Payroll services in San Antonio, TX

The San Antonio metro has 19 payroll service firms employing 207 people. Average pay is $54,986 — 32% below the national average.

Hire a firm, or run it yourself

Payroll is the one accounting job with a real do-it-yourself option, and the choice turns almost entirely on headcount. There is no column for local firms in the table below because they do not publish rates — payroll is quoted per client, on headcount and pay frequency. Inventing a figure would be worse than leaving the comparison one-sided.

There is no public roster of payroll firms either — the IRS credential covers preparing returns, not running payroll, and the Census counts these businesses without naming them. If you want the local route, the practical starting point is the 291 CPA firms in San Antonio: most small practices either run payroll themselves or hand you the firm they use. San Antonio has 19 dedicated payroll firms by the Census count, against 291 CPA practices — which is why the accountant is usually the shorter path to one.

What the providers charge

Every figure is the list price on the provider’s own pricing page on September 2, 2026, for a full-service plan — one that files your payroll taxes rather than only cutting the checks. Two of the largest names publish no price at all. That is not a gap in our table; it is the thing to know before you spend an afternoon comparing.

Read the columns as a floor, not a quote. Each row prices one named plan straight through, and the cheaper plans have limits that bite as you grow — one state, no time tracking, no benefits administration. At fifty people most of these businesses are on the next tier up, which costs more than the figure shown.

Under ten people

At this size the software wins on cost by a wide margin and the work is genuinely automatic: filings, deposits and year-end forms all go out without you. A local firm is worth it only if your situation is odd — tipped staff, several states, union rules.

Ten to fifty

The point where both answers are defensible. San Antonio payroll firms average 10.9 employees each, against 26.6 nationally — these are companies with hundreds of clients, not one-person shops, and what you buy from them is somebody who picks up the phone when a filing bounces.

Fifty and up

Cost stops being the question. At this size the risks are multi-state registration, garnishments, benefits administration and audit trails, and the decision is usually between a full-service firm and a PEO — a professional employer organization, which becomes the legal co-employer of your staff. Software still runs the mechanics underneath either.

Where we would start

Neither link earns us anything today. If that ever changes, this line will say so — and the table above will stay sorted by price either way.

List prices published by each vendor and correct on September 2, 2026; promotions move them often. Paychex and ADP publish no rate and were checked on the same date.

The San Antonio market in numbers

At 10.9 employees per establishment against 26.6 nationally, San Antonio is below the national average. In absolute terms that is a market of mid-sized practices. That tells you who you will be dealing with rather than what you will pay: where practices are one- and two-person shops you talk to the person doing the work, and where they are bigger you are likelier to get an account manager and cover through filing season.

A concentrated field: far fewer establishments than any other accounting code, and much larger ones — this is a business of scale.

Cite this page

CountingFirms, “Payroll services in San Antonio, TX”, countingfirms.com/payroll/san-antonio-tx, data as of September 1, 2026. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2022.

Payroll services in other metros

• New York, NY — 457 firms
• Los Angeles, CA — 245 firms
• Miami, FL — 209 firms
• Chicago, IL — 146 firms
• Dallas, TX — 146 firms
• Houston, TX — 123 firms
• Philadelphia, PA — 108 firms
• Atlanta, GA — 108 firms

Other accounting services in San Antonio

• CPA firms — 291 firms
• Bookkeeping services — 325 firms
• Tax preparation — 230 firms

Questions

Is payroll software cheaper than a payroll company in San Antonio?

At list price, software for ten employees costs about $109 a month and for fifty about $680. Local payroll firms do not publish rates — they quote per client on headcount and pay frequency — so a direct comparison is not possible without asking them.

When is it worth hiring a payroll firm instead?

Under ten employees the software route almost always wins on cost and the work is genuinely automatic. Above fifty the question stops being cost and becomes multi-state registration, garnishments and benefits administration, where a payroll firm or a PEO — a professional employer organization — earns its fee. Between the two, both answers are defensible.

What do accountants earn in San Antonio, TX?

Average annual pay in this category is $54,986 across San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX Metro Area, against $81,145 nationally. Pay is a rough proxy for what a market charges: firms in expensive cities bill more because they pay more.

How do I check that an accountant is actually licensed?

The IRS publishes a directory of credentialed preparers, and every state board of accountancy runs a license lookup. The listings on this page come from the IRS record, which shows a credential — it does not say anything about the quality of the work, and this site does not rank firms.

Firm list: IRS Return Preparer PTIN listing, released under the Freedom of Information Act, February 2026. Market figures: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2022. We publish firm-level records only — no individual names or street addresses. Last updated September 1, 2026.