How Much Does ADP Payroll Cost?

ADP offers payroll software subscriptions and outsourced services for small, midsize, and large businesses. Included in its offering are global payroll software plans, for medium to large multinational companies. On top of that, it offers a suite of people management tools, including HR, talent acquisition and time management software.

A capable and reliable small business payroll provider, using a service like ADP will remove much of the stress of filing payroll and taxes every month. Unfortunately, ADP doesn’t advertise its pricing publicly, but looking at each of its software plans, who they’re for, and what features they include can give you some insight into what you can expect to pay.

In this guide, we break down each of ADP’s payroll plans, explore its payroll, HR features, and pricing, and determine the ideal user for each plan.

Quick Summary: ADP Software Plans in Comparison

ADP Payroll software can be broken down into two main categories:

• ADP iHCM: Designed for small to midsize businesses.
• ADP Celergo, Global, and GlobalView: Designed for midsize, large, and multinational businesses.

ADP Payroll Software Plans

ADP’s iHCM is designed for small to midsize businesses and includes three payroll tiers—Essential Edition, Standard Edition, and Advanced Edition. Each plan varies in features, scope, and cost. Pricing is bespoke and determined by the number of employees, tax reporting needs, worker classifications, HR needs, and compliance features required.

ADP’s Celergo, Global, and GlobalView plans are designed for larger multinational companies with HR, payroll, and compliance responsibilities in multiple countries, languages, and currencies.

Much like Rippling, Moorepay and other competitors, ADP doesn’t publicly list prices. However, it’s still worth breaking down each plan’s features, drawbacks, and what type of business would benefit most from them, so you’re better placed to decide if it’s worth getting a quote. If you’d like a more in-depth look at the software, check out our ADP review.

The iHCM Essential Edition

• Price: Bespoke—contact ADP for a quote.
• Features: Direct deposit, new hire documentation, P60, P45, and P11D preparation, automated RTI filing, tax filing options, plus HR features such as employee and employer portals and payroll reporting functions.
• Ideal customer: Startups and small businesses with basic payroll, tax, and compliance needs.

What is the Essential Edition?

The Essential Edition is ADP’s most basic and accessible payroll package, making it ideal for new businesses or those with a consistent number of employees. There are enough features to get you started running payroll, such as remitting information to HMRC, preparing payroll and income tax information, managing basic HR functions, and more.

Who is the Essential Edition right for?

The Essential Edition is perfect for startups and small businesses with relatively simple HR and payroll situations and those with steady or slow-growing workforces.

What features does the Essential Edition include?

ADP’s Essential Edition covers core payroll functions like direct deposit, new hire documentation, unlimited payroll runs, payroll tax preparation, and automatic RTI (Real-Time Information) remittance, ensuring you always meet tax deadlines.

The Essential Edition also includes a built-in payroll portal containing employee information, such as name, phone number, email address, and physical address. This information is kept secure and encrypted, and employees can use their own unique credentials to access and update their information anywhere, anytime.

What are the drawbacks of the Essential Edition?

Being a basic payroll plan, the Essential Edition lacks higher-tier features like HR support, payroll compliance, and legal assistance. Many business owners will find the Essential Edition adequate for their needs, but those seeking marketing tools and unemployment management may benefit from ADP’s higher pricing structures.

The iHCM Standard Edition

• Price: Bespoke—contact ADP for a quote.
• Features: Everything in the Essential Edition, plus cheque signing, expense tracking, unemployment management, new hire onboarding, and background checks.
• Ideal customer: Growing businesses needing additional payroll functions, basic HR features, and robust compliance support.

What is the Standard Edition?

The Standard Edition is ADP’s mid-range payroll and HR software offering. It provides useful tools for running payroll, remitting payroll and tax information to HMRC, and includes some HR functions and support.

Who is the Standard Edition right for?

The Standard Edition is ideal for scaling businesses with changing hiring and employment needs, those with growing workforces, and those who employ various types/categories of workers (such as employees and independent contractors).

What features does the Standard Edition include?

The Standard Edition builds upon the features in the Essential Edition, offering value add-ons like new hire onboarding, cheque signing, unemployment management, and background checks to provide peace of mind when hiring new employees.

What are the drawbacks of the Standard Edition?

This plan is possibly too advanced for startups and small businesses that would benefit from the simpler features offered in the Essential Edition, and too basic for enterprises with complex HR needs that would benefit from features such as HR training, HR forms, and the HR employee handbook wizard included in ADP’s highest tier.

The iHCM Advanced Edition

• Price: Bespoke—contact ADP for a quote.
• Features: Everything in the Standard Edition, plus custom payroll analytics, performance management tools, a recruitment and careers portal, an HR helpdesk, HR and administration training, HR forms, and an employee handbook wizard.
• Ideal customer: Established businesses seeking comprehensive payroll, HR, and talent acquisition solutions.

What is the Advanced Edition?

The Advanced Edition is the most feature-rich payroll plan under the iHCM umbrella. It’s designed for established businesses seeking full-service payroll, HR, and compliance software.

Who is the Advanced Edition right for?

This plan is ideal for businesses that have outgrown basic payroll needs and require additional support with managing HR responsibilities, recruiting employees and managing applicants, tracking key payroll analytics, and staying compliant with complicated payroll regulations. Midsize to large businesses with more complex employment situations will benefit from this plan’s extensive features.

What features does the Advanced Edition include?

ADP’s Advanced Edition builds upon the Standard Edition plan and adds features like custom payroll analytics, performance management tools, and a recruitment and careers portal. These functions allow employers to understand their workforce better and simplify performance management, hiring, promotions, and more.

The Advanced Edition also includes enhanced HR support features like HR helpdesk, HR training, HR forms, and ADP’s HR employee handbook wizard. These features give HR teams educational and training resources and access to ADP’s team of HR experts for guidance.

What are the drawbacks of the Advanced Edition?

The Advanced Edition is the most feature-rich payroll offering under the iHCM umbrella. As a result, this plan may be unnecessarily complex for small and scaling businesses.

ADP Celergo, Global, and GlobalView Payroll

• Price: Bespoke—contact ADP for a quote.
• Features: Everything in the iHCM plans, plus multicurrency payroll, multicountry tax filing, multinational compliance tools, and global HR tools for employees and contractors living and working in various countries.
• Ideal customer: Midsize to large companies, specifically those with global operations seeking integrated payroll, HR, and compliance features for multiple countries and currencies in a single solution.

What are the Celergo, Global, and GlobalView plans?

ADP’s Celergo and Global payroll plans are its most premium offerings, catering to midsize and large businesses with significant workforces and complex multinational payroll and HR needs. They include everything in the iHCM plans and add even more advanced HR and payroll features.

Who are the Celergo, Global, and GlobalView plans right for?

The global plans are ideal for midsize to large companies seeking advanced payroll, HR, and compliance features for workers in multiple countries.

What features do the Celergo, Global, and GlobalView plans include?

These plans build upon the features in the iHCM plans by adding global functionality like multinational payroll features, multiple currency integrations, compliance with multicountry tax and payroll laws, and robust multinational HR tools.

What are the drawbacks of the Celergo, Global, and GlobalView plans?

ADP’s global plans are designed for midsize to large multinational employers, and the bespoke costs will likely reflect that. These plans may be too complex for smaller companies seeking a simpler international payroll solution.

The ADP Workforce Manager

In addition to its payroll and HR software plans, ADP offers a workforce management software called ADP Workforce Management. It can be integrated into your existing ADP payroll software.

• Price: Bespoke—contact ADP for a quote.
• Features: Shift planning and scheduling, time and attendance tracking, absence management, performance tracking, benefits management.
• Ideal customer: Midsize to large companies, specifically those with global operations seeking integrated workforce and time and attendance management with payroll and HR features for multiple countries and currencies in a single solution.

What is the ADP Workforce Manager?

ADP Workforce Manager is ADP’s workforce management and time and attendance software. It’s designed to help midsize to large businesses better manage their global workforce by providing a unified system across regions.

Who is the ADP Workforce Manager right for?

The ADP Workforce Manager is designed with medium to large businesses in mind with shift-based employees in different countries that need easy integration between their shift management and payroll software.

What features does the ADP Workforce Manager include?

The ADP Workforce manager is a hub for planning and scheduling worker shifts around absence and leave dates. It doubles up as a time and attendance tracker, and the data it compiles can also be used to better  manage benefits and track performance.

What are the drawbacks of the ADP Workforce Manager?

ADP’s Workforce Manager is designed for midsize to large multinational employers, so it might be too complex a system for smaller companies seeking simpler shift or time and attendance management software.

ADP’s Outsourced Payroll Services

In addition to the payroll plans mentioned above, ADP provides outsourced payroll and HR services. ADP will process payroll for you, keep you compliant, and give you 24/7 access to its expert call centre. All of these functions are completely managed by ADP, giving you the freedom to focus on your business goals.

ADP’s outsourced payroll also comes with a variety of robust HR features, such as employee, recruitment, and career portals, onboarding assistance, and 24/7 support from ADP’s HR professionals. Furthermore, ADP’s HR services ensure your hiring and management processes comply with complex employment laws.

As with its payroll software plans, ADP’s outsourced payroll pricing is bespoke, so businesses must contact the company for a quote.

What’s More Cost-effective, ADP’s Payroll Software or its Outsourced Services?

Since ADP offers bespoke pricing, it can be hard to determine what the most cost-effective solution is for you business: its payroll software or its outsourced payroll services?

As a rule of thumb, outsourcing payroll costs more than a payroll software subscription, and ADP is no exception to this. That said, the subcription cost of payroll software doesn’t factor in the time spent on processing and managing payroll through the software, or the salaries of the additional employees you might have to hire to help manage it.

So what’s best for who?

• Payroll software: For small to medium sized businesses who don’t have overly complex payroll needs (all employee payroll is processed at the same time and employees are located in one country), using ADP’s payroll software is probably the best option. It’ll be cheaper, and you won’t have much of a headached processing it.
• Outsourced payroll services: If you’re a midsize to large company with complex payroll needs and global employees, you might want to consider outsourcing payroll to ADP. Leaving it to the experts can help avoid mistakes, and save you a lot of time you would otherwise spend running payroll. It might cost a little more than payroll software upfront, but you’ll make up the costs with increased productivity, since your employees will be able to focus their work elsewhere than payroll.

ADP Alternatives

ADP is one of the most well-known and highly respected payroll software providers on the market, serving a wide variety of clients, both large and small. However, several other payroll providers also offer basic and advanced plans, each with its own payroll services, features, and interfaces.

Moorepay Payroll

Moorepay is an accessible, user-friendly, feature-rich payroll provider that is a great option for small to midsize employers operating in the UK.

1 2 Cloud Payroll

1 2 Cloud Payroll is one of the most budget-friendly payroll options on the market and a great option for small businesses.

MHR Payroll

MHR is a feature-rich payroll solution that offers both payroll and financial management software.