Best payroll software in Canada, by team size

Wagepoint for most businesses under about 50 employees: $20 plus $4 per employee for monthly pay or $40 plus $6 for more frequent runs, with CRA remittances, T4s, ROEs and Quebec RL-1s handled and a direct sync to Xero, QuickBooks Online and FreshBooks. QuickBooks Payroll if your books are already in QuickBooks Online. Employment Hero (formerly Humi) if you want HR, onboarding and time off with payroll. PaymentEvolution if the lowest price matters most and you will run it yourself.

Wagepoint, QuickBooks Payroll, PaymentEvolution, Wave Payroll, Knit, Rise, Payworks and ADP all generate T4s and ROEs from the payroll data, and Wagepoint, PaymentEvolution, Rise and Payworks state that they transmit them (T4s to the CRA, ROEs to Service Canada) rather than handing you a file to upload. Wagepoint includes T4s, T4As and ROEs on both plans at no extra cost and lists RL-1s on its Quebec pricing page; QuickBooks Payroll generates ROEs when an employee has an interruption of earnings and fills out T4 and RL-1 forms ready to file; Wave generates T4 and T4A slips and ROEs; Knit includes T4s and ROEs on Lite. Employment Hero is the one to check: ROE generation is available only when Payroll and HR are active together. Whatever the tool, the T4 is due the last day of February and an electronic ROE five calendar days after the end of the pay period in which the interruption began.

Every payroll-first tool on this page applies the right provincial tax table to each employee once you set their province of employment: Wagepoint calculates and remits federal, provincial and territorial taxes and lists all ten provinces and three territories in setup, Rise operates across all provinces and territories, QuickBooks Payroll updates its tax tables whenever the government publishes new rates, and Wave covers every province and territory except Quebec. The rule the software applies is the CRA's: if the employee reports to your place of business, use the tables for the province where that business is located; if they do not, use the province from which you pay them. What separates the tools is the provincial extras. Wagepoint remits WCB/WSIB and the Ontario and BC Employer Health Tax on both plans, Knit does the same only on its $50 Complete plan, and Payworks pays WCB premiums for you. Employers with Quebec staff also need remittances to Revenu Québec, covered in the Quebec question below.

Wagepoint, QuickBooks Payroll, PaymentEvolution, Wave Payroll, Knit, Rise, Payworks and ADP calculate CPP, EI and income tax and send the remittance to the CRA on your remitter schedule, so a regular remitter's payment leaves by the 15th of the following month without anyone logging in to My Business Account. Two rows need reading closely: on PaymentEvolution the remittance service is included on every plan and required on Growth, and on Employment Hero the Payroll plan prepares your CRA remittance schedule while the filing itself belongs to its Managed Payroll tier at $30 per employee. The reason to insist on automatic remittance is the CRA's penalty: 3% of the amount if it is one to three days late, 5% at four or five days, 7% at six or seven, 10% beyond that or when nothing is sent, and 20% on a repeat failure in the same year made knowingly or through gross negligence. Wagepoint does this on both plans from $20 a month.

Wagepoint, QuickBooks Payroll, PaymentEvolution, Rise, Payworks, Nethris and ADP run Quebec payroll: they deduct Quebec income tax, QPP and QPIP, remit them to Revenu Québec (federal tax and EI still go to the CRA), and produce the RL-1 slip alongside the T4. Wagepoint lists RL-1s on its Quebec pricing page and supports QPP and QPIP; QuickBooks Payroll EFILEs and remits with the CRA or Revenu Québec; Payworks handles RL-1s, QPP, CNESST and Revenu Québec remittances; Nethris is the Montreal specialist built around QPP, QPIP and CCQ construction rules. Wave Payroll is not available in Quebec because, its help centre says, it remits only to the CRA, and Employment Hero routes Quebec customers to Humi by Employment Hero, its dedicated Quebec product. Two employer-side items are easy to miss: the health services fund contribution and the CNESST premium, which Revenu Québec collects with your periodic remittance. Payworks and Nethris state they handle CNESST; ask any other provider to show both on a sample pay run.

Wagepoint Solo at $24 a month ($20 plus $4 for one employee, one pay run a month) if you are incorporated and pay yourself a salary: it withholds the income tax and CPP, remits them to the CRA, and files the T4 you need for your personal return, and because you control more than 40% of the voting shares your employment is not insurable, so no EI is deducted. If you are a sole proprietor you do not run payroll for yourself at all: the CRA treats you and the business as one, you take draws, and you pay tax and CPP on the net income through your T1. PaymentEvolution Growth is cheaper at $4 per pay run plus a $55 setup fee, with email-only support. Either way, open a payroll account with the CRA before the first pay and remit by the 15th of the following month.

For 50 to 999 employees, Payworks, Rise, ADP Workforce Now and Employment Hero are the Canadian HRIS platforms that run source deductions and CRA remittances inside the HR system; Wagepoint, our pick for small teams, is payroll-first with an employee portal and no HRIS layer, so it tops out around 50 staff. Payworks (quote, 25-plus years, NPI-trained support) pays tax remittances and WCB premiums and submits ROEs to Service Canada. Rise (from $8 per employee per month plus a base fee) remits federal and provincial deductions, integrates with the CRA, Revenu Québec and Service Canada, and syncs to Xero and QuickBooks Online. ADP Workforce Now is ADP's product for 50 to 999 employees, by quote. Employment Hero runs payroll at $7 per employee with a $70 minimum but prepares the remittance schedule rather than sending it unless you buy Managed Payroll at $30 per employee. Rippling, a US HRIS now selling Canadian payroll with CRA and Revenu Québec remittances, T4, T4A and RL-1 slips and ROEs, is the other name on mid-market shortlists.

Published Canadian pricing runs from $0 plus $4.00 per employee per pay run (PaymentEvolution Growth, up to three employees, plus a $55 setup fee) to $50 plus $8 per employee (Knit Complete). Wagepoint is $20 plus $4 for monthly pay or $40 plus $6 otherwise, Wave is $25 plus $6, Knit Lite is $40 plus $6, and Employment Hero is $7 per employee with a $70 minimum. A team of eight paid every two weeks costs $52 to $88 a month across those tools. Payworks, ADP and Nethris quote, Rise publishes $8 per employee on its Start plan plus an unstated base fee, and QuickBooks Payroll shows its tier prices at checkout.

Wagepoint: a 14-day free trial, employees and year-to-date figures entered in an afternoon, and the CRA remittance schedule set once. One employee paid monthly costs $24. If you are already on QuickBooks Online, turning on QuickBooks Payroll is as easy and keeps everything in one login. Do not hand-calculate with the CRA payroll deductions calculator once you have a real employee; the remittance deadlines are where owners get penalised.

In our own practice, Wagepoint: it syncs two-way with Xero and QuickBooks Online so the payroll journal posts itself, it files rather than exports T4s and ROEs, and 30,000-plus businesses run on it. Knit and Rise are the other tools here with a real Xero integration. For QuickBooks-only firms, QuickBooks Payroll is the path of least resistance. Xero has no built-in Canadian payroll module, so every Xero firm pairs it with a payroll tool.

Wagepoint Unlimited at $40 plus $6 per employee ($100 a month for ten, $340 for fifty) if you want payroll only and an accounting sync. Employment Hero at $7 per employee ($70 to $350) if you want onboarding, time off and benefits with it. PaymentEvolution Business Basic is cheapest up to 25 employees on monthly or bi-weekly pay. Above 50, or with unions and several provinces, Payworks, Rise and ADP start to earn their quotes.

Not fully. PaymentEvolution's Growth plan has no monthly fee but charges $4.00 per employee per pay run and a $55 setup fee, so one employee paid monthly is $4.00 a month. The CRA's Payroll Deductions Online Calculator is free for working out deductions, but you still have to remit, file T4s and issue ROEs yourself. Wave Payroll is not free; it is $25 plus $6 per employee.

Yes, legally. You open a payroll account with the CRA, calculate CPP, EI and income tax with the CRA's online calculator each pay, remit by the 15th of the following month (regular remitters, which new employers are), file T4s by the last day of February and issue ROEs within five calendar days (of the first day of the interruption of earnings on paper, or of the end of the pay period in which it happened when filed electronically). Most owners stop after the first missed remittance: the penalty is 3% to 10% of the amount, generally on the part above $500. Software from $4 a month removes that risk.

Wagepoint, because it syncs two-way with QuickBooks Online as well as Xero and FreshBooks, publishes its price ($20 plus $4, or $40 plus $6) and files T4s, ROEs and RL-1s. Knit is the alternative if you also want onboarding and time off. Both survive a later move away from QuickBooks, which QuickBooks Payroll does not.

The CRA charges a penalty on the amount that was late: 3% if it is one to three days late, 5% at four or five days, 7% at six or seven days, and 10% if it is more than seven days late or never sent, rising to 20% for a second or later failure in the same calendar year made knowingly or through gross negligence, plus interest. The CRA generally applies it only to the part of the amount above $500, unless the failure was knowing or grossly negligent. Those are the rates in the CRA's T4001 employers' guide. Every payroll tool on this page that remits automatically exists to make that impossible.

Not as a built-in module. Xero's Canadian site routes payroll to its App Store partners, and Wagepoint is the one Xero features, with single sign-on and a payroll journal that posts to Xero after every pay run. Knit and Rise also connect to Xero. Canadian Xero users therefore pair Xero with one of those tools.

Not with Canadian payroll software. Deel pays contractors in 120-plus currencies at $49 per contractor a month and can employ someone in 130-plus countries through its Employer of Record at $599 per employee a month, handling that country's tax and compliance. Deel also sells an own-entity Global Payroll that covers Canada, priced by quote; for a domestic team the published tools above cost less. Your Canadian team stays on Wagepoint or whichever tool above you chose.