It’s imperative that you choose the right professional employer organization (PEO) to help your company grow and flourish.
The right PEO will manage human resources (HR) and other administration tasks for you, freeing up time and energy so that you can focus on the tasks you need to tackle to keep your company running smoothly.
The wrong PEO will require even more time and money from your already limited resources, which will leave you ill-equipped to steer your company down the right path.
I looked at more than 900 different professional employer organizations, researched the top 15, and rated the top 9, and from this process I’ve identified the best Georgia PEO company.
But before I give you my Georgia PEO recommendations, you need to know something.
The Best PEO Isn't Always the Right PEO
I don’t even want to divulge the exact number of hours I’ve spent learning about the 900+ PEO companies in order to identify the professional employer organization with the highest score across several different rating factors. But the fact that a PEO company scores the best overall doesn’t mean that it will automatically be the right PEO service for your business.
- Some PEOs have extensive knowledge and experience dealing with specific business industries, and can provide specialized benefits packages and support as a result.
- Some PEOs have built great relationships with insurance providers that allow them to provide lots of health insurance options and employee benefits.
- Some PEOs specialize in compliance and can make sure that you meet all the federal and state regulations for your company with their full compliance packages.
There’s only one way to make sure you get the right PEO company for your business: you have to consider the needs of your business and compare them with the packages and products of each Georgia PEO. This will ensure that you’re not just choosing the best overall PEO, but choosing the right PEO for your company based on factors that matter most to you.
If you’d like a free business analysis and personalized PEO recommendation based on the needs of your business, submit your company’s details below. I’ll contact you within 24 hours with your analysis and PEO recommendation.
If you’d simply like to read about the professional employer organizations in Georgia that scored the highest, keep reading to get my recommendations for the best Georgia PEO services.
1. PEO Companies — 9.45/10 (Best Overall PEO)
PEO Companies is my #1 pick for the best Georgia PEO service overall because even though its services don’t stand out for any reason in particular, it delivers all its services efficiently. In short, the key difference from other Georgia professional employer organizations is that your business will never run into any major problems with PEO Companies.
Pros
PEO Companies provides all the services that Georgia employers need:
- Human resources paperwork
- Employee benefits administration
- Tax withholding
- Full compliance assistance
- Tax rates
- Payroll processing
- Employee management tools
- 401k
- Employee contracts
- Outsourcing services
- Dental insurance
- Risk management
- Assistance with unemployment claims
- Health insurance and benefits packages
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Administrative services
- Employee benefits administration
- HR support
All of PEO Companies' great benefits are backed up by solid customer support. If you email customer service, you can expect a response back to general inquiries within 24 hours. If you need to address a more urgent matter, you can contact PEO Companies by phone instead.
One of the best aspects of PEO Companies service is that even though it has the technological muscle to support large businesses, it focuses its attention on small businesses and medium-sized companies.
This is great because it means that no matter where you are on your business journey, PEO Companies can meet you and it can scale up to support you in the future when your business grows.
Cons
If I had to name one negative aspect of PEO Companies' services, it would be that none of its services are truly exceptional.
- PEO Companies provides all the PEO services you need, but you won’t find any premium or unique services among its offerings.
- Customer service is helpful and prompt, answering your questions when you ask them, but you won’t get any personal touches, like a birthday card.
- The price is low enough to compete with other PEO companies in Georgia, but definitely not as low as some of the other companies in the state. Sure, its rates are fair, but it’s not going out of its way to provide small businesses with great prices and putting itself out of business in the process.
So, in general the company is fantastic overall, but it doesn’t offer any one service that really stands out or blows your mind.
Overall
I chose to put PEO Companies in my #1 spot because it provides all the PEO services that Georgia employers need and will deliver them all efficiently. It’s got a full range of products and services, offers reasonable rates, and backs all its great benefits up with excellent customer support.
PEO Companies bases its pricing on several factors, such as the size of your organization, the services you want to provide, and the number of employees you have.
For a reliable and thorough PEO for your organization, go here to request a quote.
2. Flexible PEO — 7.90/10 (Best Customer Service PEO)
Sure, Flexible PEO sits in my #2 spot, but that doesn’t mean Flexible is not a good PEO option. In fact, it only missed the #1 position by a hair, and it does actually outperform PEO Companies in one area.
Pros
As with PEO Companies, Flexible PEO offers the full range of Georgia PEO services. You’ll get outsourcing services, human resources paperwork, health insurance and benefits packages, employment benefits administration, employee management tools, risk management, payroll processing, assistance with unemployment claims, workers’ compensation, HR support, and compliance and tax assistance.
Flexible charges competitive rates and provides a simple, user-friendly interface that makes it easy to get your business set up in its system.
There are a few drawbacks to its services, but there was one area where it really stood out: customer service.
I ran three different customer support tests and found that the average email response time was 46 minutes, and the average wait to speak to a customer service agent by phone was under two minutes.
Not only was Flexible’s customer support lightning-fast, but it was also helpful. The staff were able to answer my questions without repeatedly transferring me to other agents (and making me explain my problem multiple times to multiple people) or involving management.
Though no one has sent me a birthday card yet, that’s really the only thing Flexible could have done to improve my customer service experience.
Cons
The reason Flexible isn’t in my #1 spot is because even though its system is user-friendly and it has competitive pricing, it still falls short of PEO Companies.
I ran into some instances where its system was confusing and required me to contact the excellent customer service team to figure out how to navigate it. And while Flexible’s prices are low enough to be considered competitive, the three quotes I received for my three fictitious businesses were all about 10% higher than the quotes that PEO Companies gave me.
These aren’t deal breakers for most Georgia business owners, especially not if you value good customer service, but these drawbacks were just enough to bump Flexible down to the second spot on my list.
Overall
Flexible is a solid PEO company that checks a lot of boxes. It provides all the PEO services that Georgia business owners need and offers competitive prices with excellent customer support to back it up. Its system can be confusing at times, and it’s more expensive than PEO Companies, but it’s still the best choice for any business owner who values customer support.
Like all professional employer organizations in Georgia, Flexible bases its pricing on the needs and size of your organization (how many employees you have), so submit your information to get a quote: Flexible PEO.
3. Vensure PEO — 7.41/10 (Best Value PEO)
Vensure PEO is my third recommendation for the best Georgia PEO. It’s a dependable and solid PEO company with great prices, but it let me down in a few ways.
Pros
As with the previous professional employer organization companies on my list, Vensure offers a range of PEO services to suit any Georgia business owner. You’ll get health insurance, human resources outsourcing services, employee benefits management, payroll administration services, workers’ compensation insurance, and more. It also assists with compliance and tax filing, as well as tools to help you manage your employees.
It’s pretty easy to get your business set up in Vensure’s system, but I ran into some difficulties once I was set up in it. When I contacted the customer service team to sort it out, I found the staff were more than competent and answered my questions in a respectable matter of time.
Vensure’s pricing was its real standout feature. I got three different price quotes, and they were in the top three quotes I got, with the quote Vensure gave me for my small business coming in first.
Cons
I mentioned previously that even though Vensure PEO provides great value, it also has some drawbacks.
It’s easy to set your business up within the system, but it can be difficult to navigate once you’re in it. I found I had some difficulty trying to perform some routine HR tasks. I had to contact the customer service team to assist me with these navigational issues, and even though they answered in a reasonable amount of time and helped me with my problems, the support I received wasn’t on the same level as PEO Companies.
So, while it’s a good Georgia PEO, it’s really not great at anything.
Overall
Vensure is a dependable and well-supported professional employer organization in Georgia that offers excellent prices. It can be a little confusing to navigate its system sometimes, which could pose a problem for people who don’t have strong technological skills, and its customer service isn’t as patient or helpful as PEO Companies or Flexible, but Vensure still provided me with the lowest quotes of any PEO in Georgia.
As with the other PEO companies on my list, Vensyre will need some information about your organization before you can get a price quote (like your needs and how many employees you have).
4. Justworks
Justworks is new to the professional employer organization world. It was established in 2012, and it’s grown to provide PEO services to business owners across the United States.
Like the other professional employer organization companies in Georgia, Justworks provides all the PEO services that business owners need. It offers health insurance, human resources outsourcing services, employee benefits management, payroll administration, workers’ compensation, help with a number of HR tasks, and assistance with compliance, as well as tools to manage your employees. But it also provides a feature that no other Georgia PEO on this list does: transparency.
Justworks lists its price structure on its website, where anyone can access it. This is a massive bonus because the PEO industry tries quite hard to hide pricing guidelines and force potential clients to participate in a sales call to divulge their needs in order to get a price quote.
The reason that Justworks is fourth on my list despite its transparency is its age, which is important when it comes to Georgia PEO companies.
It’s quite time consuming to go through the setup process to get your Georgia business set up with a PEO company. It’s such a hassle that you likely don’t have time to repeat the process if you’ve selected a start-up PEO company that suddenly ceases business operations.
I recommend giving Justworks a few more years to establish themselves in the PEO industry, proving that it’s going to stick around for the long haul before you entrust them with your Georgia business.
5. Infiniti HR
Infiniti HR is a PEO company that’s managed to find a way to set itself apart from the other PEO companies in Georgia.
It offers a wide selection of PEO services, like health insurance, employee benefits administration, payroll services, outsourcing your HR department, workers’ compensation, and a number of HR services and tools that help you manage your employees. It also goes one step further by offering employee recruitment services. If you’ve had experiences similar to other business owners in Georgia, then you should know how much value one good employee can bring to the entire company, which is why assistance with hiring the right employees is a great perk.
Infiniti HR’s one drawback is the same as Justworks: its age. It’s only 10 years old, so it’s still an infant in the Georgia professional employer organization industry. This means it doesn’t have decades of experience and the proven track record of some of the other PEO providers in Georgia. Give it a few more years to gain its position in the PEO industry before you trust Infiniti with your Georgia business.
6. TriNet
Trinet is the most established, oldest PEO provider on the market. It was first launched in 1988, and it’s grown to have more than 16,000 companies and 330,000 employees under its umbrella today.
It provides all the services that Georgia businesses need, like insurance and employee benefits, HR department outsourcing, payroll administration, benefit management, workers’ compensation, and other human resources and business solutions to help you manage your employees and lower the cost of insurance and employment benefits.
One downside of TriNet’s services is that it appears to heavily rely on its big name and reputation to attract new clients rather than outstanding PEO services. It doesn’t put a lot of effort into its customer service, it’s not going out of its way to impress clients, and it doesn't reflect the need to try to earn you as a client because it’ll attract plenty of other clients and businesses anyway.
So even though TriNet is a trustworthy and dependable professional employer organization that will handle your human resources and PEO needs effectively, it’s never going to provide you with any PEO services that go beyond industry norms or your personal expectations.
7. Oasis Outsourcing
Oasis is another Georgia PEO company that’s been around for decades, serving small businesses for over 20 years. It’s recently been acquired by Paychex, but still operates under its own name.
It offers all the PEO and HR services that Georgia business owners need, like insurance and benefits for employees, payroll processing, workers’ compensation, assistance with compliance, HR outsourcing and tasks, and more to help save money and lower HR costs and manage your employees. It also offers a number of PEO and HR services for many businesses in specific industries, such as banking, hospitality, education, and retail.
The reason that Oasis got such a low score is because it only offers 12-month contracts. The PEO industry’s standard is month-to-month client contracts, so it’s quite unnecessary and a bit odd that Oasis tries to lock each potential client in for 12 months at a time, which is why it lost some points.
8. ADP Totalsource
ADP Totalsource is a big name in the PEO industry. It offers services in more than 140 countries around the world, not just the state of Georgia.
Of course, it offers the typical array of PEO services that most Georgia businesses need, like insurance and benefits for employees, benefit management, workers’ compensation, payroll processing, assistance with things like compliance and tax filing, as well as other tools and services to help your organization manage employees and lower HR costs.
The biggest perk of ADP Totalsource’s PEO services is that business owners aren’t the only ones with access to its customer service team. Your employees can access ADP’s customer service, as well. This means that if your employees have questions about benefits, payroll and other payments, or HR issues, they can access and call ADP Totalsource directly, instead of calling you. This essentially eliminates the middleman (you) and frees you up to do other things.
ADP’s biggest downside is the same as TriNet’s. If you’ve got a small business and decide to join ADP, then you’ll get lost in a sea of big businesses and your organization won’t get the attention necessary to truly shine.
9. Insperity
When I first looked at Insperity, I thought it might have promise. However, it ultimately disappointed me.
Insperity offers the same basic services that the other Georgia PEO providers on my list do: insurance and benefits packages for employees, employment benefits management, payroll processing and assistance with taxes and payments, compliance, HR solutions, tools to manage employees, and other services to reduce HR costs and support your organization.
I first became hopeful when I noted that it had a decades-long track record (30 years!) of winning awards for its PEO services and customer support. This made me think it would likely provide both a painless and extraordinary PEO experience. And when I learned that, as a client, Insperity allows you to cancel your services at any time (as long as you provide 30 days notice), I began to think that this company strives to deliver PEO services, compared to other Georgia PEO companies.
But one detail quickly changed my opinion: health care.
Health care is a huge factor for many businesses and it requires a lot of options and flexibility to make sure that all your employees are adequately covered. Because each employee has individual health needs, you need lots of health care and benefit options to ensure that the needs of your employees are met.
But for some reason, Insperity offers health care and benefit packages from only one company. Just the one. I have no idea why, and I couldn’t find any good explanations for this in my extensive research. It just does.
So if you choose Insperity as your Georgia PEO, then you’ll be providing your employees with limited health care and employment benefits, which means that the health care needs of your employees likely won’t be met.
The Best PEO for Your Business
There are more than 900 different professional employer organizations available to business owners in Georgia, so it’s difficult to choose the right PEO to meet the needs of your company.
I spent more than 230 hours spread out over six years researching the professional employer organization industry, and it’s led me to identify the best PEO companies in Georgia: PEO Companies, Flexible and Vensure PEO.
But even though these professional employer organizations are dependable providers that can serve any Georgia business adequately, to get an individual recommendation tailored to your business, you need to factor in more information:
- 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 (benefits 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 or the state of Georgia)
- How much customer support you will need for your Georgia business
- Your technological capabilities
- How large you plan to scale
- Your industry
If you would like to find the right PEO for your organization, simply enter your details below and I will provide a free assessment of your company needs.
The Best PEO Selection Process
I used an extensive selection process to choose the best professional employer organization (PEO). But before I tell you about my selection process, there are a few things you should know about me.
Why You Should Trust Me
The reason you can trust any PEO recommendation I make is that I have more knowledge about the professional employer organization industry than nearly anyone else, and I obtained it both from growing my small businesses and helping other people find the ideal organizations for their Georgia businesses.
I began my experience with professional employer organizations with my online health company. I became overwhelmed trying to learn all the basic skills involved with starting a small business (building websites, writing articles, and managing my employees), and I just didn’t have enough time or energy left over to deal with all the HR tasks and employment benefits information that were piling up.
I first tried hiring a staffing company to manage my employees, but it wasn’t sufficient to handle all my HR problems. This led me to sign up with a professional employer organization.
After I’d gone through that ordeal, I decided to take some time off before I opened my second business—a cafe! It’s an understatement to say that there’s a difference between an online small business and a cafe.
But even though there’s a major difference between the two different small business types, they both had one thing in common: HR problems. This forced me to start researching the world of professional employer organizations to both meet my HR needs and manage employment benefits. I analyzed websites, read through customer reviews, and sat through sales pitches when all I wanted was answers to simple questions. There was a LOT of information. My research eventually helped me find the right organization, and it helped support my business and foster its growth.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I simply don’t have the necessary personality for hospitality. So I decided to sell my cafe and spent some time off to contemplate my next move. The answer revealed itself in an unexpected way when my friends from my cafe and website days contacted me and asked me about how to deal with their back-end business tasks.
I made more and more recommendations, and more people contacted me, and I decided to start writing the recommendations down. Since that time, I’ve assisted more than 1,200 business owners find the right professional employer organizations for their businesses, which gave me more expertise in the PEO industry than just about anybody else.
- Best PEO Delaware
- Best PEO Maryland
- Best PEO Virginia
- Best PEO West Virginia
- Best PEO Kentucky
- Best PEO North Carolina
- Best PEO South Carolina
- Best PEO Georgia
- Best PEO Florida
- Best PEO Alabama
- Best PEO Mississippi
- Best PEO Tennessee
- Best PEO Louisiana
- Best PEO Arkansas
- Best PEO Texas
- Best PEO Oklahoma
How I Selected the Best PEO
I used a four-stage investigative process to select the best Georgia PEO. It helped me to whittle down a list of more than 900 different Georgia PEOs to just 9.
Stage 1: Reviews
I began my investigation by reading online reviews.
These days, most companies that have been in business for longer than a year (PEO companies included) should have accumulated lots of feedback and buzz online. I used the customer feedback to find out which Georgia PEOs were worthy of further investigation and which ones should be eliminated from the competition straightaway before wasting more time on them.
I checked online review platforms to find out which PEOs were unworthy of reviewing because they didn’t live up to basic industry product, pricing, and customer support standards, and removed them from the rest of my investigation.
Stage 2: Offering Analysis
Unfortunately, the PEO industry is not one size fits all. Each company provides different services and different price points for those services.
For my second investigative stage, I looked into the services and products each PEO offered and its price points. This let me eliminate the Georgia PEO companies that either offered insufficient services or offered expensive prices for their services.
Stage 3: Speaking With Real Customers
You can learn a great deal and get a general understanding of a Georgia PEO company through online reviews, but they have two significant drawbacks.
The first drawback is that people typically don’t leave an online review unless they’ve either had an overwhelmingly good or horrible experience with a company. So if you base your opinion of a company solely on online reviews, your picture of the company and its operations will be skewed.
The second drawback is the limited space. Many online review sites only allow reviews of 200 characters or less, which simply isn’t enough to get a good understanding of whether it’s a good idea to partner with a company.
To get around these drawbacks, I spoke to real customers during the next stage of my investigation. I contacted acquaintances and people through my website to ask them for their feedback. I asked the customers detailed questions and they gave me thoughtful responses, and I used the information I learned from them to get a detailed picture of the customer experience with each Georgia PEO company.
Stage 4: Speaking With Their Sales Teams
Another factor I considered was how each PEO company in Georgia handles negative feedback and criticism because it allowed me to find out what it’s like to deal with the company for the long run. Does it endeavor to constantly evolve or is it stubborn and stuck in its ways? Does it take responsibility for its mistakes or does it attempt to place the blame on its customers? These differences are what differentiates the A players from the rest of the competition.
Ranking Factors
I used five different factors to rate each Georgia PEO and find the Best PEO.
Factor 1: Offerings
The first factor I considered was the product offerings of each Georgia PEO.
There’s not any reason to partner your business with a Georgia PEO to help with workers’ compensation or other specific employment benefits and services if the PEO doesn’t offer the specific benefits that your organization requires. So, to ensure that you don’t choose a PEO that doesn’t meet all your needs, I made a detailed spreadsheet of all the services each Georgia PEO company provides.
Factor 2: Price
The second factor I rated each Georgia PEO on is price.
The prices of different services and products differ greatly between PEO companies in Georgia, and you can only obtain this information if you participate in a sales call, which is sneaky. So, I decided to rate each Georgia PEO according to how much value for money its services provide.
Factor 3: Ease of Sign-Up
The third factor I rated each Georgia PEO on was how easily you can sign up with them.
Some PEOs require you to spend weeks searching for small bits of extraneous information, and other Georgia PEOs are able to get a lot of your information through government services, requiring little work on your part.
So that you don’t wind up with a Georgia PEO that wastes your valuable time, I rated each PEO company based on how easy it is to complete its onboarding process.
Factor 4: Ease of Use
The fourth factor I rated each Georgia PEO on was how easy it is to use its system.
Some Georgia PEO companies invest millions of dollars into building streamlined and automated back-end systems and making the user experience of their systems a priority, and others have just added extra features to already outdated systems and then wrote giant manuals intended to explain the complicated navigation of their systems.
It’s obviously preferable to partner with a company that provides a customer-focused and easy-to-use system, rather than a company with an antiquated legacy system. So that you can make a good decision, I rated each Georgia PEO on how easy it is to use and navigate its system.
Factor 5: Customer Service
No matter how much time and money a PEO company puts into building an intuitive system, you’ll still have questions eventually. In those instances, good customer service is vital.
Some PEO companies will leave you waiting on hold for hours before you finally get connected with some bored college kid that can’t solve your problem and can only promise to escalate it to a manager (which never happens). Other PEO companies answer your call in a matter of minutes and solve your problems just as fast, which frees you up to get on with the rest of your day.
The Best PEO for Your Business
Even though PEO Companies is the best PEO Georgia has to offer, and a great PEO choice for most Georgia businesses, it’s not possible to make a PEO recommendation for your company without finding out extensive information about it and your business needs.
I need to know things like your business industry, the size of your organization, how many employees your organization has, the benefits you’d like to offer your employees, and more before I can make a proper PEO recommendation for your company.
If you’d like a personalized PEO recommendation for your organization as well as a free business analysis, enter your business information below.
Once you submit the form, I will contact you to help find the right PEO for your needs for free.
While you’re getting your business set up, it’s a good idea to choose your business structure. There are several options to choose from, including a corporation, sole proprietorship, partnership or limited liability company (LLC). If you’d like more information about how to form an LLC, check out my article about how to start a Georgia LLC.
If you’re learning how to form an LLC in Georgia, click here to read about the best LLC services in Georgia.
Another service you should consider when forming a new business is registered agent services. A registered agent is a person or organization that accepts mail, service of process, and legal documents on behalf of your company during business hours. To learn more about registered agents, check out my article about the best registered agents in Georgia.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to use a PEO?
The price of a PEO can vary widely depending on a number of different factors. This can include the PEO you choose, the services you use, the employee benefits you offer, and the number of employees you have. But on average, $1,000–$2,000 per employee per month is a good base number to start with.
How does a PEO charge?
There are two different fee structures used by PEO service providers: flat fee or percentage of payroll.
A flat fee structure charges you a set amount per employee. This is a good option for any business that requires a high level of certainty around their monthly billing.
A percentage of payroll structure is where the PEO charges you a percentage of the wages you pay your employees per month. This is a good option for employers in low-wage industries.
How long does it take to get set up with a PEO?
The setup process for any small business with PEO service providers takes time. They need lots of paperwork from your end and then need to file plenty more with government authorities to get you up and running.
This process can take anywhere between three and six weeks but on average, it usually takes four weeks.
Does it cost to change PEOs?
There are no specific exit fees associated with any of the PEOs we’ve recommended in this article, but due to the extensive setup process, every PEO charges a setup fee. This means that if you decide to leave your PEO for a new PEO, you won’t be charged anything to leave but you will have to pay the setup fee with the new PEO.