Justworks Review
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- Date Established
- 2012
- Location
- New York
Pros
- Easy to use
- Transparent pricing
- Great insurance options
Cons
- Lack of customization
- Limited reporting options
Justworks Overview
Justworks is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO). A PEO is a human resource company hired to take over control of some of your business’s functions. It can be a great alternative to growing businesses that need to tackle administrative services but prefers to outsource those responsibilities. A PEO will manage HR administration, payroll, risk and compliance issues, insurance, employee training, and more.
However, PEOs use a co-employment model (meaning: Justworks would become the employer of record for tax purposes) and may not be a good fit for every small business. So why do it? A PEO has better buying power with insurance options, and it is their job to keep a business compliant. They are a good fit for slightly larger, low-turnover businesses. If you’re looking for a PEO, Justworks should be in contention. The program is less expensive than some other PEO competitors, such as TriNet or Zenefits, and designed to be a smooth and effortless experience.
Continue reading our full Justworks review to learn about everything this payroll provider has to offer.
Table of Contents
Pricing
You can easily find Justworks’ pricing online, and its transparency is a huge leg-up on the competition. However, there isn’t an opportunity for a free trial. Here are the different pricing packages offered at Justworks:
Basic
- Starts at $40 per employee per month (you can save 15% by billing annually)
- Payroll for salaried and hourly employees
- Off-cycle payments
- Vendor and contractor payments
- Employer payroll tax filings
- W-2 and 1099 filings
- Unemployment insurance filings
- Employment practices liability insurance
- 24/7 support
- HR consulting
- Harassment prevention and inclusion training
- Online employee onboarding
- PTO management
- Calendar, doc center, directory
- Accounting software integrations
- Reporting
- Commuter benefits
- Plan setup
Plus
The Plus platform is touted as the most popular. It includes everything in the Basic package, plus:
- Starts at $89 per employee per month (you can save 15% by billing annually)
- COBRA administration
- Health advocacy services
- One Medical (when available)
Extra Costs
There are several additional costs you might encounter per month. These are optional programs that you may add to your Justworks plan:
- Workers’ Compensation Insurance: Most businesses with one or more employees across all 50 states need workers’ compensation as a legal business requirement. It pays for medical expenses and lost wages if an employee gets injured on the job. The payroll program will calculate workers’ comp deductions.
- Life & Disability Insurance: Justworks offers life insurance, long-term disability, and short-term disability benefits through MetLife.
- Health & Wellness Perks: This new update includes an Employee Assist Program to help employees gain access to mental health assistance, life/work management services, and legal assistance.
- Fitness Membership: Employers can contribute a monthly amount toward gym memberships for their employees.
- 401(k) Services: Justworks’ provider for 401(k) services is Slavic401k.
Cloud-Based Or Locally-Installed
Justworks is entirely cloud-based, so no downloads or installation is required.
Hardware & Software Requirements
As a cloud-based human resources solution, Justworks is compatible with any device as long as you have an internet connection.
Specific Size Of Business
Small-medium-sized businesses are the target here — companies/startups that already need benefits administration and HR capabilities and can afford to pay for that service.
Ease Of Use
Everything front-facing on the Justworks platform is designed with ease of use for the client. With that usability and ease comes a careful simplicity; you will sacrifice customization when you want ease. A PEO is for businesses that don’t want to fiddle around in a multitude of programs to administer various aspects of employee management — they want to hand it over to experts and remain as hands-off as possible. And if that sounds like what you’re looking for, Justworks is as easy to use as they get.
Reviews and testimonials regarding its functionality use words such as foolproof, intuitive, simple, easy, automated, basic, and pain-free.
As with any SaaS provider, ease of use will depend on personal experiences and preferences. Some users mention difficulty finding reports or fixing mistakes without the need for customer service to intervene.
Features
As a Professional Employer Organization, Justworks is a co-owner of your business for tax purposes. For businesses that need robust HR support but may not be able to afford an HR department, a PEO is the right fit. Here’s an overview of what you can expect with Justworks’ services:
- Benefits Services: This is the best benefit of a PEO — you get access to insurance options at rates that are often off-limits for a small business. Justworks will help employees enroll and compare plans. Everything is automated and uploaded to the Justworks portal. Benefits include insurance, disability, wellness perks, mental health assistance, and fitness memberships.
- Compliance Support: Every business has to pay attention to laws and regulations. This might be especially complicated in a small business with remote employees who work in several different states — juggling local, state, and federal compliance laws can be cumbersome. This feature includes filing your tax paperwork, ensuring the business is compliant with workers’ compensation laws, and keeping up-to-date on employee training. Justworks describes itself as a “government shield.”
- Automated Payroll: Send payroll off with a push of a button or automate the entire process; it’s up to your preferences. Justworks only supports bi-weekly and weekly payment frequencies. Within the system, a business can also manage reimbursements, bonuses, PTO, commissions, and overtime.
- HR Tools & Services: A company calendar will keep your communications seamless, and Justworks wants to make everything about the HR process seamless. Justworks will manage document storage and assist new employees with their onboarding needs. These tools and services also include a company directory and a company handbook, all tailored to fit your specific needs.
Customer Service & Support
Justworks scores decently in customer service and support.
The company has an A+ Better Business Bureau rating but is not accredited through the site. There is only a single complaint, and it’s about the customer service related to an error.
If you compare every category, customer service is the one that gives Justworks the biggest challenges, including complaints about long wait times to talk to experts. Like many other SaaS services, the individuals answering customer service calls are amazing and kind but might lack specific knowledge about payroll, taxes, insurance, or any other complicated questions business owners may have.
Finding someone who can answer your specific tax question or problem can be hard. And some customers didn’t appreciate the high turnover rate among account managers.
However, Justworks is doing great things when it comes to how and when you can get in touch with assistance. Whether it’s a live chat or a Slack message, Justworks wants to be available to you at all times:
- Phone: You can talk to a real human 24/7.
- Email: You can send an email to the Justworks support team at any time.
- Live Chat: There is a 24/7 virtual chat open.
- Slack: Clients will have access to Slack channels to talk with different departments.
- SMS Text Messages: Want to hear from someone right away? Send a text message — you won’t be ghosted here.
- Help Center: The platform has a help center with an easily searchable list of questions and answers. Need COVID updates? Want to know more about payroll? The help center is the place to start.
- Social Media: Justworks maintains Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts. Company reps are active and comment on posts as needed.
User Reviews
Negative Reviews & Complaints
Justworks has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and averages solid scores on other review sites. On Capterra, Justworks has a 4.7/5 rating with 173 reviews. Here are some of the biggest issues for users:
- Does Not Integrate Well With Other Platforms: Justworks wants to be your all-in-one stop for HR/payroll/benefits management. Users hoping to use other programs to manage their employees might find the integrations are clunky or non-existent.
- Limited Reporting Features: Several negative comments stemmed from Justworks’ limited reporting features. While Justworks does integrate with QuickBooks and Xero, it doesn’t integrate with other reporting systems, and account managers found the existing reporting options lacking.
Positive Reviews & Testimonials
Most people who work with Justworks have no complaints about the system, and they have the following positive things to say about the company:
- Easy To Use: Compared to other programs out there, the Justworks user interface is one of the easiest systems to use. In terms of intuitive systems that work for both employers and employees, this program ranks with other simple options and is truly software that anyone can navigate and understand.
- Accessible, All-In-One Employee Management System: Justworks makes managing employees as painless as possible. Users like having a basic and simple system that works for everyone involved. The 24/7 assistance and the commitment to improvement make Justworks a leader in the PEO world. Overall, users were happy to ditch their other payroll/HR providers and cozy up to better insurance options.
Integrations
Compared to competitors, Justworks doesn’t have many integrations. That’s fine for businesses willing to hand over the reins, but if businesses have preferred providers for talent management or company calendars, they might not like the Justworks options. Justworks does integrate with Xero and QuickBooks. Giving up control of certain programs might be a dealbreaker for some businesses — always check with a Justworks rep to ask about specific integration requests.
Security
Justworks’s website states:
At Justworks, we deal with the sensitive personal and financial information of our customers and their employees, day in and day out. It’s a responsibility we take incredibly seriously. Here’s how we safeguard your data. [We] follow industry-standard best practices to ensure the highest levels of security.
The company employs the following security measures:
- Employing firewalls, HTTPS, and bank-level encryption
- Authenticating over SSL/TLS and tokenizing and storing data in an encrypted datastore
- Storing data in a private cluster only accessible through two-factor authentication
- Segregating and tokenizing sensitive data
- Staying up-to-the-minute on security updates
- Applying patches or bug fixes as needed
- Performing daily vulnerability scanning and assessment
- Quarterly audits and risk assessments
- Maintaining internal security policies related to network security, logical access, credentialing, passwords, and data classification
- Working with consultants and outside counsel to ensure processes and controls are consistent with best practices
- Representing in the customer service agreement a commitment to maintaining the security program consistent with industry standards
Final Verdict
For a one-stop-shop employee management platform, Justworks is simple to use, intuitive, and ready to make life simpler for small/mid-sized businesses. However, a PEO is more expensive than some other payroll/HR systems geared toward small businesses, such as Gusto or Square. Without a free trial, hop on a demo with a Justworks rep (they are sweet, capable, and very dogged) to see if the interface works for your company. There aren’t a bevy of bells and whistles, and the interface isn’t trying to become the next modern thing in HR. Justworks, like its name, just works — and it works for businesses that want/need to capitalize on better insurance options for their workers and don’t mind turning over the bulk of the work/responsibility to a one-size-fits-most model.
Shelbi Wescott
Writer at Merchant Maverick
Shelbi Wescott is a writer and educator from Portland, Oregon. When she isn't writing about ways to help small businesses, she is a published author churning out pages for her science-fiction and mystery books. In 2015, her book After Life won an Honorable Mention for Best YA Mystery from the Library Journal. (It has ghosts. And mystery.) Shelbi has both a BA in English Literature and a Masters in Teaching from Lewis and Clark College.
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