Pay Stub Generator vs Payroll Software in Canada
Prepared by Paystub Pilot
Payroll and tax research
Prices and plan limits checked on vendor pricing pages in September 2026; they change, so confirm before choosing.
Canadian payroll software for a single employee costs roughly C$7 to C$31 a month and files the remittances, T4s, and ROEs for you. A pay stub generator costs a few dollars a period and files nothing. Compare the two with 2026 prices and see where the line falls for a small employer.
What each one actually does
Payroll software calculates deductions, pays the employee by direct deposit, remits the source deductions to the CRA (and Revenu Québec for Quebec employees) on the right schedule, files the T4 slips and summary in February, and produces Records of Employment through ROE Web when someone leaves. The monthly fee buys the filing, not the arithmetic.
A pay stub generator does the arithmetic and produces the pay statement each period. In Canada the statement is a legal document in its own right, but the exact fields are set mainly by provincial and territorial employment standards, not by one CRA pay-stub rule. Most jurisdictions require a pay period, gross wages, deductions, and net pay; hours, rates, pay dates, and employer details vary by province. The CRA's own Payroll Deductions Online Calculator is explicit that its printout is not an official statement of earnings. A generator with the T4127 formulas fills that statement gap, Paystub Pilot's T4 and T4A generators fill in the slips from the same totals, and the T4 page shows the Quebec slip's figures. Neither touches the remittance, the T4 Summary filing, or the ROE.
So the question is not which tool is more accurate; both use the same CRA tables. It is whether you want to pay for the filing to be done for you.
What the software costs in 2026
Prices are from vendor pages in September 2026 and change often.
Wagepoint charges C$20 a month plus C$4 per employee on its Solo plan, limited to one pay run a month, or C$40 plus C$6 per employee for unlimited runs. It handles Quebec.
Wave Payroll is C$25 a month plus C$6 per employee, with remittances and T4s included. Wave does not offer payroll in Quebec.
PaymentEvolution prices its small-business tier per run: roughly C$3.50 per employee per pay run with a setup fee, which works out to about C$7 a month for one employee paid twice monthly. It handles Quebec.
Payworks starts around C$21 a month plus C$2 per employee. QuickBooks Payroll is an add-on to a QuickBooks Online subscription at C$5 to C$10 per employee. ADP, Ceridian Dayforce, Humi, and Rise quote custom or higher base prices aimed at larger teams.
Free options exist with caps: several vendors offer no-fee payroll for very small employers, typically under twenty employees, funded by upsells to accounting or HR products.
For a company paying one employee, payroll software with all the filings costs between C$7 and C$31 a month.
Where a generator fits
An owner-manager who already remits. A one-person corporation paying its owner a monthly salary has a simple remittance (one line, quarterly for new small remitters) and one T4 a year. Many owners do this by hand with PDOC and My Business Account and only need the statement. A generator at a few dollars a period, or a subscription when the months add up, is the cheaper option, the T4 reconciles to the December stub's year-to-date totals, and the T4 slip generator produces it from them.
A household employer. Families paying a nanny or caregiver often already use a specialist service for remittances, or handle the quarterly remittance themselves. The stub is what the employee asks for each period and what the family needs to keep for six years.
Replacing a missing statement. A payroll register exists but the statement for one period was never issued or was lost. Rebuilding it from the register is a generator task, not a reason to migrate payroll.
Hourly staff with variable weeks, while still small. Two or three casual employees with changing hours and vacation pay paid out on each cheque can be run from PDOC and a generator for a few dollars a period.
Quebec employers
Quebec adds a second remittance stream (provincial tax, QPP, QPIP, and the Health Services Fund go to Revenu Québec) and the RL-1 slips. Paystub Pilot's Quebec stubs carry QPP, QPIP, and the reduced EI rate and show the employee's occupation, which Quebec requires on the pay sheet, and the T4 page shows the RL-1 figures from the same totals.
What a generator must not be used for
A pay statement is an employer document. It records wages an employer actually paid and deductions actually withheld and remitted. Using a generator to produce a statement for income that was never run through payroll, whether for a loan, a lease, or a benefit application, is not a payroll shortcut; it is a false document, and Canadian lenders and landlords increasingly verify against T4s and CRA records rather than the statement itself. Self-employed people proving income use their notice of assessment, T1 return, and bank records, not a stub.
The practical rule
If you remit to the CRA yourself and are comfortable doing the T4s in February, a generator gives you a statement with the fields your province requires for less than any software plan. Either way, issue the statement every period, keep it for six years, and make sure the year-to-date totals on the last stub of the year match the T4.