Free Payroll Software for Small Business in 2026: What Free Covers and What You Pay For

Free payroll software for small business is rare, and the word free usually covers part of the job. In Enlisted's data, free tiers from Homebase, Findmyshift and Jibble capture hours but leave payroll to a paid feature, Wave gives away accounting and charges for payroll, and open-source systems such as Frappe HR and Horilla are free to run but leave setup and compliance to you.

This guide is exact about where free ends for each tool, grouped by route: free hours tracking, free accounting with paid payroll, self-hosted open source, and low-cost paid payroll for when free runs out.

What free payroll software covers, and what it leaves out

Vendors list what their paid payroll products include. Homebase's payroll page lists automated tax calculation, filing and payment, direct deposit, printable checks, W-2s and 1099s, overtime calculations, multiple wage rates and new hire reporting. Wave's support pages say its payroll subscription includes direct deposit, tax calculation and automatic filing and payment of state and federal payroll taxes.

Those are the pieces you will not get from a free time clock or an unconfigured self-hosted system.

How we picked

Enlisted looked for tools that list payroll or hours-for-payroll as a job and that have a free tier, a free open-source licence or a free trial, then checked vendor pricing and payroll pages where they could be read. Licence, self-hosting and published pricing come from Enlisted's listings, and the cards show live data and plan limits. Tools that only invoice or split expenses were left out. See how Enlisted ranks tools. This is not tax advice.

Free tiers that capture hours for payroll

1. Homebase: best free tier that grows into payroll

Homebase is a hosted app that combines scheduling, time clocks, payroll and hiring for small businesses with hourly teams. It has a free Basic plan for a single location with a small team, and payroll is a paid feature, so you can start by collecting timesheets and add payroll when you are ready.

Because timesheets and payroll are in one app, hours do not need to be exported or re-typed. The payroll page describes US availability in all 50 states and Washington D.C.

• Best for: US businesses with hourly staff that want to start free and move to payroll in the same product.
• Watch out for: the free plan is not payroll. Check the employee cap on the free plan and which paid plan includes payroll.

2. Findmyshift: best free scheduler and time clock for very small teams

Findmyshift is rota and shift scheduling software with a drag-and-drop planner, time and attendance tracking, reminders and time off management. Its free plan covers very small teams, a free time clock station records hours on site, and reports use schedule data to track hours worked and labor cost, which feeds payroll.

It does not run payroll, so pair it with a payroll provider or an accountant who pays from your hours reports.

• Best for: a few employees whose pay is run by an accountant or a separate payroll product.
• Watch out for: the free plan has a team-size limit, and there is no payroll or tax filing.

3. Jibble: best free time tracking when you need clocking and attendance

Jibble is a time tracking and attendance app with timesheets, clocking in and out, GPS tracking, face recognition and time off management. It has a free plan, and its listing names tracking attendance for payroll among its uses.

Like Findmyshift, it stops at hours. Sling, which has a free scheduling tier and a time clock, sits in the same group.

• Best for: teams with remote or mobile staff that need clock-in records for payroll.
• Watch out for: time tracking only. Check the export format your payroll provider accepts.

Free accounting with paid payroll

4. Wave: best free bookkeeping to pair with a paid payroll subscription

Wave is accounting and invoicing software for small businesses with a free Starter plan, receipt scanning and online payments. Payroll for employees and contractors is a separate monthly subscription. Wave's support pages say it includes direct deposit and automatic payroll tax filing and payment for US businesses, and that you can try payroll for a limited period after your first payroll run before you activate billing.

So the accounting is free and the payroll is not. If you are choosing bookkeeping software at the same time, see the free accounting software guide.

• Best for: a sole proprietor or tiny team that wants free bookkeeping now and a US payroll product later.
• Watch out for: payroll is paid, and the free plan has fees on card payments.

Open-source payroll you run yourself

Self-hosted payroll costs no licence fee. It does cost a server, backups, upgrades and the work of setting tax rules correctly.

5. Frappe HR: best open-source HR and payroll for a team that can self-host

Frappe HR is an open-source HR and payroll system under GPL-3.0, with payroll built on salary structures, income tax slabs and salary slips, plus leave, attendance and expenses. You can self-host it for free or use managed Frappe Cloud hosting, which is billed per site rather than per user.

The vendor's page highlights India payroll with regional tax settings. For other countries you configure rules yourself, so ask an accountant to verify them.

• Best for: a business with technical help, a hosting plan and an accountant who can check the tax setup.
• Watch out for: no tax filing service, and the description gives no US filing support.

6. Horilla: best free self-hosted HR system with a payroll module

Horilla is a free, open-source human resource management system built with Python and Django, under LGPL-2.1. Its modules include recruitment, attendance with biometric integration, leave, payroll with tax calculations, performance and assets.

Its README describes Docker and manual installs and does not list supported countries or payslip formats. Neither Enlisted's listing nor the README mentions a hosted version, so plan to run it yourself.

• Best for: teams that want a single self-hosted HR system with payroll, and have someone to maintain it.
• Watch out for: the payroll module's country coverage is not documented in the sources checked, so test it with real pay scenarios first.

7. Keanan: best for a white-label HR platform with a free pilot

Keanan is a white-label HR platform covering payroll, contracts, time tracking, leave and benefits, which you can run in the vendor's cloud or on your own servers with Docker Compose. It is closed source, and the vendor offers a free pilot.

Its payroll features are scheduled salaries, monthly branded PDFs and year-end earnings statements. The description does not mention tax calculation or filing, so treat it as a payroll record system, not a tax filing service.

• Best for: businesses that want HR and payroll records under their own brand.
• Watch out for: a pilot is not a permanent free plan, and tax filing is not described.

Another open-source option, Ever Gauzy, is an AGPL-3.0 business management platform that mentions payroll among its topics. It is mainly an ERP, CRM and project system, so check what its payroll covers before relying on it.

When free stops: low-cost paid payroll

If you need tax filing and direct deposit, expect a paid product. These two are the paid options in Enlisted's data with the clearest small-business positioning.

8. Eddy: best paid HR and payroll with a free trial

Eddy is an all-in-one HR and payroll platform for small and midsize businesses. Its payroll imports hours, time off and deductions, calculates taxes and withholdings, and the vendor says it handles quarterly and annual tax filings, including W-2 and 1099-NEC preparation.

Enlisted lists a free trial, and payroll is priced as an add-on to the base plan.

• Best for: small businesses moving off spreadsheet-based HR and payroll.
• Watch out for: there is no free plan, and payroll costs extra on top of the base plan.

9. OnPay: best flat-rate payroll for predictable fees

OnPay is payroll and HR software for small US businesses, known for flat-rate pricing and full-service payroll. It pays employees and contractors, files payroll taxes and adds benefits administration and employee records.

The vendor's site blocked automated reading when Enlisted prepared the listing, so confirm current fees and supported states on its pricing page. See also Gusto and Patriot Software as paid small-business payroll options.

• Best for: small US employers who prefer a single predictable payroll fee.
• Watch out for: no free plan, and the fees are on the vendor's page rather than in Enlisted's data.

Which free payroll route should you choose?

• Only a few employees and an accountant who pays them: use a free hours tool such as Findmyshift or Jibble and send the reports.
• US business that wants to run payroll itself: budget for a paid product. Start with Homebase if you also need scheduling, or Wave if bookkeeping is the bigger need.
• You can host and maintain software: test Frappe HR or Horilla with a real pay period and have an accountant verify the tax setup.
• Restaurants or nonprofits: these have extra needs, covered in the guides to payroll software for restaurants and payroll software for nonprofits.

For the wider view, see HR software for small business, the best HR software guide and the HR category and finance category. Accountants managing several small clients can read the guide to payroll software for accountants.