About PayrollRatings

PayrollRatings is an independent review site for small-business payroll software, built and maintained by West Wanted, an independent software studio that makes tools for US small businesses. We are not owned by, invested in, or affiliated with any payroll provider.

The site exists because the answer to "which payroll should I use?" is usually written either by the providers themselves or by affiliate sites that rank whoever pays most. We do it differently: a published scoring methodology, evidence behind every subscore, verbatim quotes from real users in both directions, and a change log on every review.

How this report is made

PayrollRatings is an AI-compiled report with human ownership. Our research system — built on large language models — reads each provider's pricing pages and legal terms, the major review platforms, and real user discussions (Reddit, BBB), then extracts the facts with source links attached. A human sets the methodology, owns every editorial call (including the editors' pick), and answers for mistakes. We publish what's unverified as unverified, and we re-run the research on a schedule so the numbers stay current — the point is to save you the weekend of research, not to pretend a robot has opinions.

How it's funded

Partner commissions on some outbound links, disclosed on every page. Commissions never affect scores — the rating is computed from the methodology, and products that pay us nothing sit above products that could.

Corrections

Spotted an outdated price or a factual error? Email hello@payrollratings.com — corrections are our favorite kind of feedback and usually ship within days.