Choosing the best professional employer organization (PEO) is a vital decision that could help your small business flourish.
The right PEO will free up valuable mental energy by handling HR administration tasks for you, enabling you to focus on other core business operations.
The wrong PEO will further drain your energy and cash reserves, which will leave you overworked and unable to perform the necessary tasks to keep your business on the right track.
I found the best PEO Texas has to offer after analyzing more than 900 different PEO companies, thoroughly researching the top 15, and rating the top 9.
But there’s something you should know before I make that recommendation.
The Best PEO Isn't Always the Right PEO
I’ve spent more hours than I want to admit analyzing the over 900 different PEO companies in Texas, and from that process I’ve identified the best PEO companies based on their scores across various metrics. However, just because a Texas PEO has the highest score on my list doesn’t automatically mean that it’s the best Texas PEO for your business.
- Some Texas PEOs specialize in working with businesses in specific industries, offering industry-specific products and services.
- Some Texas PEOs have developed strong relationships with insurance providers, which means that they offer great benefits packages and insurance options.
- Some Texas PEOs focus on compliance and can help your company meet all the compliance regulations in the Lone Star State.
There’s only one way to ensure that you get the right Texas PEO services for your business. You have to compare the needs of your business and its employees to the services of each of the PEO companies in Texas. This ensures that you’re not just getting the best overall Texas PEO services, but the best PEO company for your business based on the metrics you choose.
If you’d like a free business analysis and personalized PEO service recommendation, fill out the form below. I’ll contact you in 24 hours or less and provide you with your free analysis and PEO recommendation.
If you just want to find out about the Texas PEO company that made it to the top of my list, here’s my list of the best PEO companies in Texas.
1. Vensure — 9.45/10 (Best Overall PEO)
I chose Vensure as the best overall PEO in Texas because, although there isn’t anything in particular about their PEO services that stands out, they handle your business needs with ease. Their main distinction, I suppose, is that you’ll never have any major problems with their PEO service.
Pros
They provide all the PEO services that can help make life easier for business owners:
- Human resources paperwork
- Employee benefits
- Tax administration
- Compliance assistance
- Tax rates
- Payroll services
- 401k
- Employee contracts
- Productivity tracking tools
- Onboarding support
- Dental insurance
- Risk management
- Health insurance
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Administrative services
- Compliance assistance
- Employee benefits administration
- HR administration
They also back all of these services up with great customer support. They respond to emails within 24 hours. If you find you have a more pressing issue, you can call their customer support team for more prompt service.
One of the best aspects of Vensure’s services is that even though they have the technological muscle to support big businesses, they focus on small- and medium-sized businesses.
Because of this, they can support your business at any stage of growth.
Cons
There’s only one real drawback to Vensure. While they do everything they can to adequately cover your Texas business needs, there’s not one PEO service that they do extraordinarily well.
- You’ll find all of the PEO services that most businesses need, but you won’t find any luxury or premium services among their offerings.
- Their customer support is adequate, but they don’t add any personal touches (such as sending out an annual birthday card to their clients).
- You’ll notice that they’ve got affordable pricing that allows them to compete with other PEO companies in Texas. However, they’re definitely not offering prices so low that they’re not making money.
So, even though the company has great ratings overall, they don’t provide any services that really stand out.
Overall
I chose Vensure as the best PEO Texas has to offer because they offer a full range of services and they have competitive prices, as well as great customer support to back their services up.
Vensure bases their pricing on factors such as how big your company is, how many employees you have, and what services and benefits you choose. To get a quote for your business from Vensure, click here: Vensure.
2. CoAdvantage PEO — 7.90/10 (Best Customer Service PEO )
Don’t be fooled by the fact that I put CoAdvantage in second place on my list. They’re still a great option for most Texas businesses. They only lost out to Vensure by a few points, and they did beat Vensure in one area.
Pros
Like Vensure, CoAdvantage PEO is a full-service Texas PEO company. They provide their client companies with health insurance, payroll processing, dental insurance, productivity tracking tools, benefits administration, compliance assistance, workers’ compensation insurance, and human resources support.
Their pricing is quite competitive in the Texas PEO industry, and their system is easy to get set up with.
The one aspect of their services that really stood out is their customer service.
I conducted three different customer service tests and found that they respond to emails on average within 46 minutes. I waited less than two minutes on the phone each time before I was connected with a representative.
I was really impressed with their customer service because it wasn’t just prompt, it was helpful. Their agents were able to answer all my questions without needing to transfer me to other agents or involving a manager.
Like Vensure, CoAdvantage PEO hasn’t sent me a birthday card yet. But that’s the only way I could recommend that they improve their customer service.
Cons
CoAdvantage lost out to Vensure because their pricing and their system were inferior to Vensure’s.
CoAdvantage does offer good prices, but all three quotes I got from them were about 10% more than the quotes I got from Vensure.
And even though it was easy to get set up in their system, I encountered some trouble when it came to navigating it once I was in, which meant I had to call their customer service team.
While neither of these drawbacks are necessarily deal breakers for most Texas business owners, they were just enough to make me drop them to second place.
Overall
CoAdvantage PEO is a great professional employer organization that checks a great deal of boxes when it comes to the services that business owners in Texas need. They offer a full range of PEO services, and they charge competitive prices for them. And they back all of that up with outstanding customer service. While their system isn’t the most intuitive system I used while creating this list, and their prices aren’t as good as Vensure’s, CoAdvantage is still a great professional employer organization option—especially if you’re looking for a PEO in Texas that provides great customer service.
Every PEO in Texas bases their prices on the size of your company, the number of employees you have, and the insurance and benefits you want to provide. To get a personalized quote for PEO service for your business from CoAdvantage, click here: CoAdvantage.
3. Amplify PEO — 7.41/10 (Best Value PEO)
Amplify PEO is my third choice for the best professional employer organization in Texas. They’re a good and dependable choice with competitive prices. However, they disappointed me in a few areas.
Pros
Like the other professional employer organizations on my list, Amplify PEO is a full-service PEO with a variety of services to meet your business needs. They offer workers’ compensation insurance, payroll management, health insurance, employee benefits administration, compliance assistance, staff management, and HR services for their client companies.
It’s easy to get set up in their system, and their customer service team was quick and competent.
But by far their best feature is their pricing. I got three different quotes from Amplify PEO, and they were all in the top three best prices of any of the Texas PEO companies I researched. In fact, the quote I got for my small business was the best price quote I got. The fact that I chose all the additional benefits, services, and insurance options really drove home what a good value their services are to Texas businesses.
Cons
Although Amplify PEO offers the best prices when compared to other professional employer organizations on this list, they do have some limitations.
It was easy to get set up in their system, but I had trouble figuring out how to navigate it to perform even routine tasks.
I reached out to their customer service team for help with the navigation issues I was experiencing, and even though they responded in a reasonable amount of time, it wasn’t on par with CoAdvantage’s stellar customer service.
So, while Amplify PEO is a good professional employer organization, they’re not great.
Overall
Amplify PEO is a dependable, well-supported PEO that offers competitive rates. While their system can be difficult to navigate and will likely pose obstacles to those who lack strong technological skills, and their customer service isn’t the best, they were the least expensive professional employer organization that I got quotes from.
Like the other professional employer organizations on my list, Amplify bases its pricing on factors such as how many employees your organization has and what sort of benefits and insurance you want to provide. For a quote for your business from Amplify, click here: Amplify PEO.
4. Justworks
Justworks is relatively new to the Texas PEO industry, having been established in 2012. But it caught up fast and has now expanded to serve businesses all across the nation, not just Texas.
They offer a variety of services to their client companies, such as workers’ compensation insurance, human resources management, insurance, payroll processing, employee benefits administration, compliance services, and more.
By far, the best aspect of Justworks’ services is their pricing transparency.
They display their pricing structure publicly on their website, which is almost unheard of in the PEO industry. Most professional employer organizations keep their prices secret and force each potential client to participate in a sales call before giving them a quote. So the fact that Justworks doesn’t put its customers through that hassle is great.
I had to list Justworks as my #4 choice because of the company’s youth, however.
It’s quite important in the PEO industry that customers choose a PEO company that not only provides cost-effective solutions, but also has a proven history and track record. This is because it takes a lot of time and effort to get set up with a professional employer organization, and most clients can’t afford to repeat the process if the start-up PEO that they’ve chosen suddenly ceases operation.
I suggest that Texas businesses give Justworks a few more years to get established in the PEO industry before becoming clients.
5. Infiniti HR
Infiniti HR has managed to do something that the other professional employer organizations on my list have failed to do: provide a service that makes it stand out among the other PEOs in the state.
They offer all the typical PEO services for their client companies, like workers’ compensation, human resources management, payroll processing, various types of insurance, employee benefits management, employee management, and compliance services.
But their standout feature is employee recruitment. If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to work with an excellent employee, then you know how much one good employee improves the entire business. So, it’s great that Infiniti HR assists you in finding quality employees.
The reason Infiniti HR is so far down my list is their young age. They’ve only been in business for the past decade, which isn’t long in the Texas PEO industry. I recommend giving them a few years to gain the established track record that some of the other PEOs on my list have before you decide to give them your business.
6. TriNet
Trinet is one of the oldest businesses in the Texas PEO industry. They were first established in 1988. They now have more than 16,000 companies, and have more than 330,000 employees under their umbrella company.
They have a long history of providing the services that most Texas businesses need, like workers’ compensation, payroll processing, insurance, HR support, employee benefits management, and compliance administration. However, it seems to me that they use their reputation and big name to attract new clients, rather than providing quality services.
They don’t go out of their way to offer great customer service, they don’t attempt to provide new solutions to existing problems, and they won’t try to impress you or work to gain you as a client company.
So, while Trinet may be a well-established Texas PEO company, it’s likely that they’ll never provide any services that will outdo other PEO companies, or your own expectations.
7. Oasis Outsourcing
Oasis is another veteran of the Texas PEO industry. They’ve served small businesses for over 20 years. Recently, they were acquired by another company called PayChex, but they still operate under their original name.
They offer all the services that business owners need, such as workers’ compensation, health insurance, payroll processing, employee benefits management, HR services, and compliance services.
On top of all of that, they offer a number of cost-effective solutions for specific industries, such as hospitality, retail, banking, and education (just to name a few).
Even though they’re a good choice for businesses in those specific industries, I put them in seventh place because they require their clients to sign a 12-month contract.
Considering that most PEO companies provide month-to-month contracts for their clients, it seems weird to me that Oasis forces each potential client company to commit to a 12-month contract. That’s why Oasis lost so many points.
8. ADP Totalsource
ADP Totalsource is a major PEO company. They offer services to businesses in more than 140 different countries.
They offer all of the typical PEO services for their clients, such as workers’ compensation, insurance, payroll management, employee benefits management, and HR support. And, just like Oasis, they offer industry-specific services, as well.
The biggest advantage of ADP Totalsource is that their customer service isn’t restricted to you, as the business owner. Your employees can call in to their customer service team if they have HR questions, questions about payroll, or questions about their benefits package. This means that you can avoid a number of phone calls and a lot of hassle. It’s massively beneficial to any business owner to streamline the HR tasks.
The reason ADP Totalsource is in eighth place is that small businesses are pretty much insignificant among all the companies that ADP Totalsource serves. This means that as a client company, you’ll never receive the attention that you need to take your business to the next level.
9. Insperity
Insperity is a PEO that I initially felt held a lot of potential for any client company, but in the end they disappointed me in one crucial area.
They offer a lot of the same services as the other PEO companies on my list, such as insurance and benefits for your employees, workers’ compensation, and both payroll and human resource services.
The reason I was initially hopeful that Insperity would earn a high position on my list is that they’ve been in business for 30 years and have consistently won awards for their products and customer service. Of course this led me to assume that their services would be a boon for any client company. I was further excited when I found out that Insperity allows customers to cancel their services any time (as long as you give them 30 days notice).
But I changed my mind when I started investigating their health care options.
Any business owner knows that health insurance is vital, and that you need both options and flexibility to ensure the health care needs of your employees are met. Your employees have unique health situations, which means you’ll need a variety of health care options to ensure that the benefits you provide them with are adequate to meet their needs.
However, Insperity only offers health care plans from one insurance provider. I have no idea why this is the case, since they don’t provide any explanation for this massive oversight, so I can’t give you one.
Therefore, if you choose Insperity then it’s pretty likely that your employees won’t get the benefits they need because of the limited options that Insperity provides.
The Best PEO for Your Business
There are more than 900 different PEO companies available to business owners, so it can be quite difficult to choose the right PEO for you.
During the past six years, I’ve spent more than 230 hours investigating the PEO industry. All of this research has allowed me to identify the top three PEO companies: Vensure, CoAdvantage, and Amplify PEO.
Even though these PEO companies can typically provide reliable services to suit any business in Texas, you’ll need to get a personalized recommendation for your business based on the following metrics:
- The number of employees on your payroll
- What you want the PEO to help with (payroll, HR compliance, workers’ compensation insurance, etc.)
- Employee benefits you want to offer to your team (such as health insurance and workers’ compensation insurance)
- How much you can afford to spend on employee benefits
- The location of your small business
- The location where you conduct your business (if outside the office)
- How much customer support you will need
- Your technological capabilities
- How large you plan to scale
- Your industry
If you would like to find the right PEO for your company, simply enter your details below and I will provide a free assessment of your company needs.
The Best PEO Selection Process
I used a comprehensive process to choose the best PEO Texas offers. But before I tell you about my process, you should know a few things about me.
Why You Should Trust Me
The reason you can trust me when I make a recommendation is that I have more knowledge about the PEO industry than probably anyone else on the entire planet. I earned it through a combination of building my own small businesses and helping other people find the right PEO companies to meet their business needs.
I started cutting my teeth in the PEO industry with my online health company. I was overwhelmed with learning all the fundamentals involved with starting a small business, such as building websites, writing articles, and managing my employees. I found that I didn’t have time to perform all the human resource tasks for my business and deal with things like benefits for my employees at the same time.
At first, I tried hiring a staffing company to help me manage my employees, but that proved to be inadequate. I eventually partnered with an excellent professional employer organization to help me with the human resource tasks.
After I dealt with all that hassle, I took a break to clear my head before I started my next business, which was a cafe. It would be an understatement to say that owning an online health company is different from owning a cafe.
However, even though each business was unique, I still encountered a common problem with both of them: human resource management. Learning from my experiences with my health company, I began to search for a good PEO, one with a solid history and reputation, to help me with all the complicated human resource tasks of my business, such as helping me manage my employees, workers’ compensation claims, and benefits for my employees. I started my research by reading websites and online reviews. Throughout this process I listened to countless sales reps make their pitches when all I really wanted was a simple answer to a simple question. I was buried in information. It was a LOT to deal with. However, it eventually led me to find the right company for my small business.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I don’t have the right personality for the hospitality industry, so I eventually sold my cafe. Once again, I took a break to consider my next business move. The answer came to me unexpectedly when friends, colleagues, and even employees from my online health business and my cafe came to me asking about how to handle their HR tasks so they could focus on revenue-producing activities.
I made more and more recommendations, which resulted in more people coming to me for advice about their HR woes. I started writing this advice down. Since I started, I’ve helped over 1,200 people find the right PEO company to meet their small business needs, and this has provided me with more expertise in this field than most people in the PEO industry.
How I Selected the Best PEO
I used a four-stage process to weed out inferior companies from a list of over 900 PEOs to find and rank the best ones. Here is how I chose the best PEO.
Stage 1: Reviews
The first stage of my analysis was to read online reviews.
If a professional employer organization has been in business for longer than a year, there should be some feedback from their customers online. Using this feedback, I was able to quickly learn which professional employer organizations were worthy of further investigation and which I could eliminate from my list.
I browsed many popular online review platforms to find out which professional employer organization companies didn’t live up to my standards by offering good services, prices or customer service.
Stage 2: Offering Analysis
Unfortunately, not all professional employer organization services are equal. Each company offers different services and price points.
The second stage of my investigative process was to compare the products and services of each professional employer organization and their price points. This led me to eliminate the PEOs that had weak service offerings or overly expensive pricing.
Stage 3: Speaking with Real Customers
While it’s true that you can get a lot of information from online reviews, they do have their limitations.
The first limitation is that most customers only leave reviews if they’ve had either an extraordinarily good or an overwhelmingly bad experience with a business. So, basing your opinion solely on online reviews will give you a distorted view of how PEOs operate.
The second limitation is one of space. Most online review platforms only allow you to leave a review of 200 characters or less, which simply isn’t sufficient to learn whether a business is worth partnering with.
To avoid these limitations, I spoke with real customers who have used the PEO companies on my list. I did this by reaching out to customers from my website, as well as talking to people I knew who had used the PEO companies, and I asked for their honest feedback. My in-depth questions were met with thoughtful answers, and this allowed me to get a clear picture of what it’s like to work with each professional employer organization.
Stage 4: Speaking with Their Sales Teams
The last stage was finding out how each professional employer organization addresses feedback and criticism, which gives me a better idea of what it’s like to work with each company.
Do they constantly evolve, or are they stubbornly stuck in their ways? Do they take responsibility for their failings, or do they blame their customers? This information is important because it separates the best companies from the worst.
Ranking Factors
These are the five factors I used to rank the PEOs on my list and find the best PEO in Texas.
Factor 1: Offerings
Of course, the first factor is their product offerings.
If a professional employer organization doesn’t offer things like health insurance, workers’ compensation, or the HR services you need, then there’s no reason to partner with them. So, to ensure that you get the best PEO for your business and your employees, I created a spreadsheet of all the services each company offers and compared them to each other.
Factor 2: Price
The second factor was price.
Pricing varies from company to company in the professional employer organization industry. What’s worse is that you can’t access pricing information unless you participate in a sales call, which is a sneaky sales tactic. Because of this, I rated each PEO according to how much value for money that their services provide.
Factor 3: Ease of Sign-up
The third rating factor is how easy it is to sign up with a professional employer organization.
Some PEOs require you to spend weeks tracking down obscure bits of unnecessary information, while others are happy to obtain most of your business information from government websites, which makes the sign-up process a lot easier on your end.
To ensure that you don’t wind up with a professional employer organization that wastes your precious time during the sign-up process, I rated each PEO based on how easy it is to sign up with them.
Factor 4: Ease of Use
The fourth rating factor I used is how easy their system is to use.
Some companies focus on spending tons of money to make sure that each client has a seamless experience with their system, while others use antiquated systems and just tack on additional features, and then write gigantic user manuals in an attempt to explain their overly complicated systems.
Clearly, using an automated, user-friendly system is preferable to getting stuck with an infuriatingly complicated system. This is why I chose to rate each PEO based on how easy it is to use their system.
Factor 5: Customer Service
No matter how much money a company has put into creating a user-friendly system, you’ll eventually have a question. This is when good customer service can make or break your experience with a PEO.
Leaving customers on hold for hours only to speak with an inexperienced college student that can’t answer any questions is just how some PEOs operate. However, there are some PEOs that answer your call within minutes, and quickly solve your problem so that you can get back to your day and focus on revenue-producing activities for your business.
The Best PEO for Your Business
Even though Vensure is a great PEO choice for most businesses, it’s impossible for me to give you a PEO recommendation for your business without learning more about it, your needs and the needs of your employees, how many employees you have and what benefits you want to offer them, and what industry your business operates in.
If you’d like a free personalized analysis of your business needs and PEO recommendation for your business, fill out the form below.
Within 24 hours, I’ll contact you with an analysis of your business and a PEO recommendation.
In the meantime, while you’re learning about PEOs, it’s a good time to decide on the structure of your business. There are a few options available to you, such as a corporation, sole proprietorship, or LLC. If you’d like to learn more about how to form an LLC, read my article about how to start an LLC in Texas.
When you’re learning about how to form an LLC in Texas, it’s a good idea to learn about LLC formation services. They’re designed to guide you through the LLC formation process and make everything go more smoothly and effortlessly. If you’d like to know more about LLC formation services, check out my article about the best LLC services in Texas.
While you’re learning about PEOs, it’s a good time to learn about registered agents as well. A registered agent is a person or business entity that accepts mail, service of process, and legal documents on behalf of your company during business hours. If you’d like to know more about what a registered agent can do for you, read my article about the best registered agents in Texas.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to use a PEO?
Finding out how much you can expect to pay for PEO services can be complicated. It depends on a number of factors, like the size of your company, the number of employees you have, the types of benefits you intend to provide, and the HR services you need. However, you can expect to pay at least $1,000–$2,000 per month per employee.
How does a PEO charge?
There are two different pricing structures that PEOs use: a flat fee or a percentage of payroll fee.
When a flat fee structure is used, the PEO company charges you a set amount per employee. This is a good structure to choose for any company that requires consistent billing, or for business owners who don’t want any surprise fees.
When a percentage of payroll structure is used, the PEO company charges you a percentage of the payroll wages you pay to your employees every month. A percentage of payroll structure is a good option for any business in a low-wage industry because you’ll pay less in monthly fees to your PEO.
How long does it take to get set up with a PEO?
It takes a long time to get set up with a PEO service, no matter which service you choose. Your PEO will need a ton of paperwork from you, and they’ll file even more paperwork with the government before they officially have your business set up with their services.
On average, this whole process can take between three and six weeks. However, it usually takes around four weeks to get set up with a new professional employer organization.
Does it cost to change PEOs?
This is a complex question. None of the PEOs on my list charge any sort of exit fees to leave their services. However, because the setup process is so time consuming and labor intensive, EVERY PEO charges a setup fee. So, while you won’t be charged to leave your current PEO, you’ll have to pay setup fees when you sign up with your new PEO.
