8 Best PEO Companies for Small Businesses

Professional employer organizations (PEOs) are co-employers that take on many of your business’s HR responsibilities, including payroll, recruitment, legal compliance, tax filing, and benefits administration. PEOs are a must for small businesses looking to scale, as they provide essential time and money-saving services that enable you to focus on increasing customers and expanding markets. We reviewed the best PEO companies and chose the top providers for small businesses looking to increase their productivity and revenue.

The best PEO for small businesses are:

• Rippling: Best Overall
• Justworks: Best for Nonprofits
• XcelHR: Best for Administering Workers’ Comp
• Paychex PEO: Best for Payroll
• Insperity: Best for Employee Training
• TriNet: Best for Customized PEO Plans
• ADP TotalSource: Best Big PEO Company
• Papaya Global: Best for Businesses With International Employees

8 Best PEO Companies for Small Businesses 

The best PEOs for small businesses provide HR support and take over responsibility for time-sucking tasks such as processing payroll and managing employee benefits. We chose eight PEO companies that offer the services that small businesses need, including HR, payroll, legal compliance, tax help, time-tracking, and benefits administration. Keep reading to find out the key features, prices, and pros and cons of our top picks.

Rippling: Best Overall

Benefits

The best PEO for small businesses overall is Rippling, as it offers a workforce management platform with a full range of business products, including cloud-based HR, IT, and finance services. With Rippling’s HR software, you can hire, onboard, manage, and pay employees from all over the world, as well as administer benefits, and automate labor law compliance and state tax registration. Rippling integrates with over 400 apps and enables you to create customized reports to get a deeper understanding of your employment data. 

Pros

• Ability to scale with your business, as Rippling’s products can support over 2,000 employees
• Multi-system data access and automated workflows help save time and ensure accuracy
• 90-second onboarding process

Cons

• PEO plans require a minimum of five employees

Pricing

Pricing starts at $8/month per user, plus admin fees, and depends on the number of employees you want to bring on board. 

Justworks: Best for Nonprofits

Benefits

Justworks is the best PEO for nonprofits as it provides corporate-style features at an affordable price. Justworks offers payroll, benefits administration (including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) plans), HR services (including onboarding new hires), compliance, tax prep, and time-tracking tools. 

Pros

• 24/7 customer service is available via phone, email, chat, Slack, or SMS
• Transparent pricing
• Justworks is certified by the IRS to be liable for paying your employment taxes and filing returns

Cons

• Part-time employees are not eligible for benefits

Pricing

Basic: Includes payroll, benefits administration, HR services, and compliance. The Basic plan is $59/month per employee for your first 49 employees, then $49/month per employee from your 50th employee and beyond. 

Plus: Includes everything in the Basic plan, as well as access to medical, dental, and vision benefits. The Plus plan is $99/month per employee for your first 49 employees, then $89/month per employee for your 50th employee and up. 

XcelHR: Best for Administering Workers’ Comp

Benefits

XcelHR offers employment verification, labor law compliance tools, employee benefits administration, payroll, and help with taxes, as well as comprehensive workplace safety and workers’ comp services. Its workers’ comp services include deposit management and negotiation, pay-as-you-owe schedules, annual audits, claims administration, return-to-work programs, safety inspections, training information, and help with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) compliance. 

Pros

• Offers either service or internal payroll processing, including software checks and materials
• Can help you shop for and compare the best benefits for your company
• Can train employees and management on its human resource management system (HRIS)

Cons

• Certain services are only available if you have the required minimum number of employees

Pricing

You can call XcelHR or fill out an online form to get a customized quote.

Paychex PEO: Best for Payroll 

Benefits

Paychex PEO is the best choice if you need a PEO payroll company. It offers three different payroll packages for small, mid-size, and enterprise businesses, as well as employee benefits, compliance and safety services, and HR technology and support. Paychex allows you to pay your employees anytime, anywhere, from your computer or your mobile device, or you can call one of its payroll specialists for assistance. Paychex is also a CPEO, which means that it is certified by the IRS to help you file and pay your payroll taxes. 

Pros

• Paychex’s tax service helps you find credits and file amended returns
• Pre-check service allows employees to approve their paychecks before payday
• Online learning management system enables you to create training courses for employees

Cons

• PEO pricing is unavailable online

Pricing

Paychex’s payroll bundles start at $39/month plus $5 per employee. You can contact Paychex for custom pricing for its PEO plans and higher-tier payroll plans.

Insperity: Best for Employee Training

Benefits

Insperity is the best PEO for small to mid-sized businesses that need employee training services. It provides employee benefits, HR admin, compliance and support services, payroll, and employee recruitment and training tools. Insperity’s training resources include over 4,500 self-paced courses, more than 20,000 ebooks, live virtual trainings, practice exams, and professional certification resources. 

Pros

• Access to over 2,500 training videos
• Insperity’s Employee Assistance program offers prepaid, professional counseling to all members of Insperity employees’ households
• Help with unemployment and wage claims and audits

Cons

• Pricing unavailable on the website

Pricing

You can set up an appointment with an Insperity advisor to get a personalized quote. 

TriNet: Best for Customized PEO Plans

Benefits

TriNet is one of the best PEO companies for small businesses that need services customized to their specific industry. It offers payroll, HR support, and employee benefits designed for industries including consulting, education, ecommerce, manufacturing, marketing, retail, and more. Its website offers a free online assessment to determine whether a PEO is a good fit for your business. 

Pros

• Time and attendance tracking combined with reporting and analytics provides you with accurate performance reviews
• TriNet’s Employee Support Center assists with common HR questions
• Risk management tools help prevent and handle employment claims

Cons

• Must schedule a meeting to get answers to pricing questions

Pricing

TriNet provides customized pricing. 

ADP TotalSource: Best Big PEO Company

Benefits

When it comes to PEO companies, bigger isn’t always better; oftentimes smaller companies are better able to cater to your business’s unique needs. However, ADP TotalSource is one of the largest PEO companies and its size and experience mean that businesses can rely on its services. ADP TotalSource provides all of the PEO features small businesses need, including employee benefits, risk mitigation, access to HR experts, payroll and tax withholdings, an employee self-service portal, and employee training and time tracking. 

Pros

• Can get a personalized HR plan based on your goals 
• Patented tool enables you to compare and choose employee benefits
• Employees can clock in and out using ADP TotalSource’s mobile app

Cons

• No phone number available for customer service

Pricing

ADP TotalSource offers customized pricing. 

Papaya Global: Best for Businesses With International Employees

Benefits

Papaya Global is one of the best PEO companies for businesses with international employees, as it offers global payroll and benefits and international compliance expertise on top of cloud connectors (APIs that integrate with its platform) to a full suite of HR services.

Pros

• Can pay workers in over 160 countries 
• Can make payments in 72 hours or less
• Ensures General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance

Cons

• Can only make payments in 12 currencies

Pricing

Papaya Global’s payroll and payments plans start at $3/month per employee.

Contractor Management: $2/month per contractor

Payroll Platform License: $3/month per employee

Payments-As-A-Service: $3/month per employee

Full-Service Payroll: $12/month per employee

Data and Insights Platform License: $150/month per location

Methodology

We analyzed 15 PEO companies and chose the eight best PEO for small businesses by focusing on key HR support features such as recruitment, onboarding, employee training, payroll processing, tax filing, employee benefits administration, and legal compliance. We looked for PEO providers that are National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) members to ensure that they follow PEO best practices and are up-to-date with current legislation, and selected IRS-certified PEOs (CPEOs) that can pay your employment taxes under your employer identification number (EIN) and assume liability for paying wages to your workers. 

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