QuickBooks Payroll pricing changes: Client payroll and HR management in QuickBooks

QuickBooks Online Payroll is now QuickBooks Workforce, evolving to reflect a more connected experience for your clients, bringing payroll, time tracking, and HR tools together in one place. As your clients grow their teams, managing employees shouldn't mean wrestling with multiple disconnected tools.

These updates are designed to simplify workforce management by reducing administrative overhead, improving accuracy, and providing better visibility into labor costs, all within QuickBooks.

Read below for more information about these upcoming product enhancements and pricing changes, including changes to QuickBooks Time for clients who use it.

QuickBooks Workforce (formerly QuickBooks Online Payroll)

Why are prices changing? 

QuickBooks Workforce brings payroll, time tracking, and HR tools together in a more connected, automated experience, giving your clients a single platform to manage their workforce instead of juggling multiple separate tools. To support this evolution and ongoing enhancements across the platform, we are updating our per-employee pricing.

By bringing these capabilities together, clients can potentially reduce overall costs by software consolidation and streamline operations, whether they use every feature or just the ones that fit their business today.

Importantly, the base subscription price is not changing. Clients can continue using the features that fit their needs now, while gaining access to more as they grow.

Why is QuickBooks Online Payroll changing its name to QuickBooks Workforce?

To better represent our expanded workforce management capabilities with a complete employee lifecycle solution—where hiring, onboarding, HR, and benefits are fully integrated with payroll and accounting— QuickBooks Online Payroll is now QuickBooks Workforce, with product plan names updated as follows: 

• Payroll Core → Workforce Payroll
• Payroll Premium → Workforce Premium
• Payroll Elite → Workforce Elite

No action is required—existing subscriptions will automatically update.

How are prices for QuickBooks Workforce changing? 

• Base subscription prices: No change
• Per-employee-per-month (PEPM) fees: see below

QuickBooks Workforce pricing

*Benefits Administration

• Beginning July 1, 2026, Benefits Administration will be available as an optional add-on for Workforce Premium, and Elite subscriptions. Initially, this add-on will be available to customers with 20 or more employees, with plans to expand in the coming year. 
• This fee applies to all active employees and will be billed in addition to the applicable Workforce subscription base price and PEPM fees above. 
• Benefits Administration is optional and will not be automatically enabled for existing subscriptions.
• $5.00 per-employee per-month fee not eligible for ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing program.

When do the new prices take effect?

The new pricing takes effect July 1, 2026, for new, client-billed, and accountant-billed QuickBooks Workforce Payroll, Premium, and Elite subscriptions.

What new capabilities are included in QuickBooks Workforce?

Here’s what you and your clients can expect from the newest capabilities in Workforce Premium and Elite:

• Unifies the full employee lifecycle: Attract, hire, onboard, develop, and offboard employees with a seamless, end-to-end experience. Replace disconnected tools with streamlined workflows that reduce HR overhead, cut payroll administrative work, and provide real-time visibility into labor costs—helping save time and reduce costs.
• Automates and simplifies workforce management on a single platform: Equip clients with a robust, integrated solution that brings together payroll, time tracking, time off, benefits, recruiting, hiring, performance management, and compliance—embedded directly within QuickBooks for a real-time, 360-degree view of their business.
• Enhanced time tracking and real-time insights: Improved location accuracy and real-time visibility allow teams to automatically track mileage on the go, while giving managers better insight into employee activity and labor data—helping drive more informed decisions.

Visit this accountant’s guide to the new HCM platform.

How will new clients be impacted? 

New QuickBooks Workforce or QuickBooks Time clients will receive a 6-month price protection period before the new rate takes effect. This applies to both client-billed and accountant-billed subscriptions. Price protection is based on the client’s product sign-up date (not when they are added to an accountant’s firm).

If the client signs up without a free trial:

Billing begins immediately, and the new price applies starting with the 7th invoice.

Example:

• Sign-up date: May 1
• Protected invoices (6): May, June, July, August, September, October
• New price effective: November 1 (7th invoice)

If the client signs up with a 30-day free trial:

The client receives one free month, followed by 6 months of price-protected billing. The new price applies starting with the 7th paid invoice.

Example:

• Sign-up date: May 1
• Free trial: May (no charge)
• Protected invoices (6): June, July, August, September, October, November
• New price effective: December 1 (7th paid invoice)

What happens if I’m using promotional pricing?

Promotional discounts will continue through the full promotion period. Once the promotion ends, the subscription will renew at the new price.

Will Intuit notify my clients?

• Client-billed subscriptions: Yes. Starting May 27, 2026, clients will receive an email from Intuit approximately 30 days before their renewal when the new pricing goes into effect.
• Accountant-billed subscriptions: No. These clients will not receive any communication from Intuit, so you can choose how and when to communicate these changes to them.

ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing program

How do these changes impact the ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing program (PAPP)?

There are no changes to ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing discount rates or revenue share percentages at this time. As subscription prices increase, revenue share amounts will increase proportionally.

Discount and revenue share percentages remain as follows: 

• Clients enrolled in revenue share/direct billed:
• 30% revenue share on base subscription for QuickBooks Workforce and QuickBooks Time (12 months)
• 15% revenue share on QuickBooks Workforce and QuickBooks Time per-employee fees (12 months)
• Accountant-billed:
• 30% ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing on base subscription for QuickBooks Workforce and QuickBooks Time (ongoing)
• 15% discount on QuickBooks Workforce and QuickBooks Time per-employee fees (ongoing)

Read more about the ProAdvisor Preferred revenue share program.

As a ProAdvisor, will I be able to use the HCM features included in Workforce Elite for my firm?

ProAdvisors' complimentary Payroll Elite subscription will become a Workforce Elite subscription, and you can continue to run payroll for your firm within QuickBooks Online Accountant and/or Intuit Accountant Suite at no additional cost.

HCM features will not be available in QuickBooks Online Accountant or Intuit Accountant Suite initially, but are expected to be added this summer.

QuickBooks Time

How are prices for QuickBooks Time changing?

• Base subscription: No change
• Per-employee-per-month (PEPM) fees: See below

QuickBooks Time Pricing

For all QuickBooks Time Premium and Elite plans, the price will increase by $2.00 per-employee-per-month. The QuickBooks Time base subscription price will not change.

The new pricing takes effect July 1, 2026, for new, client-billed, and accountant-billed QuickBooks Workforce Payroll, Premium, and Elite subscriptions.

Note: QuickBooks Time is included with QuickBooks Workforce Premium and Elite. The per-employee per-month fee above applies when QuickBooks Time is used with QuickBooks Online or as a standalone product but not as part of a QuickBooks Workforce subscription.

To learn more about the new HCM features, please visit An accountant’s guide to the new HCM platform article or the QuickBooks Workforce blog.

Disclaimers

The exact date of price change depends on the details of the individual subscription. Intuit will honor any promotional pricing through the duration of the applicable promotion. Once the promotion ends, the relevant price increase will go into effect as of the applicable subscription date.

This information is intended to outline our general product direction, but represents no obligation and should not be relied on when making a purchasing decision. Additional terms, conditions and fees may apply with certain features and functionality. Eligibility criteria may apply. Product offers, features, and functionality are subject to change without notice.

Terms, conditions, pricing, special features, and service and support options subject to change without notice.

Detailed annual subscription terms are included upon sign-up and on annual renewal notices.