Wave Payroll Review Pricing, Comparisons, and FAQs

If you live in a state where automatic tax filing is unavailable, you’ll be able to export the appropriate forms and go through the process manually. Pricing for Wave Payroll is a bit different in that you pay either $20 or $35 per month as a base payment, depending on the state in which you’re running payroll. Wave can pay and file taxes for you in 14 states (see Wave’s website for the full list), and for that you’ll pay $35 per month to have automated tax filing. Otherwise, the cost is $20 per month and you’ll have to file taxes yourself. There’s a $6 fee per person on your payroll per month, whether employees or contractors.

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Join the thousands of people like you already growing their businesses and knowledge with our team of experts. We deliver timely updates, interesting insights, and exclusive promos to your inbox. The company Wave Apps has a customer score of 1.54 out of 5 stars with the Better Business Bureau. Laura started writing about personal finance in early 2018 when she took a sabbatical from her career in human resources and launched a blog discussing her journey.

The payroll journal entry is automatically posted on the Transactions page in Wave Accounting. If you currently pay your employees using direct deposit and have your bank accrued revenue recording connected in Wave Accounting, you don’t have to do anything else. Wave Payroll’s dashboard offers a quick summary of payroll-related information, including upcoming start and end pay dates as well as a pay date.

What are some Wave Payroll alternatives?

Wave Payroll earned a solid 4.1/5 stars in the review category, as users generally approve of the software. Wave Payroll doesn’t offer much for benefits administration; you won’t be able to handle anything beyond worker’s compensation benefits through Next Insurance within the platform. Wave Payroll’s two pricing packages, Tax Service States and Self-Service States, respectively, offer full-service and self-service payroll.

What Sets Wave Payroll Apart

As a freelancer, solopreneur or independent contractor, Wave Payroll may cover all of your needs. In addition, for $17 a month in tax-service states and $10 monthly in self-service states, Wave offers a limited plan for companies needing to pause their payroll processing for a time. The software provider’s limited version includes most features of the full version, but you cannot process new payroll runs. The price for Wave’s tax-filing-included payroll processing solution is $40 per month plus $6 per active employee or contractor paid. If you process payroll in a state where Wave doesn’t offer tax-filing services, the software costs $20 monthly, plus $6 per active employee or contractor paid. We manufacturing accounting collect extensive data to narrow our best list to reputable, easy-to-use products with stand-out features at a reasonable price point.

Not only does it sync with other Gusto applications, but it also works with third-party applications, including QuickBooks and Xero. It also lets you pay international contractors and automatically files and pays payroll taxes in all 50 states. Plans start at $40 per month with an additional $6 per month for each paid employee. When rating payroll software, we are looking for very specific qualities.

1. What you may gain in affordability, you lose in functionality.
2. When it comes to price, Deluxe is more expensive than Wave Payroll.
3. Wave Payroll doesn’t support off-cycle payroll runs, multistate payroll is a technicality, full-service tax support is nonexistent in 36 states, built-in time-tracking isn’t a thing, and the list goes on.
4. You can use the app to manage invoices, payments and banking activities.
5. Wave Payroll is meant for small businesses and startups that have a fluctuating roster of employees and contractors.

Be sure to test out all the features from the company and employee side to make sure it’s a good system for your business. For example, there are timesheets available, but you have to manually add hours worked. This may work well if you have few hourly workers, but it could end up being a big time sink if you have a larger staff. Developed with smaller businesses in mind, Wave Payroll offers basic payroll capability. Designed to be used in conjunction with Wave Accounting, Wave Payroll lets small business owners easily pay their employees.

There are separate options for adding salary, vacation details, tax details, benefits and deductions, direct deposit, and bank details. Wave Payroll is designed for smaller businesses and is ideal for those with no experience processing payroll. The setup process is completed in easy-to-follow steps, the 6 best accounting software for self-employed business owners of 2023 but you only have the option to choose one payroll schedule, which includes weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly options. Wave Payroll, an add-on option available from Wave Accounting, offers basic payroll services, with full-service payroll available in 14 states. Wave Payroll doesn’t offer time-tracking features beyond timesheet management.

OnPay Payroll offers features to help small businesses, including paying employees through multiple methods, custom reporting options and free payroll management for multiple-state processing. It also makes state and federal payroll tax payments and files taxes for you and integrates with other software options, including QuickBooks and Xero. The software only has one plan at $40 per month with an additional $6 per month per paid employee. Gusto’s payroll software offers small businesses features for managing employee pay and more. Its plans offer a variety of features that let you pick what you need to support your business.

Doing payroll manually involves confusing and time-consuming calculations. Not to mention the stress of worrying about making errors and winding up in a tax audit (yikes!). In self-service states (all other 36 states) Wave Payroll does not make payments or file on your behalf. Employees can securely log in to access their pay stubs and W2s, and manage their contact and banking information. A complete review of Wave Payroll, including pricing, comparisons to competitors, key information, and FAQs. By providing feedback on how we can improve, you can earn gift cards and get early access to new features.