Best Nanny Payroll Services in 2026: An Independent Comparison

Which nanny payroll service should you actually use? For most families employing one nanny, Poppins Payroll at $49/month is the best value in 2026: household-specific, no setup fee, year-end filings included, first month free. Care.com HomePay ($59–$75/month) is the strongest white-glove alternative, and Nest Payroll ($42/month flat) is the budget pick. The full field runs $42 to roughly $90 a month once you count every fee — and the fee fine print is where the rankings actually get decided.

One disclosure before the comparison: Beverly has a commercial partnership with Poppins Payroll — Beverly members who are new Poppins clients get a full year of the service included in their membership. Every price below comes from the provider's published 2026 rates, every service is judged on the same criteria, and where a competitor beats Poppins, we say so plainly.

This guide assumes you already know you owe nanny taxes. If you're not sure, start with our complete nanny tax guide — you become a household employer the moment you pay any one caregiver $3,000 or more in 2026, and everything below builds on that.

How We Compared Them

Every service was scored on the same five factors, weighted in the order families actually feel them:

1. True annual cost — the headline rate plus every setup, year-end, and per-employee fee, priced for year one and year two separately (they differ at two services).
2. Household-native design — whether the product was built around Schedule H and domestic-employer rules or adapted from small-business payroll.
3. Filing completeness — W-2, Schedule H, quarterly state returns, and new-hire reporting all included, or sold separately.
4. Support model — self-serve dashboard, general support queue, or a dedicated specialist.
5. Exit terms — what it costs to leave mid-year, since nanny arrangements end on family timelines, not fiscal ones.

What we didn't score: sign-up bonuses, affiliate payouts (we don't take them), or features like time-tracking apps that are nice but don't change compliance outcomes. Pricing was pulled from each provider's published 2026 rates in July 2026; where a provider doesn't publish rates, we used current third-party reviews and flagged it in the notes.

What a Nanny Payroll Service Does (and What It Doesn't)

Every service on this list handles the same core loop: it calculates gross-to-net for each paycheck (federal and state income tax withholding plus the nanny's 7.65% FICA share), pays your nanny by direct deposit, remits your employer taxes to the right agencies on the right schedule, files your quarterly state returns, and produces the two year-end documents that trip up DIY families — your nanny's W-2 and the Schedule H that attaches to your own Form 1040.

Two things no payroll service does: it won't decide what to pay (our nanny cost guide covers 2026 market rates), and it won't write your work agreement or benefits package. Payroll is the plumbing, not the offer.

A common question from parents who already run a business: can't I just add my nanny to Gusto or QuickBooks? Technically some platforms will cut the check, but general small-business payroll is built around Form 941 and business tax accounts — not Schedule H, household employment rules, or your state's domestic-employer registration. Families who try it usually end up filing Schedule H by hand anyway. Use a household-specific service or a business platform that explicitly supports household employers; don't force a business tool into a nanny-shaped hole.

Nanny Payroll Services Compared: 2026 Pricing

Prices below are published 2026 rates for one household employee. "Year-end" means W-2 and Schedule H preparation.

The Seven Services, Reviewed

1. Poppins Payroll — best for most families

Poppins Payroll charges $49/month for one employee and $10/month for each additional one, with no setup fee and no year-end fee for active customers. The first calendar month is free, there's no contract, and the dashboard covers tax registration, new-hire reporting, direct deposit, and PTO tracking. Forbes Advisor gave Poppins the top rating in its 2026 nanny payroll roundup, which matches what we hear from families: the pricing has no asterisks, and the product was designed for households from day one rather than adapted from business payroll.

The honest limits: Poppins is payroll and tax filing, not an HR department. If you want a dedicated specialist who picks up the phone to walk you through a state notice, HomePay and HomeWork Solutions staff for that more heavily. And the one fee to know about: if you cancel mid-year and still want that year's filings, it's $110.

2. Care.com HomePay — best white-glove service

HomePay (the former Breedlove & Associates, acquired by Care.com in 2012) is the premium name in the category: roughly $59/month for the essentials tier and $75/month for the full-service tier in 2026, billed quarterly, with no setup or year-end fees. You get the deepest phone support bench in the industry, a six-month happiness guarantee (they refund their fees if you leave unhappy), and a service-accuracy guarantee that covers penalties from their filing errors.

At up to $900/year it's the most expensive mainstream option, and the extra $300 or so over Poppins buys support depth rather than more filings — the compliance work is the same. Worth it if you want a named team on call; not if you just want the taxes done.

3. GTM Payroll — best for staffed households

GTM has run household payroll since 1991 and shows it: the base EasyPay plan is $70/month plus $20 for each additional employee, and two HR tiers ($132 and $232/month, each with a $75 setup fee and $40–$60 per additional employee) add employee handbooks, benefits administration, and live HR guidance. If you employ a nanny plus a housekeeper and a house manager — or you're offering health coverage through a QSEHRA and want someone to administer it — GTM is built for exactly that. For a single nanny on a simple schedule, you're paying a staffed-household premium you won't use.

4. SurePayroll by Paychex — best business-grade platform

SurePayroll absorbed the household specialist NannyChex after Paychex acquired it, and its nanny plan now runs $45/month with W-2 and Schedule H included, free two-day direct deposit, and unlimited payroll runs. The infrastructure is genuinely enterprise-grade. The tradeoff is that the interface is business payroll first: you'll see contractor tools and small-business terminology a family paying one nanny doesn't need, and household-specific guidance is thinner than at Poppins or HomePay. Fine for a parent who already lives in payroll software; less friendly for everyone else.

5. HomeWork Solutions — best for a dedicated human

HomeWork Solutions prices by the quarter: about $195/quarter for tax-filing-only (you cut the checks), $249–$269/quarter for complete payroll with a dedicated specialist, plus a $120 setup fee and a $125 year-end filing fee. That works out to roughly $1,025–$1,240 in year one — the highest all-in cost here. What you're buying is a named specialist who knows your account and handles oddball situations (mid-year state moves, back-tax cleanups) by phone. Families getting compliant after paying off the books often land here; if that's you, read our guide to getting legal after paying under the table first.

6. Nest Payroll — best budget pick

Nest Payroll is $42/month flat for one employee ($49 for two), covering paycheck math, tax deposits, quarterly filings, W-2, and Schedule H in all 50 states, with no setup fee. It's app-first and lean — you won't get a support bench or HR extras — but for a straightforward one-nanny household it does the whole compliance job for the lowest flat price of the full-service options.

7. Savvy Nanny — best for two caregivers on a budget

Savvy Nanny charges $39/month as an intro rate — the regular price is $50/month as of January 2026 — and unlike everyone else, that price covers up to two employees, with additional workers at $6/month. Add the $50 annual filing fee ($5 more per extra employee) and a nanny-share family or a nanny-plus-sitter household pays about $518 in year one at the intro rate, or about $650 at the regular rate — the intro price undercuts every competitor's two-employee total, while the regular rate lands roughly level with Nest's and Poppins' two-employee pricing. The platform is more utilitarian than Poppins or Nest. Confirm which rate you'll actually pay before you commit.

The Fee Fine Print: Five Costs the Headline Rate Hides

Monthly rates make the services look closer in price than they are. The real spread shows up in year-one totals, so run these five line items before you compare anyone's headline number:

• Setup fees: $0 everywhere except HomeWork Solutions ($120) and GTM's upper HR tiers ($75).
• Year-end filing fees: included at Poppins, HomePay, GTM, SurePayroll, and Nest; $125 at HomeWork Solutions; $50 at Savvy Nanny. This fee lands every year, so it belongs in the monthly math ($50/year is effectively about +$4/month).
• Per-employee pricing: the two-caregiver comparison reshuffles the rankings. Savvy Nanny stays at $39 at its intro rate ($50 regular), Nest goes to $49, Poppins to $59, SurePayroll to about $55, GTM to $90. A nanny-share family should compare at the two-employee price, not the headline.
• Billing cadence: HomePay and HomeWork Solutions bill quarterly; everyone else bills monthly with no contract. If your nanny might leave in March, a quarterly prepay is money you'll chase.
• Exit charges: Poppins' $110 mid-year cancellation filing fee is the notable one — fair value for the work, but it surprises families who budgeted $49 flat.

Worked year-one totals for one employee, every fee included: Nest $504, Savvy Nanny $518 at its intro rate ($650 at the regular $50/month price), SurePayroll $540, Poppins $539 (after the free month), GTM EasyPay $840, HomePay $708–$900, HomeWork Solutions $1,025–$1,241. That's a 2.4x spread between the cheapest and priciest full-service options — for filings that are, on paper, identical. The premium buys support, not extra compliance.

DIY vs. a Payroll Service: The Honest Math

You are not required to use any of these companies. The full do-it-yourself route — EIN, state registration, withholding tables, quarterly deposits, Schedule H, W-2 — is legal and genuinely free, and our step-by-step nanny payroll setup guide walks the entire process if you want to run it yourself.

Here is the honest trade. HomePay advertises saving families 50-plus hours a year of payroll administration; even if a well-organized family with stable hours does it in half that, you're trading roughly 25–50 hours annually to save $500–$900. At the hourly value of most two-career households, the service wins on time alone. The stronger argument is error cost: a missed state registration or a late quarterly deposit means penalties and interest stacked on back taxes, and every service above includes some form of accuracy guarantee that shifts filing-error risk off your shoulders.

The pattern the Beverly team sees in coordinated searches: families agonize over the payroll vendor for a week, then discover the real deadline pressure sits upstream — the state employer registration that takes two to four weeks to process. Pick the service in an evening; start the registration the day the offer is accepted.

DIY makes sense in one specific profile: a single nanny, fixed hours, no state complications, and a parent who already handles their own quarterly estimated taxes. Variable hours, overtime weeks, or a move between states? Pay the $49.

A note from Beverly

See what a coordinated search looks like. The research is the easy part. In two minutes, watch how a Beverly coordinator runs the rest — agencies, screening, and contracts — so you don't have to.

Watch: Meet Beverly · 2 min →

Where to Get the Best Help With Nanny Taxes

Families ask this in different words — "who can help me with nanny taxes," "should I use my accountant for nanny payroll" — and the answer depends on which of three jobs you need done.

• Ongoing payroll and filings: a nanny payroll service. This is the recurring work — paychecks, deposits, quarterly returns — and at $39–$75/month the specialists do it cheaper and more reliably than a general accountant billing hourly.
• One-time or unusual tax questions: a CPA or enrolled agent who has actually filed Schedule H before (ask directly — many haven't). Typical cost is a few hundred dollars for a consult or $500–$1,500 to prepare a return with household employment cleanup. Use a CPA for messes: multi-state years, misclassification fixes, amended returns.
• Setting the wage, contract, and benefits before payroll starts: that's hiring-side work, not tax work. Our nanny hiring guide covers the offer stage, and if you're offering health benefits, see our QSEHRA and health stipend guide before you tell payroll what to withhold.

The combination most families land on: a payroll service for the recurring loop, plus one CPA conversation in year one to confirm the setup. After that, the service's year-end documents drop straight into your tax return.

How to Choose: Six Questions That Decide It

Seven services, but your answer usually falls out of six questions:

1. How many household employees? One: Poppins, Nest, or SurePayroll. Two on a budget: Savvy Nanny ($39 intro / $50 regular covers both). Three or more, or staff beyond childcare: GTM.
2. Do you want software or a person? If your instinct in a tax question is "I'll call someone," pay for HomePay or HomeWork Solutions. If it's "I'll check the dashboard," Poppins or Nest will make you happier for less.
3. Which state are you in? California, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington layer on paid-leave programs, wage-notice rules, and state-specific registrations. Any service here handles them, but this is where DIY quietly fails — weight the accuracy guarantee more heavily in these states.
4. Does your nanny care how she's paid? Ask her. Career nannies have payroll-service opinions the way accountants have software opinions — a nanny who has spent three years getting clean pay stubs from one provider will happily tell you which dashboards caused problems at former employers. It's a two-minute conversation that doubles as a professionalism signal.
5. Will you offer benefits? Health reimbursements, retirement contributions, or a formal PTO bank push you toward GTM's upper tiers or a service with hands-on support that can process non-wage line items correctly.
6. What's the exit cost? Nannies leave; families move. Poppins charges $110 for filings if you cancel mid-year, HomeWork Solutions' setup and year-end fees punish short stints, and monthly no-contract billing (Poppins, Nest, SurePayroll) beats quarterly billing if your arrangement might end inside a year.

The Bottom Line: Which Service for Which Family

Three profiles cover almost everyone:

Budget: Nest Payroll at $42/month flat — or Savvy Nanny at $39/month intro rate ($50 regular) if you employ two caregivers — gets you full compliance for about $500–$650/year. You give up support depth, not filings.

Mid-range (most families): Poppins Payroll at $49/month, roughly $540 in year one after the free month. Household-native design, transparent pricing, and third-party rankings agree with the value math. This is the default recommendation — and yes, it's also the service Beverly partners with; the numbers are why the partnership exists, not the other way around.

Premium: HomePay at $75/month ($900/year) for the deepest human support and guarantees, or GTM from $70/month when multiple employees or benefits administration are in play.

Whichever you pick, the sequencing matters more than the brand: get the wage and work agreement settled first, register before the first paycheck, and let the service take it from there. The expensive mistakes in household employment almost never come from choosing the second-best payroll company — they come from starting payroll late or not at all.

See how Beverly actually works

Your family's hiring coordinator — one point of contact working top agencies, au pair programs, and your personal network, all at once.

Watch: Meet Beverly · 2 min Explore Beverly →

Captions on — no sound needed.

Even though we work to keep the information, stats, and details in this article accurate and up to date, please do your own financial and legal due diligence before acting on anything you read here, and reach out directly to the private companies and government agencies referenced for the most current details.