Two price lists, because there are two kinds of buyer.

Because the two buyers need different things. An operator resells the platform, so its cost has to be predictable to price a book of clients — a flat band does that. A single business is just buying an internal system, and banding would make a 26-person company pay a 50-person price. Per employee is fairer at that size and it is what the market is used to.

On the per-employee list your licensed seat count is what you pay for, so you add seats as you grow and we true up at renewal. On the operator lists nothing changes at all until renewal: the band is flat, so a client hiring someone never moves your price.

Yes, 25 employees, so the smallest deployment is $150 a month self-operated. A business below that pays the minimum rather than being turned away, though under about 20 people a hosted payroll service is usually the better answer and we will say so.

On the operator lists, nothing changes until renewal. We review your book size once a year, and you can run up to 10% over your band’s limit before it counts. Books larger than the biggest band shown are priced individually.

When you decide to make Stratum your platform. During the pilot it runs alongside your current system, and nothing is billed until you choose to switch.

Your own cloud or hardware costs, under either option. For an operator running a book of clients that is typically $12,000–$36,000 a year. A single business running one deployment is far less — often under $2,000 a year at the smaller sizes, since the whole stack fits on one machine.

Applying our security and tax releases within 14 days of publication, which keeps the warranty and tax accuracy intact. If you’d rather not run releases yourself, Stratum-operated handles it for you.

The same support on both columns. Email our support desk and each message opens a tracked case, Monday to Friday, 8 am to 6 pm Eastern. A payroll-blocking problem, meaning a payroll, bank file, tax deposit or return due within two business days that can’t be produced, gets a first response within four business hours. Anything else gets one by the end of the next business day. Defects in Stratum and tax and compliance releases are included. Changes to your own setup, data fixes and customization after the 90-day warranty are billed at $225 an hour, agreed before the work starts.

Nothing stops. Payroll, filings and your records keep working, because they run on your own infrastructure. What lapses is access to new tax and security releases, and support.

You do. Stratum runs in your environment and sends files to your bank with your own credentials, under your existing ACH agreement; your bank will usually want a round of test files before the first live one. If your current payroll provider moves the money for you today, you will need your own agreement with a bank or a payments platform first, and we help you plan that.

Not yet. When you run Stratum yourself, it is part of your own controls, and we give your auditors a control matrix and a system description of what the software enforces, such as two-person release of payment files and a ledger that can’t be edited. For Stratum-operated customers, a SOC 2 covering our deployment access is planned with our first operated customers.

Local income and occupational taxes are built in for 826 jurisdictions, including Ohio’s RITA and CCA cities, every Indiana county, every Michigan city income tax, Maryland counties, Pennsylvania’s cities, New York City and Yonkers, and Kansas City and St. Louis. Pennsylvania’s boroughs, townships and school districts, Kentucky’s smaller city taxes and a few special levies are not built in; if you have employees there, you’ll license a local-tax provider directly and Stratum connects to it. We check your book against our coverage during implementation, before your subscription starts.

Yes. Two years is 10% off and three years is 15% off, with your price locked for the term.

Not at this time. Stratum is licensed as one suite so payroll, benefits, workers’ comp and compliance always work together.

Yes. Founding-partner pricing is available to our first few customers in exchange for being a reference. Ask us for the details.

Your name, logo and colors replace ours everywhere your clients and employees look, including generated documents like pay stubs. We do it during implementation for your deployment; it isn’t a setting you toggle later.