PEO Cost / Justworks

Justworks PEO cost 2026: PEPM pricing by plan and team size

Justworks publishes its PEO pricing openly: $79 per employee per month on PEO Basic, $124 on PEO Plus, neither with a base fee. That transparency is rare in the PEO category, where ADP TotalSource, Insperity, and TriNet all require sales calls before any number. This page walks through what each tier includes, the math at 10 to 100 employees, and how Justworks compares to a configured stack of Gusto plus a benefits broker.

Published Justworks pricing, as of 22 September 2026

Read live from justworks.com/pricing on 22 September 2026. Both PEO prices below are per employee per month and Justworks marks each tier No base fee. We previously published Plus at $109; that figure was out of date and has been corrected to $124 here and everywhere else on this site.

Two other plans sit on the same page and are not PEO. Justworks Payroll is $8 per employee per month plus a $50 per month base fee, and buys payroll and HR tools without co-employment or PEO benefits. EOR is $599 per employee per month for full-time international hires, sold as an add-on to Basic and Plus. Paid add-ons are rated separately on top of any plan: advanced time tracking $8 per employee per month, dedicated HR consulting $30 per employee per month (Basic and Plus only), international contractors $39 per paid contractor per month, US-based contractors $8 per paid contractor per month, and ICHRA health insurance reimbursements $25 per enrolled employee per month. Recheck the live page before signing.

Tier	Per employee / month	What it covers
PEO Basic	$79	Co-employment payroll, tax filings, access to workers' comp, EPLI, state unemployment insurance administration, compliance alerts, basic timecards, PTO management, onboarding, standard HR consulting, 24/7 support, 401(k), commuter benefits, life and disability. No access to medical, dental or vision insurance.
PEO Plus	$124	Everything in Basic plus access to medical insurance, access to dental and vision insurance, health insurance administration, COBRA administration, mental health resources, health advocacy services, and fertility benefits where available.

Total monthly cost at common team sizes

Both tiers worked out at four common employee counts. Benefits cost (medical premiums, 401(k) employer match) is not included, it passes through directly to the carriers and providers separately.

Employees	Basic ($79)	Plus ($124)
10	$790 / mo	$1,240 / mo
25	$1,975 / mo	$3,100 / mo
50	$3,950 / mo	$6,200 / mo
100	$7,900 / mo	$12,400 / mo

The honest case for Justworks at 25 to 75 employees

The PEO category exists because four functions (payroll, benefits, HR compliance, workers' comp) are typically the worst use of a founder's or COO's time, and a PEO consolidates them into a single relationship. Justworks does this on the most transparent published terms in the category, though at $124 on Plus it is no longer the cheapest way to buy a PEO.

For a 40-employee tech-adjacent business, Justworks Plus at $124 per employee per month is $4,960 monthly, or roughly $60,000 per year. The functions this replaces if you were running them standalone: payroll provider ($380 monthly on Gusto Plus), benefits broker ($0 to $500 monthly), HR consultant or fractional CHRO ($2,000 to $5,000 monthly), workers' comp broker (commission-funded), employee handbook and policy templates (one-off $500 to $2,000), benefits negotiation across 5-10 carriers annually (10 to 30 hours of HR time). The standalone equivalent costs $2,800 to $5,900 per month plus a meaningful amount of in-house HR time.

Justworks at $4,960 sits within the range of that standalone stack on raw monthly cost. The value proposition is the consolidation, the single point of contact, and the access to Fortune 500-tier benefits pricing that small businesses cannot get on their own. For most 25 to 75 employee businesses, that bundle is worth paying for.

Justworks vs TriNet vs Insperity at 50 employees

At 50 employees, the three main mid-market PEO competitors land close to each other on quoted price. Justworks Plus at $124 per employee is $6,200 monthly. TriNet PEPM lands around $120 to $200 per employee depending on industry and configuration, so $6,000 to $10,000 monthly. Insperity is similar at $70 to $150 PEPM, so $3,500 to $7,500 monthly. Justworks no longer undercuts the other two the way it did at $109; it now sits at the bottom of TriNet's range rather than below it.

The honest differences: Insperity tends to be cheapest on opening quote but has more limited benefits flexibility. TriNet specialises by industry vertical (tech, professional services, financial services, life sciences, nonprofit) with industry-tuned plans. Justworks has the modern interface and the published pricing that makes budgeting easy. None of the three is dramatically cheaper than the others; pick on fit with your industry, benefits priorities, and operational style.

Where Justworks is not the right answer

Below 10 employees, the PEPM math gets expensive relative to standalone tools. Justworks Plus at $124 per employee for an 8-person team is $992 monthly, where Gusto Plus plus a $500 broker fee is $596 monthly. The PEO value is real but for an 8-person company most of the value goes unused.

Above 100 employees, Justworks is technically capable but typically more expensive than negotiated TriNet or Insperity quotes, and significantly more expensive than ADP TotalSource for similar service. At 150+ employees, you are paying for Fortune 500-grade benefits access that you could increasingly negotiate directly with carriers as your own group.

Tech companies that have built strong in-house HR functions and want best-in-class point tools (Carta for equity, Workday or Lattice for performance, Rippling for IT plus payroll) often find PEOs constraining because the bundled HR layer overlaps with the in-house tools. For that profile, Rippling plus a separate benefits broker plus a fractional CHRO is a common alternative.

Co-employment trade-offs to understand before signing

The PEO model is co-employment: Justworks becomes the employer of record for tax and benefits purposes, while you remain the worksite employer for day-to-day work direction. Practically, this means three things change. First, your EIN is no longer on employee paychecks (Justworks's EIN appears). Second, in most states the unemployment insurance experience rating transfers to Justworks's pooled rating, which may be higher or lower than your own depending on history. Third, benefits and HR decisions are made within Justworks's policy framework rather than your own.

These trade-offs are usually fine, sometimes meaningful. The unemployment insurance transfer can save money for companies with bad UI experience histories and cost money for companies with clean histories. The benefits framework constraint is real if you have strong preferences about specific health plans or 401(k) providers. Worth understanding before signing rather than after.

Where to go next

TriNet PEO cost

Industry-vertical PEO competing for the same 25-150 employee buyer.

Insperity PEO cost

HR-consulting-heavy PEO often cheapest on opening quote.

PEO vs payroll service

The full PEO-vs-standalone decision framework.

Payroll cost for 25 employees

Where PEO begins to become a real consideration.

Justworks cost FAQs

Is Justworks pricing really PEPM (per employee per month)?

Yes. Unlike ADP TotalSource or Paychex PEO which price as a percentage of total payroll, Justworks uses a flat per-employee-per-month rate published openly: $79 PEO Basic and $124 PEO Plus. Both tiers are marked no base fee on the pricing page. (Justworks' separate non-PEO Payroll plan does carry a base fee, $50 a month on top of $8 per employee, but that is a different product.) This makes Justworks the most predictable PEO pricing in the category and the only one you can budget on without a sales call.

Does Justworks cost more or less than a percentage-based PEO?

It depends on average salary. PEPM (flat per employee) gets relatively cheaper as salaries rise. Percentage-of-payroll gets relatively more expensive as salaries rise. For a team averaging $60,000 salary, ADP TotalSource at 6 percent of payroll is roughly $300 per employee per month, where Justworks Plus at $124 is dramatically cheaper. For a team averaging $25,000 salary (restaurants, retail), ADP TotalSource at 6 percent is $125 per employee per month, effectively level with Justworks Plus at $124. Higher-paid teams almost always benefit from PEPM pricing.

What is included in Basic versus Plus?

Basic at $79 per employee per month includes co-employment payroll, federal and state tax filings, access to workers' compensation, EPLI, state unemployment insurance administration, federal and state compliance alerts, basic timecards, PTO management, onboarding, standard HR consulting, 24/7 support, and employee self-service. It also already includes 401(k), commuter benefits, and life and disability insurance. Plus at $124 is what adds access to medical insurance, access to dental and vision insurance, health insurance administration, COBRA administration, mental health resources, health advocacy services, and fertility benefits where available. The $45 gap between the tiers is the benefits-access gap, not a general feature gap. Note that HSA and FSA access, and advanced time tracking, are paid add-ons on both tiers rather than bundled into either.

Is Justworks cheaper than running standard Gusto plus a benefits broker?

For a 25-employee tech company, Justworks Plus at $124 per employee per month is $3,100 monthly. Gusto Plus at $80 base plus $12 per employee is $380 monthly, plus a benefits broker fee of $0 to $500 monthly (most are commission-funded from the carrier). So Justworks costs roughly $2,720 more per month for the bundled HR consulting, dedicated success consultant, workers' comp consolidation, and benefits administration depth. Whether that is worth it depends on how much you value the unified PEO model versus a configured stack of standalone tools.

Does Justworks have a minimum number of employees?

For the PEO, Justworks states you need at least two full-time or part-time W-2 employees to sign up. Its separate non-PEO Payroll plan has no stated minimum: Justworks says any size company can be on it. Part-time employees, which Justworks defines as 29 or fewer expected hours per week, are billed at $79 each on both PEO Basic and PEO Plus and are not benefits-eligible on either tier, so a part-timer costs the same on Plus as on Basic without getting the benefits access that Plus is bought for.

What benefits does Justworks actually negotiate?

On the Plus tier, Justworks publishes access to medical, dental and vision coverage through large-group or small-group plans, plus health insurance administration, COBRA administration, health advocacy services, and fertility benefits where available. It does not publish which carriers sit behind those plans, or a percentage saving against open-market small-business rates, so treat any specific carrier name or discount figure you see quoted elsewhere as unverified until it appears in your own quote. Actual premiums are rated against your specific census. On Basic, benefits access is limited to 401(k), commuter benefits, and life and disability; medical, dental and vision are not available on that tier at all.

Can I leave Justworks easily?

Yes, contracts are typically annual with monthly billing and no early termination fee in most cases. The harder part of leaving is the operational transition: re-establishing your own EIN as the sole employer of record, transferring the benefits to your own broker, taking on workers' comp directly. Plan a 60 to 90 day transition window when leaving any PEO.