ADP Payroll Pricing in Canada: What You'll Actually Pay in 2026

If you've searched for ADP payroll pricing in Canada, you've already noticed the problem: ADP doesn't publish its prices. You fill out a form, a sales rep calls you, and you get a custom quote that can look very different from what another business pays for the same headcount.

This post breaks down what ADP actually costs Canadian small businesses, what the hidden fees are, and what to compare it against before you sign anything.

Why ADP Doesn't List Its Prices

ADP's pricing is entirely quote-based. The number you get depends on your employee count, how often you run payroll, which province you're in, which plan tier you choose, and which add-ons the sales rep bundles in. That flexibility makes it genuinely hard to budget and even harder to comparison shop.

The ADP Canada website confirms this directly, every plan tier shows "Get pricing" rather than a published rate. The figures referenced in this post reflect user-reported quotes and third-party research and should be confirmed directly with ADP before any commitment.

ADP Canada's Plans for Small Businesses (1 to 49 Employees)

ADP's Canadian small business product comes in three tiers. Note that these are different from the US product (RUN Powered by ADP), which has different tier names and pricing.

• Enhanced is ADP Canada's entry-level plan for small businesses. It covers the essentials: payroll processing, direct deposit, tax filing and remittances, T4/Relevé year-end forms, Records of Employment, timesheets, employee access to pay history, and basic HR resources including regulatory alerts and provincial/federal compliance documents.
• Enhanced+ adds recruiting tools (job postings to 100+ sites, resume scanning), an employee handbook wizard, a job description builder, and a compliance tool. Note that the recruiting feature is not available in the Province of Quebec.
• HR Pro is the top tier, adding a dedicated HR helpdesk, five hours with employment lawyers through a SpringLaw partnership, proactive HR health checks twice per year, an employee and family assistance program through Homewood Health, and employee discount programs.

ADP Canada does not publish pricing for any of these tiers. All pricing requires a direct quote from their sales team at 866-622-8153.

What ADP Canada's Pricing Actually Looks Like

Because ADP doesn't publish Canadian rates, the best available estimates come from businesses who have shared their quotes publicly. Based on user reports and industry research, Canadian small businesses have reported:

• Entry-level plans starting in a range that, when converted from USD benchmarks, typically lands in the $100 to $200+ CAD per month range for businesses with 5 to 15 employees
• Per-run pricing structures where businesses paying biweekly are effectively charged per payroll cycle, meaning more frequent payroll schedules cost significantly more
• Pricing that rises materially at renewal after promotional periods

The important caveat: ADP's pricing is genuinely variable. Two businesses with the same headcount can receive very different quotes depending on the province, the features included, and the negotiating context. The only reliable number is the one on your specific quote.

The Hidden Costs Worth Understanding

The base fee and per-employee rate are rarely the full picture with ADP. Here are the additional costs that frequently appear:

• Per-payroll-run fees. ADP typically charges per run. If you run biweekly payroll, that's 26 runs per year. Weekly means 52. The difference can effectively double your annual payroll cost compared to a flat monthly provider.
• Off-cycle payroll runs. Bonuses, severance, or corrections run outside your normal schedule are typically charged separately.
• Implementation fees. Setup and onboarding costs for new ADP accounts have been reported as high as $2,000 depending on plan and migration complexity.
• Add-ons. Benefits administration, advanced time and attendance, and HR advisory features sit outside the base plans and can add meaningfully to the monthly total.
• Promotional terms. ADP currently offers three months of free payroll processing for new clients. The rate after the promotion ends can be substantially higher, confirm the post-promotional rate explicitly before signing.
• Quebec availability. The Employee Recruiting feature is not available in the Province of Quebec. If you operate there or have employees there, confirm what features apply to your situation.

What ADP Costs for a Typical Canadian SME: An Illustration

Because ADP's Canadian pricing is quote-only, any specific dollar figure is an estimate. That said, here is a realistic illustration for a 10-employee Ontario business running biweekly payroll on the entry-level Enhanced plan, based on available benchmarks:

Using a conservative estimate of $150 CAD per month base plus per-employee fees, a 10-person business running biweekly could expect to pay somewhere in the range of $2,000 to $3,000+ CAD per year before any add-ons. Businesses that need off-cycle runs, upgraded HR features, or more complex payroll structures will pay more.

Again: get a detailed written quote that specifies the base fee, per-run fees, year-end fees, off-cycle charges, and the post-promotional rate before comparing.

Why ADP Is Built for a Different Customer

ADP is a genuinely strong product for the right business. It scales to enterprise, handles multi-jurisdiction complexity well, has deep HR tooling at higher tiers, and has been around long enough that almost every accountant and HR professional knows how to use it.

But that scale works against it for most Canadian small businesses. The pricing model was designed for companies that need the full HR suite, performance management, benefits, recruiting, legal services. If you're a 10-person professional services firm that needs payroll run accurately and integrated with your accounting software, you're paying for a lot of infrastructure you'll never use.

The other issue is the Canadian fit. ADP is a US company with a Canadian operation. Its support structure, year-end processes, and product development priorities are calibrated for the US market first. Canadian-specific features like ROE filing, provincial tax handling, and CRA integration are covered, but they are not the core of what ADP was built around.

The Part No Payroll Software Solves: What Happens When Something Goes Wrong

Every payroll software, ADP included, is easy to use when payroll runs smoothly. The real question is what happens when it doesn't and who is responsible for fixing it.

With any self-serve payroll platform, the software processes what you input. The compliance, the judgement calls, and the CRA conversations are still yours to handle. Some of the situations our payroll team deals with regularly for clients that formerly ran their own payroll:

• CRA discrepancies and notices. CRA sends a notice saying your remittances don't match your T4 summary. Tracking down whether the gap is a software miscalculation, a timing issue, a data entry error, or a CRA processing error takes time and requires knowing exactly how to respond in writing.
• ROE errors. A Record of Employment filed with the wrong insurable hours or earnings can delay an employee's EI claim. Amending an ROE through Service Canada requires knowing the correct codes, the right process, and often a phone call to CRA that can take hours.
• Off-cycle complexity. Termination payouts involving vacation accruals, statutory notice pay, and severance are not always straightforward to calculate correctly, especially when provincial employment standards vary. Getting it wrong exposes you to employee complaints and potential CRA penalties.
• New hire and contractor classification. Whether a worker is an employee or a contractor has payroll tax consequences. Getting the classification wrong means you may owe source deductions, employer CPP and EI, and penalties retroactively.
• Taxable benefit calculations. Employer-paid health benefits, car allowances, and other perks need to be reflected correctly in payroll. Missing them understates employee income and creates T4 errors at year end.
• Year-end reconciliation issues. T4 slips that don't match CRA's records of your remittances throughout the year trigger reviews and sometimes audits. Reconciling the difference requires understanding both the payroll records and the CRA account history.

None of these situations are covered by your payroll software subscription, regardless of whether you're paying ADP $3,000 a year or Wagepoint $720. The software processed what you entered. The rest is on you, unless you have a payroll team.

Zenbooks manages payroll end-to-end for Canadian SMEs. That means we handle the processing, the CRA remittances, the ROEs, the year-end T4s, and the issues when they come up. If CRA sends a notice, we respond. If an ROE needs amending, we fix it. If a termination payout needs to be calculated correctly under Ontario or BC employment standards, we do the math.

For business owners who want payroll off their plate entirely, book a consultation to talk through what that looks like for your team size and payroll structure. We detail Zenbooks' payroll pricing clearly.

Canadian Alternatives Worth Comparing

For most Canadian small businesses, there are two payroll providers we recommend evaluating seriously before committing to ADP. We've compared ADP with Wagepoint here.

Wagepoint

Wagepoint is a Canadian payroll company built specifically for Canadian small businesses. Unlike ADP, it publishes its pricing openly with no custom quotes required.

Wagepoint has two plans, priced as a flat monthly subscription:

• Solo plan: $20/month + $4 per employee or contractor Best for businesses running one payroll per month. Includes direct deposit, automatic CPP/EI/income tax calculations and CRA remittances, T4s and T4As, Records of Employment, a reporting dashboard, and an employee self-service portal. Covers one pay group and one payroll run per month.
• Unlimited plan: $40/month + $6 per employee or contractor Best for businesses running payroll more than once a month. Includes everything in Solo plus unlimited payroll runs, unlimited pay groups, ROE submissions and full-service filing, and exclusive reporting insights. This is the right plan for businesses running biweekly or semi-monthly payroll.

Worked examples using the same 10-employee scenario:

• For a 10-employee business running monthly payroll on the Solo plan: $20 + (10 x $4) = $60/month, or $720/year
• For a 10-employee business running biweekly payroll on the Unlimited plan: $40 + (10 x $6) = $100/month, or $1,200/year

No setup fees, no year-end fees, no contracts. Support is included with every plan, in both English and French. Year-end T4s are included at no extra cost. Wagepoint serves Canada only, which means its CRA integration, ROE processes, and provincial compliance handling are built specifically for the Canadian regulatory environment.

What Wagepoint doesn't offer: HR advisory services, benefits administration, or recruiting tools. If you need those, you're looking at a separate HR platform alongside Wagepoint, or a higher-tier product.

For most Canadian SMEs running straightforward payroll for a Canadian-only team, the Wagepoint model is significantly more cost-effective than ADP, and the Canadian-first design means fewer workarounds for Canadian-specific compliance.

Payworks

Payworks is a Canadian payroll provider founded in Winnipeg, serving businesses across the country. It is particularly well-suited for businesses with 15 to 200 employees that want more HR functionality than Wagepoint offers, including time and attendance, scheduling, and HR management -- without the enterprise complexity of ADP.

Payworks pricing is quote-based, but user reports consistently put it below ADP for comparable Canadian businesses. Its support team and CRA processes are built for the Canadian market, and it has a strong track record with more complex payroll situations including union environments and provincial variations.

How Payroll Fits Into Your Broader Back-Office

Payroll doesn't live in isolation. Your payroll data flows into your bookkeeping (wage expenses, source deductions, employer CPP and EI contributions), your cash flow management, your year-end tax filings, and your financial statements.

The cleaner the integration between your payroll provider and your accounting software, the less manual work and the fewer errors. Wagepoint integrates directly with QuickBooks Online, which is the most common accounting platform for Canadian SMEs. Xero has similar integrations with both Wagepoint and Payworks.

If you're evaluating your payroll setup, it's usually worth looking at your whole back-office at the same time. Getting payroll and bookkeeping on compatible platforms with processes that connect cleanly typically saves more time and money than the difference in per-employee payroll fees alone.

The Bottom Line

ADP is not a bad product. For businesses that genuinely need its enterprise HR features, multi-jurisdiction complexity, or US-Canada cross-border operations, it earns its cost. But for the majority of Canadian small businesses running straightforward payroll for a Canadian-only team, the pricing model doesn't fit.

Before signing with ADP, get a written quote that explicitly includes per-run fees, year-end fees, off-cycle charges, and the post-promotional rate. Then compare that full number against Wagepoint or Payworks for your specific headcount and payroll frequency. For most SMEs under 50 employees, the gap is significant.

Zenbooks is an Ottawa-based accounting firm serving 300+ Canadian SMEs. We work with Wagepoint and Payworks as our preferred payroll partners for clients who need clean integration with their bookkeeping and tax processes. If you're evaluating your payroll setup as part of a broader back-office review, book a complimentary consultation with our team.