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ADP’s payroll pricing operates on a case-by-case basis but, according to user reports, businesses can get started on ADP RUN’s Essential Plan for $79 per month plus $4 per employee. ADP’s entry price is slightly higher than other payroll solutions’ cost, but due to its customizable packages and advanced tax and compliance features, its value for money is very strong.
If you need advanced features such as SUI management or an HR helpdesk, you’ll have to opt for one of ADP RUN’s pricier packages — Enhanced, Complete, or HR Pro — or bump up your plan with premium add-ons. But whatever your payroll needs, our team of experts has analyzed each one of ADP RUN’s pricing packages to determine whether it’s a good fit for your business.
Read on to learn how much ADP payroll costs and how its pricing plans stack up against similar solutions. Alternatively, if you’re after quick, transparent pricing estimates, use our free quote-finding tool to receive custom quotes from the top payroll providers.
In this guide:
- How Much Does RUN Powered by ADP Cost?
- RUN Powered by ADP Pricing Plans
- Does RUN Powered by ADP Have a Free Plan?
- ADP RUN’s Pros and Cons
- How Does RUN Powered by ADP Pricing Compare With Other Payroll Software
- How Did We Research and Review ADP Payroll?
- Verdict: Is RUN Powered by ADP Pricing Good Value?
- RUN Powered by ADP Pricing FAQs
ADP RUN, ADP Workforce Now, ADP Roll – What's the Difference?
ADP RUN — or RUN Powered by ADP, to use its official name — is the provider’s payroll management software designed for businesses with up to 49 employees. The service includes four main packages: Essential, Enhanced, Complete, and HR Pro. All prices are available on request.
ADP Workforce Now also offers tailored pricing, but is geared towards mid-sized businesses with 50 – 999 employees and offers three plans: Essential, Enhanced, and Premium.
The provider also offers a chat-based service for microbusinesses with basic payroll needs, ADP Roll. This service includes standard payroll, tax filing, and employee self-service features and retails at $29 per month plus $5 per employee.
How Much is ADP Payroll?
While ADP doesn’t publicly list rates on its website, prices for its small business payroll offering, RUN Powered By ADP, start at $79 per month, plus an extra $4 per employee. Each RUN package is fully customizable, allowing businesses to create a payroll plan that’s capable of scaling alongside their needs.
See how the RUN’s plans compare side by side below, or scroll down for a granular breakdown of its packages.
| Price | Highlights | Time tracking | Dedicated HR advisor | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Essential | Enhanced | Complete | HR Pro | ||
| Everything in Essential, plus:
| Everything in Enhanced, plus:
| Everything in Complete, plus:
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| Available as add-on | Available as add-on | Available as add-on | Available as add-on | ||
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Essential Plan
RUN’s basic plan, Essential Payroll, is the provider’s cheapest package and, according to businesses using the service, its prices start from $79 per month, plus an extra $4 per employee.
However, truly tailored prices for Essential Payroll are only available on request and are determined by a variety of factors, including business size, frequency of paydays, the number of states you operate in, and the type of payroll features you need.
RUN’s Essential package is designed for startups and established companies with fairly standard payroll, tax, and compliance needs. Aside from basic payroll capabilities, this tier gives users access to a fairly generous suite of features, including direct deposits, robust reporting, general ledger interfaces, tax filing, and payroll delivery.
The plan gives businesses the opportunity to expand the reach of their brand through Google Ads, and it also unlocks a number of HR features, including RUN employee access, onboarding tools, staff discounts, and background checks. However, the provider charges businesses per payroll run, and if you want to unlock extra tools like time and attendance features to health insurance, you’ll have to pay a premium.
RUN Powered by ADP’s entry price is definitely pricier than the base rate of $35 plus $8 per user, per month offered by Rippling, our highest-ranked payroll software for small businesses. However, RUN’s feature offering matches that of its competition and its packages are much more scalable, making it the superior choice for businesses looking to expand.
Enhanced Plan
Enhanced is RUN Powered by ADP’s most popular payroll package. As with all of ADP RUN’s plans, prices are only available on request.
This software plan contains everything in RUN’s Essential Payroll tier, with additional check signing, SUI management, and labor law poster compliance. RUN’s Enhanced package also gives businesses access to Zip Recruiter – a US-based job search platform that helps employers sort, review, and rate potential candidates.
While the package isn’t as affordable as its entry-level tier, other providers, like PayChex, will reserve advanced features like SUI management and background checks for their premium plans, making Enhanced a better deal than similar packages of its kind.
Due to the improved features of Enhanced, our testers recommend this plan for small businesses that are serious about keeping up with compliance regulations and reducing payroll errors. Its integration with Zip Recruiter also makes it a safe bet for growing businesses that handle recruitment in-house.
Complete Plan
If you want to gain access to the platform’s impressive HR capabilities, Complete is the provider’s cheapest entry point.
The plan offers everything that’s included in RUN Enhanced, including its full suite of payroll and compliance features. However, unlike the previous tier, Complete gives users access to the provider’s HR HelpDesk, a dedicated team of HR professionals that helps businesses navigate and resolve complex HR issues.
RUN’s Complete plan also includes HR training, HR forms and documents, salary benchmarks, and access to its ‘Employee Handbook Wizard,’ which is a unique tool that lets users create and maintain high-quality, customizable employee handbooks.
These extra features make the package ideal for businesses looking to manage basic HR duties in-house, but are able to do without the bells and whistles offered by RUN’s most comprehensive plan, HR Pro.
HR Pro Plan
If you’re looking for a one-size-fits-all solution to manage your payroll and HR duties, ADP HR Pro is just that.
This advanced package offers all the payroll and tax benefits featured in the RUN Powered by ADP Complete tier, while also including the provider’s full suite of powerful HR capabilities. The plan boasts an applicant tracking system, enhanced employee handbook support, sexual harassment prevention training, as well as a learning management training that helps managers assign and track development material.
One-upping the helpdesk capabilities in RUN’s Complete tier, HR Pro users also gain access to the provider’s Enhanced HR HelpDesk Support, which allows them to schedule one-off or regular check-ins with a designated team of HR business advisors.
In addition to personnel management, HR Pro users can also tap into marketing and business advice from the small business consulting service, Upnetic, and seek legal assistance from Upnetic Legal Services for contract reviews, employment, and debt management.
RUN Powered by ADP Pro is likely to shoulder a fairly hefty price tag, considering its powerful feature offering. However, since the software prevents businesses from needing to invest in a separate HR solution, the price may be worth it for those looking to prioritize convenience.
ADP RUN’s Pros and Cons
Our research team ranked ADP Run among the best payroll software providers on the market. Naturally, that means you can expect plenty of pros, although we found a few cons as well. Here are the biggest strengths and downsides of the business software, quickly summarized.
What are the benefits of RUN Powered by ADP?
RUN Powered by ADP is a highly scalable and customizable solution that is able to grow alongside your business, even offering international payments. For many, its biggest selling point will be the simple fact that it provides an extremely user-friendly experience to employees.
In addition, it offers a number of advanced payroll and HR features:
- Tax compliance alerts and resources
- SUI management
- An applicant tracking system
- Access to dedicated HR advisors through the HR HelpDesk
- Third-party integrations and open API for custom integrations
- Detailed training materials to get your team started
What are the disadvantages of ADP RUN?
ADP’s pricing lacks transparency, making it hard to compare its value to other payroll solutions. The provider charges businesses per payroll cycle too, which makes the service a pricier option for businesses that pay staff week-by-week. Finally, the platform offers no email-based support, even though many other payroll software providers do.
ADP Payroll Alternatives and Their Pricing
RUN scores exceptionally well in our payroll management research because of its versatility and powerful scalability. However, after reviewing the leading payroll solutions, our team of experts also found Rippling, PayChex, and Gusto to be worthy ADP competitors. Below, we compare the features and value offerings of each provider to give you an idea of how RUN Powered by ADP sizes up against its competition.
| Starting price | Rating | Key Features | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPONSORED  | BEST OVERALL  | |  |  |  |  |
| Rippling Payroll | ADP | Paychex Flex | Gusto Payroll | Zenefits Payroll | OnPay | |
| $8/month/employee (custom prices) | Custom pricing | $40/month + $6/employee | $8 per month, per employee (currently discounted to $6.40) | $40/month + $6/employee | ||
| Not yet rated | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.3 | 3.8 | 3.4 |
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| Try Deel | Try Rippling | Try ADP | Try Paychex | Compare Quotes | Compare Quotes | Try OnPay |
Rippling – From $35/month + $8/employee
Rippling, the best payroll software for small businesses we’ve reviewed, offers a number of customizable packages, but its pricing structure is slightly complicated.
Prices for Rippling Unity, its standard tier, start at $35 per month plus an additional $8 per employee, per month. However, businesses can also create custom packages tailored to their specific needs with the provider’s Modular Plan. Just like RUN’s plans, the cost of this package is determined on a case-by-case basis.
While Rippling’s Unity plan is priced similarly to ADP Roll, the provider’s basic chat-based payroll service, Rippling Unity, offers a comprehensive list of features that includes 360 compliance and onboarding automation. This makes Rippling a better deal for micro-businesses with limited payroll needs.
Moreover, unlike ADP, Rippling doesn’t charge per payroll run and includes tax filing in its basic package, making the provider’s custom packages a slightly better deal than RUN Powered by ADP. However, with both providers offering customizable, scalable packages, comparing their overall value offerings comes down to splitting hairs.
Learn more about the provider in our Rippling payroll review.
Paychex – From $39/month + $5/employee
Paychex is another competitive payroll management service, with prices from $39 per month plus $5 per employee for the provider’s Essentials plan. Paychex offers two other plans, Select and Pro, but the price for these services will depend from business to business.
With a much smaller entry price than ADP, and a lower price per user than our other payroll leaders Rippling and Gusto, Paychex is one of the best value options out there – especially for larger teams. Paychex is the only provider we reviewed that facilitates instant payments, too. But if you’re looking for advanced capabilities like tax and labor law compliance, ADP or Ripping are your safest bet.
Learn more about the provider’s fees in our Paychex pricing guide or check out our full ADP vs Paychex comparison.
Gusto – From $40/month + $6/employee
Gusto offers three distinct pricing packages: Gusto Simple ($40 per month, plus $6 per user), Gusto Plus ($60 per month, plus $6 per user), and Gusto Premium, which runs on a custom pricing model.
While Gusto’s prices undercut RUN Powered by ADP by some margins, its lack of global payroll features and large-scale HR integrations make it less suitable for larger, international businesses.
Gusto’s base price is also slightly higher than Rippling’s and Paychex’s — but this doesn’t mean Gusto isn’t good value. The provider’s Simple plan boasts a number of impressive features, from custom permissions to time-tracking integrations, making it ideal for small businesses that don’t want to fork out for custom packages.
Check out our ADP Payroll vs Gusto comparison guide for more information, or read our full guide to Gusto’s pricing.
How Did We Research and Review ADP Payroll?
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful product recommendations.
After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we put eight payroll software platforms to the test across 56 areas of investigation.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established a payroll software research methodology that scores each product in five main categories of investigation and ten subcategories; this covers everything from levels of data security and user control, to the customer support each provider offers and much more.
Our main research categories for payroll software are:
- Control: the level of customization and flexibility provided by the payroll software in managing and processing payroll. It includes features such as the ability to define pay periods, customize earnings and deductions, set up tax withholding rules, and manage employee data.
- Data Security: the measures and protocols implemented by the payroll software to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive payroll information. This includes encryption of data, secure data storage, access controls, backup and disaster recovery procedures, and compliance with data protection regulations.
- Expertise: the level of knowledge and guidance provided by the payroll software vendor or support team. This can include resources such as documentation, tutorials, training materials, and access to payroll experts who can assist users with payroll-related questions.
- Scalability: the ability of the payroll software to accommodate the growth and changing needs of a business. It includes factors such as the capacity to handle an increasing number of employees, support multiple locations or entities, and adapt to evolving payroll requirements include HR related functionality and employee benefits.
- Customer Support: the various channels and methods available for users to seek assistance and support from the payroll software vendor. This can include email or ticket-based support, phone support, live chat, community forums, and self-help resources
When it comes to calculating a provider's final score, not all research areas are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others. After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs.
At Tech.co, we have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run this research process regularly, to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Verdict – Is RUN Powered by ADP Pricing Good Value?
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