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Paycor Review

Review Updated
Ben Gran

Our Small Business Expert

Many or all of the products here are from our partners that compensate us. It’s how we make money. But our editorial integrity ensures our experts’ opinions aren’t influenced by compensation. Terms may apply to offers listed on this page.

Small business payroll software is not all built alike. Not every business needs all the bells and whistles of payroll software solutions, but some companies might need a more comprehensive suite of tools. Paycor is not just a standalone small business payroll software solution -- it's more of a comprehensive platform for HR, human capital management (HCM), and employee benefits. Let's see how Paycor stacks up in the world of small business payroll software.

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Bottom Line: Paycor offers payroll software and advanced HR solutions all in one place. Its premium features are a better fit for large companies, but Paycor can help small businesses of all sizes.

Pricing Plans: Pricing ranges from $99 plus $6 per person per month (Basic) to $229 plus $16 per person per month (Complete). Exact pricing will vary based on size and complexity of your business, and features of your Paycor plan.

  • Ease Of use
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    Pricing
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    Features
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    • Comprehensive human capital management (HCM) tools
    • Extensive integrations with more than 200 third-party apps
    • Full-service payroll with automatic payroll runs
    • Packages are complicated and pricing is unclear -- no price information published on the website
    • May have too many advanced features for smaller businesses
    • Might not integrate with your favorite accounting software

Top alternate payroll software options

Here are some of our current favorite alternative options to Paycor for payroll software. We believe these options offer a good combination of value along with features we would want to see in a robust payroll software tool.

OnPay
Best for transparent pricing and abundant featuresOnPay
Learn More
Patriot Payroll
Best for ease of use and quick setupPatriot Payroll
Learn More
Gusto
Best for small to mid-size companiesGusto
Learn More

Who is Paycor for?

Paycor's payroll software and HCM solutions can serve a wide range of companies, from under 50 employees to 1,000 or more employees. Some of the types of organizations and industries that use Paycor payroll software include tech companies, retail businesses, restaurants, manufacturing companies, educational institutions, and nonprofits.

Compared to some other payroll software companies, Paycor is not simple or "one size fits all." Its solutions are more expansive than just payroll; it provides complex, sophisticated, customized HR tools and human capital management (HCM) offerings to help your business hire faster, manage talent more effectively, and run better.

If you own a fast-growing business that is hiring lots of people and you want advanced features, Paycor could be exactly what you need. But if all you want is an off-the-shelf, low-cost payroll software solution, Paycor might be more than you need.

Paycor product features

Paycor is a full-service payroll software that is built into a larger suite of HR tools to help with hiring, onboarding, and managing talent. There's a wide range of functions and capabilities that you can take on with Paycor, beyond just paying your workers.

Let's look at a few highlights of the Paycor experience -- for payroll processing and more.

Full-service payroll

Paycor is more than "just" payroll, but that doesn't mean its payroll software is an afterthought. This is a powerful payroll processing solution that can tackle everything your small business might need to make sure people get paid on time with accurate tax withholdings.

Paycor Payroll

The Paycor payroll experience includes:

  • AutoRun: Paycor lets you set up automatic payroll runs and schedule pay runs in advance. This is a convenient, lower-touch experience compared to some other payroll apps that require you to log in every time you run payroll.
  • OnDemand Pay: A growing trend in small business payroll is earned wage access (EWA), which lets hourly workers, gig workers, and contractors get convenient, early access to their pay. Paycor gives you the flexibility to offer on-demand pay to hourly workers, which can be a valuable extra perk.
  • Direct deposit or Paycor Visa® card: Paycor lets you pay people via direct deposit to bank accounts, or via a special pre-loaded (reloadable) Visa debit card that is connected to and funded by the workers' earned wages via Paycor.
  • Paycor Mobile Wallet: This feature is for workers who want earned wage access (EWA) so they can get paid anytime, not just at payday. The Paycor Mobile Wallet includes financial wellness tools and the reloadable Paycor Visa® Card.
  • Real-time calculations: You can make payroll adjustments in real time, without waiting for batch processing.

Tax compliance

Paycor offers a wide range of tax compliance features, beyond just filing tax forms like W-2s and 1099s. You get a full tax compliance dashboard with proactive alerts and tax recommendations, such as how to set up a new employee for tax purposes based on where the employee lives, or how to comply with state-specific laws.

Automatic deductions and wage garnishments

Good payroll software should help your company (and your workers) get tax withholdings and other payday deductions handled automatically. Paycor does all this, and more! With Paycor, you can set up automatic deductions for taxes (federal, state, and local), workers' compensation insurance, and special wage garnishments that your workers might owe, such as child support or certain other types of debt repayments.

Payroll reports

Paycor makes it easy to run a wide range of payroll reports, whether it's for tax documents like W2s, or other quarterly and annual tax forms like 940s, 941s and 944s. The Paycor payroll software also enables your team to run special reports like Payrun Audit, Cash Requirement, Unpaid Employees.

Customizable plans for payroll and more

Paycor can work with you to customize your payroll services, so you can do less of the work yourself -- or add optional plans for extra help and bigger value. Here are a few ways to customize your payroll with Paycor:

  • Payroll professional services: Outsource your payroll processing to Paycor. Let it handle the details of payroll and compliance so you can take one more item off your to-do list.
  • Workers' comp support: Get professional help with your company's workers' comp, so you can avoid surprises and ensure higher standards of accuracy.
  • Time and scheduling: Paycor can help you manage your employees' work schedules and hours, handle paid time off requests, and stay in control of your budget.
  • Benefits administration: Help everyone at your company have a happier time during open enrollment, with clearer visibility of benefits and costs.
  • Recruiting: Get support with recruiting. Paycor can help you streamline your process, send text messages to job candidates, reward employees for new hire referrals, and more.

Hundreds of integrations

One big strength of Paycor is that it offers hundreds -- over 200 -- third-party apps and integrations from various technology partners. Paycor even has its own app "Marketplace," where you can find a wide range of apps for all kinds of business functions, from accounting to benefits to retirement plan solutions.

Paycor Payroll

Whatever you want to accomplish with your human capital management (HCM), whatever you want your business to be better at, Paycor can likely help connect you with the right partner.

Paycor pricing

Pricing varies based on number of employees. For the purposes of this article, we looked at pricing for businesses with below 50 employees. For smaller businesses of this size, Paycor offers four payroll software packages with the following base pricing.

Basic ($99 plus $6 per person per month)

This Paycor payroll plan includes the fundamental features that you'll need to process payroll, such as payroll and tax services, off-cycle payruns, online check stubs, online reporting, OnDemand Pay, and support for additional state and local tax authorities.

Essential ($159 plus $9 per person per month)

Paycor's Essential plan gives you all the standard payroll features as the Basic plan, plus more advanced reporting, human resources, and benefits tools. For example, Paycor Essential includes Report Builder and other tools for 401(k) EDI processing and integration, Time Off Manager, and more. With the Essential plan, your company also gets some extra help with recruiting and onboarding talent -- this tier lets you use Paycor Recruit & Hire for three jobs per month, and gives you access to the HR Support Center.

Core ($199 plus $12 per person per month)

The Paycor Core plan is an even higher level of value for companies that have more complex HR and recruiting needs. You get everything with this plan that you'd get with Essential and Basic, plus HR Support Center On-Demand, Paycor HR, Paycor Engage, and Paycor Recruit & Hire for five jobs per month.

Complete ($229 plus $16 per person per month)

Paycor Complete is designed for fast-growing businesses that need to hire a lot of people. With this tier, you get all the same features as in Core, but with unlimited jobs for Paycor Recruit & Hire, and more advanced Paycor Analytics. You also get advanced HCM tools like Paycor Compensation Planning, Talent Development, and Career Management.

Note: Your company's exact pricing can depend on a few factors. Talk with the Paycor Sales team to get a customized price quote to fit your needs.

Paycor ease of use

As part of the research for this article, I talked with the Paycor Sales team and did a behind-the-scenes tour to learn more about how Paycor works. Paycor is an impressive suite of human capital management (HCM) software.

The payroll functions appear to work smoothly, and you have multiple options to get customer support at any time. Paycor seems like it can help small businesses feel a lot "bigger" -- in a good way -- by taking everyday tasks off your hands and accelerating your hiring growth.

Paycor Payroll

The only major downside to Paycor is that this software is so powerful and does so much, that it might not be the right fit for smaller businesses. Paycor says that it serves businesses of all sizes, from one employee to 1,000-plus employees; but not every small business with one to five employees needs a full suite of human capital management software. If all you need is a simple payroll processing service that integrates with QuickBooks or other accounting software, Paycor might feel too big for your needs.

Paycor customer support

Paycor offers a few easy ways to contact customer support. You can start with the Paycor Support Center to open a live chat with the support team, or create a support ticket.

Paycor Support

The Paycor customer support team is also available by phone at 855-565-3285, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET for Payroll and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET for all other Paycor products.

Pros

  • Full-service payroll with customizable options for extra features
  • Robust human capital management (HCM) solutions to help your business hire and grow
  • Integrates with hundreds of other small business software apps and HCM technology partners -- from accounting to benefits, and more

Cons


  • Powerful, comprehensive HCM features might be overwhelming or the wrong fit for smaller businesses
  • Pricing is complex and based on multiple tiers; smaller businesses might feel like it's too expensive
  • Integrations are extensive, but not always easy to understand; I had to ask the Sales team to clarify if Paycor integrates with QuickBooks accounting software (they said "yes")

How Paycor compares

Paycor's software is impressive, and could be a good fit for lots of companies. But Paycor is not the cheapest payroll processing software on the market, and its pricing and product offerings are not always easy to understand based on the Paycor website. During the research for this article, I couldn't find any pricing details on the Paycor site, so I had to request a pricing sheet from the Paycor sales team (and they were totally helpful, friendly, and professional).

Paycor's software has so many capabilities in so many different realms of human capital management (HCM) that the website can be a bit overwhelming -- if you want to understand exactly how Paycor could help your business, request a free sales consultation. Talk with Paycor directly to see how to get a customized plan with specific pricing for your business.

FAQs

  • Yes. Paycor offers a Small Business bundle for small businesses with 1-39 employees, as well as a mid-market option for those with 40+ employees.

  • Yes. Paycor's mobile app is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones and tablets and allows employees to access a number of Paycor's features.

  • There is an onboarding option available in the Paycor's Complete plan for small businesses.