Cheapest payroll for restaurants in 2026
Restaurants have payroll needs that break most cheap providers: tip reporting, tip credits, split shifts, and turnover-driven onboarding. This page ranks options that handle all of it.
What makes restaurant payroll different
Tip reporting (Form 8027)
Required for large food and beverage employers (10+ tipped employees). Most cheap providers do not handle this; Toast and Homebase do.
Tip credit calculations
Federal minimum wage is $2.13 for tipped employees if tips bring them to $7.25. State rules vary. Wage-tip math has to happen every pay period.
Split-shift tracking
Servers regularly clock in for two non-consecutive shifts in one day. The time clock has to handle this without breaking overtime calc.
Overtime on tipped wages
Overtime is 1.5x the full minimum wage rate, not 1.5x the tipped wage. Cheap payroll providers sometimes get this wrong.
High turnover
Restaurants average 70+ percent annual turnover. The onboarding flow has to be self-serve and fast.
Total monthly cost at 10 hourly employees
The headline cost is what you pay for payroll plus required time tracking. Time tracking is not optional for hourly staff, so providers that exclude it cost more than they appear to.
| Provider | Total / mo | Base | Time tracking | Tip handling |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Square Payroll Cheapest if you already use Square POS. Tips flow from POS to paycheck automatically. | $95 | $35 + $6/ee | Included | Yes (Square Team) |
Homebase Payroll Bundles scheduling + time tracking + payroll. Strongest for shift-heavy hourly teams. | $100 | $40 + $6/ee | Included (free) | Yes |
Patriot Full + Time Cheapest sticker, but the time-tracking add-on erases the saving for hourly staff. | $137 | $37 + $10 (incl. time add-on)/ee | $6/ee add-on | Manual entry |
Gusto Plus Required for built-in time tracking on Gusto. Polished but the most expensive option in this set. | $200 | $80 + $12/ee | Included | Yes |
Toast Payroll Built specifically for restaurants. Tightly tied to Toast POS. | Custom | From $69 + From $5/ee | Included via Toast POS | Native Toast tip flow |
The time-tracking trap
Cheap payroll plans often look cheap because they exclude time tracking. For restaurants with hourly staff, time tracking is mandatory infrastructure, not an optional add-on. A $17 per month Patriot Basic plus $6 per employee time tracking plus $30 per month tax filing for 10 employees works out to $137 per month, which is more than Square Payroll ($95) or Homebase ($100) with everything included.
The honest cheapest option for a 10-person restaurant is Square or Homebase. The Patriot or Gusto Simple sticker price is misleading at this use case.