It’s important that you choose the right professional employer organization (PEO) for your company.
The right PEO will manage human resources tasks and give you more time and energy to take care of other important business duties.
The wrong PEO will cost you time and money, leaving you unable to properly nurture your business.
After I analyzed more than 900 different professional employer organizations in Florida, investigated the best 15, and then ranked the top 9, I discovered the best PEO in Florida.
However, before I give you that information, you need to know the difference between the best PEO and the right PEO.
The Best PEO Isn't Always the Right PEO
The best PEO in Florida has the highest score in several different rating metrics. However, a Florida PEO company with a high score isn’t necessarily the right PEO for your business.
- Some Florida PEOs specialize in providing industry-specific PEO services and can offer you one-of-a-kind benefits and services.
- Some Florida PEOs create good relationships with insurance providers so that they can give you better insurance options and benefits packages at a lower cost.
- Some Florida PEOs offer services that primarily revolve around compliance, which means they will help your business meet state and federal compliance regulations.
There’s only one way to ensure that you get the right professional employer organization (PEO) that meets the needs of your company and employees, and that’s to weigh the services of the Florida PEO against your business needs. This is the only way you can make sure you’re not just getting the best-rated PEO, but the PEO that scores the highest in areas that matter to you.
If you’d like a free company analysis and personalized Florida PEO recommendation, fill out the form below. I’ll contact you within 24 hours with a personalized company analysis and PEO recommendation.
If you just want to find out about the Florida PEO that made it to the top of my list, here’s my list of the best Florida professional employer organizations.
1. Amplify — 9.45/10 (Best Overall PEO)
The reason I chose Amplify PEO as the best PEO in Florida is that even though they don’t offer any services that make them stand out from the rest of the pack, they do offer a ton of PEO services that ensure they’ll meet your business needs, and they perform their duties as a professional employer organization efficiently. In short, the difference between Amplify and other PEO companies is that you won't encounter as many problems when you partner with Amplify PEO.
Pros
They provide all the services you need to take your company to the next level:
- HR outsourcing
- HR administration and solutions
- Employee benefits management
- Tax withholding
- Compliance assistance
- Tax rates
- Payroll services (including payroll taxes)
- 401k
- Employee contracts
- Handling unemployment claims
- Dental insurance
- Risk management
- Tax filings
- Health insurance
- Managing all your compliance issues
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Administrative services
- Employee benefits administration
- HR support
Even better, they back all their Florida PEO services up with impeccable customer service. You can typically expect to receive an email response from them in under 24 hours if you need an answer to a general question. If you have questions about a more pressing issue, you can call them for a faster response.
In my opinion, one of the best aspects of Amplify’s services is that while they have the technological muscle required to properly service large companies, they focus on providing PEO services to small businesses in Florida. This means that no matter where you are in your business journey, they can handle the workload and provide you with adequate HR solutions.
Cons
The only drawback I could find with Amplify's services is that they don’t provide any truly exceptional services.
- They offer all the services and benefits packages you need to support your small business and foster its growth, but you won’t find any luxury HR management services among their offerings.
- Their customer service agents are capable of answering any question you may ask them, but they don’t go the extra mile to provide personal touches to their services (like sending out greeting cards).
- The cost of their services isn’t as low as some other Florida companies, but they do price their PEO services competitively. However, you can tell that they don’t price their services so low that it will cost money for them to provide you with low-priced services.
While Amplify provides PEO services that score well across all my ranking metrics, they don’t provide any service that’s worth writing home about.
Overall
Amplify earned my #1 position as the best PEO in Florida because they offer all the PEO and HR services your business needs, whether you’re a small business or a mega-corporation, and they perform all their services well. They offer a comprehensive range of services, and provide them at a modest cost to business owners. They also back all their services up with their excellent customer support team.
Like most professional employer organizations in Florida, Amplify’s price rates vary depending on factors such as how many employees your company has, the type of benefits you want to offer your employees, and what additional benefits or HR services you want to add to your package. If you’d like to know more about the cost of their services, you can get a price quote by clicking here: Amplify PEO Prices.
2. Flexible PEO — 7.90/10 (Best Customer Service PEO )
Don’t be fooled by the fact Flexible PEO sits in second place on my list. They’re still a good PEO option to help with your HR outsourcing needs. Honestly, they only lost out to Amplify by a few points. However, they do beat Amplify in one area in particular.
Pros
Just like every other professional employer organization (PEO) on my list, Flexible offers a variety of PEO services. They provide payroll processing and assist with payroll taxes, risk management, and a slew of HR services and solutions to handle your HR responsibilities. They also handle unemployment claims, employee benefits administration, and workers’ compensation.
Flexible provides all their HR outsourcing and PEO services at a low cost to their clients when compared with the rates of other PEO companies. And I found it quite easy to get set up in their system.
They are outstanding in one area: customer service.
I conducted three different customer service tests and found that they take around 46 minutes on average to respond to emails. The average time I waited to speak to a customer service representative on the phone was, incredibly, under two minutes.
Not only do their agents respond to inquiries and calls quickly, but they’re also quite helpful. They were able to answer my basic questions without the need to transfer me to other agents (or making me recite my problem to other people repeatedly) or escalate my problem to a manager.
They don’t add any personal touches to their customer service, and much like Amplify I’ve yet to receive a birthday card. However, that’s the only area in which I believe Flexible PEO could improve their customer service.
Cons
Flexible wasn’t my first choice for my list of the best Florida PEO companies because they fall just short of Amplify in a couple of ways. The cost of their services is competitive, but it’s still more than Amplify PEO charges. And their system may be easy to get set up with, but it isn’t as good as Amplify's.
I got three different price quotes from Flexible PEO and all three of them, while good, cost about 10% more than Amplify.
And their system was easy to get set up with, but once I was inside it I had to call their outstanding customer service team to help me learn how to navigate the system.
For most people, these aren’t dealbreakers, and that’s especially true if you’re looking for really good customer service. However, these slight drawbacks were just enough to drop them down to my #2 position.
Overall
Flexible PEO is, overall, a great professional employer organization (PEO) that will check many boxes and give you all the HR outsourcing and PEO solutions that small businesses need to support development. They offer low pricing rates to business owners and they provide fantastic customer support. It’s not easy to learn how to use their system, and their services cost a bit more than Amplify’s. However, if you’re looking for a company that provides great customer support, then Flexible PEO might be the best option for you.
Like all professional employer organizations, Flexible bases its pricing on factors such as the insurance and benefits packages you want to provide your employees with, whether you want additional benefits or HR services added to your package, and how many employees your company has.
3. Vensure PEO — 7.41/10 (Best Value PEO)
I chose Vensure PEO as the third-best professional employer organization (PEO) in Florida. They’re a good option to provide reliable Florida PEO and HR services at great prices to their clients, but I found that they fell short of my expectations in a couple of areas.
Pros
Much the same as the other Florida PEO companies on my list, Vensure offers a full range of services. They provide their clients with HR outsourcing to take care of all the HR responsibilities of your company. They can also help with risk management, payroll processing, employee insurance, and benefits administration, as well as assistance with handling unemployment claims and compliance issues.
It’s a relatively simple process to get set up in their system, and their customer service team was competent enough to answer my questions in a decent amount of time.
Their pricing is what really made them stand out. I got three different quotes from them, and all three price quotes were among the top three cheapest quotes I got from the professional employer organizations on my list. The quote I got from them for my small business was the lowest. I included all the additional benefits and add-on services to these quotes, so it really highlighted the value of their services.
Cons
Vensure PEO may provide their services at a great value, but there are some drawbacks to their professional employer organization (PEO) services.
It was easy to get set up with their system, but I had some trouble figuring out how to navigate it after it was set up, even though I was simply trying to accomplish some routine human resources and PEO tasks.
I contacted their customer support for help with these navigational issues, and even though they responded within a reasonable amount of time, their customer service isn’t on the same level as Amplify or Flexible’s.
So, while Vensure PEO provides a slew of good PEO services, they don’t offer any services that will blow your mind.
Overall
Vensure PEO is a strong and reliable PEO that offers the best pricing of any of the professional employer organizations on my list. Their system can be a bit unmanageable at times and people who aren’t tech-savvy will likely have trouble with it, and their customer service isn’t as patient or helpful as other PEO companies on my list. However, they offered the best prices for PEO services I’ve found, which is a boon for small businesses.
Of course, because every professional employer organization bases its rates on specific factors such as the number of employees you have and the benefits you choose to provide your employees.
4. Justworks
Justworks is a newcomer to the Florida PEO industry. It was established in 2012, and it’s expanded to now cover businesses across the United States.
As with the other Florida PEO companies on my list, they provide all the PEO and HR solutions to meet the HR needs of your small business. They offer payroll processing, risk management, insurance and employee benefits administration for your employees, and compliance services to help your company meet the requirements of Florida law.
One of the best aspects of Justworks is that they put their pricing structure up on their website for everyone to access. In the Florida PEO industry, it’s standard practice to hide pricing structures and require potential clients to provide the PEO companies with information about their businesses to get a quote. So, this level of transparency is a massive bonus.
The reason I had to place Justworks in the fourth position, even though their transparency set them apart from other companies, is their young age.
It’s time consuming and frustrating to go through the process of getting set up with a new PEO company in Florida. Most people can’t afford to waste going through the setup process repeatedly because they chose a start-up PEO that went out of business.
My advice is to give Justworks a few more years to establish themselves within the Florida PEO industry to make sure they’re going to stick around before you make the choice to partner with them.
5. Infiniti HR
Infiniti did something that many PEO companies can’t seem to do: set themselves apart from the other companies.
They offer a full range of PEO and HR solutions to meet your company’s HR needs, such as payroll processing, employee benefits administration, workers’ compensation, and compliance services.
In addition, they also offer employee recruiting. If you’ve ever had the good fortune to experience a good employee, then you know what a perk that one good employee can be for a company, so finding the right employees could lead to business development and growth.
The only drawback I can cite for Infiniti HR is the same one I cited for Justwork: their age. Infiniti HR is only 10 years old, which means they’re still new to the Florida PEO industry. Because they don’t have the proven track record of some of the more established companies on my list, I recommend that you wait a few years before making the decision to partner with them.
6. TriNet
TriNet is the oldest PEO company, and therefore the most well-established PEO company in the entire Florida PEO industry. They began their business in 1988, and have grown to 16,000 different companies and more than 330,000 employees under their corporate umbrella.
They provide all the PEO and HR solutions to meet the HR needs of your business, such as administration of benefits packages, workers’ compensation, and payroll processing. However, it seems that they use their big name and reputation to draw potential clients, rather than providing quality services.
There isn’t any aspect of their services where they exceed expectations. Their customer service is adequate, but it’s not great. They don’t ever try to provide new solutions for problems that already exist with their system or their services. They also don’t try to impress you or gain your business as a PEO client because they know if you don’t partner with them, lots of other people will.
So, while TriNet can be considered a reliable choice for Florida PEO services, you’re never going to be impressed by their services or HR solutions, and they’ll never go out of their way to compete with other PEO companies to provide you with better products and services.
7. Oasis Outsourcing
Oasis is another veteran PEO company in Florida. They’ve been providing HR solutions for small business owners in Florida for more than two decades. PayChex recently bought the company, but they decided to keep operating under their original Oasis company name.
They provide many industry-specific PEO solutions, such as banking, hospitality, retail, and education, as well as others. They provide a number of human resources and PEO solutions for small business owners and their employees, such as benefit administration, workers’ compensation, payroll services, HR management, HR compliance, and other services to meet the needs of businesses in Florida.
The reason they got such a bad score is that they force each new PEO client to commit to a one-year contract. Almost every other PEO in the industry provides contracts on a month-to-month basis, so it really seems both needless and weird to force clients into signing a 12-month contract. And that’s why Oasis lost so many points.
8. ADP Totalsource
ADP Totalsource is a big company in the PEO industry. They provide PEO services to small business owners in over 140 different countries, not just Florida.
They provide the same range of PEO and HR solutions that other PEO companies on my list provide, such as HR management, insurance and benefits packages for employees, payroll services, and more to ensure that your business has the HR support it needs so that you can focus on other things, like the development and expansion of your company.
One of the most interesting aspects of ADP Totalsource’s services is that their customer service team isn’t exclusively available to small business owners, but their employees, as well. This means that as the employer and owner of your business, you won’t be troubled with every little HR issue that arises or have to answer all of the questions that employees have about their benefits packages. Instead, employees can call ADP Totalsource’s customer service team themselves, which frees you up to focus on other tasks.
The downside to ADP’s services is the same one I found with TriNet. If you own a smaller business, you’re just a drop in the pond, made insignificant in ADP’s massive pool of clients. And because of this your business will never receive the attention it needs to shine and grow.
9. Insperity
Insperity is a PEO company that started out with a lot of promise, but I felt really let down by their services once I investigated them further.
I initially had hope for them when I found out they had an impressive 30-year track record and had won loads of awards both for their services and their customer support. I thought this should mean that they would provide a great PEO experience for Florida businesses. And when I learned that they allow customers to cancel their service at any time (so long as you provide 30 days notice), I was pretty sure I’d found a quality PEO service in Florida.
But once I started checking into their service offerings, I found one area that made me change my mind: health care.
Health care is a tricky issue, and any Florida business owner should have a lot of flexibility when it comes to health insurance options so that they can meet the health care needs of their employees. The health care needs of your employees are as unique as each employee, so having lots of insurance options is the only way to ensure that you can provide them with the best possible insurance coverage.
However, Insperity only offers insurance plans from one insurance provider for some reason. No really, just one. I have no idea why and they never provided me with a reason for this, so I can’t provide you with solid reasoning for this decision. They just do.
Obviously, this means that if you choose to partner your business with Insperity, the employee health care packages you offer will be limited and your employees may not get the coverage that they need.
The Best PEO for Your Business
There are over 900 different PEO companies available to businesses in Florida, so it can be overwhelming to try to choose the right professional employer organization for your business.
I spent more than 230 hours over the course of the past six years learning about the professional employer organization (PEO) industry in Florida, which has led me to identify the three best PEO companies in Florida: Amplify, Flexible and Vensure PEO.
Even though the top three PEO companies on my list are good choices for any Florida business, there are several factors that should be considered when you’re trying to find the right PEO for your business.
What you need is a personalized recommendation based on the specifics of your company:
- 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 business, simply enter your details below and I will provide a free assessment of your business needs.
The Best PEO Selection Process
I used an extensive selection process to choose the best PEO companies. But before I get into telling you about my process, you should know a bit more about me.
Why You Should Trust Me
You can trust any recommendation I make because I know more about the PEO industry than nearly anyone else on Earth (I probably even know more than some people working for the PEO companies on my list!). And I came by this knowledge from growing my own small businesses and then from helping others find the right PEO for their business.
I first began dealing with the PEO industry when I started my online health company. I was overwhelmed with all the tasks involved with developing a small business, like building websites, writing articles, and managing my team. I didn’t have the time to tackle all the HR tasks and work involving employee benefits management. All of this HR nonsense seemed to eat away at hours of my day.
At first, I tried hiring a staffing company to help manage my employees, but that wasn’t enough to help me with my human resources woes. I eventually chose to partner my business with a great PEO.
After I’d dealt with all of that, I took a break before I decided to open my second business—a cafe! It’s an understatement to say that running a cafe is quite different than running an online health business.
Even though the two businesses were so different, I still had to deal with the same problem with both businesses: human resources issues. Because of this, I started researching PEOs that would solve my HR woes. I read through a lot of websites, dissected online reviews, and listened to sales pitches from sales teams when I just wanted a simple answer to a simple question. It was A LOT of information to process. Eventually, because of this information, I found a great PEO to partner my business with.
Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I don’t have the personality it takes to run a business in the hospitality industry. Again, I took a break to figure out my next move. The answer came to me on its own because several of my old friends came to me to ask for help with their in-house HR issues.
I made more and more PEO recommendations, and this resulted in more and more people coming to me for advice. I eventually began writing down my recommendations. Since those humble beginnings, I’ve helped over 1,200 people find the right PEO for their businesses. And all of this has provided me with more experience than most anyone else in the PEO industry.
How I Selected the Best PEO
I used a four-stage process to whittle away at a list of over 900 different PEOs and leave me with a list of 9 worthy competitors.
Stage 1: Reviews
The first stage of my investigative process was to comb through online reviews for each company.
If a PEO company has been in business for longer than a year, they should have racked up some online reviews from their customers. I used this feedback to learn which PEOs were worth investigating further and which ones were an obvious waste of time.
I checked out popular online review platforms to learn which PEO companies didn’t live up to my standards in terms of service offerings, price, and customer service, and this allowed me to eliminate them from my list rather than further investigate them.
Stage 2: Offering Analysis
Unfortunately, PEO services aren’t one-size-fits-all solutions. You can find two different companies that offer the same services but at vastly different price points. But different companies also offer vastly different services, so it’s hard to choose the best one based on their services alone.
I analyzed the service offerings of each PEO on my list and compared the products that were offered and at what prices. I was eventually left with a spreadsheet full of services. From there, I eliminated the PEO businesses that offered an incomplete range of services or charged too much for their services.
Stage 3: Speaking with Real Customers
Reading online reviews is a good way to get general information about a business, but there are two limitations that online reviews present.
The first is that people tend to only leave online reviews if they’ve had an exceedingly good or exceptionally bad experience with a business. So if you base your entire perception of a business on online reviews, you won’t have the whole picture of how that business really operates.
The second relates to space. Most online review platforms only allow reviews of 200 characters or less, which simply isn’t sufficient to leave a comprehensive review and let people know whether it’s a good idea to partner with a business or not.
Because of these limitations, I spoke to actual customers as the next stage of my investigation. To do this, I used my website to ask people about their experiences working with PEOs. I asked probing questions and the people I spoke to gave me in-depth answers, and from that information I was able to get a better idea about what it’s like to partner with the businesses on my list.
Stage 4: Speaking with Their Sales Teams
Another important part of my investigation was talking to the sales team of each business on my list to find out how well they take criticism and handle feedback. This is another factor that indicates how pleasant it is to partner with a business. Is this business set in its ways, or is there evidence that the business is persistently changing? Do they attempt to place blame on the customers, or does the business take responsibility for its mistakes? The way that businesses handle criticism and feedback really separates the best from the rest.
Ranking Factors
Here are the five factors I used to rate each PEO business to find the Best PEO in Florida.
Factor 1: Offerings
The first factor is their service offerings.
You shouldn’t partner with a PEO if they don’t offer the health insurance or benefits that your business needs. So, just to ensure that you choose the best PEO to meet the needs of your business, I actually created a spreadsheet of products and services that each PEO offered and compared them to each other.
Factor 2: Price
The second important factor is their price.
When it comes to PEOs, the prices and services vary wildly from business to business. You can’t even access their pricing information without completing a sales call, which is a sneaky tactic. So, I rated each PEO according to the value for money that their services provide.
Factor 3: Ease of Sign-up
The third ranking factor that I used was how easy it is to sign up with the PEO.
Some PEOs make you spend weeks ransacking your office to find obscure documents or pieces of information that aren’t really necessary. Others use government services to conveniently provide them with information about your business.
So that you don’t choose a PEO that wastes your valuable time, I rated each PEO based on the level of automation their onboarding process uses.
Factor 4: Ease of Use
My fourth ranking factor was how easy it is to use the systems of each of the PEO businesses on my list.
When you use the systems of each PEO, it’s easy to tell that some of them have spent millions of dollars on their systems in an effort to make a pleasant user experience. Others just add features to their outdated systems and then provide a huge manual to explain the confusing navigation.
Of course, it’s preferable to partner with a business that focuses on customers and provides an easy-to-use system instead of choosing a business that uses an antiquated system that’s a nightmare to navigate. So, I rated each PEO based on how easy it is to use their system.
Factor 5: Customer Service
It doesn’t matter how user-friendly a system is, you’ll eventually have questions about it, and that’s where customer service plays a major role.
Some PEO companies will make you wait on hold for hours until you finally get connected to an inexperienced agent that has no knowledge of their system and can’t help you, so they promise to escalate your problem to management (and then either forget to do so or simply don’t follow through on that promise.) Other times, you’ll encounter a PEO business that answers your call quickly and solves your problem just as fast, which allows you to get back to your day.
The Best PEO for Your Business
Though Amplify is a solid option for most businesses, it’s impossible to make a recommendation for the best PEO for your business without learning more about your business and your needs.
I need to know things such as your business industry, the size of your business and the number of employees it has, and the insurance and benefits you’d like to offer before I can make a proper PEO recommendation for your business.
If you’d like a personalized recommendation for your small business, complete the form below.
After you’ve completed the form, I’ll give you an analysis of your business needs, as well as provide you with a personalized PEO recommendation.
While you’re waiting, you should think about the structure of your business. Of course, there are a few options available to you, such as a corporation, sole proprietorship, or LLC. If you’d like more information about LLC formation, read my post about how to start an LLC in Florida.
If you’d like to relieve yourself of some of the burden of forming an LLC, consider using an LLC formation service. For additional information about LLC formation services, check out my article about the best LLC services in Florida.
While you’re learning about PEOs you should also check out registered agent services. A registered agent is a person or business entity that receives mail, legal documents, and service of process on behalf of your company. Read my post about the best Florida registered agents to learn more about what a good registered agent service can do for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to use a PEO?
Prices for different PEO services can vary depending on several factors. Some of these include the PEO company you choose, the services, insurance, and benefits you choose to offer, and the number of employees your business has. But, in general, a good baseline estimate is $1,000–$2,000 per employee per month.
How does a PEO charge?
There are two different pricing structures used by PEO companies: a flat fee or a percentage of payroll fee.
In a flat fee structure, you’re charged a set amount of money per employee. This structure is a good choice for any business that requires a lot of billing consistency, or doesn’t want any surprises when it comes to their monthly fees.
In a percentage of payroll structure, the PEO charges you a percentage of the wages that you pay to your employees on a monthly basis. This is a good structure choice for business owners in low-wage industries because if you aren’t paying a lot in wages, then you won’t owe your PEO a lot of money.
How long does it take to get set up with a PEO?
It takes time to get set up with any PEO. This is because they need to get a lot of paperwork from you, and then they need to file even more paperwork with the government to get you set up.
In total, the setup process can take between three and six weeks. On average, it usually takes four weeks to get through the setup process.
Does it cost to change PEOs?
None of the PEOs on my list charge you money to exit a contract. However, there is a start-up fee associated with every PEO because the setup process is so comprehensive and time consuming. So what this means is that if you leave your current PEO, you won’t be charged any money, but you will have to pay a setup fee with your new PEO.
