroll support that it provides. Paycor, which is one of our best HR software, offers fully integrated HR tools and robust workflows that automate processes—from time tracking to performance management and Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting for health benefits.
• Businesses needing to upgrade from a manual payroll system as they increase hiring: Growing companies can save time and effort by using its human capital management (HCM) suite that comes with automated hiring, onboarding, and payroll tools. Data flows seamlessly between Paycor’s solutions, helping eliminate manual entries and making it easy for you to capture the required information to pay employees.

When Paycor Would Not Be a Good Fit

• Budget-conscious companies with fewer than 40 employees needing advanced HR features: While Paycor’s Small Business plans include advanced HR features, you have to get its higher tiers if you want new hire onboarding, e-signatures, HR experts, and 401(k) provider integration. You also have to shell out anywhere from $99 to $199 plus $5 to $14 per employee monthly, which can be pricey for small businesses. For reasonably priced options, read our best payroll services guide.
• Mom-and-pop businesses that only need basic payment processing: Paycor’s Basic plan for small businesses may look like the ideal choice for those who only need payroll tools. But for a very small team, getting its starter tier can be expensive, and you’ll get tools that your mom-and-pop business may not need, such as company chat and a news feed. If you have simple pay runs, the online tools of free-to-use payroll software will suffice. Check out our best free payroll software guide to find suitable options.
• Businesses with international employees: Paycor does not support global HR operations. If you have international employees or are planning to expand your business overseas, check out our top picks for international payroll services.

Are you looking for software with a greater focus on HR? Read our guide to the best HR information system (HRIS)/HR management system (HRMS) software for small businesses to find a solution that’s right for you.

Top Paycor Alternatives

Visit Rippling	Visit Gusto	Visit Paychex
Best for: Businesses needing HR and information technology (IT) tools with robust integrations	Best for: Small businesses looking for full-service payroll and basic HR tools	Best for: Startups and small businesses looking for dedicated payroll support
Base monthly fee from: $35 plus $8 per employee (pricing is based on a quote we received)	Base monthly fee from: $40 plus $6 per employee	Base monthly fee from: $39 plus $5 per employee
Read our Rippling review	Read our Gusto review	Read our Paychex review

Are you not sure which software to choose? Follow our step-by-step guide on selecting the right payroll solution.

Of all the criteria in our evaluation, pricing is where Paycor scored the lowest. Earning a 2.75 out of 5, it lost points due to its expensive monthly fees. Its starter plan costs $99 plus $5 per employee monthly and only includes basic Paycor features to help you manage payroll, tax filings, wage garnishments, and new hire reporting. It’s pricier than popular small business payroll software like Gusto at $40 plus $6 per employee and Square Payroll at $35 plus $5 per employee monthly.

However, unlike Gusto and Square Payroll, Paycor has multiple plans for different business sizes and offers basic to advanced HR tools to handle your growing employee management needs. Pricing is based on the number of workers you have. Those with 50 and more employees can select its custom-priced Mid Market tier, while small businesses with up to 49 employees can choose from four bundles―Basic, Essential, Core, and Complete―that cost anywhere from $99 to $199 plus $5 to $14 per employee monthly.

Small Business Plans

*Includes wage garnishment deductions and payment remittance to applicable courts and agencies.

If you want to add more Paycor features to its small business plans, the following solutions and services are available at an extra cost:

• Recruiting
• Time tracking and employee scheduling
• Employee benefits administration
• Pay-as-you-go workers’ compensation

Paycor Pricing Calculator

Are you not sure which Paycor Small Business plan will fit your budget? Use our online calculator to compute the estimated monthly and annual fees.

Mid Market Tier

With its Mid Market plan, you have to contact Paycor to request a quote. You can also fill out its online sign-up form, and a Paycor representative will get in touch with you to discuss pricing and your business’s HR needs.

Similar to its Small Business packages, Paycor also offers special promotions for its Mid Market plan. As of this writing, subscribing to this tier will grant you free access to Paycor’s HCM core products such as payroll, HR, and reporting tools, for up to three months.

Pay processing and tax support are part of the primary functions that Paycor provides. These tools help HR and accounting teams accurately process payroll. Despite its solid payroll features, Paycor only earned a 4 out of 5 in this criteria. It would have received higher points if not for its mobile app’s lack of pay processing capabilities.

While its app may have limited payroll functionalities, Paycor’s cloud-based system can handle a wide range of pay-related processes, such as workers’ compensation, payroll tax calculations and filings, W-2 and 1099 reporting, and benefits and garnishment deductions. If you’re on its higher tiers, Paycor will remit wage garnishments to the applicable agencies and courts.

You can pay employees through pay cards, paper checks, and direct deposits, although Paycor supports on-demand pay and provides check stuffing services if you need them.

What’s also great about Paycor Payroll is its fully customizable pay stubs and pay grid. It also has an in-house team of experts to ensure that its platform is always up-to-date with the latest tax regulations, which helps to keep you compliant. However, it lacks the global payroll services that competing providers like ADP and Rippling offer.

With Paycor, you can create a custom pay grid by selecting the paydata items and columns that you need. (Source: Paycor)

In our Paycor review of its HR functionalities, we scored this provider a 5 out of 5. Its perfect marks are mainly due to its feature-rich HR solution suite that includes advanced solutions for compensation planning, career management, and performance reviews. Plus, all of its HR tools integrate seamlessly with its payroll module, so you’re assured that employee- and pay-related information are captured correctly across solutions.

Recruiting & Onboarding

Companies that are actively hiring and striving to market their company as a great place to work will appreciate Paycor’s recruiting and onboarding tools, which help streamline recruiting processes and ensure new hires are onboarded through an organized system.

Available as a paid add-on, its recruiting tools include applicant tracking, candidate texting, resume searching and parsing, and automated offer letters with e-signatures. Job posting capabilities to popular job boards, such as Indeed, Greenhouse, and ZipRecruiter, are also available, enabling you to expand your reach and find qualified candidates. It lets you run employee referral award programs, track important metrics like lead sources and time-to-hire days and create branded career pages.

Paycor’s recruiting dashboard (Source: Paycor)

Meanwhile, its onboarding tools help make a good impression on new hires and automate the onboarding process. It also helps HR teams gather compliance documentation, such as hiring documents and tax information. Most onboarding procedures can be automated and are accessible from anywhere and any device—provided an internet connection is available.

HR & Workforce Management

Paycor offers an HR solution to help you create and manage staff profiles, org charts, and an employee directory. It comes with automated workflows, reminders, and notifications to streamline HR management tasks.

In addition to letting you create, store, assign, and share online documents, Paycor provides communication tools that employees can use to connect with team members. It also has employee self-service solutions and a “company news” feed where you can post business announcements and reminders about important events like training sessions and company picnics.

You can create and manage employee profiles in which all the data is securely stored online and accessible via Paycor’s mobile apps using controlled permissions. (Source: Paycor)

Time Tracking

Companies that pay by the hour or need to track actual work hours of salaried employees tend to find Paycor’s time tracking solution useful. To help limit buddy punching and prevent time theft, Paycor offers employee time clocks that support PIN, biometric fingerprint, and proximity badge clock-ins/outs. Geolocation tracking is also available through its mobile apps. Other features include monitoring PTO requests, tracking overtime hours, and managing compliance restrictions. However, this tool is a paid add-on to Paycor’s small business plans.

Paycor lets you set meals and breaks settings, depending on labor regulations and your company’s policies. (Source: Paycor)

Employee Scheduling

Paycor Scheduling, which is a paid add-on, is designed to automate and simplify the entire process of managing employee work shifts. It lets you create, edit, and share work schedules easily while allowing employees to manage their availability, swap shifts, and receive schedule updates.

Monitoring schedules by jobs or shifts is also possible. You can place budget caps to control labor costs and add scheduling rules to establish minimum rest times.

With Paycor, you can set up daily and weekly scheduling rules to ensure that planned work shifts have the required break/rest periods. (Source: Paycor)

Employee Benefits Administration

Paycor’s benefits software enables you to find, enroll, and manage employee benefits online. It comes with benchmarking tools and built-in decision support to help you and your employees select the right plans. Automated workflows with alerts and reminders to optimize benefits processing are also included in this module, including robust integrations with major insurance carriers to ensure accurate delivery of employee enrollment data. While these tools can help streamline benefits management, you have to pay extra to add this to Paycor’s small business plan.

Paycor’s benefits dashboard (Source: Paycor)

Career Management

To help you plan your employees’ careers as they work for your business, Paycor offers a career management module designed to help you create a career pathing and succession strategy that will improve employee engagement and retention.

This module also aims to replace manual processes by providing online tools like standard templates, fillable checklists, role-based reviews, and job assessments. Planning career paths and identifying high-performing employees―as well as potential leavers―are made easy with its role and growth profiles that highlight areas that workers need to improve on or excel in. You can use its nine-box grid to see the potential successors to critical business roles, the required competencies, and their readiness to assume the position.

With Paycor’s career management solution, you can conduct skills assessments to check where employees stand relative to the competencies expected of their current or future roles. (Source: Paycor)

Talent Development

Paycor’s talent development tools are designed to help you keep employees engaged and progressing in their careers. It automates the entire performance management process—from work goals alignment, setting one-on-one sessions, and collecting team insights.

Also included in this module are prebuilt templates and trackable action items to help managers and employees develop performance and improvement plans. It also monitors company-level and department goals.

A look at Paycor’s performance dashboard (Source: Paycor)

Compensation Planning

Paycor earned perfect marks in this category given its online custom report writer and library of basic reports, which include benefits enrollment, pay equity, employee turnover, and payroll register reports. Also, it allows you to schedule when standard reports should run.

It also offers robust analytics with data visualization tools to help you turn simple to complex data into reports that provide clear answers and insights. If you want to forecast employee turnover, Paycor has a predictive resignation feature that provides data showing at-risk employees, expected resignations across business locations, the factors driving the predicted staff resignations, and the probability of it happening in the next 12 months.

You can use Paycor’s predicted resignation report to view who among your high-performing employees are at risk of leaving and plan a retention strategy to keep them with the company. (Source: Paycor)

• Online and mobile access for admins and employees
• Simple to use with minimal training
• Easy to upgrade as small companies grow
• Phone and email support for all plans
• Online chatbot
• Helpful online articles, guides, and videos

Paycor only earned a 3.5 out of 5 for ease of use because although its platform is intuitive, it has limited customization options—it doesn’t let you fully adjust its dashboards to fit your requirements. The setup process also takes some time, depending on the number of employees you have and the Paycor solutions you need access to.

Plus, its third-party software partners don’t include systems that small and midsize businesses (SMBs) typically use like QuickBooks Payroll, Xero, and When I Work. Here are some of its integration options:

• Background screening: GoodHire, AssureHire, EBI, ESR, and Sterling
• Benefits: WageWorks, Paytient, and RestoreResilience
• Expense management: Center and Certify
• Global payroll: Globalization Partners and CloudPay
• Job boards: Indeed, LinkedIn, and ZipRecruiter
• Pay solutions: Netspend, Instant Pay, and Rabid Disbursements
• POS: Altametrics and Hubworks
• Rewards: Ignite
• Retirement: Alliance Pension, American Funds Premier Group, America’s Best, Ameritas, Ascensus, Blue Star, Truist, Fidelity, and more
• Time management: On Shift, ZUUS, and Deputy
• Workers’ compensation: AmTrust, Guard, and Travelers

However, Paycor is relatively simple to use, even with minimal training, and we found the interface easy to navigate and well organized. Automation features save admins and employees time, while templates and workflows help streamline routine processes, such as onboarding, payroll processing, and benefits enrollment. Branding features allow you to customize the software easily.

In our expert evaluation, Paycor scored 3.75 out of 5. This is because of the width and depth of its payroll features, which are sufficient enough to meet the pay processing needs of small businesses. It also has a wide variety of HR solutions that include basic to advanced functionalities—from time tracking and benefits administration to career planning and compensation management.

It would have earned a higher rating had it not been for its expensive pricing. Paycor’s starter plan—$99 plus $5 per employee—for companies with up to 49 employees is too costly given that it only has payroll and basic HR features. Subscribing to a more affordable payroll service like Gusto is more budget-friendly compared to Paycor since you only need to shell out $40 plus $6 per employee monthly for Gusto’s starter plan to get similar payroll and HR tools but with employee benefits, which costs extra with Paycor.

This is another category where this provider earned perfect marks in our evaluation. The mostly positive Paycor review scores (4 and up) that users left online contributed to its rating as well as the high number of average user reviews (more than 1,000) on third-party review sites like G2 and Capterra.

Users who left Paycor reviews online said that the software is generally easy to use with a wide range of features to help simplify HR processes. They like the ease of onboarding new hires, tracking staff attendance, and processing payroll. Employees appreciate that they can sign into their shifts using their mobile phones and track their PTO, benefits data, attendance, and employee information.

However, there are mixed reviews about its customer support. While a handful of users raved about Paycor’s good customer service, several reviewers expressed frustrations about the long wait and response times. A few others also complained about having experienced software lags and glitches from time to time.

At the time of publication, Paycor earned the following scores on popular user review sites:

• Capterra: 4.4 out of 5 based on 2,300-plus reviews
• G2: 4.1 out of 5 based on more than 600 reviews

How We Evaluated Paycor

When we evaluate payroll software for small businesses, we look at pricing and ease of use. We also check the provider’s customer support and whether it offers unlimited pay runs, multiple pay options, full-service payroll, and tax filing services.

Access to third-party integrations and basic HR tools like employee benefits and onboarding are also important. Also, we consider the feedback that actual users posted on popular user review sites.

Click through the tabs below for a more detailed breakdown of our evaluation criteria:

Bottom Line

Paycor provides easy-to-use payroll features that grow with companies as they hire and employ a larger workforce. It provides the features HR admins and managers require to recruit and onboard new employees systemically while also training and managing current employees. To help retain employees and improve productivity, it offers compensation planning, engagement, and performance management tools. The only services you may find missing are professional employer organization (PEO) and global payment.

If you want to learn more about Paycor’s features, then sign up for a free demo.

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