TriNet is a full-service human resources (HR) software that offers professional employment organization (PEO) services, payroll, and outsourced HR solutions to small and medium-sized businesses. Its services, which include payroll processing, tax compliance, benefits administration, applicant tracking, risk mitigation, and access to a cloud-based platform with self-service and mobile tools, enable employers to focus on growing their business by outsourcing day-to-day HR tasks.
For this TriNet review, we looked at affordability, HR features, payroll options, and additional software and tools offered within the platform. We also looked at how easy the software was to use. We derived scoring from our Best PEO Companies for Small Businesses guide, where TriNet is featured as a top provider.
Trinet Overview
Pros
- A robust offering of HR services and tools
- Tailors PEO services to your industry
- Fees decrease when Social Security or unemployment rate maximums are reached
- Expense management solution streamlines employee reimbursements and expense reporting
Cons
- Nontransparent pricing (requires you to request a quote)
- Can be pricey for small businesses (similar providers charge slightly lower rates)
- Limited prebuilt integration options
- Inconsistent customer support quality
Deciding Factors
- Ease of use: Its platform is relatively simple to learn and use and comes with self-service tools that allow employees to access their basic information, payslips, and tax forms online easily.
- Pricing: PEO services are 100% underwritten and require consultation with a TriNet representative; HR tools pricing ranges from $10 to $83 per employee per month, depending on the level of service requested.
- System setup: While its PEO service helps manage your day-to-day HR processes, TriNet also grants you access to an easy-to-setup online HR payroll solution for managing paid time off (PTO), viewing pay and benefits information, and more.
- Customer support: Email support and 24/7 live chat; phone assistance available from Monday to Friday, 6 a.m. to midnight Eastern time
TriNet’s feature-rich solution suite provides you with all the HR tools and support you need, so you get more time back in managing and growing your business. As a professional employer organization (PEO), it handles administrative HR and payroll processes for you while you maintain complete control over making workforce and business decisions.
TriNet is also one of our top recommended PEO companies for small businesses because it can customize its services to fit the HR needs of companies in a wide range of industries. With its team of specialists who are always up-to-date with the regulations unique to your industry, you’re assured that your business will stay compliant with the latest labor and tax rulings.
In short, TriNet is best for:
- Small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with industry-specific compliance needs that want to outsource day-to-day HR tasks: TriNet’s wide range of strategic services and cloud-based HR solutions, which can be tailored depending on the business’ industry, help minimize your HR administrative tasks and reduce employer-related risks. For example, if you have a financial firm, TriNet will assign a dedicated account specialist and a service team that knows the ins and outs of financial services to help you handle regulatory changes.
- Employers looking for PEO services with a reasonable pricing scheme: While TriNet requires you to contact its sales team and request a quote, it offers a pricing matrix that provides you with lower rates if you hit certain milestones and thresholds. For example, TriNet’s charges will go down if Social Security and unemployment tax maximums are reached. With other PEO companies, the fees remain the same even if you hit these thresholds.
- Small businesses with limited HR experience: What’s great about TriNet’s PEO services is that it takes on your HR and payroll administrative tasks and responsibilities, which is perfect for small businesses that don’t have an in-house HR team.
- Startups and mom-and-pop businesses that want low-cost PEO services: Although TriNet has a pricing matrix in which fees go down as you meet specific thresholds, its services aren’t cheap. Its PEO pricing is 100% underwritten and requires a custom quote. For a more affordable option, we recommend Justworks. Its monthly fees are transparent and start at $59 per employee. Read our Justworks Review for more information.
- Companies that want PEO services with HR, payroll, and information technology (IT) tools: TriNet may have a robust HR solution suite, but it lacks the IT tools that Rippling offers to help manage business apps and computers. What’s more, Rippling has a flexible PEO that you can directly turn off from your account settings, enabling you to easily switch to using its HR platform again. TriNet doesn’t have this option. Read our Rippling Review for more information.
- Employers who need payroll services only: TriNet’s PEO service may be too much for those who only need to pay employees. For full-service payroll at reasonable rates, consider Gusto. It offers solid pay processing tools, efficient payroll tax filing services, and a wide range of employee benefits options. Read our Gusto Review for more information.
Are you looking for something different? Read our guide to the best HR software if you’re looking for an all-in-one HR system and don’t need to outsource day-to-day HR tasks.
Why You Can Trust Fit Small Business
The Fit Small Business editorial process follows strict standards to ensure that our best answers are founded on the basis of accuracy, clarity, authority, objectivity, and accessibility.
With over two decades of human resources and payroll expertise centered around small businesses, I bring a unique perspective to evaluating TriNet. Additionally, I have over three years of expertise in evaluating HR and payroll software.
For this review, we looked at how TriNet ranked among 12 of the top PEO services. We performed extensive evaluation of 37 data points to determine affordability, HR administration and payroll features, and how easy each was to use. See my full methodology below.
- Over three years evaluating HR software
- More than 20 years of industry experience
- Evaluated 12 options across 37 data points
How TriNet Compares With Top Alternatives
If TriNet is not quite right for your small business, we evaluated five of the best TriNet competitors and alternatives. See below for a comparison of the top three providers.
Best For | Starter Fees | Standout Features | Our Review | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midsize businesses that need a PEO that offers discounts for additional services | $10 per employee per month |
| Â |
 | Small businesses without IT or HR personnel |
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 | Growing businesses that need a highly experienced PEO |
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 | Startups with a growth plan |
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While PEOs can handle a wide range of HR tasks, their services may be more than what your business requires. If you only require payroll and basic HR tools, check out our best online payroll services guide. If you want help selecting a service or software for your business, read our guide to finding the right payroll solution.
TriNet offers monthly, per employee pricing for its HR and HR Plus platforms, however, pricing for its PEO services is based on your business location, industry type, company size, and scope of services that you need. TriNet scored a 3 out of 5 in this criterion because its pricing is not fully transparent since you have to be underwritten for PEO services. Plus, there is a set-up fee associated with its services.
TriNet offers the following solutions:
- TriNet PEO(Custom-priced): PEO services are 100% underwritten and are tailored to the individual company.
- HR Platform
Pricing based on monthly payment structure. If paid annually, price is reduced by 20%.
:
- Essentials ($10 per month per employee): includes automated onboarding, employee management, time off tracking, scheduling, integrations, mobile app, and an analytics dashboard
- Growth ($20 per month per employee): Everything in Essentials, plus configurable people analytics, compensation management, and performance management
- Zen ($33 per month per employee): Everything in Growth, plus employee engagement surveys, people hub, and payroll included Payroll included in Zen plan. $6 per employee per month as an add-on with other plans
- HR Plus: Everything in the selected HR Platform
Requires the purchase of one of the HR Platform solutions
, plus choice of one of the following service level tiers.
- Payroll Tax Compliance Manager (starting at $20 per employee per month)
- Payroll Manager (starting at $30 per employee per month)
- HR Manager (starting at $50 per employee per month)
If you meet specific requirements, such as employees reaching the maximum rates for unemployment taxes and Social Security deductions, TriNet will charge you lower rates. Furthermore, its administrative fees remain the same even if your employees’ salaries increase.
TriNet also doesn’t require its clients to sign long-term contracts with them. However, it offers a bundled solution that includes access to all of its full-service offerings, such as payroll processing, tax filings, benefits administration, risk mitigation, HR consulting, and online solutions for managing performance reviews and training programs.
TriNet offers a wide range of HR administration features to help keep your company compliant while offering benefits to your employees. It received a perfect score in this category of our review due to offering benefits in all 50 states, learning management capabilities, offboarding and termination support, and much more.
Its benefits administration service helps you manage healthcare and insurance enrollments, including employee claims and Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) filings. Through its network of partner companies, you are granted access to a wide range of employee benefit options—from health and retirement plans to commuter benefits and critical illness policies.
Employers get a snapshot of where an employee is in the enrollment process. (Source: TriNet)
TriNet also offers nontraditional employee perks, such as auto, pet, and home insurance plans and employee discounts with various business establishments. The discount offerings are made possible through TriNet Perks, where your employees can enjoy special pricing on office supplies, books and training materials, computers, web and professional services, movie tickets, fitness classes, and more.
TriNet Perks dashboard offering savings on pet products, computers, and vacations. (Source: TriNet)
Its comprehensive cloud-based HR platform includes features that enable you to manage employees efficiently—from hiring to retiring. Its online solutions can help onboard new hires, monitor employee attendance and time-off requests, manage expense reimbursements, collect workforce analytics, and download reports. It can also help you track performance reviews as well as provide employees access to more than 500 learning courses.
Employers have the option to bulk hire employees. (Source: TriNet)
Apart from helping businesses manage their day-to-day HR operations, TriNet’s team of expert consultants can provide advice about labor regulations, employee relations concerns, and compliance issues to mitigate employer-related risks.
These services include:
- Workers’ compensation
- Affordable Care Act solutions
- Benefits compliance
- Employment practices
- Risk management
TriNet offers application programming interface (API) tools that provide you and your developers the capability to create integrations with other software. It also has an “Integration Center” that includes prebuilt integrations with popular systems that most businesses use.
TriNet’s Marketplace provides you the flexibility to control system permissions and manage preferences. (Source: TriNet)
TriNet’s PEO and full-service HR solutions help businesses manage HR and payroll processes efficiently. It scored perfect marks in this category because it provides all the services necessary to successfully run payroll. Let’s take a look at some of its essential payroll features.
TriNet’s online payroll services include paperless payslips, employee pay processing with direct deposits and debiting, payroll tax computations and filings, and electronic W-2 preparation and delivery. It also offers a self-service portal where employees can view pay details, update their information, print W-2 forms, and more.
TriNet allows you to process payroll, manage time off, and load expenses. (Source: TriNet)
If you need help assessing the competitiveness of your company’s compensation package, TriNet can provide compensation benchmark reports (via Salary.com), including an analysis of whether your salary offerings are ahead, below, or at par with the market.
Benchmarking reports on TriNet can help you determine compensation objectives. (Source: TriNet)
Managing and filing expense reimbursements can be challenging, especially if you have a remote workforce. With TriNet, your employees can file reimbursement claims for business expenses and submit screenshots of receipts and supporting documents online. You can even designate specific managers as expense claim approvers.
What’s also good about this tool is that it forwards all approved expense reports automatically to payroll for processing, removing the need for manual data collection and transfers. Plus, it integrates with accounting tools like QuickBooks, NetSuite, and Intacct.
With TriNet’s expense reporting, you can submit, approve, reject, and forward all expenses directly to payroll. (Source: TriNet)
TriNet offers an array of non-payroll options, such as learning management, recruiting, and time and attendance functions. Because of this, it earned perfect scores for this evaluation.
TriNet hosts an enhanced HR compliance catalog, powered by 360Learning, with over 50 complimentary HR compliance courses. It also offers support for employer content upload, learning paths, and personalized dashboards. TriNet offers an avenue for employees to enhance their current skills and upskill for leadership development. Courses offered include:
- Employee onboarding
- Leadership development
- Sales enablement
- HR compliance training
- Software training
- Frontline staff training
TriNet’s learning platform allows you to select which training courses are required for each employee. (Source: TriNet)
TriNet’s talent recruitment services include applicant tracking so you can easily create job posts, access candidate information, and analyze feedback from staff and hiring managers. You can also create customized workflows and skills assessment questions to form a quick vetting process.
Plus, TriNet’s international talent support services manage work visas for you, so you can focus on finding the right people for your business.
Track each employee through their entire applicant lifecycle. (Source: TriNet)
Compliance tools and monitoring make keeping track of employee time and days off easy for employees and managers. Data syncs automatically from TriNet’s time off solution, allowing for easy approval and processing to payroll.
Auto load time off directly on TriNet’s payroll dashboard. (Source: TriNet)
Time and attendance has self-guided onboarding with step-by-step modules for easy setup. You can configure company-specific policies for time entry, rest and meal periods, and more.
TriNet maintains ESAC accreditation and is classified as a Certified Professional Employer Organization by the IRS, something its competitors, like Rippling, don’t have. This makes TriNet reliable, compliant, and shows they have a proven track record of honest services.
TriNet scored a 3 out of 5 in this category for its certifications and basic reporting features. It didn’t earn perfect marks for licensing and reporting due to the lack of customization with its reports.
TriNet also offers basic reporting for payroll, HR administration, and people analytics. However, you are limited to the number of reports available within the system. You can customize rows and columns to generate the information you need; however, the system does not allow for creating customized reports.
People analytics reporting available on TriNet, showing diversity, compensation, and headcount. (Source: TriNet)
In our expert evaluation, we determined that TriNet is somewhat affordable for small businesses. While its HR platform pricing is reasonable and transparent, in order to use its PEO services you must contact a rep and go through an underwriting process. Because of this, we scored TriNet a 3.94 out of 5.
The implementation of TriNet is ideal but its software takes a bit of a learning curve for those less familiar with HR and payroll software. However, once learned it’s easy to navigate. When you are ready to move on TriNet makes it simple by capturing all your data for transport. However, you must sign a one-year contract for their services.
- Integrated HR solutions
- Generally user-friendly
- Self-service online portal
- Access to HR experts
- Email and phone support
- 24/7 live chat
TriNet’s PEO service and cloud-based HR platform take HR and payroll tasks off your hands so that you can focus more on managing strategic projects to build your business. While it handles HR processes for you, it also provides access to relatively easy-to-use online tools for onboarding new hires, enrolling in benefits, tracking employee performance reviews, approving transactions, such as PTO and expense reimbursement claims, and more.
Its wide range of HR solutions also integrates well with each other, making data transfers between modules easy and seamless. For example, you don’t have to extract time data from its time and attendance solution manually and then upload it to its payroll tool for processing—TriNet captures the information it needs to run payroll automatically. You simply have to review and approve employee pay details.
If you need assistance, TriNet has a team of HR professionals who can provide expert advice in handling employees, payroll, and compliance issues. It also offers support through email, 24/7 live chat, and phone from Mondays through Fridays, 6 a.m. to midnight ET.
TriNet User Reviews: What Users Think
| Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
| Interface is relatively easy to use and navigate through | Expensive compared to similar providers |
| Feature-rich HR platform and efficient PEO services | Limited integration capabilities |
| Ease of processing payroll | Customer support quality is less than ideal; some customer reps aren’t responsive and helpful |
| Comprehensive benefits options and reporting tools | Software is “clunky” and some features/online tools take a while to load |
Users who left positive TriNet reviews are generally satisfied with its HR and payroll services, adding that its online tools are generally simple to learn and use. They also praised its feature-rich platform, solid payroll tools, and comprehensive employee benefits options.
However, the quality of its customer service is inconsistent. While some users commended its support team for providing exemplary service, there are several reviewers who said that its customer reps are not helpful. Other users also complained about having been passed around to multiple customer service reps without getting a resolution to their problems.
At the time of publication, TriNet earned the following scores on popular review sites:
- Capterra: 3.7 out of 5 based on 42 reviews
- G2: 4.0 out of 5 based on about 650 reviews
- TrustRadius: 7.3 out of 10 based on more than 1,100 reviews
Methodology: How We Evaluated TriNet
For this review, we originally looked at 12 PEO providers to evaluate their HR and payroll tools that are necessary for small businesses. TriNet ranked in the top 5 as one of the best PEO services for small businesses.
Click through the tabs below to learn how we evaluated each criterion.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at transparency in pricing within its PEO and HR services. We also looked at whether the provider charges a per employee per monthly price or a percentage of overall payroll.
20% of Overall Score
We evaluated the overall reach of HR administration within the software completing a full cycle from hiring to termination. This includes career development, compliance tracking, and benefits offerings in all 50 states.
15% of Overall Score
We looked for automatic payroll runs, direct deposits, paper check options, W-2 reporting, and payroll tax processing (federal, state, and local taxes).
10% of Overall Score
For software offerings outside of payroll, we looked at time and attendance capabilities, recruiting options, applicant tracking within the system, and learning management tools.
5% of Overall Score
Software that is ESAC accredited and IRS certified scored higher in our evaluation. We also checked if the providers offered customized or only basic reporting.
15% of Overall Score
Aside from having robust features, our expert score criterion looked at how well they all work together for small businesses, especially those with a tight budget.
15% of Overall Score
Our ease of use scoring was determined by the following must-haves—online videos and guides, dedicated representatives, and reviews from third-party sites.
TriNet Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
TriNet is a professional employer organization (PEO) and HR administration software. It offers HR features and payroll tools. It handles payroll processing, benefits administration, risk mitigation, performance management, and expense reporting.
One thing that makes TriNet stand out from other companies is that it offers an array of HR and payroll products outside of its PEO services. Plus, as your business needs change, you can switch between its HR platform or HRO services.
As a PEO, TriNet offers large company benefits at affordable prices for small businesses. This means your employees can get top-notch healthcare and 401k options at costs generally reserved for businesses with more than 1,000 employees.
Bottom Line
TriNet may not offer the cheapest PEO service, but the wide range of solutions it offers makes it a good option for SMBs looking for full-service HR and payroll. It can help manage your day-to-day HR tasks, from onboarding new hires and paying employees to tracking staff attendance and monitoring performance reviews. Plus, as a PEO, you get solid compliance support through its team of specialists and HR experts.