Patriot Payroll review

Cheap, no-frills payroll for a small shop: you run payroll in three steps, pay W-2 employees and 1099 subs in the same run, and on the Full Service plan Patriot files and deposits your federal, state and local payroll taxes.

What it costsas of August 2026

Basic Payroll: $17/mo basePlus $4 per worker paid; you file your own payroll taxes
Full Service Payroll: $37/mo basePlus $5 per worker paid; Patriot files federal, state and local

Both plans are a monthly base fee plus a fee for each worker you actually paid that month, billed in arrears, so a month with no payroll costs only the base. On Full Service, filing in more than one state costs $12 a month per additional state. Add-ons are Time and Attendance at $6/mo plus $2 per employee and HR Software at $6/mo plus $2 per employee. Every product has a 30-day free trial, and when checked Patriot was advertising 50% off for six months on top of it.

We have not published a long-form verdict on Patriot Payroll yet. What is below comes from the vendor's own documentation and pricing, checked and dated.

What Patriot Payroll does

Pricing & terms

Starts atThe real monthly cost to get in the door, before add-ons.

Basic $17/mo plus $4 per worker paid; Full Service $37/mo plus $5 per worker

How pricing worksFlat tiers, per user, or per job. This decides how fast the bill grows as you add people.

Monthly base fee plus a fee for each worker you actually paid that month

Free trial or planCan you try it with your own jobs before paying?

30 days free on every product, and Patriot bills you in arrears after that

ContractMonth-to-month vs a year-plus commitment you can't easily leave.

Month to month. Patriot says no contracts, cancel anytime without penalty

Fit & support

Ease of useHow hard it is to get a non-technical crew actually using it.

A three step payroll run, free setup help, and it works in a phone browser

SupportWhat owners say about reaching a human when something breaks.

Free US phone, email and chat, 9am to 7pm Eastern, weekdays only

What it does

Files payroll taxesFiles and pays the payroll taxes for you, which is the whole reason to buy this.

Full Service files federal, state and local taxes; on Basic you file them

Direct depositThe crew gets paid to their bank without you cutting checks.

Free direct deposit, 4 day standard and 2 day for shops that qualify

1099 contractorsHandles subs and 1099s, not just W-2 employees.

Pays 1099 subs in the same run as the crew; Basic pays a fee to e-file them

Multi-state payrollMatters the moment you take work across a state line.

Full Service files in all 50 states, but each extra state is $12 a month

Pulls in hoursTakes crew hours from a time clock so nobody retypes a timesheet.

Hours come in from Time and Attendance, a $6/mo plus $2 per employee add-on

Alternatives to Patriot Payroll

Other tools that do the same job for a trade business. Prices are what each vendor publishes, dated when we checked.

Gusto

Full-service payroll with built-in HR and time tracking, so a trade owner can run payroll, pay 1099 crews, handle tax filings, and track hours from one account.Contractor Only $35/mo plus $6 each; Simple $49+$6, Plus $80+$12, Premium $180+$22

Homebase

Crew scheduling and a mobile time clock that lets a trade owner build the week's shifts, have techs clock in and out from their phones, and turn the hours into timesheets, with a free tier that covers a small shop.Free for 1 location and 10 staff; Essentials $30/mo per location after that

QuickBooks Payroll

Runs payroll for your crew with automatic tax calculation, filing, and direct deposit, and it plugs straight into QuickBooks Online so wages land in your books.Workforce (Core) $50/mo plus $6.50 per employee; Premium $88+$10, Elite $134+$12

How we research this

Pricing comes from Patriot Software's own pricing pages and is dated at the time we checked it. Features are taken from the vendor's documentation, not from a sales call. We are independent and rank on fit, never on what a tool pays us. See how we review.