Payroll software for small businesses in South Africa
Payroll Africa is cloud payroll software for South African small businesses. It calculates PAYE, UIF and SDL on the current SARS tables, produces EMP201 and IRP5 submissions, issues compliant payslips and files bank payment batches — for one employee or two hundred, from R79.99 per month with no setup fee.
Payroll Africa Editorial · SARS Payroll Compliance Team
The Payroll Africa editorial team is composed of registered tax practitioners, payroll administrators and BCEA specialists who maintain the SARS PAYE, UIF, SDL and ETI engines that power the platform. Every article is reviewed against the current SARS BRS and Basic Conditions of Employment Act before publication.
- SARS registered tax practitioners
- SAPA-affiliated payroll administrators
- BCEA and LRA compliance reviewers
Last updated 15 Aug 2026
What small employers actually need from payroll
A small business rarely has a dedicated payroll officer. The owner, bookkeeper or office manager runs payroll between other work, which means the software has to be correct by default rather than configurable in twenty places. The legal obligations are identical to those of a large employer: PAYE withheld and paid by the 7th, UIF at 1% plus 1% up to the earnings ceiling, SDL once your annual payroll passes R500,000, a BCEA-compliant payslip for every employee, and an EMP501 reconciliation twice a year.
The practical test is how long a month-end takes. With correct employee records loaded once, a monthly run in Payroll Africa is a review of the variance report, an approval, and a batch of payslips — usually under fifteen minutes for a team of twenty.
- Statutory calculations that are right without configuration
- Payslips that satisfy section 33 of the BCEA
- EMP201 each month and EMP501 twice a year without re-keying
- Bank payment files for FNB, Standard Bank, Absa, Nedbank and Capitec
- Leave balances tracked automatically against BCEA minimums
Pricing that suits a small headcount
Most South African payroll products are priced for medium employers and only become economical above thirty or forty employees. Payroll Africa starts at R79.99 per month for a single employee and moves up a sliding scale, so a five-person business is not subsidising enterprise features it will never open.
There is no setup fee, no minimum term and no charge for support or for migrating your existing data. If your headcount drops in a quiet month, your invoice drops with it.
- 1 employee — R79.99/month
- 10 employees — around R229/month
- 35 employees — R479/month
- 80 employees — R949/month
- 500 employees — R4,899/month
Moving off spreadsheets
Spreadsheet payroll fails quietly. A tax table is updated in one tab and not another, a bonus is taxed at the marginal rate instead of being annualised, or a mid-year rebate change for an employee turning 65 is missed. None of it surfaces until the EMP501 does not reconcile and SARS raises a penalty on the difference.
Migration is handled for you: send your last payslips or an export from Excel, Sage, SimplePay, PaySpace or Crest and the team loads employees, year-to-date balances and leave balances so the first live run reconciles against your existing records.
What you get on the small-business plan
Every account includes the full product. There is no cut-down tier where compliance features are held back for larger customers.
- Unlimited pay runs — monthly, weekly, fortnightly, bonus and off-cycle
- Employee self-service portal for payslips, IRP5s and leave
- Leave, documents, HR records and performance tracking
- Payslip delivery by email, WhatsApp or SMS
- Accounting exports to Xero, QuickBooks and generic GL journals
Frequently asked questions
Related guides
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