HR AI Index

Index › Vendors › Payroll4Free · September 2026 Edition

1 category · Named, not ranked

Payroll4Free

14Judge labels

2First choices

1Negative labels

9 of 12Models named it

1Category

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.1, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

8 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. Payroll4Free was named 8 times in Payroll software, where Rippling led with 28%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small business6 of 34

under the label threshold

Mid-market9 of 43

under the label threshold

Enterprisenot named

No model named it for this buyer.

In payroll software · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named Payroll4Free for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Payroll software	Core HR and payroll	2%	9 of 43	0%	8	under 10 labels · led by Rippling at 28%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Payroll4Free yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Payroll4Free across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	1	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0
Perplexity Sonar	0	1	1
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	1	1
Mistral Small	0	1	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	1
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	1	1
Kimi K2	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	1
MiniMax M2.5	0	1	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase0 labelsNone

Comparative0 labelsNone

Budget-constrained13 labels2

Scale-constrained0 labelsNone

Negative1 labelNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative14 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 2 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Tightest budget / very small team: Payroll4Free” GPT-5.4 mini · Payroll software · budget prompt · first choice

“If you have 9 or fewer employees and want the absolute cheapest route, start with Payroll4Free at $0/month.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Payroll software · budget prompt · alternative

“often cited as the lowest-cost choice for teams under 10 employees, but it has more limited capabilities” Perplexity Sonar · Payroll software · budget prompt · alternative

“Free (up to 9 employees) | Tiny teams; basic calculations, stubs, reports | No auto tax filing” Grok 4.1 Fast · Payroll software · budget prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

No model argued against it.

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Payroll4Free, over the 14 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Payroll4Free was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Patriot Payroll13 of 1411Not in the top three

Gusto11 of 140Not in the top three

OnPay9 of 140Not in the top three

QuickBooks Payroll5 of 140Not in the top three

Wave Payroll3 of 140Not in the top three

Square Payroll2 of 140Not in the top three

SurePayroll2 of 140Not in the top three

TimeTrex2 of 140Not in the top three

Paychex Flex1 of 140Not in the top three

Paycor1 of 140Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Payroll4Free. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 13 of the 14 answers that named Payroll4Free and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

forbes.com11

gusto.com8

joinhomebase.com6

tech.co6

fitsmallbusiness.com5

payrollgrade.com4

peoplemanagingpeople.com4

reddit.com4

technologyadvice.com4

techrepublic.com4

Fifty-six of the fifty-six domain citations in answers naming Payroll4Free came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-payroll-services11

gusto.com/resources/guides/best-cheap-payroll-services8

forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-cheap-payroll-services7

joinhomebase.com/blog/payroll-software-for-small-business6

fitsmallbusiness.com/best-payroll-software-reviews5

tech.co/hr-software/best-payroll-software-small-business5

payrollgrade.com/cheapest-payroll-software-for-small-business4

reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/16yvgjw/what_is_the_cheapest_decent_payroll_provider_y4

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Payroll4Free

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Payroll4Free; a claim can dispute any of them.

Payroll4Free.com 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Payroll4Free's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Payroll4Free, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at payroll.org is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.