Skip to content
Start here
PAYROLL & HR · MIGRATION GUIDE

Switching from OnPay to Rippling

Rippling has no self-serve import from OnPay. Export payroll history and bring it to your Rippling onboarding call — a sales rep sets up your account and modules.

Quick verdict: Move to Rippling if you want payroll unified with IT device management, benefits and spend management in one platform, and you’re ready for a sales-quoted purchase process.

Estimate · your inputs

Switching Cost & Friction Estimator

Most buyers only budget for the new subscription. This estimates the hidden labor, data-cleanup, and retraining cost of actually making the switch.

25,000
10

Estimate assumes: 1 hour of data-mapping/cleaning labor per 2,000 records, a blended $75/hr ops rate, tiered migration & cleaning tooling fees, and 4 hours of retraining per seat at a $45/hr fully-loaded rate.

Estimated Migration Time
Data Friction Rating
Total Hidden Switching Cost $0

    Why teams move from OnPay to Rippling

    IT device management

    Manage laptops and software access alongside payroll.

    Modular platform

    Add benefits or spend management as needed.

    Built for scaling companies

    Popular with fast-growing, multi-department teams.

    How the migration actually works

    Rippling publishes no price, so you cannot budget exactly until after a sales conversation.

    StepWhat you do
    1Gather payroll and tax recordsExport year-to-date payroll reports, tax filings and employee records from the old provider.
    2Request a Rippling quoteTalk to Rippling’s sales team about which modules (payroll, IT, benefits) you need and your headcount.
    3Rebuild your pay schedule and deductionsRecreate your pay schedule, benefit deductions and any custom earnings or deduction types in the new tool.
    4Re-enter employee and contractor detailsAdd bank details, tax withholding elections and pay rates for each worker — sensitive data that never transfers automatically.
    5Run a parallel test payrollRun one payroll cycle in the new tool alongside the old one to confirm the numbers match before fully switching.
    6Cancel the old planOnce a real payroll cycle has run cleanly in the new tool, cancel the old subscription.

    What this path doesn’t do for you:

    OnPay’s instant self-serve signup and fully published pricing have no Rippling equivalent — expect a sales cycle before you have access or a final price.

    Pricing side by side

    PlanOnPayRippling
    Pricing basisFlat base + per-workerCustom quote, modular
    Entry price$49 base + $6/worker/moNot published
    HR add-on$15 base + $2/workerCore product
    Time tracking add-on$15 base + $4/workerModular add-on
    Free trialFirst month freeNo

    Prices checked on each vendor’s pricing page on September 23, 2026.

    Feature parity check

    CapabilityOnPayRippling
    Pricing transparencyFully publishedNone, sales-quoted
    IT device managementNot offeredCore product
    Self-serve signupYesNo

    Going the other direction, or want the full comparison first?

    Read the OnPay vs Rippling comparison Switching from Rippling to OnPay instead?

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Can I sign up for Rippling online?

    No, based on its published pricing page — you request a quote and a sales rep sets up your account.

    Will it cost more than OnPay?

    Likely, but there’s no published price to confirm — compare your Rippling quote directly against OnPay’s published $49 + $6/worker formula.

    Do I need Rippling’s IT features?

    Only if you want device management and software provisioning alongside payroll; OnPay is payroll and HR only.

    Will my tax filings carry over cleanly?

    Payroll providers don’t transfer tax-filing history automatically. Export year-to-date payroll reports and prior W-2/1099 data, and time the switch around a quarter or year boundary where possible to keep filings clean.

    Sources

    Prices on this page were recorded from each vendor’s own pricing page on the date shown at the top of the page. Vendors change pricing often — check the live source before you buy.

    Every figure is also in our open dataset (JSON and CSV, CC BY 4.0), with its source page and verification date. See how we research pricing.

    Start with the job

    Guides for the jobs this software does

    Plain-language guides: the steps, what to check before you buy, common mistakes, and every tool it takes with verified prices.

    Need sign-off?

    Turn this into a one-page decision brief

    Verified prices costed for your team size, a check against your must-have requirements, the questions to settle before you sign, and a source for every figure. Print it, or paste it into an email to whoever approves the spend.

    Build a decision brief

    From shortlist to switched

    Built for the leader who owns the selection, answers for the spend, drives the rollout, and lives with the results. HelpCompare covers the whole decision, not just the first step.

    Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
    About the author

    Bill Belcamino

    Founder and author, HelpCompare

    Engineer by training, operator by experience, marketer by choice. Bill spent nine years as an engineer at HP, was COO of Auctiva (the number one third-party selling platform on eBay, past 200,000 users) and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. Then he spent 13 years building his own web properties with his own money at stake. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

    “I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

    Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. Pricing on this page was last verified on September 23, 2026. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.