Overview Leaderboard Methodology
Industry Report

Payroll Platforms

Cloud-based platforms that automate employee payroll calculation, tax withholdings, filings, and direct deposits for businesses of varying sizes.

Brands tracked: 35
Brands analyzed: 35
Last updated: 2026-04-22
Model: OpenAI GPT-5
Prompts: 275
Total responses: 1,400
Top Brand Overall?
Gusto
92/100

Highest overall AI Visibility Score in this industry.

LBA Leader?
Deel
88

Highest score on the LBA metric in this industry.

Authority Leader?
Gusto
100

Highest score on the Authority metric in this industry.

TOM Leader?
Gusto
100

Highest score on the TOM metric in this industry.

Gusto is the default answer in AI responses for Payroll Platforms

When users ask ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini about Payroll Platforms, Gusto is the brand that surfaces first - unprompted, consistently, and usually at the top of any list the model generates. ADP is a close second, but the gap between them is meaningful. If you're competing in this space and you're not in the top handful, you're effectively invisible to AI-driven discovery.

Brand Leaderboard All 35 Payroll Platforms brands ranked

Ranked by overall AI Visibility Score (smoothed geometric mean of LBA, Authority, and TOM with an LBA-based floor on Authority and TOM, see methodology). Click any brand for the full report.

# Brand LBA Authority TOM Overall
1
Gusto
gusto.com
 78
100
100
92
2
ADP
adp.com
 82
61
91
77
3
Rippling
rippling.com
 86
45
87
70
4
QuickBooks Payroll
quickbooks.intuit.com
 86
32
72
58
5
QuickBooks Live
intuit.com
 48
52
74
57
6
Paychex
paychex.com
 80
34
62
56
7
OnPay
onpay.com
 68
31
54
49
8
Deel
deel.com
 88
14
36
36
9
Square Appointments
squareup.com
 62
11
26
27
10
Workday
workday.com
 73
7
20
24
11
Remote
remote.com
 82
8
14
23
12
UKG
ukg.com
 69
7
17
22
13
Papaya Global
papayaglobal.com
 72
7
9
19
14
Justworks
justworks.com
 73
7
7
18
15
Dayforce
dayforce.com
 68
7
7
17
16
Employment Hero
employmenthero.com
 68
7
7
17
17
Oyster
oysterhr.com
 68
7
7
17
18
Paycom
paycom.com
 68
7
7
17
19
Paycor
paycor.com
 68
7
7
17
20
Paylocity
paylocity.com
 70
7
7
17
21
Patriot Software
patriotsoftware.com
 63
6
6
16
22
CloudPay
cloudpay.com
 59
6
6
15
23
greytHR
greythr.com
 62
6
6
15
24
Multiplier
usemultiplier.com
 59
6
6
15
25
Namely
namely.com
 60
6
6
15
26
Ramco
ramco.com
 59
6
6
15
27
Homebase
joinhomebase.com
 54
5
6
14
28
isolved
isolvedhcm.com
 55
6
6
14
29
PayFit
payfit.com
 57
6
6
14
30
SurePayroll
surepayroll.com
 57
6
6
14
31
BrightPay
brightpay.ie
 50
5
5
13
32
Wagepoint
wagepoint.com
 53
5
5
13
33
Wave
waveapps.com
 49
5
5
12
34
Heartland Payroll
heartland.us
 34
3
3
9
35
Workful
workful.com
 20
2
2
6

How is this calculated? Methodology

Every brand in this leaderboard is scored against the same set of 275 shared Payroll Platforms prompts. The same prompts, same model, same iterations. So differences in scores reflect actual differences in AI visibility, not differences in measurement.

Overall AI Visibility Score
Smoothed geometric mean of LBA, Authority and TOM. Authority and TOM are floored at LBA × 0.1 before the geometric mean (the same floor used in the per-metric cards above, so brand cards and the composite tell the same story). Formula: composite = ((LBA + 5)(Authority + 5)(TOM + 5))^(1/3) - 5. The floor keeps brands the model clearly recognises but doesn't yet recommend from collapsing to zero, while a single genuinely weak metric still pulls the composite down. Full methodology.
Shared industry prompts
For Authority and TOM, all brands in the industry are scored against the same 275 category prompts (e.g. "best SEO tools for agencies"). This makes brand-to-brand comparisons valid - everyone faces identical inputs. LBA prompts are per-brand because they ask brand-specific questions.
Latent Brand Association (LBA)
5 brand probes + 1 control prompt, each run 5 times in recall mode (no web search). LBA = quality × meta × stability × share × recognition × 100. Read the full LBA methodology →
LLM Authority
50 organic category prompts (discovery, comparison, problem and transactional intents), each run once in recall mode and once in retrieval mode. Score = frequency × log-decayed prominence × intent weight, then 50/50 averaged across the two modes. Read the full Authority methodology →
Top of Mind (TOM)
15 high-volume discovery prompts (sourced from Keywords Everywhere search-volume data), each run 5 times in pure recall mode (no web). Score = frequency × (0.5 + 0.5 × log-prominence), volume-weighted. Read the full TOM methodology →