The Best Payroll Software in Canada 2024 – Top 10 Compared

Integration With Other QuickBooks Tools: QuickBooks integrates with other QuickBooks products, such as QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, and many third-party applications, including accounting software, HRIS, and time and attendance systems.

Record of Employment (ROE): With the data pulled from QuickBooks, you can easily create an ROE for each employee, which you can use to apply for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits.

Tax Forms: QuickBooks payroll helps calculate and fill out T4 and RL-1 forms quickly, ensuring they can be printed and filed with the CRA or Revenu Québec.

QuickBooks payroll price plans are available in three tiers:

QuickBooks’ Payroll Core plan is suitable for small businesses that need auto payroll solutions, comprehensive reporting, ROE, workers’ compensation, workforce portal, and 2-day payroll direct deposit.

When I compared QuickBooks’ price plans to competitors, I found that the platform has an edge as features progress with the plan increases, helping businesses to only pay for what matters as they grow.

Direct Deposit: Right from Wave’s interface, you can make a quick, direct deposit into your employees’ bank account, cutting off payment issues.

Tax Payments: The tax functionality automates state and federal tax filing for businesses in all provinces and territories except Quebec.

Self-Service Pay Stubs: Wave supports businesses with its employee self-service portal to boost collaboration and transparency. This portal allows employees to access or modify their banking information and pay W2s and stubs.

Wave offers a single-price plan for its payroll features, with $25 CAD/month as the base fee and $6 CAD/active employee and independent contractor paid.

While there is no forever free plan, Wave allows you to explore the platform with its 30-day free trial. Its price deal is good as it’s affordable and clear.

Automated Payroll Processing: Dayforce automates payroll processing, from data input to reporting, to reduce manual work and data errors. As it automates these processes, it ensures the latest Canadian labour and tax laws are applied for accuracy.

Multiple Pay Schedules: As a complex payroll system, Dayforce allows companies to apply different pay schedules, such as weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly, depending on their unique situations.

Benefits Administration: Dayforce manages employees’ benefits by providing different options and tracking their compliance with Canadian regulations.

Dayforce offers custom-based pricing. The best way to determine the most suitable and cost-effective Dayforce plan for your business is to contact their sales team and discuss your specific needs. They can provide a personalized quote and help you choose the plan.

Integrations with Third-Party Tools: ADP integrates with various third-party applications, including accounting software, HRIS, time and attendance systems, and benefits providers. This helps businesses have access to more functionalities to make payroll processing easier.

Full-Service Payroll & Tax Filing: ADP provides payroll & tax filing support to help businesses achieve quick and error-free payroll tax calculation and deduction.

Regulatory Alerts: To ensure that your organization is compliant with every law and regulation in Canada, ADP alerts you whenever there’s any change in laws. Its provincial and federal resources also help you stay updated with easy-to-understand legal information.

ADP offers flexible price plans designed to support businesses at different growth levels. It has price plans for small, medium, and large companies. It can support up to 1000 employees but doesn’t make its price information available to the public.

Users must contact support to request a tailored quote for their business solution. However, I love its 3 months free trial, which gives businesses enough room to explore and decide.

Dedicated Service Support: Immediately you sign up, Payworks assigns you a dedicated NPI-trained service representative who’ll be there anytime you need them.

Auto Filing: Payworks’ full service is tailored to the Canadian market to offer services such as tax remittances and WCB premiums and ensures ROEs are submitted directly to Service Canada on your behalf.

Continuous Software Upgrade: Payworks provides constant software upgrades to ensure businesses have access to the most recent labour updates on the platform. This upgrade also provides users access to more functionalities instead of choosing another sophisticated payroll software.

Similarly to some advanced payroll software, Payworks price information is only available upon request. However, Payworks’ quote request is different as it allows you to get an immediate quote once you’ve filled in the number of employees, payroll frequency, and province in Canada. You can expect to start with $24.20 per pay period for one employee.

You can also add more services to the payroll functionality to access more HR tools. The add-ons’ pricing is based on the quote you requested in the payroll.

Canadian Compliance: Stay compliant and navigate the nuances of Canadian payroll with ease. I found that Knit’s Canadian-based team understands the local regulations and provides dedicated customer support.

Multiple Pay Rates: Easily set up different employee pay rates without stressing out. Also, with its unlimited pay group functionality, you can schedule payments for employees with the same pay cycle.

CRA Source Deduction Remittances: Knit calculates payroll at the click of a button and remits taxes to the CRA based on set criteria. This ensures accurate payroll deductions from employee paychecks and in compliance with Canadian tax laws and regulations.

Knit’s payroll price plan runs on a monthly option basis, allowing users to cancel at any time. It offers three-tier plans to support various business needs.

Knit’s Lite plan offers businesses basic payroll features such as unlimited payrolls, multiple pay rates, multiple locations, employee portals, and new hire self-onboarding. Businesses needing access to WCB, WSIB, EHT remittances and reports, mass payroll import, e-signatures, and more can use its Concierge plan.

There is no free forever plan but a 30-day free trial to test the software before making financial commitments. It offers add-ons such as Time and Attendance and Employer of Record at an affordable rate.

Canada-Specific Benefits: As payroll software with broad global coverage, Deel helps businesses provide specific support based on their employees’ locations. It offers Canada-specific employee benefits, such as pension funds, social security, disability insurance, and health care.

Complete Guide For Hiring Support: To support global organizations hiring talent from different locations, Deel provides HR departments with a complete guide for hiring employees in Canada. This document includes Canada’s latest hiring practices, tax regulations, statutory time off, vacation laws, and leave policies.

Global Analytics: Global businesses with employees across the globe need a unified platform to have a complete understanding of payroll processing. Deel offers an in-depth global reporting interface that allows companies to compare employer costs, bonuses, taxes, and more in one standard currency.

Deel is a comprehensive platform for HR and payroll solutions. It offers seven price plans, including a global and two US payroll plans.

Deel’s global payroll plan helps businesses manage payroll in over 100 countries, including Canada. Its features include in-house payroll experts, 24/7 support, payslip creation and delivery, salary and tax payments, employee benefits and deductions, local filing with authorities, and customizable reporting.

Its HR plan is free to use and has advanced features for managing employees globally.

Payroll Comparison: Beyond the regular payroll reporting, Rippling provides enough historical employee data to compare previous payrolls with the current ones. This helps you investigate gross pay, taxes, deductions, spot differences, and make relevant changes.

Dedicated Mobile App: To fast-track data accessibility, Rippling supports organizations with mobile applications to help employees interact with their pay stubs, request time off, and even view their T4s on the go.

Payroll Compliance: Automating regulation changes is one of the best ways to avoid penalties that may disrupt business operations. Rippling offers complete monitoring of the organization’s compliance with the right forms, laws, and regulations and handles tax and compliance work.

Rippling price plans are available based on request to suit different organizational needs. Pricing starts at $11 CAD/user per month. While there is no free forever plan, you can request a 30-minute product demo to see Rippling in action by filling in your company details.

Intuitive Interface: WagePoint’s intuitive interface is easy to navigate, even if you’re not a payroll expert. It’s designed with small business owners in mind, making it easy to process payroll, manage taxes, and file ROEs.

Security-Focus: I love that WagePoint has a very pronounced security feature across all plans. Its security measures include industry and bank-grade processes, enhanced encryption, user roles permission, and continuous security training for WagePoint staff.

Auto Remittance: WagePoint automates calculating and submitting federal and provincial payroll-related taxes. It also processes the remittance of contributions such as ROEs, T4s, T4As, EHT, and WSIB.

WagePoint offers transparent and competitive pricing plans, making it an attractive option for cost-conscious businesses. This is a bonus point for WagePoint, as many competitors (such as Rippling or Deel) don’t disclose their pricing.

WagePoint’s Solo plan is designed for businesses that only run one monthly payroll. Its features are basic payroll functionalities such as one paygroup, direct deposit, tax remittances, year-end reporting, records of employment, and employee self-onboarding. Businesses that run multiple payrolls monthly can choose its Unlimited plan.

With WagePoint, you can get started without breaking the bank. It also offers professional customer support if you need help.

Canadian HR and Payroll Experts: Humi’s Canadian HR and payroll experts are available to answer your questions and ensure your business complies with all regulations. They understand the unique complexities of Canadian HR and payroll—from provincial variations in laws, including minimum wage and overtime rules, to vacation pay calculations.

Calendar Integrations: I found the integration with work calendar to be easy to use and allowed for seamless management of employee schedules and payroll processes. Team members’ availability can be easily accessed, making administrative work easier.

EHT and Workers’ Compensation Calculations: Humi handles Employment Health Tax (EHT) and Workers’ Compensation calculations. It ensures all deductions are accurate, helping organizations comply with labour and tax laws.

Humi offers three price plans, including The basics, Advanced, and The works. Businesses have to contact the sales team for a custom price. It also offers add-ons such as managed payroll, time-tracking, employee benefits, and advanced benefits at a custom price.

For businesses with more than 10 employees, here’s the price information:

Its Time Off plan is suitable for startups seeking a basic payroll functionality. Its features include HR and payroll features.

Humi is suitable for small- to medium-sized Canadian businesses seeking a fully integrated payroll system with HR functionalities to manage employees’ payments, taxes, and benefits.