Free payroll software in Nigeria: what's really free in 2026.

When you have four staff and a runway measured in months, paying for software before the business pays for itself feels wrong. We agree. Our view: paying people correctly shouldn't be a premium feature. Getting PAYE, pension and payslips right is how you look after your team, and a small company deserves that as much as a bank does.

So here's the honest version: every free option we could find, what each one leaves out, and when free stops being the right choice.

1. Free plan, free trial or free tool? Know which one you're getting

"Free" means three different things in payroll software:

• A free plan: free for as long as you stay within its limits, usually a number of staff. This is what most founders mean.
• A free trial: the full product for a week or two, then a bill. Useful for testing, but not free payroll.
• A free tool: a PAYE calculator or a spreadsheet template. It handles one salary at a time, with no payslips, schedules or reminders.

Free payroll options in Nigeria, checked 20 October 2026

Pricing changes often, and we're one of the tools on the list. Check each vendor's own page before you choose. If we've got something wrong about yours, email hello@wadatahr.com and we'll fix it.

Which fits you? With up to 5 staff at any salary, WadataHR Free covers payroll and hiring, and you pay from your own bank. Salario Free suits you if you'd rather pay staff into Salario wallets. With 6 to 10 staff all earning under ₦150,000 net, NotchHR's free plan fits on paper; watch its salary cap as you give raises. Past either tool's limits you're on a paid plan, so compare the paid prices too.

2. What WadataHR Free includes

Everything a small team needs to pay people properly. Free limits how many staff you can approve payroll for, not how carefully payroll is worked out.

Payroll

• PAYE under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, worked out for each person's state of residence, with the new bands, the ₦800,000 tax-free first band and no old Consolidated Relief Allowance.
• Pension, NHF, NSITF and ITF worked out for each person, employee and employer shares.
• Tax reliefs: rent, health insurance, mortgage interest and life assurance, each recorded with its evidence.
• Real-life months: joiners and leavers part way through, bonuses, deductions, unpaid days, and supplementary runs for corrections.
• Checks before you approve: changed bank details, pay going to an account in someone else's name, two people paid into one account, sharp salary changes, someone missing from this month's run. They warn; you decide.

After you approve

• A bank file of every net salary, for your bank transfer.
• Schedules for each authority: PAYE for each state tax office, pension for each PFA, NHF and NSITF, as PDF and CSV.
• "Cash you'll need": every amount the month needs, from net pay to NSITF, with its due date.
• Payslips with your logo and year-to-date totals that staff download themselves, for a loan, rent or a visa.
• A compliance calendar and reminders before payday and before each deadline.

Hiring and onboarding (never limited by staff count)

• A careers page, unlimited job posts, AI job post drafts and 20 AI CV summaries a month, with 2 hiring managers.
• Interview booking and offer pages that show the candidate their estimated monthly take-home next to the gross.
• New hires fill in their own personal, bank and pension details from a link on their phone.

3. What Free doesn't do

Better you read it here than find out on payday.

• It doesn't pay your staff. WadataHR works out every salary and gives you a bank file; you pay from your own bank, then mark the run paid. Free never moves money. Paying staff from WadataHR is coming to the Payroll plan.
• It doesn't file or pay remittances for you. It prepares the PAYE, pension, NHF and NSITF schedules and reminds you before each deadline; you file and pay. Filing for you is coming with Payroll + Compliance.
• It stops at 5 active staff for payroll approval. The count includes staff on probation, not just the people in this month's run.
• Hiring has a few limits: 2 hiring managers, 20 AI CV summaries a month, and no AI checks of candidates against your must-haves.
• One company per account, Nigeria and naira only, and no mobile app (it works in your phone's browser).

4. Worked example: a 4-person team's October payroll

A young company pays four staff, all living in Lagos. Pay is split 50/30/20 into basic, housing and transport, nobody has claimed rent relief yet, and NHF is switched off (it's optional for private-sector staff). Here's what Free works out:

On top of gross pay, the company pays ₦142,000 employer pension (10%) and ₦14,200 NSITF (1%). ITF doesn't apply yet: it starts at 5 staff, or below that with turnover of ₦50 million or more.

That's ₦156,200 more than the salaries themselves, the part founders most often forget to set aside. The software cost for all of it: ₦0. Check any single salary with the take-home pay calculator, which uses the same rules.

5. When you outgrow Free, and what it costs

Free covers payroll for up to 5 active staff. From your 6th, approving payroll needs the Payroll plan: ₦2,000 per active staff a month, minimum ₦12,000. A year costs the same as 10 months. Staff who have left don't count, and you can cancel anytime and keep the plan to the end of the period you paid for.

Nothing locks when you grow: adding, importing and onboarding people are never blocked. Only approving the run waits for the plan.

6. The other free options: spreadsheets, calculators and your accountant

Payroll software isn't the only way to pay people. Here's how the usual alternatives compare.

• A spreadsheet. Free, flexible and familiar. The risks: formulas built before 2026 may still use the old Consolidated Relief Allowance, nobody can see who changed a salary, one shared file shows everyone's pay, and nothing reminds you on the 9th that PAYE is due tomorrow. Fine for 2 or 3 people if you check it carefully. Our free payroll template is built on the 2026 rules.
• A free PAYE calculator. Good for checking one salary, or what an offer means in take-home pay. Some free calculators we checked disagree on the 2026 rules, such as the rent relief cap (it's ₦500,000) and the top band (it's 25%). Ours is here, built on the same engine as our payroll.
• Your accountant. Valuable for year-end, audits and tricky cases. Paying them by the month to type salaries into a spreadsheet is usually the expensive way to do the simple part.

Our view: use your accountant's time for advice, and let software do the arithmetic it can't get bored of.

7. Before you trust any free payroll tool, check these

• Does it use the Nigeria Tax Act 2025? Run one salary through it and compare with a calculator you trust. If you see "CRA" anywhere, it's out of date.
• Does it tax by state of residence? PAYE goes to the state where your staff member lives, not where your office is.
• Does it prepare the schedules, or only the payslips? PFAs and state tax offices need a schedule with every payment.
• Who holds the money? If a tool pays your staff or remits for you, ask where the money sits and check your PFA and tax receipts each month. Some 2026 roundups still list Bento Africa, which halted operations in February 2025 amid investigations into unremitted tax and pension (TechCabal).
• What are the limits? Staff count, salary caps and trial end dates. Read them before you migrate your team in.
• Can you take your data out? Your payroll history belongs to you.

8. How to run your first free payroll on WadataHR

1. Sign up at app.wadatahr.com. No card.
2. Add your team: one by one, from our CSV template, or by sending each person a link to fill in their own bank and pension details.
3. Check each person's salary and details. Add any reliefs your staff have claimed, with their evidence.
4. Review the draft run. Read the warnings, fix what needs fixing, and approve.
5. Download the bank file and pay from your bank.
6. Mark the run paid. Payslips go out to your staff, and your schedules and reminders are ready.

Free payroll questions founders ask

Related guides and tools