QuickBooks Payroll review

by Intuit

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.

What it costsas of August 2026

Core (Workforce Payroll): $50/mo basePlus $6.50 per employee
Premium: $88/mo basePlus $10 per employee
Elite: $134/mo basePlus $12 per employee

Every tier is a monthly base fee plus a per-employee fee, so the bill grows with headcount. It is an add-on to a QuickBooks Online subscription you also pay for, and Intuit runs frequent new-signup promos below these regular prices.

Read our full QuickBooks Payroll review

What QuickBooks Payroll does

Pricing & terms

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

Workforce (Core) $50/mo plus $6.50 per employee; Premium $88+$10, Elite $134+$12

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

Base fee plus a fee per employee, on top of the QuickBooks Online plan you pay for

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

Free 30 days, or take the intro discount instead; you cannot have both

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

Month to month, cancel anytime, no termination fee

Fit & support

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

Simple if you already run QuickBooks; more menus to learn if you do not

SupportWhat owners say about reaching a human when something breaks.

Chat help around the clock; phone hours are limited, HR advisor only on Elite

What it does

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

Files federal and state taxes for you; local tax filing needs Premium or Elite

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

Next-day deposit on the base plan, same-day on Premium and Elite

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

Pays your 1099 crew by direct deposit; year-end 1099 e-file can cost extra

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

Extra states cost about $12 a month each unless you are on the Elite plan

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

QuickBooks Time comes with Premium and Elite; the base plan pays extra for it

Alternatives to QuickBooks 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

Patriot Payroll

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

How we research this

Pricing comes from Intuit'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.