embedded-payroll
(8)
Zeal Found the Payroll Problem Hiding Inside the Shift
The founders went looking for a way to pay a fast-moving W-2 workforce and found a hole in the software stack. Now Zeal sells the plumbing to the platforms with the same problem.
The Company You Never See on Payday
Worklio lets payroll companies and software platforms put their own name on the pay run. Its wager is that the least visible company in the transaction can be the one doing the most consequential work.
The $40 Million Feature Hiding in Plain Sight
Salsa thinks the largest bill in a small business should live inside the software that already understands the business. Its trick is not making payroll disappear - it is deciding who should have to see the machinery.
Andrew Brown Is Making Payroll Boring - On Purpose
After selling an ebook startup to Google, the engineer chose a stranger second act: rebuilding payroll so well that millions of people never have to think about it.
Tyler Fallon Is Building the Person You Call Before the Contractor
After years helping software companies turn payroll into a product, Tyler Fallon moved one question upstream: before a homeowner hires anyone, who helps them decide what actually needs doing? Casa is his two-person answer.
Check
Check is a New York-based fintech that provides embedded payroll infrastructure, letting software platforms build and sell their own payroll product through a single API. It handles the hard parts - tax calculation, money movement, tax filing, and multi-state compliance - so vertical SaaS, HR, and workforce-management companies can offer payroll without becoming payroll experts. Backed by Stripe, Thrive, Bedrock and Index, Check powers payroll for platforms like Wave, Homebase, Housecall Pro and 7shifts.
Scott Helmes
Scott Helmes is a senior operator on the CEO team at Gusto, the San Francisco payroll, benefits and HR platform used by hundreds of thousands of small businesses. A product and marketing veteran who spent more than a decade scaling CareerBuilder across North America and Europe, he joined Gusto in 2019 and has been part of the leadership group steering its move into embedded payroll, AI-assisted workflows and SMB benefits.
Gusto
Gusto is a cloud-based payroll, benefits, and HR platform built for small and medium-sized businesses. Founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll by Josh Reeves, Tomer London, and Edward Kim, the company has grown to serve over 500,000 businesses and recently crossed $1 billion in annual revenue. Gusto handles everything from payroll runs and tax filings to health insurance, 401(k) plans, and employee onboarding - replacing what used to require a patchwork of accountants, brokers, and spreadsheets with a single platform. The company also offers Gusto Embedded, a payroll API that lets other software platforms build payroll directly into their products. Valued at roughly $9.5 billion, Gusto remains private and is widely considered a leading IPO candidate in the HR tech space.