Managed Payroll · Compared
Enterprise-scale breadth against a mid-market HCM suite built around employee engagement. Honest referee breakdown before you pick a login.
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Contender One
ADP spans the full range of company sizes, from RUN, its small-business payroll product, up through Workforce Now and enterprise HCM. The pitch is consistency at any size: the same vendor as a company grows from ten employees to ten thousand, with tax filing, time tracking, and benefits administration layered on as needed.
None of it is published. ADP's small-business payroll page leads with a pricing request form rather than a rate, and every tier requires a census and a sales conversation. ADP remains software regardless of tier: hours entry, run review, and approval stay with your team every cycle.
Source: ADP's small-business payroll page, checked Sept 25, 2026
Contender Two
Paylocity targets growing mid-size companies with a single HCM suite: payroll, HR, benefits, and talent tools, wrapped around employee-facing features like a community feed and recognition tools meant to drive actual platform adoption, not just compliance. It does not publish per-employee pricing; every quote is scoped to company size and modules selected.
Paylocity added its own managed-services line, Elevate Solutions, on April 21, 2026. Elevate Payroll is Paylocity's team running payroll inside a client's own Paylocity account, a separate service quoted on top of the standard software.
Source: Paylocity investor relations, Elevate Solutions launch, checked Sept 25, 2026
Side by Side
| Factor | ADP | Paylocity |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll model | Self-service software, multiple tiers by company size | Self-service software, single suite |
| Pricing visibility | Quote-gated, no published price list | Quote-gated, no published rate |
| Who runs payroll (standard plan) | You: enter hours, review, approve each cycle | You: enter hours, review, approve each cycle |
| Vendor-run managed option | Yes, ADP Comprehensive Services, bundles HR and benefits | Yes, Elevate Payroll, launched April 2026, payroll-focused |
| Ideal company size | Small business through enterprise, tiered | Growing mid-size companies |
| Signature differentiator | Scale and ecosystem breadth | Employee engagement and self-service adoption tools |
Based on each company's published model, checked Sept 25, 2026. Both require a sales quote for exact pricing on your company.
How to Actually Decide
Lean ADP. It covers small business through enterprise under one brand, so a headcount jump does not force a new vendor search.
Lean Paylocity. Its engagement-first design, including the community feed and recognition tools, is built to get adoption, not just compliance.
Pause before picking either. Both are tools your team operates every cycle: data entry, review, approval. If the goal is to remove that work entirely, you are comparing the wrong category of product.
Comparing other platforms too? See ADP vs Rippling or Paycor vs Paylocity.
The Referee's Close
If you want software, ADP and Paylocity solve different problems: one is scale and consistency across every company size, one is a single suite built to get employees actually opening the app. But either way, you still enter hours, review every run, and approve every cycle, and neither company publishes a price until a sales conversation happens.
If instead you want payroll run for you, inside your existing system, at a flat rate you can see before you talk to anyone, that is BEG managed payroll: $25-$45 PEPM, all-inclusive, every filing and every W-2 handled. No co-employment, no software login for your team, no quote gate.
See your exact monthly & annual price - no call required
Questions
Neither publishes pricing. Both require a census, headcount, and module selection before a sales rep can quote your company. Get quotes for the same inputs from both before comparing totals.
Both are software you or your team operate directly. You enter hours, review each run, and approve it every cycle. Neither takes payroll off your desk the way a fully managed service does.
Yes. ADP sells ADP Comprehensive Services, which bundles payroll with HR, benefits, and talent management. Paylocity launched Elevate Payroll on April 21, 2026, a narrower, payroll-focused managed tier. Both are quoted separately from the standard software.
Paylocity leans on employee-facing engagement tools, a community feed, and recognition features to drive self-service adoption. ADP's differentiator is breadth and scale: one vendor across every company size, with a service organization built to match.
BEG is not a party to either platform. If what you want is payroll run for you instead of software you operate, BEG managed payroll is the alternative: a flat $25-$45 PEPM, all-inclusive, inside your existing system, with an instant on-screen estimate instead of a sales quote.
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