Employment Hero vs Paylocity

Employment Hero provides HeroForce, a managed service that acts as the legal Employer of Record in over 180 countries. It handles contracts, payroll, and compliance, allowing you to hire anywhere without setting up local entities. Paylocity supports global payroll operations in over 100 countries. It processes payments but does not provide the legal employer of record service that HeroForce does. The key difference is legal risk. Employment Hero's HeroForce takes on full employment liability. Paylocity handles the financial transactions for international employees you already legally employ. For a startup needing to hire engineers in Germany next month, Employment Hero's HeroForce is the faster, safer path.

Paylocity's core strength is integrating HR, finance, and IT tools onto one platform. It includes expense management, accounts payable, and IT asset tracking alongside core HR. Employment Hero is focused on the entire employment lifecycle. It unifies recruitment, HR, payroll, and employee benefits but does not natively include finance or IT management modules. You're choosing between a broad business operations platform (Paylocity) and a specialized, deep employment operating system (Employment Hero). A company drowning in separate tools for HR, finance, and IT would benefit from Paylocity's unification. A company wanting to automate hiring and payroll end-to-end would prefer Employment Hero's focus.

Employment Hero embeds AI throughout its platform. It helps shortlist recruitment candidates, schedule interviews, and automate administrative triggers across onboarding and payroll. Paylocity's AI is concentrated in its finance capabilities. It offers touchless expense management, receipt capture, and automated invoice processing to streamline financial operations. Employment Hero's AI reduces HR admin time by an average of 42%. Paylocity's AI aims to make finance teams more strategic by eliminating manual tasks. If your pain point is hiring volume and HR paperwork, Employment Hero's AI tools are more relevant. If your finance team is buried in receipts and invoices, Paylocity's automation shines.

Employment Hero provides intelligent payroll with automated tax calculations and award interpretation. Pricing for its core software starts at $10 per employee per month. Paylocity offers automated and custom payroll workflows with global support. Pricing is fully customized based on your chosen modules and company size, with no public rates. A critical difference is superannuation processing, which incurs an extra fee of $0.30 per employee with Employment Hero. Paylocity's additional fees are not publicly detailed. For a 20-person Australian team, you can calculate Employment Hero's baseline cost. For Paylocity, you'll need to request a quote.

User reviews describe Employment Hero's customer support as helpful but sometimes inconsistent or slow. Response times can vary, which can be frustrating during critical issues. Reviews for Paylocity are overwhelmingly negative regarding support. Users report unread emails, unreturned calls, and critical payroll issues left unresolved for days or weeks. Many Paylocity users feel they lack a dedicated, trained account representative. This is a severe, recurring pain point impacting day-to-day operations. The data makes a clear distinction: Employment Hero's support has room for improvement, while Paylocity's support is a deal-breaker for many users.

Employment Hero offers 'Managed' or 'Guided' onboarding journeys. Users note the setup can be involved and is a point where bumps occur in the customer journey. Paylocity's implementation is consistently described as slow, complicated, and tedious. One review mentioned it took over two months just to set up an accounting software import. Poor implementation can delay your time-to-value and cause significant internal frustration. It's a critical early experience. Given the reviews, planning for a potentially lengthy onboarding is wise for both. However, reports suggest Paylocity's process is more likely to cause extended delays.

Employment Hero lists its core HR plan starting at $10 per employee per month. It has published tiers and notes about minimum users (10) and regional pricing. Paylocity provides no public pricing. They build a customized solution, and the cost depends on your chosen modules (HR, Finance, IT) and employee count. You must contact sales for a quote. For a budget-conscious business, Employment Hero's transparency allows for preliminary cost calculations. Paylocity requires a sales conversation to even estimate cost. This difference matters in the early research phase. Employment Hero lets you ballpark costs; Paylocity requires you to invest time in sales to get started.

Employment Hero's interface is part of a unified system. Users praise its intuitive mobile app for employees, though the initial platform can feel overwhelming. Paylocity has faced major usability complaints after recent platform changes. Users report the new interface requires excessive clicking to access simple data. A 1-star review for Paylocity states, 'The interface is so bad I am now looking for a replacement.' This is a significant issue. When software becomes harder to use, adoption suffers and frustration rises. Employment Hero's interface is generally seen as functional, if complex. Paylocity's recent changes are actively pushing users away.