The 9 Best New Jersey PEO Companies Reviewed and Compared (2024)

Choosing the best professional employer organization (PEO) for your small business in New Jersey is vital to your success. 

The right PEO will free up valuable mental space and time by handling human resources and other responsibilities on your behalf, letting you concentrate on the hundreds of items on your to-do list that keep piling up. 

The wrong PEO will drain already limited resources (like time and money), leaving you without the mental and financial capacity to propel your New Jersey business forward. 

I have found the best PEO in New Jersey after researching the top 15, then 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

After spending more time than I like to admit evaluating the more than 900 different New Jersey PEO providers, I was able to determine which PEO company had the highest average score across a wide range of criteria. But don’t assume that the PEO with the highest average score is automatically the best option for your New Jersey business. 

• Some PEOs have extensive knowledge of certain industries and may provide tailored services to New Jersey businesses in these industries. 
• Some PEOs have established partnerships with insurance providers, allowing them to provide additional benefits and lower insurance costs for their clients. 
• Some PEOs have considerable experience in the safety and regulatory compliance industry and can guarantee that you adhere to all New Jersey laws, as well as local and federal regulations. 

Finding the best PEO for your business requires comparing your requirements against the primary benefits offered by each New Jersey PEO company. This way, you can be confident you’re selecting the New Jersey PEO that excels in the areas that are most important to you. 

Fill out the form below to get a free evaluation of your business needs along with a recommendation of the best PEO for your New Jersey business. Within 24 hours, I’ll get back to you with my personalized business evaluation and PEO recommendation. 

If you just want to know which PEO company scored the highest, here are my recommendations for the best PEO in New Jersey. 

1. PEO Companies — 9.45/10 (Best Overall PEO)

While PEO Companies doesn’t really stand out in any one area, it does a great job of providing all the services you’ll need. You won’t ever have any problems with this company, and that’s the main distinction between it and other PEO providers, which is why PEO Companies is my #1 choice for the best PEO in New Jersey. 

Pros

PEO Companies provides all the products and services that New Jersey businesses need:

• Human resources paperwork and HR tasks 
• Employee wellness programs
• Tax administration 
• HR management 
• Assistance with compliance and legal issues
• Tax filings 
• Payroll management 
• 401k 
• Flexible spending plans 
• Expense reporting
• Productivity tracking tools 
• Employee management 
• Dental insurance
• Risk management
• Health insurance
• Workers’ compensation insurance
• Administrative services
• Employee benefits administration
• HR support

PEO Companies also offers reliable customer service to back up its extensive service offerings. If you have a general inquiry, you can expect an answer by email within 24 hours, but if you need assistance immediately you can call them directly. 

PEO Companies' biggest strength is its ability to cater to both major corporations and small businesses, thanks to its cutting-edge technology. 

This adaptability means that PEO Companies can adjust its services to meet your needs and grow with you. 

Cons

If there is one negative thing you can say about PEO Companies, it’s that it doesn’t excel at anything. 

• You can get all the PEO services you need from PEO Companies but don’t expect any luxury or unique options among its service offerings. 
• The company’s customer service staff is prompt in responding to inquiries, but they won’t go out of their way to do things like send you a birthday card. 
• PEO Companies doesn’t have the absolute lowest price in the PEO industry, but its rates are still quite competitive. However, its prices aren’t so low that it will go bankrupt trying to assist you with lower health insurance costs. 

The company as a whole is excellent, but there isn’t anything particularly unique about it that makes it stand out.

Overall

With its comprehensive features and high-quality service execution, PEO Companies is my #1 choice for the best PEO in New Jersey. The company offers a full range of services at costs that are far below the industry average, with great customer service to boot. 

PEO Companies' prices are determined by a variety of things, such as how many employees work for your New Jersey business, the industry of your business, and more. To receive a personalized quote from PEO Companies for your business, visit their website here.

2. Flexible PEO — 7.90/10 (Best Customer Service PEO)

Flexible PEO is my second choice, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a suitable option. It narrowly missed becoming my top pick, but it does have one big advantage over PEO Companies. 

Pros

Flexible, like PEO Companies, offers a diverse catalog of PEO services and HR services. Among its services are health insurance and employee wellness programs, as well as flexible spending plans, risk management, time and employee management tools, payroll processing, HR management, benefits administration, workers’ compensation, expense reporting, tax filings, time-saving tools, and assistance with HR compliance and legal issues to ensure that your business is meeting New Jersey regulations. 

The company has reasonable rates and a straightforward user interface that makes it easy to sign up for and begin using its services. 

There was one area where Flexible PEO was truly unparalleled: customer service. 

Based on the three tests I conducted, the average response time for customer support emails was 46 minutes, while the average wait time for speaking to a customer service agent by phone was less than 2 minutes. 

The team’s assistance wasn’t only quick, it was really beneficial. They were able to address my concerns without transferring me to another agent (and forcing me to repeat my problem to them) or bringing in a supervisor. 

The only thing that could have made me more satisfied with their service and with the company as a whole would have been a birthday card, but I won’t hold my breath. 

Cons

While I appreciate that Flexible offers a simple interface and reasonable prices, I still rank PEO Companies as the best PEO in New Jersey. 

Though it’s fairly easy to get set up with, there were a few points where I needed to contact Flexible’s excellent customer service department for clarification on how to navigate the system. And despite Flexible’s competitive pricing, all three of the fictitious New Jersey businesses I created received quotes from Flexible that were around 10% more than PEO Companies. 

Even though these aren’t deal breakers for most New Jersey business owners (particularly if you place a high value on customer service), they were enough for me to place Flexible second on my list. 

Overall

Flexible PEO is a fantastic New Jersey PEO that meets all the service requirements of many New Jersey businesses. It provides a wide range of New Jersey PEO services and HR services at rates that are far lower than the industry standard and backs it all up with first-rate customer support. Although its rates are somewhat more expensive than PEO Companies', and it has a more complicated system, it’s still a great New Jersey PEO provider choice, especially if you appreciate good customer service. 

Every New Jersey PEO company bases its prices on specific details about your company (like how many employees you have and the industry of your New Jersey business) and its needs, so to get a custom quote for your business, visit Flexible’s website: Flexible.

3. Vensure PEO — 7.41/10 (Best Value PEO)

Vensure PEO is my #3 choice for the best PEO in New Jersey. It’s a wonderful value, and a trustworthy choice overall, but there are a few drawbacks to its PEO services that felt like a letdown. 

Pros

Vensure PEO provides a full array of products and services, much like my other top PEO picks. Some of the PEO services offered include health insurance, HR support, employee management and productivity tracking tools, payroll processing, risk management, HR management, flexible spending plans, workers’ compensation, and assistance with compliance and legal issues and HR tasks, as well as tax filings. 

The company’s onboarding process was pretty straightforward, but I ran into some difficulties after I was fully integrated into the system. Vensure’s customer service team was knowledgeable and responded to my inquiries promptly as well. 

However, when it comes to price, Vensure was unrivaled. The quote for my small business was the lowest of the three quotes I received from Vensure, but they were all rather inexpensive. In fact, all three quotes I got from Vensure were the lowest quotes I got from PEO providers in New Jersey. I was sure to include all the available options from other quotes to really showcase the excellent value of the company’s services. 

Cons

As I previously stated, there are some drawbacks to using Vensure PEO despite its amazing value. 

It was simple to sign up, but once I was in, I ran into several difficulties while trying to do simple things. 

While someone from Vensure did get back to me within a decent amount of time when I contacted customer service for help with these difficulties, the service I got was not quite as good as the service I got from PEO Companies..

I wouldn’t say the company is outstanding at anything—it’s just decent. 

Overall

When it comes to professional employer organizations (PEOs) in New Jersey, Vensure PEO is one of the most dependable and well-supported options available at a reasonable price. Although its system may be difficult to use for people who aren’t very computer savvy, and its customer service isn’t especially helpful or patient, it was the most cost-efficient New Jersey PEO I received quotes from. 

Like the other two professional employer organizations on my list, Vensure PEO bases its prices on several factors, like how many employees your company employs, and the types of benefits you wish to provide. So if you want a customized quote, head to Vensure’s website here: Vensure PEO. 

4. Justworks

Justworks is a PEO up-and-comer that launched in 2012, and is rapidly growing to cover the whole United States. 

Like everyone else on my list, Justworks is a full-service professional employer organization. It offers payroll management, health insurance, risk mitigation, workers’ compensation, a number of HR solutions (like HR compliance), and assistance with tax forms, compliance, and legal issues to ensure your New Jersey business is in compliance with New Jersey regulations. 

Unlike the other professional employer organizations in New Jersey that I researched, Justworks is very open about its business practices. 

Anyone can see Justworks’ price structure on its website. This was a big plus in an industry where companies often hide their prices and demand that prospective clients disclose intimate details about their businesses before even giving them a price for their New Jersey PEO services. 

The fact that Justworks is relatively new in the New Jersey PEO industry is a major factor in my decision to place them in my #4 spot. 

After partnering with a professional employer organization, it takes time to get integrated in its system. You can’t afford to do it again if the start-up PEO you’ve partnered your New Jersey business with goes out of business. 

To be on the safe side, I would wait until Justworks has been around for a while and proven itself before entrusting them with your company.

If you’d like to read more about Justworks’ services, check out the website: Justworks. 

5. Infiniti HR

Infiniti HR stands apart from many other New Jersey PEOs out there. 

Some of its PEO service offerings include payroll processing, risk management, health insurance, employee wellness programs and flexible spending plans, safety compliance, HR tasks, and assistance with tax forms. 

The PEO company provides additional HR assistance by aiding in the hiring process. If you’re like most New Jersey business owners, you realize how valuable a good employee is, so any assistance in finding them is a huge benefit to any New Jersey company. 

Like Justworks, Infiniti has a major flaw: it’s still very young. It’s only been around for 10 years, making it a baby compared to other New Jersey PEOs. Until it’s had more time to mature, you may want to wait before signing up. 

6. TriNet

When it comes to New Jersey PEOs, TriNet has been around the longest. It first opened its doors in 1988 and has since grown to include more than 16,000 companies and 330,000 employees. 

This company provides all the services you might want as a New Jersey business owner and more than enough to satisfy your needs. Among the services TriNet offers are health insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending plans, payroll processing, risk management, time-tracking tools, safety compliance, and assistance with tax forms. The drawback is that TriNet seems to rely heavily on its big name to attract new clients, rather than endeavoring to draw in new customers with quality services. 

TriNet isn’t eager to impress or do anything to win your business, so it doesn’t go out of its way to provide excellent customer service or come up with novel solutions to issues. 

So although TriNet will be a solid professional employer organization in all the ways that matter, it won’t ever go above and beyond what’s considered average or exceed what you’d hope for.

7. PayChex

Oasis Outsourcing, a PEO that served companies in New Jersey for 20 years, has been bought by PayChex. (You might remember PayChex from the label on your first paychecks down at the Dairy Queen.) PayChex continues to assist Oasis customers, but new customers sign up with PayChex PEO. 

PayChex offers all the basic services that other professional employer organizations do, like health insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending plans, payroll processing, risk management, time-tracking tools, safety compliance, and assistance with tax forms and other HR tasks. You can also find a number of industry-specific solutions for the hospitality, banking, education, and retail industries, as well as other businesses. But the company’s policy of allowing only 12-month contracts ultimately led to its low score. 

PayChex lost points because it locks prospective clients into 12-month contracts, which is unnecessary and unwarranted in the professional employer organization industry, since monthly contracts are the norm. 

8. ADP Totalsource

As one of the largest PEOs, ADP Totalsource serves customers beyond the state of New Jersey, and in more than 140 different countries. Some of its service offerings are health insurance, wellness programs, flexible spending plans, payroll processing, and risk mitigation, and they’ll also tackle benefits administration. Like PayChex, ADP Totalsource delivers a comprehensive set of services, as well as industry-specific solutions. 

ADP Totalsource’s customer service is fantastic since it provides assistance not only to you but also to your employees. Instead of contacting you to call ADP on their behalf, your employees can get answers to any queries they may have about their salaries, benefits, tax rates, or other HR-related matters. This is an enormous benefit because you won’t have to deal with these time-consuming phone calls anymore. 

The problem with ADP Totalsource is the same one present with TriNet. If you own a small business in New Jersey and are thinking of signing up with ADP, you should know that you will not get the attention necessary for your company to succeed. This is because your small business will essentially disappear amongst all the huge corporations that make up ADP’s long client list. 

9. Insperity

My hopes were high for Insperity PEO, but this PEO in New Jersey fell short of my expectations. 

Insperity is a full-service PEO option that provides health insurance, payroll services, risk mitigation, and other services for companies in New Jersey. 

This New Jersey PEO company has a proven track record of excellence in both product offerings and customer service, having won several awards over a 30-year period. It gave me hope for a stress-free experience with this PEO service provider. The fact that Insperity allows customers to cancel their services at any time (with 30 days’ notice) made me think that this may be a New Jersey PEO company that’s committed to providing excellent services. 

That is, until I started researching their health care options. 

Health care, as you well know, is a monumental concern that calls for a great deal of adaptability to meet the varying requirements of your staff members. Because of the diversity of your staff and their wide range of individual health care requirements, it’s important to provide a wide range of health insurance plans. 

The health insurance plans your employees can sign up with through Insperity all come from the same company for some reason. Only one. Why? Really, I have no idea. That’s just how Insperity does it. 

This means that your employees’ health care choices will be quite restricted if you go with Insperity, and they may not get the services they need. 

The Best PEO for Your Business

Finding the best PEO for your business may be challenging, since there are currently more than 900 different PEO companies in New Jersey available to companies of any size. 

Over the past six years, I have spent more than 230 hours researching the industry to choose the top three PEO companies in New Jersey: PEO Companies, Flexible, and Vensure PEO. 

While any of these PEO companies would be a solid choice for any New Jersey business, you’ll need a recommendation tailored specifically to your company’s needs if you want to find the best PEO company for your business. This recommendation is based on the following factors:

• 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 in New Jersey 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 put a lot of work into finding the best PEO companies in New Jersey. You need to know a few things about me first before I tell you about my process, though. 

Why You Should Trust Me

You can trust my advice because I have worked with more PEO companies in New Jersey than nearly anyone else in the world, both while growing my own New Jersey businesses, and while assisting others to find the best PEO companies to meet their needs. 

The first time I interacted with a New Jersey PEO service provider was with my health company. To be honest, I didn’t have time to deal with all the HR foolishness like employee benefits issues. I was too busy learning the foundations of starting a small business, such as creating websites, writing articles, and managing my staff. 

After finding that a staffing agency couldn’t meet all my needs in terms of personnel management, I joined a fantastic PEO service provider.

I finally took some time off after dealing with all of that, then launched my second small business, a cafe. It would be an understatement to say that it was significantly different from managing a small business online. 

Interestingly, both companies had one thing in common despite their dissimilarities: HR stress. So, I returned to the realm of PEO companies in New Jersey to handle my HR matters and employee benefits. I looked at websites, read reviews, and listened to lengthy sales pitches from sales teams that were trying to sell their products, even though all I wanted was simple answers to my questions. It was a LOT of work and information to go through. I finally found the right PEO service provider, one that helped me grow and expand my business in New Jersey. 

I quickly learned that the hospitality industry wasn’t for me, so I closed my cafe and took some time to figure out my next move. The solution came to me when former coworkers from my days at the cafe and my online business contacted me for assistance with their administrative tasks. 

The more recommendations I gave, the more people sought me out, so I began writing down my advice. Since then, I’ve worked with more than 1,200 clients to discover the best PEO companies in New Jersey for their growing companies, giving me more knowledge and expertise than anybody else in the industry.

How I Selected the Best PEO

I used a four-stage method to whittle down a list of over 900 New Jersey PEO companies to a manageable number of potential candidates and choose the best PEO in New Jersey. 

Stage 1: Reviews

First, I did some research in the form of reading online reviews posted on various review websites. 

Most New Jersey PEO companies that have been around for more than a year will have a sizable amount of client reviews available online. By collecting this feedback, I was able to swiftly and effectively determine which New Jersey PEO companies are worth further investigation and which ones could be eliminated from further consideration. 

To save time, I only considered New Jersey PEO companies that had high ratings on the most popular review sites to see whether they met the minimum requirements in terms of the services they provide, as well as cost and customer support. 

Stage 2: Offering Analysis

Diversity abounds throughout the New Jersey PEO industry. New Jersey PEO companies provide a wide range of goods and services, each at a unique price point. 

The second part of my research involved looking at the various New Jersey PEOs and what products and services they provide, as well as how much they cost. This helped me to avoid PEOs that provide a limited range of services or charge exorbitant rates for the services they do provide. 

Stage 3: Speaking With Real Customers

To get a general feel for a company, online reviews are invaluable, but they have two major drawbacks. 

The first is that customers only ever post a review if they’ve had either a highly felicitous or an extremely unfavorable experience. Because of this tendency to the extreme, you can’t always trust the feedback you read about a company on online reviews because it’s too biased and polarized. 

The second limitation is a spatial one. It’s difficult to get a feel for a company’s quality from a review of its services if the review has a limited word count (often less than 200 characters). Former customers may be able to say whether they liked it or not, but without adequate space to explain why.

The third phase in my research was talking to actual customers in order to get around these obstacles. With the use of my website and prior connections, I was able to reach out to actual PEO clients in New Jersey and get their opinions. To guarantee my research of New Jersey PEOs during this phase was thorough, I asked pointed questions and was happy to receive thoughtful responses. 

Stage 4: Speaking With Their Sales Teams

In order to determine whether it would be a good long-term fit to work with a New Jersey PEO company, I researched how each one deals with customer complaints and suggestions. Is there room for change in their mindset? Do they make excuses and point the finger at the customer, or do they own up to their mistakes? The distinction between the A-listers and the rest of the pack lies in these traits and principles. 

Ranking Factors

When deciding on the best PEO, I considered these five criteria: 

Factor 1: Offerings

The first criterion for evaluation is each PEO’s product catalog. 

There is no use in partnering with a New Jersey PEO to handle health insurance if the PEO does not provide adequate health insurance. Thus, to ensure that you choose the best New Jersey PEO for your circumstance, I compiled a complete database of products and services. 

Factor 2: Price

The second aspect I considered while evaluating each PEO was the cost. 

The pricing of various products and services may vary greatly among New Jersey PEOs (and this information is only accessible by engaging in a sales call, which is very sneaky). So, I graded each New Jersey PEO based on the value it delivers for the price. 

Factor 3: Ease of Sign-Up

The third factor I considered when assessing each New Jersey PEO was how simple it is to sign up to its system. 

With some New Jersey PEOs, you may be required to spend weeks searching through drawers for information you don’t actually need, but other PEOs can get a substantial portion of your information through government agencies. 

To make sure you choose a New Jersey PEO that doesn’t waste your time, I evaluated the efficiency and automation of each New Jersey PEO’s onboarding process. 

Factor 4: Ease of Use

The fourth thing I evaluated was the usability of each system. 

Some New Jersey PEOs have spent millions simplifying and automating their back-end systems while making user experience a top concern, while others have merely added new capabilities to old systems and then created hefty manuals to explain their convoluted navigation systems. 

Clearly, working with a customer-centric, user-friendly system is FAR preferable to being bound to an obsolete system. To help you make an informed decision, I evaluated the usability and navigation of each New Jersey PEO’s system. 

Factor 5: Customer Service

No matter how much effort or money is invested in developing the most intuitive system, there will always be questions. Herein lies the crucial role of customer service. 

Some New Jersey PEOs will keep you on the line for hours before finally connecting you to a bored and under-trained agent who cannot address your issue and can only promise to escalate it to management (which never happens). Other New Jersey PEOs will respond to your call within a few minutes and resolve your issues in less time, allowing you to continue your day and complete important items on your to-do list. 

The Best PEO for Your Business

Without knowing more about your company and its needs, it would be hard to accurately recommend a New Jersey PEO, even though PEO Companies is a fantastic choice for many small businesses. 

I can’t recommend a good PEO until I have more information about your New Jersey business, including its industry, size, number of workers, and desired benefits. 

Enter your information here to get a free analysis and advice tailored specifically to your company’s needs. 

Just fill out the form below and I’ll do my best to point you in the direction of a New Jersey PEO that’s a good fit for your business. I’ll do all the legwork to match you with a suitable New Jersey PEO for your company to lower health insurance costs and help you save money.

While you’re here learning about business services, it may be a good idea to consider registered agent services. A registered agent is an individual or business entity that accepts mail, service of process, and other important legal documents on behalf of your company. To learn more about registered agents, read my Best New Jersey Registered Agents article. 

If you haven’t chosen a business structure, now is as good a time as any to choose one, too. There are several options to choose from, such as a partnership, corporation, sole proprietorship, or limited liability company (LLC). If you’d like to learn more about the intricacies and steps involved with forming an LLC in the state of New Jersey, then read my How to Start an LLC in New Jersey article. 

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