Paychex Reviews 710

⁹It is April 5 and Paychex has still not provided my 1099. My employer signed up with them in 2025 and has only had poor service, poor communication and excuse after excuse for not doing their job. Two others in my office also did not receive their forms. When one gave an ultimatum in early March they were told there'd be a $170 fee to expedite. I'd like them to be fined by the IRS but they're denying responsibility, blaming my payer not themselves. An inept and criminal business.
Received Paychex' solution to the issue-contact the employer. That is more than half the point. The employer knows what's occurring and has called them dozens of times since February, the result being the afore mentioned excuses. IRS requires 1099 availability by January 31 not 10 weeks of reasons why it can't be done. Taxes due next week, will Paychex reimburse incorrect or late return penalties?

Recieved a paper check because they couldn't get my direct deposit set up in time. My bank said it would take up to a week to cash. The bank it was from said the amount was too high I would need to open an account,which I'm not going to do because the next pay period it SHOULD be direct deposited into my account. I took it to walmart and Fred Meyer and it was fine until they ran it through the check machine and was denied stating the payroll company ie. PAYCHEX would need to call the 1800 number for Certigy check systems to verify the company information and validate the check and instead of doing that kept repeating to my employer that I needed to endorse the back of the check... no shit. That's how all paychecks work. My signature is not the issue. Now I have things I need to pay today and tomorrow that if they aren't paid I am going to be screwed with late fees and my phone will be turned off but they don't care

Prompt and courteous service.

If I could give them 0 stars, I would. Nothing works right. I have to keep a spreadsheet to check the calculations, and Paychex never matches my spreadsheet. The customer service sucks. I currently have a tax issue that I wanted resolved before quarter end but no, they are waiting for the quarterly reports. Why amend a filing when you can fix it and have it done before the fact.
We were going to move our 401k but after all our bad experiences, I put the breaks on it. Well they moved forward and opened the 401k anyway. Causing all sorts of issues and confusion. And getting that resolved has been nothing but a nightmare.
I've expressed my concerns and no one cares. Seriously, the worst company I have ever had the displeasure of working with. I don't know how they could be worse if they were trying. 100% do not recommend Paychex.

Your staff is always very professional and helpful.

I like that I have a payroll specialist to speak to

A Scam company, I closed my account with them in January, and they refuse to generate my W2 form without an extra charge, and insist I refuse to allow them to generate the W2 form, wait what?！！Is this some kind of scam?

How can a company do such a bad job and still exist?

We switched to Paychex in January 2024 and terminated our relationship at the end of 2025. From the beginning, response times were consistently slow and unreliable. In some cases, we were told upfront that requests could take up to 15 business days to process. In others, we were quoted 1–3 business days, only for the issue to drag on for more than a week. Multiple times, after waiting, we were then told that the request had been sent to the wrong department and needed to be rerouted...and clock starts over.

We experienced multiple payroll issues during our time with them. On several occasions, payroll was completely stopped because a new employee had been coded incorrectly by them in their system. It took three full payroll cycles to resolve that one issue, and each time payroll was halted until it was addressed.

In one particularly serious incident, all of our employees’ direct deposit information was wiped out without notice, and payroll was converted to paper checks. We caught the issue before processing, but it required every employee to reenter their banking information, and payroll ended up being delayed.

However, nearly 60 days later, those same checks were mailed out to employees. We reported it and were told that the paper checks generated during that error had been voided and that no further action was needed.

Then, just last month, we received notice that Paychex intended to debit our bank account because some of those supposedly voided checks had been cashed. We were told that we would be responsible for collecting those funds back from employees, despite having reported the issue immediately and being assured the checks were void.

There were also compliance and structural issues with how services were handled. Although we had a contract for PEO services, we later discovered that Paychex had not registered as a PEO in our home state. Instead, they filed under a power of attorney, meaning filings were made under our EIN rather than theirs, which created additional complications. In other situations, they sent notices to other states indicating they were no longer our PEO while they were still actively under contract with us.

This only scratches the surface of the problems we encountered. Paychex was already in place before I became the CEO, but I worked to exit the relationship as quickly as possible.

Even now, as of March 2026, we are still dealing with lingering issues from their handling of our account, despite having terminated services on 12/31/2025.

Honestly 1 star is generous...

They ripped me off the entire time I work with them. I never had a price list and I finally left for their high prices. They charged me $1000 to leave. I couldn’t fight it cause it came right out of my account horrible company.

Paychex has been one of the most frustrating companies I’ve ever dealt with. Even after officially closing my account, they are STILL charging me like nothing changed. It’s completely unacceptable and honestly feels like they’re taking advantage of their customers.

I’ve reached out multiple times and still no real resolution—just delays and excuses. No one should have to keep fighting to stop charges on an account that’s already been closed. If you’re considering using Paychex, I strongly recommend thinking twice. This experience has been beyond disappointing.

The worst customer service or lack thereof i have ever seen.
Misfiled my tax reports i contacted them 18 months ago to fix they are long on promises short on performance

Today was advised that my business license was on hold because of the tax issues solely because of paychex

If you think that after all day on the phone with Paychex i got some results---you would be wrong.

They do hot give a shit about small businesses.

In my experienced opinion, this company is a network of product divisions that intentionally act to prevent your termination of their services. They slowly ratched-up fees, intensely billed services we had long ago cancelled, and made it almost impossible to move our 401K accounts to a new management group. Our CFO spent HOURS if not DAYS to detangle our law practice from this conglomerate of racketeers. They intentionally do not respond and make everything tedious to undo.

Terrible customer service and terrible experience with this company. Beware. it has been a nightmare working with this company. I am firing them!

The worst company you could choose. I had many issues with them when I was using their services from failing to process payroll on time to failing to get back with me on time for a garnishment issue that cost me thousands in court fees. Now post usage I am still struggling with them to close out the businesses 401k account and have been trying to do this for 7 months now. Please save yourself the headache.

DONT DO IT. i have two companies and for 3 years they have screwed up everything possible. its so painful to deal with them. new rep every 8 month that hides behind email and the level of incompetence in their hires is shameful.

We sold our company last year and unfortunately an employee lost their W2. He advised me of his error and said I had to call Paychex to get a copy sent. I called back in late February and was told it was taken care of. My employee called me once again today 3/23 and has yet to receive his duplicate W2. I have been on hold now for 54 minutes trying to get this resolved. I have been transferred 3 times already. The company I sold to uses ADP and we are having no issues at all. Run from Paychex!

They messed up payroll for the company. They didn't do their job and asked about lot of money to fix their problems. Really disappointed and when call for help, no one answered phone. We're unlucky to get assigned by unresponsive person. Due to them, we need to spend thousands dollars.

The case manager never returned my phone calls nor emails. Because of this, I asked them to cancel my account. They did not do this. Additionally, their ancillary services, like 401K planning, piggybacked on this account trying to sell me services I did not need. A total waste of time. DO NOT SIGN UP WITH PAYCHEX. They are disorganized and irresponsible.