Free PEO Services: What Actually Exists in 2026

Justworks has the most transparent PEO pricing in the market: $59/employee/month for teams of 50+ employees, $99/employee/month for smaller teams. This covers payroll processing, workers' compensation insurance, benefits administration, and basic HR compliance support. There is no hidden percentage-of-payroll fee or implementation charge. For companies evaluating PEO for the first time, Justworks removes pricing ambiguity.

Justworks offers a free benefits cost comparison where their team analyzes your current insurance costs and shows what you would pay under their PEO plans. For small businesses paying high small-group premiums, this analysis frequently reveals that Justworks's PEO fee is partially or fully offset by insurance savings.

Insperity provides one of the most thorough free consultations in the PEO industry — their team analyzes your payroll, benefits costs, workers' comp rates, and HR compliance posture, then delivers a detailed proposal showing cost savings and risk reduction. This consultation is genuinely useful for understanding whether PEO is the right model for your company, even if you ultimately choose another provider.

At $230+/employee/month, Insperity is a premium PEO — the service includes dedicated HR specialists, not just software. For companies that value human expertise over platform self-service, Insperity's consultation helps quantify whether the premium is justified.

ADP TotalSource is the largest PEO in the US by headcount, covering over 600,000 worksite employees. Their free consultation includes a detailed cost-benefit analysis comparing PEO costs against your current insurance premiums, payroll processing fees, and HR overhead. Because ADP TotalSource has the largest benefits pool, their insurance rates are among the most competitive in the PEO industry.

Pricing is typically 2-4% of gross payroll, which means the effective per-employee cost varies by salary level. For high-salary workforces (tech, consulting), this percentage model can be expensive. For moderate-salary workforces, ADP TotalSource's insurance rates often offset the platform fee.

Paychex PEO is most relevant for companies already using Paychex for payroll or time-and-attendance. The upgrade to PEO keeps your existing payroll setup intact while adding co-employment benefits, workers' comp, and HR compliance. Paychex offers free platform demos and cost analyses tailored to your existing Paychex configuration.

For companies not already on Paychex, the platform is competent but unremarkable compared to Justworks (simpler) or ADP TotalSource (larger benefits pool). Custom pricing makes direct comparison difficult without engaging their sales team.

ScalePEO is a PEO broker, not a PEO itself — they provide free comparisons across multiple PEO providers based on your company's specific needs, industry, and headcount. This is the closest thing to a free service in the PEO space: ScalePEO's consultants analyze your situation and recommend 2-3 PEOs, handling the quoting process and contract negotiation on your behalf at no cost to you.

ScalePEO earns its revenue from referral fees paid by PEO providers, so their service is genuinely free for the employer. The value is real — they have pre-negotiated rates with major PEOs and can often secure better pricing than you would get approaching a PEO directly.

Zenefits (now TriNet HR Platform) is not a PEO — it is an HR software platform that replicates many PEO functions at a fraction of the cost. Starting at $8/user/month, Zenefits covers benefits administration, onboarding, PTO management, and compliance tools. For companies where the primary PEO appeal is benefits administration and HR software (not co-employment or workers' comp), Zenefits is the practical free-adjacent alternative.

Zenefits does not provide co-employment, so you do not gain access to large-group insurance rates or shared employer liability. However, for companies under 20 employees, Zenefits plus an independent benefits broker often achieves 80% of PEO functionality at 20% of the cost.

Gusto's Simple plan at $40/month + $6/employee/month provides payroll, benefits administration, onboarding, and basic HR in one platform. For companies evaluating PEO primarily because they want payroll and benefits together, Gusto delivers that combination at the lowest all-in cost. Gusto also offers an actual PEO service (Gusto Employer Services) at approximately $80/employee/month for companies that want full co-employment.

Gusto's free trial lets you set up payroll and benefits before committing — the closest thing to a free PEO experience available. For teams under 15 employees, Gusto's platform plan is almost always more cost-effective than PEO.

Rippling is an HR platform (~$8/user/month) that also offers PEO services as an add-on. This dual model is unique: you can start with Rippling's self-service HR, payroll, and IT platform, then upgrade to PEO services if you decide co-employment is worth the additional cost. Rippling offers comprehensive free demos of both the platform and PEO services.

For technically-minded companies that want to evaluate the software before committing to co-employment, Rippling's try-before-you-PEO approach is the closest thing to a free PEO trial in the market.

Oasis (a Paychex company) targets mid-market companies with 50-500 employees and provides a free, in-depth consultation that covers benefits cost analysis, workers' comp rate comparison, and HR compliance audit. Their PEO service uses Paychex's payroll infrastructure while offering more personalized service than the Paychex PEO brand.

Custom pricing means you need to engage with their sales team, but the free consultation itself provides useful data for evaluating whether PEO makes financial sense for your organization, regardless of which PEO you ultimately choose.

Deel is not a PEO — it is an EOR (employer of record) for international hiring. However, many companies searching for PEO are actually trying to solve for international employment, and Deel at $599/employee/month provides that capability in 150+ countries. If your PEO search is motivated by hiring employees outside the US, Deel or Remote are the correct products rather than a domestic PEO.

For US-only companies, Deel is not relevant. But for companies with both US and international employees, the combination of a US PEO (Justworks or Rippling) plus Deel for international employees is a common and effective setup.