ADP Workforce Now and RUN Powered by ADP are ADP’s payroll and HR platforms for small and midsized employers, and ADP TotalSource is its professional employer organization (PEO) service. All three are sold through quotation. This article collects what ADP’s own pages say about packages, fee drivers and the structure of each offering.
Editions
ADP Workforce Now
ADP presents Workforce Now as three packages. “Select” is described as “Simplify payroll and HR with an all-in-one suite.” “Plus” is “Everything included in our ‘Select’ package and streamline benefits administration with time-saving technology,” and “Premium” is “Everything included in our ‘Plus’ package and automated time-tracking with Time and Attendance.”[1] The comparison grid lists Payroll and Tax, Enhanced HR Tools, ADP Assist, Voice of the Employee, New Hire Onboarding and Digital Record Keeping as included in all three packages, Benefits Administration as included in Plus and Premium, and Workforce Management, covering time collection, scheduling and time-off accruals, as included in Premium only.[1] Under an Add-Ons heading the grid lists Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Compensation Management, HR Assist, Analytics and Learning Management, each marked Included across the three columns.[1] The page links each package to a pricing enquiry and shows no price.[1] See ADP Workforce Now Select, ADP Workforce Now Plus and ADP Workforce Now Premium and Workforce Now is sold as Select, Plus and Premium packages without published prices.
ADP’s developer catalogue lists two Workforce Now products. ADP Workforce Now is “For small to mid-size clients, typically with 25-3,000 employees.” ADP Workforce Now Next Generation is “A new version of ADP Workforce Now currently sold only to new clients with 25-3,000 employees.”[2] The partner learning guide describes the same two products with bands of 50 to 3,000 and 50 to 1,000 or more employees respectively.[3] For a client, the practical consequence is that the product generation and package are properties of the client’s order, and ADP’s published employee bands should not be read as licence limits.
RUN Powered by ADP
The RUN page names four packages: Essential Payroll (“Perfect for small businesses that simply need payroll, taxes, and help with compliance they can trust”), Enhanced Payroll (“basic payroll plus ZipRecruiter®, State Unemployment Insurance and garnishment payment service”), Complete Payroll & HR+ (“everything included in our Enhanced package, plus basic HR support”) and HR Pro Payroll & HR (“everything included in our Complete package plus enhanced HR support and perks”).[4] The page offers “Get payroll pricing specific to your business” in place of prices.[4] ADP’s developer catalogue describes RUN as for small businesses, usually clients with up to 50 employees.[2] See RUN Powered by ADP Essential Payroll, RUN Powered by ADP Enhanced Payroll, RUN Powered by ADP Complete Payroll & HR+ and RUN Powered by ADP HR Pro Payroll & HR.
The feature matrix shows how packages differ. Check signing security, State Unemployment Insurance management, the garnishment payment service and job costing are marked not included in Essential Payroll. HR HelpDesk is not included in Essential or Enhanced, and the applicant tracking system powered by CareerPlug and the learning management system are included only in HR Pro.[5] See RUN packages differ in security, SUI, garnishment, job costing and HR items.
ADP TotalSource
ADP TotalSource is “ADP’s professional employer organization (PEO) solution for small and midsize businesses,” bringing together payroll, benefits administration, workers’ compensation and regulatory compliance. It is an IRS-certified PEO (CPEO) and ESAC-accredited.[6] ADP describes the arrangement as a co-employment partnership and as “a shared-responsibility model: some things ADP manages fully, some stay with you and a few sit in between.”[6] See ADP TotalSource co-employment.
Metrics
None of the three pages names a licence metric, and no retrieved ADP document says whether Workforce Now or RUN is charged per employee, per payroll, per month or as a combination. The only named units on these pages are the per-contractor fee in the RUN contractor bundle, described below, and the quotation drivers for TotalSource.
Counting, fees and floors
The RUN packages page contains the clearest statements about what drives a bill.
- Off-cycle payrolls. RUN “allows you to process payroll outside of your regular payroll schedule if needed, though payroll fees increase with frequency.” The page adds that some states have minimum payroll frequency requirements.[5]
- Year-end forms. ADP “will create and deliver W-2 and 1099 forms” for the client, marked “(additional fee).”[5]
- Contractors. The contractor payment bundle “charges a monthly base price, plus a per-contractor fee. Year-end processing fees also apply.”[5] See Contractor (RUN contractor payment bundle).
- Third-party services. Bill pay and invoicing in RUN are provided by a third party; “Additional terms, conditions and fees may apply to services from the third party,” and ADP may receive a referral fee.[4] See RUN bill pay and invoicing are third-party services with their own terms and fees.
See RUN fees increase with off-cycle payroll frequency and some forms carry additional fees. No amount is shown for any of these fees, and the retrieved pages state no floor for the number of employees or payrolls.
TotalSource pricing is described as “quoted rather than listed, since it is built around factors that are specific to your business.” The largest drivers named are workforce size and demographics, injury-risk profile and workers’ compensation exposure, and where the employees work with the compliance complexity that brings.[6] See TotalSource pricing is quoted from workforce size, injury risk and location.
Records to keep
The fee drivers above come from product pages and not from a rate card, so a licence manager has to rebuild the position from the client’s own paperwork. The documents that name a driver point to what is worth keeping: the package name on the order (Select, Plus or Premium; Essential, Enhanced, Complete or HR Pro), the add-ons in force, the payroll calendar including any off-cycle runs, the number of contractors paid through the contractor bundle, and the year-end forms ADP prepared.[1][5] For TotalSource, the drivers ADP names are workforce size and demographics, workers’ compensation exposure and work locations.[6] This is commentary on how to use the cited pages. It is not a statement that ADP prices by exactly these items.
Cloud and add-on services
Workforce Now clients can add services through ADP Marketplace, which sells ADP and third-party applications under separate terms. The listings retrieved for Workforce Now include ADP Document Cloud at USD 1.00 per employee per month with a USD 1,000 set-up fee, ADP SmartCompliance Employment Verification with a “Fee Free Edition,” ADP SmartCompliance Employment Tax and an ADP Workforce Now Payroll listing each shown with a Recurring Edition at USD 10.00 per user per month, and ADP API Central with employee-count price tiers.[7][8][9][10] The user-based listings state “Included: 0 Users” and do not define what a user is, so the basis of those two prices is unclear from the listing alone. See ADP Document Cloud for ADP Workforce Now, ADP SmartCompliance Employment Verification for ADP Workforce Now, ADP SmartCompliance Employment Tax (Marketplace listing), ADP Workforce Now Payroll (Marketplace app) and the Marketplace and API Central article.
Programs
ADP’s small-business offers include promotions, such as free months of payroll, and the RUN page refers readers to terms and conditions that were not retrieved. No promotion is catalogued here. Related commercial constructs are described in the overview: the client agreement framework, the Data Privacy Appendix and the Marketplace Terms.
Out of scope
This article does not cover prices, service level terms or termination rights for Workforce Now, RUN or TotalSource, which are not published. It does not cover ADP’s benefits, insurance or retirement offerings as products, and it does not describe the TotalSource co-employment agreement, which is not public.