Moonworkers vs Payroll Engine
Moonworkers
moonworkers.co.uk
Payroll Engine
payrollengine.orgSide by side
| Figure | Moonworkers | Payroll Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | £6.49/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Payroll APIs | 7.6 (#5) | 8.6 (#1) |
| Founded | 2017 | 2018 |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK | Switzerland (author's location; no company headquarters stated) |
| Integrations | The company lists NEST, Smart Pension and The People's Pension, and says payroll journals can be exported to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, IRIS and KashFlow. | The REST API supports tenant and employee management, payrun jobs, result queries, report output, and backend event webhooks. |
| Intended users | The site presents the service for sole traders, businesses with 2 to 200 employees, accountants and enterprises. | The maker identifies HR-tech and EOR platforms, payroll consultants and HR specialists, and DevOps or integration engineers as its main roles. |
| Product | Moonworkers describes itself as a UK payroll platform with payroll software, an instant payslip generator, an accountant hub and a developer API. | Payroll Engine is an open-source framework for embedding payroll processing into larger software platforms. |
| Security | Moonworkers says production systems and databases are hosted in Amsterdam, data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and customer accounts support MFA. | The maker warns that the backend should not be used on the public Internet and documents None, API key, and OAuth authentication modes. |
| Support | The company advertises UK-based support and invites users to contact it with questions or security concerns. | Questions and feature requests go to GitHub Discussions, bugs to GitHub Issues, and the maker asks users to allow a few business days for responses. |
Plans
Moonworkers
- Accountant Hub£1.69, paid once
- Payslip Generator£3.99, paid once
- Payroll Software£6.49 a month
- API & EnterprisePrice not published
In their own words
Moonworkers
Moonworkers is a paid UK payroll platform available on the web and through an API. It provides payroll software, an instant payslip generator, an Accountant Hub, and a REST API for ERP or HR integrations. Payroll supports fixed and variable pay, multiple pay frequencies, statutory payments, National Insurance, and pension auto-enrolment calculations. Pay runs submit required RTI information to HMRC, including Full Payment Submissions and Employer Payment Summaries. Holiday pay uses the 52-week average earnings method and covers casual and zero-hours workers. The service creates HMRC-compliant PDF payslips and can deliver them automatically. Connections include NEST, Smart Pension, The People’s Pension, and journal exports to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, IRIS, and KashFlow. Plans include £1.69 for Accountant Hub, £3.99 for Payslip Generator, and £6.49 a month billed per payslip for Payroll Software. Prices exclude VAT and UK-only limits apply.
Payroll Engine
Payroll Engine is an open-source framework for embedding payroll processing into larger software platforms. Released under the MIT License, it provides a backend that processes payroll data through a REST API and configurable regulation layers; country regulations are commercial. It supports time-stamped payroll data, recurring and non-recurring payruns, and reports for payslips, legal filings, or data exchange. Its API covers tenant and employee management, payrun jobs, result queries, report output, and backend event webhooks. A browser application manages tenants, employees, regulations, case data, payruns, reports, tasks, and developer logs. The .NET Client SDK includes typed REST clients, test runners, local script tools, and JSON schemas for regulation validation. A built-in test framework supports case validation, payrun assertions, and regression testing. The backend is designed for local or Docker Compose deployment, and a database must be provided separately. API key and OAuth authentication are supported but disabled by default; audit trails are also disabled by default unless configured. The maker says the backend is a service and should not be used on the public Internet.