Restaurant payroll: what it costs with a big part-time team

Payroll for 20 restaurant staff in one state, taxes filed for you

1. 1.Patriot Payroll Full Service Payroll $137/mo$1,644 a year
2. 2.Roll by ADP Roll $139/mo$1,668 a year
3. 3.Square Payroll Full-service payroll $155/mo$1,860 a year

Built for restaurants: Toast’s POS + Payroll bundle is $270 a month for 20 staff at its regular price, and only works with Toast POS. Roll by ADP is $139 and says it supports tipped wages, cash and charged tips. Homebase adds payroll to its scheduling app. Details below.

What payroll costs for 10, 20 and 30 staff

Service and plan	10 peoplea month	20 peoplea month	30 peoplea month
Patriot Payroll ↗ Full Service Payroll Each extra state: $12 a month Basic Payroll: you file the taxes yourself Promotion: 30-day free trial, then 50% off for 3 months Who: Not stated beyond new customers. Ends: no end date published. After: The regular price above. Offer terms Visit Patriot Payroll	$87$1,044/yr	$137$1,644/yr	$187$2,244/yr
Roll by ADP ↗ Roll Promotion: 3 months free Who: US businesses that have never used Roll by ADP. Cancel during the trial and you lose the rest of it. Ends: no end date published. After: The regular price above. Offer terms Visit Roll by ADP	$89$1,068/yr	$139$1,668/yr	$189$2,268/yr
Square Payroll ↗ Full-service payroll Visit Square Payroll	$95$1,140/yr	$155$1,860/yr	$215$2,580/yr
Gusto ↗ Simple Simple covers one state only Visit Gusto	$109$1,308/yr	$169$2,028/yr	$229$2,748/yr
OnPay ↗ Payroll Essentials Promotion: One month free Who: Not stated (offer terms not on the pricing page). Ends: no end date published. After: The regular price above. Offer terms Visit OnPay	$109$1,308/yr	$169$2,028/yr	$229$2,748/yr
Homebase Payroll ↗ Payroll add-on (to any Homebase plan, incl. $0 Basic) Requires a Homebase plan (the $0 Basic plan covers 1 location and up to 10 employees) Promotion: 6 months of free payroll, then $29 a month + $6 per employee paid instead of $49 + $6 (ends Dec 15, 2026) Who: Teams of 5 or fewer not already on a paid Homebase payroll plan, who finish payroll setup by Dec 15, 2026 and run a first payroll by Jan 20, 2027. Pay more than 5 people and the standard price applies. After: $29 a month + $6 per employee paid while you pay 5 or fewer people; $49 + $6 otherwise. Offer terms Visit Homebase Payroll	$109$1,308/yr	$199$2,388/yr	$259$3,108/yr
Toast Payroll ↗ POS + Payroll bundle Requires Toast POS Promotion: $69 a month + $9 per employee for the POS + Payroll bundle Who: New restaurants (the page does not define who counts). Ends: no end date published. After: The regular price above ($90 a month base); the page does not say whether the $9 per employee also changes. Offer terms Visit Toast Payroll	$180$2,160/yr	$270$3,240/yr	$360$4,320/yr

Regular prices for one state, employees only, from each provider's own pricing page (checked Oct 22 to 23, 2026; ↗ opens it). Sorted by the yearly cost for 20 people, which adds fees billed once a year. "Not offered" means that plan does not cover that team size. Promotions are shown as a separate line and disappear when they end; tap one for its terms, including its end date or that none is published.

The per-person fee decides this table. At 20 staff, every $1 of per-person fee costs you $240 a year, which is why a low base fee matters less to a restaurant than to a two-person office.

Seasonal restaurants should also check what happens in a slow month. Square Payroll offers free seasonal inactivity on its full-service plan. Patriot Payroll charges only its base fee in months you don’t run payroll. Roll by ADP and Homebase bill per employee paid, so you pay for the people you actually pay that month.

Tips: what each service says

Tips are where restaurant payroll differs most, and the pricing pages say little about them. Here is everything they say:

• Roll by ADP lists “Tipped wage support, including cash and charged tips” on its pricing page.
• Toast describes “integrated payroll and tips manager” in its POS + Payroll bundle.
• Square Payroll lists “Direct-tip tracking and importing” as included on its full-service plan.
• Homebase sells a Tip Manager add-on at $25 a month per location, which it says “automatically pulls tips from your POS, calculates the tip pool, and adds it to timesheets.”
• Gusto, OnPay and Patriot Payroll don’t mention tips on the pricing pages we read. They may well handle them; ask how cash tips get reported, and whether tip credit is calculated for you, before you sign.

Why it matters: under federal law you can pay a tipped employee a cash wage as low as $2.13 an hour, as long as tips make up the rest of the minimum wage (US Department of Labor, Fact Sheet 15). Your payroll service has to track that. State rules can differ, so check yours too.

The restaurant-specific options

Toast POS + Payroll bundle

	People paid
Plan	10	20	30
POS + Payroll bundle $90 a month + $9 per employee States: Not stated	$180	$270	$360

Promotion, not the regular price: $69 a month + $9 per employee for the POS + Payroll bundle. Who: New restaurants (the page does not define who counts). Ends: no end date published. After: The regular price above ($90 a month base); the page does not say whether the $9 per employee also changes. Offer terms

Monthly cost at the regular price, one state, employees only. From Toast Payroll's pricing page, checked Oct 22, 2026.

The regular price is $90 a month + $9 per employee, and it includes the Toast POS software. Toast doesn’t publish a price for payroll on its own, so if you don’t use Toast POS this isn’t an option. If you do, compare the bundle against your current POS fee plus a separate payroll service. Toast covers fines up to $4,000 if your first quarterly tax filing isn’t accepted, per its payroll page.

Choosing a POS at the same time? See restaurant POS systems and what Toast costs.

Homebase payroll

	People paid
Plan	10	20	30
Payroll add-on (to any Homebase plan, incl. $0 Basic) $49 a month + $6 per employee States: Not stated	$109	$199	$259

Promotion, not the regular price: 6 months of free payroll, then $29 a month + $6 per employee paid instead of $49 + $6. Who: Teams of 5 or fewer not already on a paid Homebase payroll plan, who finish payroll setup by Dec 15, 2026 and run a first payroll by Jan 20, 2027. Pay more than 5 people and the standard price applies. Ends: Dec 15, 2026. After: $29 a month + $6 per employee paid while you pay 5 or fewer people; $49 + $6 otherwise. Offer terms

Monthly cost at the regular price, one state, employees only. From Homebase Payroll's pricing page, checked Oct 23, 2026.

Homebase is a scheduling and time clock app, and payroll is an add-on to any Homebase plan, including its $0 Basic plan. That suits a restaurant already scheduling shifts in Homebase. The catch: Basic covers one location and up to 10 employees, so a bigger team also pays for a paid plan. The prices above include the cheapest, Essentials, at $30 per location a month billed monthly, from 11 staff on. Homebase’s pricing page says it can automatically file taxes but doesn’t list which filings, so ask.

Roll by ADP

	People paid
Plan	10	20	30
Roll $39 a month + $5 per employee States: Any number	$89	$139	$189

Promotion, not the regular price: 3 months free. Who: US businesses that have never used Roll by ADP. Cancel during the trial and you lose the rest of it. Ends: no end date published. After: The regular price above. Offer terms

Monthly cost at the regular price, one state, employees only. From Roll by ADP's pricing page, checked Oct 22, 2026.

Roll is ADP’s self-serve app, run through chat on your phone. It’s the only service here that names cash and charged tips on its pricing page, and it includes time tracking and payroll in all 50 states.

Who should pick what

• Already on Toast POS: price the bundle against Toast POS alone plus Roll or Patriot. The bundle wins only if its payroll part costs less than a separate service.
• Scheduling in Homebase: the add-on keeps shifts and pay in one place; with more than 10 staff or a second location, the paid plan it needs is $30 per location a month.
• Lowest cost for a big team: Patriot Payroll Full Service and Roll by ADP have the lowest per-person fees in this table.
• Staff in more than one state: Square Payroll, OnPay and Roll by ADP include more states at no extra cost. Gusto Simple covers one state, and Patriot charges for each added state.

Price your exact team, including contractors, in the payroll cost calculator, or see every payroll service compared.