Justworks bundles a PEO and benefits umbrella into a single price. Peoplifi is a direct-hire alternative for teams that already have a benefits broker and just want clean HR + payroll + time tracking.
Justworks is the right call if you want PEO benefits (group health rates, co-employment compliance) bundled into one bill. If you already have a broker (Sequoia, Newfront, OneDigital) or you do not need PEO services, Peoplifi delivers the HR + payroll core for roughly half the per-employee cost.
Justworks is a US PEO and HR platform serving 9,000+ small businesses. Through co-employment, Justworks offers small businesses access to large-group health insurance rates, simplified compliance, and unified billing. Pricing starts at $59 per employee per month for Basic and rises to $99+ for Plus with medical.
Justworks Basic: $59/employee/mo (no medical). Plus with Medical: $99+/employee/mo. PEO co-employment relationship required.
Starter $3/seat/mo. Growth $6/seat/mo. Business $12/seat/mo. No PEO, no co-employment. Time tracking included.
US small businesses (5 to 100 employees) without an existing benefits broker, who want bundled PEO services and group health rates.
Teams that already work with a benefits broker, agencies and BPOs that want time tracking included, and any company that wants to remain the sole legal employer.
You will lose the PEO group rate, but a broker can typically replace coverage with a small-group plan or an ICHRA. Many teams find rates only slightly higher, and the per-employee savings on Justworks fees more than cover the difference.
Co-employment shifts some compliance risk to the PEO. Without it, your company carries more direct compliance responsibility — but Peoplifi automates the most error-prone areas (W-2, ACA forms, multi-state tax filing) so the marginal risk is small for most SMBs.
Yes. Peoplifi tracks 1095-C eligibility data and exports IRS-ready 1094-C / 1095-C forms each January.
A 25-person team on Justworks Plus with Medical pays roughly $30,000 per year in PEO fees. The same team on Peoplifi Growth pays $1,800. Add a small-group health plan at $400/employee/month and the all-in cost is often 30 to 40% lower than Justworks.
Justworks operates a Professional Employer Organisation (PEO) model — a co-employment arrangement where Justworks becomes a co-employer of record alongside the customer. This brings benefits including (1) **Pooled benefits buying** — access to large-group health insurance rates as if part of a much larger employer. (2) **Shared employment-tax burden** — Justworks files federal and state employment taxes under their EIN. (3) **Compliance risk-sharing** — some compliance responsibility shifts to the PEO. (4) **Bundled HR services** — HR consulting, posters, handbooks. The trade-offs are (1) **PEO fees** — typically 5-10% of payroll or USD 50-100+ per employee per month. (2) **Co-employment complications** — some legal and financial questions around joint employment. (3) **Less data control** — employee data lives in Justworks systems. (4) **Lock-in to Justworks-curated benefits** — limited flexibility in benefit design.
PEO models genuinely serve specific scenarios. (1) **Very small businesses (under 25 employees)** that wouldn't qualify for competitive group health insurance directly. (2) **Companies prioritising bundled benefits and HR services** over per-component selection. (3) **Founders without HR expertise** wanting compliance handled by a third party. (4) **Sectors with complex compliance** — healthcare, legal, financial services where the PEO's compliance expertise is genuinely valuable. (5) **Companies hiring across multiple states** where Justworks' multi-state employer tax setup eliminates per-state administrative work. For these scenarios, Justworks delivers genuine operational value worth the higher cost.
For companies that have grown past the smallest-employer tier, the PEO model often becomes operationally suboptimal. (1) **Larger SMBs (40+ employees)** can typically get competitive group-health rates directly through brokers. (2) **Companies wanting flexible benefits** — HSA-compatible plans, ICHRA, dental/vision/life of choice — find PEO bundling restrictive. (3) **Companies prioritising data control** — employee data ownership matters for some industries. (4) **Cost-sensitive companies** — PEO fees compound as headcount grows; switching to direct administration with modern HRIS often saves 30-50% at scale. (5) **Companies with complex HR needs** — modern HRIS-plus-broker arrangements deliver more sophisticated workflows than PEO-bundled HR services.
Justworks pricing is typically USD 49-99 per employee per month for the PEO platform plus health insurance and other benefits as add-ons. For a 25-person team on Justworks Plus with Medical, total annual cost typically runs USD 25,000-35,000 in PEO fees plus the cost of insurance. Peoplifi Growth covers HR-payroll-time-tracking at USD 1,800/year for 25 people. Adding a competitive small-group health plan at USD 400-500/employee/month brings the total to roughly USD 130,000-160,000/year — typically 25-35% lower than Justworks' fully-bundled cost. The savings grow at scale: at 100 employees, Peoplifi + direct broker arrangement typically saves USD 30,000-50,000+ per year.
Migrating from a PEO like Justworks to direct administration with Peoplifi requires careful planning around (1) **Insurance transition** — lining up new health, dental, vision, life, disability through a broker before terminating the PEO. (2) **EIN and tax registration** — registering the company directly with IRS and state tax agencies (the PEO had been filing under their EIN). (3) **State unemployment registration** — establishing new SUTA accounts in each state with employees. (4) **Workers' comp policy** — direct policy from the company rather than PEO-bundled. (5) **Employee communication** — clear explanation of what's changing and what isn't. (6) **Effective-date coordination** — typically January 1 for clean tax-year transition. The migration is operationally meaningful — typically 6-8 weeks of preparation — but the long-run savings justify the effort for organisations of meaningful size.
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