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ADP payroll pricing is quote-only for its main products: ADP publishes no dollar figure for any RUN package, any Workforce Now edition or any larger platform, and the only price on an ADP page today is Roll by ADP at $39 a month plus $5 per employee. That published line works out to $64 a month at five employees, $89 at ten and $164 at 25. On top of any subscription, the employer funds payroll taxes that are set by statute, not by ADP.
The quote itself is driven by the package tier, payroll frequency, headcount, contractor count, states and add-ons, in roughly that order of weight. Quotes Forbes Advisor obtained by phone in 2026 came to $150 a month plus $3.25 per user for a 10-person company on RUN’s Essential and Enhanced packages, and ADP’s own pages publish no RUN figure at all. A fair read of ADP payroll pricing starts with the one published price and holds every quote against it.
ADP pricing at a glance
| Product | Built for | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| Roll by ADP | Very small teams, unlimited runs, all 50 states | $39 a month plus $5 per employee |
| RUN Essential Payroll | 1 to 49 employees, payroll and tax filing | Quote only |
| RUN Enhanced Payroll | Adds state unemployment insurance management, garnishment payment | Quote only |
| RUN Complete Payroll & HR Plus | Adds HR help desk, employee handbook, salary benchmarks | Quote only |
| RUN HR Pro Payroll & HR | Adds applicant tracking, learning, legal support | Quote only |
| ADP Workforce Now | 50 to 999 employees, Select, Plus and Premium tiers | Quote only |
| ADP Lyric HCM | Large enterprises | Quote only |
| ADP Global Payroll | International and multistate payrolls | Quote only |
| ADP TotalSource | The PEO option, co-employment with benefits | Quote only |
Every cell in this table comes from ADP’s own pages read in October 2026, and together they answer how much ADP payroll costs: one published price, eight quotes. Quote only means quote only: the RUN packages page shows what each tier includes and a “Get pricing” button where a price would be. Roll is the one exception, and it is a separate ADP app for very small teams, not a RUN tier, so its published price never transfers to the products that quote.
RUN packages compared
All four RUN packages include the payroll basics: paycheck processing, tax filing, new hire reporting, W-2 and 1099 filing and support around the clock. The tiers differ by HR depth, not by payroll capability, and every one of the RUN pricing plans quotes on the RUN packages page. What each tier adds, per ADP’s own comparison:
- Essential Payroll: payroll, taxes and compliance basics for small businesses
- Enhanced Payroll, flagged by ADP as its most popular: adds state unemployment insurance management, a garnishment payment service, check signing, job costing, ZipRecruiter and electronic Form I-9
- Complete Payroll & HR Plus: adds an HR help desk, an employee handbook wizard, salary benchmarks and HR training
- HR Pro Payroll & HR: adds an applicant tracking system, a learning management system and legal support
The pricing model sits in the same page’s FAQ: “Payroll software pricing depends on how frequently you run payroll, how many people you’re paying and how often you add or remove payees”, and add-on services “will also affect the total price”. Contractor payments run on a bundle that charges “a monthly base price, plus a per-contractor fee”, with year-end processing fees on top, and W-2 and 1099 forms are created and e-filed for an “additional fee” on every tier. Four add-ons price separately on every tier as well: time and attendance, retirement, workers’ compensation and health insurance, and none of them carries a published figure either.
The fees beyond the quote
ADP payroll quotes can carry hidden fees beyond the base subscription, and the categories come from ADP’s own payroll cost article, updated August 28, 2026, which lists the services that often bill separately. None of them prints a dollar amount on any ADP page. ADP names these fee categories:
- Direct deposit and paycheck printing or delivery
- Automatic check signing
- Tax filing
- Year-end processing, meaning Forms W-2 and 1099
- Off-cycle payroll runs
- Multi-state payroll service
- Time tracking, benefits administration and accounting software integrations
- New hire reporting, which some providers file at no added cost and others treat as an add-on
New hire reporting is the clearest example of quote variance: federal law, 42 U.S.C. 653a, requires employers to report new or rehired employees to the designated state directory of new hires within 20 days of the hire, and ADP notes that some payroll providers file these reports at no added cost while others consider them an add-on service.
Two promotions are live currently, both time-bound. Small-business payroll carries an offer ADP words as “Get up to 6 months FREE when you sign up for small business payroll”, with terms and a stated end date of November 26, 2026 on the packages page.
Roll runs its own “Try 3 months free” offer under its own terms, live on its pricing page in October 2026. A promotion lowers the quote for a while, but it is not a published price: the underlying RUN figures stay quote-only either way.
Larger ADP products
Past roughly 50 employees the product becomes ADP Workforce Now, sold in Select, Plus and Premium tiers, and every one of those Workforce Now tiers prices the same way RUN does: by quote, with no published price on any ADP page. What moves between the tiers is service scope, not the pricing model, per ADP’s payroll product index: benefits administration, mobile time collection and scheduling widen out, and talent and performance tooling joins as add-ons priced into the quote.
Above Workforce Now, ADP sells Lyric HCM for large enterprises, Global Payroll for international and multistate payrolls, Comprehensive Services for outsourced payroll and HR, and SmartCompliance as a tax and compliance add-on. ADP TotalSource is the professional employer organization (PEO) option: under co-employment the PEO becomes the legal employer for HR, payroll and benefits purposes, a different liability split from payroll software and from an employer of record (EOR).
None of these larger products publishes a price, so the same rule carries up the ladder: the bigger the platform, the more the quote turns on headcount, states, integrations and service level, and the less any published figure exists to check it against.
Cost comparison
| Employees on payroll | Roll by ADP per month | Roll by ADP per year |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | $64 | $768 |
| 10 | $89 | $1,068 |
| 25 | $164 | $1,968 |
Roll’s published price is a $39 base plus $5 per employee, so the monthly column is that base plus $5 times the headcount: $64 at five employees, $89 at ten, $164 at 25, and the yearly column multiplies each by 12. Unlimited payroll runs are included on Roll, so headcount is the only variable. The figures are ADP’s own, read in October 2026 on its Roll pricing page.
For RUN, the only published benchmark is third-party: quotes Forbes Advisor obtained by phone in 2026 came to $150 a month plus $3.25 per user for a 10-person company on both the Essential and Enhanced packages, about $182.50 a month at that headcount, roughly double Roll’s published line. ADP’s own pages publish no RUN figure, so the Forbes number is a research finding, not an ADP price.
Service is what the gap buys: ADP’s own comparison of payroll options ranks a payroll provider as “typically the highest cost option” with “generally the highest level of support”, in its payroll cost article. The practical move is to hold any RUN quote against the Roll line at your headcount and make the quote show which fee categories from the list above are inside it.
Legal compliance in the US
Employer payroll taxes come on top of any ADP subscription, and they are set by law, not by ADP, which is why the subscription is the smaller part of payroll cost. For 2026, the federal employer share is 6.2% for Social Security on wages up to $184,500 and 1.45% for Medicare with no wage cap, and federal unemployment insurance runs at a net 0.6% on the first $7,000 of wages per employee once the credit for state unemployment taxes applies, per IRS Publication 15, the employer’s tax guide.
ADP’s own worked example shows the stack: a $75,000 salaried employee in Florida costs an estimated $92,018.50 in annual payroll cost, of which $5,968.50 is employer taxes at ADP’s assumed rates, including a 2.7% Florida state unemployment rate. State unemployment rates vary by state and by each employer’s history, so ADP’s Florida figure is an illustration, not a universal rate. The same example adds $2,250 in employer-paid benefits, $7,250 in insurance costs, $1,000 in other employment costs and $550 in payroll fees, per ADP’s cost article.
Remote teams multiply the state layer: every state an employee sits in brings its own registration, unemployment rate and withholding, which is where multi-state payroll processing starts costing admin time. A few states also apply the convenience-of-employer rule, which can tax a worker based on where the employer sits rather than where the employee works.
ADP lists multi-state payroll among its fee categories, and new hire reporting is a per-state obligation, so growing across states raises the service fee along with the tax bill.
RUN runs on US payroll forms, the W-2s and 1099s ADP e-files with the IRS, so the first hire outside the country needs a different route. The choices for paying international employees run from an employer of record to a local entity, and teams paying across many countries compare providers in the global payroll platforms roundup.
Scaling framework
| Stage | Headcount | ADP product | Trigger to move |
|---|---|---|---|
| First hires | 1 to 10 | Roll or RUN | Self-serve app versus full-service quote |
| Growing team | 10 to 49 | RUN Enhanced or Complete | HR help desk and state unemployment insurance needs |
| Mid-size | 50 to 999 | Workforce Now | Benefits and scheduling across teams |
| Enterprise | 1,000 and up | Lyric HCM | The full platform and global entities |
| Hiring abroad | Any headcount | EOR or global payroll | First employee outside the US |
ADP’s plans split by team size, but the trigger matters more than the headcount, because each quote is priced per team. A five-person team that wants HR support may fit a RUN quote better than Roll’s self-serve app, and a 40-person team with no HR needs may never need Complete. The one fixed crossover is geographic: the first employee outside the US ends RUN’s coverage entirely, whatever the headcount.
How to price your quote
A quote is the only price ADP offers on RUN and Workforce Now, so the work is making it comparable: the same inputs gathered before the call, held against the one published ADP price at your own headcount. Five inputs decide most of the number.
1. Count your payees by type
Split the headcount into W-2 employees and 1099 contractors first, because ADP bills the two differently: employees ride the package base plus per-employee fee, while the contractor bundle charges its monthly base plus a per-contractor fee.
2. List your states
Write down every state you will register in, including states holding a single employee, because multi-state payroll is one of the fee categories ADP names and each state adds its own registration and unemployment rate.
3. Fix your payroll frequency
Set the run cadence before the call, since ADP names how frequently you run payroll as a first pricing factor, and a biweekly team quotes differently from a monthly one.
4. Price the add-ons you need
List only the add-ons the team will actually use from the four on every RUN tier, time and attendance, retirement, workers’ compensation and health insurance, since each prices into the quote separately.
5. Hold the quote against Roll
Ask for the total at your exact headcount, set it against the one published ADP price, Roll’s line, and make the quote state in writing which fee categories are inside it: year-end forms, off-cycle runs, new hire reporting, multi-state service.
FAQ
Inside ADP, monthly payroll cost runs from $64 to $164 at small headcounts on the published Roll price of $39 a month plus $5 per employee, and the one third-party benchmark, quotes Forbes Advisor obtained by phone in 2026, put a 10-person RUN plan at $150 a month plus $3.25 per user, about $182.50 a month. ADP publishes no monthly figure for RUN or Workforce Now, so every number for those products is a quote, not a price.
ADP charges for full-service payroll: its own comparison ranks a payroll provider as “typically the highest cost option” with “generally the highest level of support”, per its payroll cost article. The fee buys tax filing, compliance handling and multi-state service rather than software alone, and the quote is where those lines show up, which is why the fee categories above are worth demanding in writing.
Yes, for US teams that want full-service processing, multi-state coverage and HR tooling in one place, with the limits stated plainly: no published prices except Roll’s, year-end W-2 and 1099 form fees, contractor fees beyond the base, and US-only payees in RUN. Teams that mainly need self-serve runs at small headcounts may fit Roll better, and teams hiring abroad need a different route entirely.
Within ADP’s lineup, the cheapest published option is Roll by ADP at $39 a month plus $5 per employee on its pricing page. Across the wider market, no honest page can print a price list the vendors themselves do not publish, so the comparison worth making is a self-serve app’s published price against a full-service quote at your own headcount.
