Mercury Launches Payroll: $100 Plus $50 a Person From 2027

Mercury launched Mercury Payroll on Oct. 20, free through Dec. 31, then $100 a month plus $50 for each person paid.

If your store banks at Mercury, payroll now lives in the account you already use. For an ecommerce owner the catch is price and geography: Mercury charges $50 per person against $6 to $12 on Gusto’s first two plans, and it does not pay international contractors, which is where many store VAs live.

Below: what Mercury announced, how it got here, the math against Gusto, and what to do before Jan. 1. This is the kind of money-side news I track at Ecommerce Paradise. If you are still choosing where your store banks, start with my guide to the best business bank accounts for ecommerce entrepreneurs.

Every payroll provider asks for an EIN and a clean entity before it pays a single person, so form your LLC with Northwest, the best LLC formation service for ecommerce owners. Northwest also forwards physical mail to operators who live outside the formation state or country, which matters if you run your store from abroad. Form your LLC with Northwest →

Mercury Payroll Is Free Through 2026, Then $100 Plus $50 a Person

According to a Business Wire release published Oct. 20 at 11:00 a.m. EDT and carried by FinancialContent, Mercury Payroll lets founders pay W-2 employees, pay 1099 contractors in the U.S., and issue bonuses from inside a Mercury account.

Mercury already holds the company’s EIN and entity details, so the release says a first payroll run can be set up in under 15 minutes. New hires enter their own tax forms and direct deposit details.

The product runs through Mercury Command, the company’s AI agent. Per the release, Command can update salaries, add overtime to a pay run, add recurring reimbursements or deductions, and issue bonuses. Mercury says AI output may be incomplete or inaccurate and that users must review and confirm every payroll action themselves.

On compliance, Mercury says it files and remits federal and state payroll taxes, produces year-end W-2s and 1099s, handles unemployment claims and reviews state agency correspondence. An in-house team registers the company in new states as it hires, with coverage in all 50 states. Benefits include health insurance, a 401(k) through Human Interest or a self-managed plan, HSA, FSA, ICHRA and commuter benefits.

Pricing comes from Mercury’s payroll page. It is free for all of 2026. Starting Jan. 1, 2027 it costs $100 a month plus $50 for each person paid that month, with no annual contract. Government fees and taxes pass through at cost, and workers’ comp, insurance and third-party benefits cost extra.

Eligibility is narrow. Payroll is for U.S.-based Mercury business customers, and Mercury asks for company ownership details, an EIN and an authorized signatory. External bank accounts are not supported. Customers switching from another provider can start setup before Jan. 1 but cannot run payroll through Mercury until then.

International contractors are not supported yet. Mercury’s page says you can pay them by wire from your account. On Mercury’s pricing page, USD international wires are free on the SHA option, the OUR option costs a flat $15, and non-USD wires carry a 1% conversion fee.

Mercury co-founder and CEO Immad Akhund said in the announcement, as quoted by PYMNTS: “We’re launching Mercury Payroll so paying your team can feel as simple as moving money in Mercury.”

One structural note from Mercury’s own materials. Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking is provided through Choice Financial Group and Column N.A., Members FDIC, and certain payroll services come from third parties including Check Technologies.

How Mercury Went From Startup Bank to Payroll Provider

This did not come out of nowhere. Coverager reported that Mercury acquired Central in April, which it describes as an AI-native payroll and benefits platform built for startups, and that Mercury now serves more than 450,000 customers. PYMNTS reported that Mercury raised $200 million in May at a $5.2 billion valuation.

PYMNTS also says Mercury’s customer base started with venture-backed startups and now includes ecommerce, professional services and other digital businesses. That is the line that matters here. A bank built for software founders is now selling to people who run Shopify stores.

Before this launch, Mercury’s answer to payroll was an integration. According to Mercury’s help center, the integration supports ADP Run, BambooHR, Deel, Gusto, Justworks, Paycor, QuickBooks Online Payroll, Square Payroll and Workday, and it only syncs team data such as names, titles and start dates. It does not move payroll data. Mercury says Rippling is not supported.

If you are new to the bank itself, I walked through the Mercury application step by step. I also broke down what the free tier costs in my Mercury pricing guide.

Here is the counterpoint, and it is a real one. This product is one day old. I could not find an independent review, and neither the release nor the payroll page says how payroll entries post to accounting software. Mercury is also selling the AI angle hard while telling you in the fine print to double-check everything the AI does. Treat the launch as a credible option, not a proven one.

Mercury Payroll vs Gusto: What a 3-Person Team Costs a Month

My read: this is a convenience product with a convenience price. Here is the hypothetical math, built only from published prices. The Mercury numbers are $100 plus $50 per person paid. Gusto’s pricing page lists Simple at $49 plus $6 per person (one state) and Plus at $80 plus $12 per person (multi-state, time tracking, contractor invoice management). Everything below is hypothetical team sizes at those list prices, not a quote.

Take a store owner who pays three people in a month. Mercury comes to $250, or $3,000 a year. Gusto Simple is $67, or $804 a year. Gusto Plus is $116, or $1,392 a year. Against Plus, the closest match on multi-state, Mercury costs about $134 more per month.

Scale to ten people paid. Mercury is $600 a month, or $7,200 a year. Gusto Plus is $200, or $2,400. The gap is $400 a month. The per-person fee is what compounds, because $50 against $12 is more than four times higher on every head.

What does the extra money buy? Mercury says it handles state registrations in all 50 states with no state caps, bundles the AI agent and keeps payroll in the same login as your cash. Gusto’s published plans charge separately for compliance help, at $85 a month per state on its compliance add-on, which is included in Premium. If you hire in three or four states, the comparison tightens. If you pay people in one or two states, it does not.

Here is the threshold I would use. If the $134 monthly gap on a three-person team is less than the admin time Mercury saves you, the premium is fair. If you would not pay a freelancer $134 a month to handle payroll chores, the premium is not fair. Run your own numbers. Do not take either company’s word for it.

Where Mercury Payroll does not reach most store teams

Mercury pays U.S. employees and U.S. contractors. A lot of high-ticket store teams are different: customer service, order processing and listing work often sit with overseas VAs hired through marketplaces like OnlineJobs.ph. Those people are not covered. You would still wire them from Mercury, or pay through a multi-currency account like Wise.

Gusto lists a service and foreign exchange fee on each global contractor payment, so neither route is free of friction. If cross-border payouts are most of your payroll, a multi-currency account such as Airwallex may fit better. My guide to setting up Airwallex without overpaying on fees covers the setup. Mercury Payroll is a US-team product.

Worker classification is the other trap. The IRS says on its employee or contractor page that businesses must weigh behavioral control, financial control and the type of relationship, and that no single factor decides. It adds that treating an employee as a contractor without a reasonable basis can leave you liable for employment taxes. A payroll button does not make that decision for you. I am not a tax or legal advisor, so run real classification questions past a CPA.

Security is the third angle. Fake hires are a live problem, and I covered how North Korean IT workers hit 70+ US firms. Any payroll tool that makes onboarding a 15-minute job also makes it easier to onboard someone you never properly vetted. Vet first, pay second.

Concentration is the fourth. Putting banking, cards and now payroll in one fintech login is clean, and it is also one login to lose. I covered the Google Cloud London outage that disrupted Revolut cards on Oct. 20. The same logic sits behind my argument that your payment processor is a single point of failure. Keep a second account funded.

Payroll also hits cash timing. Wages leave your account on a schedule, while store revenue arrives in lumps, which is why I wrote about why growing ecommerce businesses run short of cash even when sales rise. If you are also modeling your first-year costs, my lean first-year budget for high-ticket dropshipping shows where a team line item belongs.

Most of this complexity is why owners stall at the first hire. If you would rather not build and manage a team yourself, my team builds and runs high-ticket stores through the turnkey done-for-you service, and the payroll question becomes ours.

Not sure whether your first hire should be a W-2, a U.S. contractor or a VA overseas? Walk it through with me one on one. Get the coaching details →

Mercury Payroll Checklist: 5 Moves Before the Jan. 1 Price Hits

Here are the five things I would do, in order, between now and the end of the year.

Count who you pay and where they live. Sort every person into U.S. W-2, U.S. 1099 or overseas. Mercury only covers the first two, so overseas payroll stays on your current wire or multi-currency route. If you have not built that team yet, my guide to hiring and onboarding a VA for customer service is the place to start.
Price your current provider against $100 plus $50 per person. Pull your last invoice and compare it to Mercury’s published numbers and to Gusto’s Simple and Plus tiers. If you track VA hours, a tool like Hubstaff feeds the number you pay. My Hubstaff review covers whether it earns its fee.
Fix the entity first. Mercury asks for ownership details, an EIN and an authorized signatory, so a store running as a sole proprietor on a personal account is not ready. My business formation resources lay out the order of operations.
Write down the classification for every contractor. Use the IRS’s three categories, record the reasoning and file Form SS-8 if you are genuinely unsure. The IRS says an SS-8 determination can take at least six months, so do not wait until a hire is urgent.
Ask Mercury two questions in writing before you move. First, can a first-time payroll customer run payroll before Jan. 1, since the release only addresses switchers. Second, how do payroll entries post to your books in QuickBooks. Ask the same question if you use an ecommerce bookkeeping service like Finaloop.

If you want a second set of eyes on your team structure and your money stack, book a discovery call and bring your current payroll invoice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Mercury Payroll really free?
Through Dec. 31, 2026, yes, per Mercury’s payroll page. From Jan. 1, 2027 it is $100 a month plus $50 for each person paid that month, and government fees pass through at cost. Workers’ comp and third-party benefits cost extra.

Can I pay my Philippines-based VAs with it?
No. Mercury says international contractors are not supported and points you to wires from your account. Mercury’s USD international wires are free on the SHA option, so pairing it with a nomad-friendly business account is a common fallback.

Do I need an LLC and an EIN to use it?
You need a Mercury account, an EIN, company ownership details and an authorized signatory. If you have not formed the entity yet, start with my guide to getting a business credit card with only an EIN, then open the bank.

Should I leave Gusto for it?
My read is not on price alone. Gusto’s list prices are far lower per person, and Mercury says it cannot run payroll for switchers before Jan. 1 anyway. If one login and Mercury’s state registrations matter more than the cost, it is worth a trial after the new year.

Does Mercury’s AI agent run payroll for me?
It drafts changes. Mercury says you must review and confirm every payroll action and that AI output can be incomplete or inaccurate. If you use AI elsewhere in the business, my guide to building a leaner high-ticket business with Claude shows where it earns its keep.

I do not have a store yet. Where do I start?
Start with the basics in what high-ticket dropshipping is, then grab my free beginner guide. Payroll is a problem for after the first sales.

Want my team to scale the store you already have, so payroll is a good problem to have? See the scaling service →

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Trevor Fenner

Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.