Payroll Service Revenue Benchmark

Average Payroll Service Revenue per Year 2022 Economic Census

The 2022 Economic Census counts every payroll service provider with paid employees, from a local bureau serving small businesses to the processing centers of national providers, and publishes their combined annual receipts. Dividing that total by the number of establishments gives the average annual revenue per employer establishment shown below.

≈$4,453,000 /year

Average annual gross revenue per employer establishment

How this is calculated: about $26.6 billion in combined annual receipts divided by 5,966 employer establishments works out to an average annual revenue of $4,453,000 per employer establishment.

Scope: Payroll Services, NAICS 541214. The category covers firms that process payroll and related tax filings for other businesses. Bookkeeping services, CPA firms and professional employer organizations are counted in separate categories. Classified separately in group 5412: 541211 Offices of Certified Public Accountants; 541213 Tax Preparation Services; 541219 Other Accounting Services. Nothing outside that code is counted on this page.

Source US Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, Summary Statistics (ECNBASIC): ESTAB, RCPTOT and PAYANN by NAICS · Vintage 2022 Economic Census · Calculation BusinessNES · Accessed September 2026

Employer Establishments at Year Five Varies by cohort

Accounting, Tax Preparation, Bookkeeping, and Payroll Services, NAICS 5412, the 2018 starting count compared with the count of five-year-old establishments in 2023.

Across the 2014 to 2018 cohorts, five-year results ranged from 56.9 to 72.0 percent. This benchmark covers Accounting, Tax Preparation, Bookkeeping, and Payroll Services, NAICS 5412, as a whole, and this category accounts for 5,966 of the 136,861 employer establishments in it. A count by age is not a survival rate, because the figures compare two headcounts rather than follow one set of businesses.

Payroll as a Share of Revenue Official data

Payroll divided by receipts, both as published for the same year.

Payroll share of receipts, Payroll Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

Approximately 62.0 percent of every revenue dollar goes to annual payroll, a high share because processing, client service and compliance staff are the core of the business, and because some providers count staff placed under co-employment arrangements in their own payroll.

Payroll here excludes benefits, employer taxes and owner compensation, and it excludes software platforms, banking and processing fees and the insurance that a provider carries against filing errors.

Business Scale and Ownership Structure Official data

How large the average establishment is, and whether the population is independent operators or multi-site companies.

Scale and ownership, Payroll Services, United States, 2022 Economic Census.

The average establishment employed about 49.8 people, and the industry counted 1.2 employer establishments per firm. That staff count reflects processing centers and service teams that handle thousands of client employees each, and the establishments per firm figure shows that national providers with many offices sit alongside single-office local bureaus.

These are arithmetic industry averages. They state the size of the average establishment and show that multi-establishment ownership exists. They do not show the distribution of business sizes and they do not measure market concentration.

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Data Source Notice

This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.

Figures above are from the 2022 Economic Census reference year, released by the Census Bureau in 2024 and 2025; markets have moved since.

Questions Worth Asking BusinessNES analysis

Payroll Service: reading a category that mixes local bureaus with national processors.

Before you rely on this benchmark

• Local bureau or national platform? A local payroll bureau serving a few hundred small employers and a regional center of a national provider share this category, and their scale, pricing and technology differ completely. The average sits far from what a small bureau earns.
• How is the service priced? Fees per employee per month, per payroll run, per filing and for add-on services produce different revenue per client, and bundled software subscriptions blur the line between payroll and HR platforms. The pricing model behind a revenue figure varies widely.
• What does a filing error cost? Late or incorrect tax deposits trigger penalties that the provider may have to absorb, and one systematic error can affect hundreds of clients. Accuracy, controls and insurance are the quiet costs of the trade, and none of them appear in receipts.
• Which clients does the service hold? Restaurants, construction firms and professional offices bring different pay frequencies, tip and prevailing wage rules and turnover, and a client base concentrated in one sector rises and falls with it. The census does not show the client mix.
• How much revenue is float? Some providers hold client funds briefly between collection and payment and earn interest on them, which becomes a meaningful revenue line when rates are high. Whether that income sits in receipts depends on the provider's model.
• Is the provider also a PEO? Professional employer organizations that co-employ client staff are counted in a different category, but some payroll providers offer both models. The presence of co-employed workers in payroll can raise the payroll share far above a pure processing bureau.