Payroll software Singapore: Talenox vs Payboy (QuickBooks isn't in this race)

The short answer: if you want to know what you'll pay before you talk to anyone, buy Talenox — it is the only one of the three that prints a Singapore dollar price on its own website, and at 15 staff that price is S$81.75/month billed monthly, or S$65.40/month billed annually [1]. If you're chasing the PSG grant, the answer inverts: Payboy is the one IRAS flags as having a PSG pre-approved HRMS solution — Talenox carries no such flag [5] — but Payboy publishes no per-employee rate anywhere we could find, so "50% off" is 50% off a number you can't see until you request a quote [3]. And QuickBooks does not belong on this shortlist at all: Intuit appears nowhere on IRAS's 97-vendor list of payroll software that can file employment income for YA2026 [5].

At a glance (checked 18 Aug 2026)

All figures in Singapore dollars. Talenox states its prices are GST-inclusive; Payboy's calculator states GST at 9% is included in its total [1][3]. Terms change — click the sources.

Two things in that table are worth more than the prices. Payboy has the grant flag and Talenox doesn't. Talenox files A8B and Payboy doesn't. Neither of those is discoverable from a price list.

What you're actually buying

Talenox — the one that shows you the bill

Talenox is the only vendor here that lets you cost your payroll before you speak to a salesperson. The Singapore price page publishes a base fee for the first five employees plus a per-head rate, so you can do the sum yourself [1]:

Every figure is per month and GST-inclusive; the annual columns are the per-month rate you get for committing to a year [1]. The Payroll plan gets you Profiles and Payroll; SUITE adds Leave and Claims [1]. Part-timers bill at half the full-time rate [1].

Read that table before you read Talenox's own page, because the page opens on the annual number. The headline you see is "S$4.36 per employee / month" — that is the annually-billed rate. Flip the toggle to "Monthly" and the same employee costs S$5.45 [1]. There's a smaller oddity too: the toggle is labelled "Annually Save ≈15%", but on the Singapore numbers the annual rate is 20% below the monthly one [1]. Neither is a scandal. Both are reasons to check which state the page is in before you build a budget on it.

On compliance, Talenox claims the full statutory set: "Generate CPF files, IR8A forms, and other statutory reports in a few clicks", one-click AIS submission to IRAS, and "Appendix 8A, 8B, IR21, and IR8S" [2]. IRAS's own list backs the important half of that — Talenox has supported direct API submission since YA2020, the earliest year on this list, and its A8B column is ticked [5]. Bank files: "more than 10 banks in Singapore, including DBS, OCBC, and UOB" [2].

Payboy — the grant flag, behind a quote form

Payboy's payroll module reads well against Singapore's rules: "Automatic CPF Contribution Calculation (Employee vs Employer, PR vs Singaporean)", "Customizable itemised payslips", and bank files for DBS, OCBC, UOB and Maybank — with the honest caveat that "the bank files generated from our payroll software are only compatible with GIRO" [4]. IRAS confirms Payboy submits IR8A and A8A by API since YA2021, at controls category A [5].

The price is the problem. On the pricing page you get a hero reading "Switch to Payboy now for only $3" — no unit, no billing period, no statement of what the three dollars buys [3]. Below it sits a calculator that instructs you to "Key in the number of staff you have" and shows "Estimated Cost $ 0 per month" until you do [3]. The only two module unit prices printed as static text are Applicant Tracking at "$89.9" and Inventory at "$89.90" — neither of which is payroll [3]. The navigation advertises a "Payboy Startup Package" that will "Empower teams of up to 10 employees for less than the cost of a daily kopi", with no dollar figure attached; the page it links to returned a 404 to us today [3].

We went looking harder before calling this, because "publishes no price" is a strong claim to make about a company that clearly does sell at a price. We fetched the pricing page five times with three different extraction methods, plus the payroll module page, the partnership page, both payboy.biz pricing URLs and four different candidate URLs for the Startup Package. The nearest thing to a rate card we found is a promotions page that is still live and still says "Payboy starts from as low as $0.30* per employee" — and also says, in bold, "Offer only till 28 September 2023!" [9]. We are not printing three-year-old promotional figures as today's price, and neither should any comparison site that shows you a tidy Payboy price table.

QuickBooks — the wrong shape of product for this job

IRAS publishes a list of every payroll software vendor whose product can file employment income records to IRAS by API for YA2026. It runs to 97 named companies, alphabetically, across nine pages [5]. Intuit is not on it — there is no entry between "INTERCORP SOLUTIONS PTE LTD" and "IQ DYNAMICS PTE LTD", and the list contains no Q-block at all, running straight from "PUBLICA HOLDINGS PTE. LTD." to "RAMCO SYSTEMS PTE. LTD." [5]. Xero isn't on it either [5].

That is the whole answer. In Singapore, QuickBooks is your ledger and something else is your payroll — a division Talenox states plainly on its own integration page, where "QBO caters to your accounting needs" and "Talenox eases your payroll process" [2]. Choosing your accounting software is a real and separate decision, and we've written it up in Xero vs QuickBooks for Singapore. It is not this decision. We could not load Intuit's Singapore pricing page today across six attempts, so we quote no QuickBooks price here at all.

Singapore-specific notes

• The PSG caret is the finding. IRAS marks vendors "with pre-approved Human Resource Management System (HRMS) solutions that are supported under PSG" with a caret [5]. Payboy has it. Talenox does not [5]. PSG is "Up to 50% of eligible costs for local SMEs", to a maximum of "$30,000" per the grant's own terms [6]. On a S$130/month payroll bill that is worth roughly S$780 a year — real money, and enough to flip the decision for a price-driven buyer.
• Talenox knows about the caret, and is bidding against it. Its Singapore pricing page carries a whole section headed "Why Pay More? We'll Beat Any PSG Grant Quote.", promising "Send us any PSG grant quote – we'll beat it", "Beat PSG grant delays instantly" and a "Price-match guarantee on PSG quotes" [1]. That is a vendor telling you, in its own words, that it competes with the grant rather than sitting inside it. It also means the PSG gap may cost you less than the arithmetic above suggests — if you're willing to negotiate.
• Confirm the listing yourself before you plan around it. The authority is GoBusiness Gov Assist, which EnterpriseSG names as the place to "find the full list of solutions" [6]. Both GoBusiness pages we tried returned HTTP 403 to us today, so the PSG status in our table comes from IRAS's caret, not from GoBusiness. Check it against GoBusiness before you commit — pre-approval status changes, and PSG requires that you make no payment or deposit to the vendor before you apply [6]. Our grant guides and the grant calculator cover the rest of the mechanics.
• "IRAS approved" is not a thing, and IRAS says so. Payboy's payroll page describes it as an "IRAS approved Payroll Software Vendor for AIS submissions" [4]. IRAS's own document says: "Being listed as an AIS payroll software vendor is not an endorsement by IRAS. IRAS only validates the AIS submissions made through the vendors' payroll software" [5]. Both statements are accurate about different things. Treat listing as a plumbing check, not a quality badge — and note that being listed is table stakes: 97 vendors have it.
• A8B is the quiet dealbreaker. If you give staff share options or share awards, that gain is reported on Appendix 8B. Talenox's A8B column is ticked; Payboy's is blank [5]. For most SMEs this is irrelevant. For a startup with an ESOP it decides the comparison on its own.
• Neither is One-Stop Payroll-ready. IRAS flags vendors whose software can submit "annual salary data submission (under AIS) to IRAS, monthly CPF contribution information to CPF Board, and responses to MOM surveys" through one platform [5]. Neither Talenox nor Payboy carries that hash. Eighteen of the 97 listed vendors do — among them JustLogin, QuickHR (listed under Enable Business), HReasily, Info-Tech, Times Software, Whyze, Zealys, BIPO, SAP Asia and Unit4 [5]. Fourteen of those eighteen carry the PSG caret as well [5]. If one-window submission to three agencies is what you actually want, your shortlist is a different shortlist.
• Currency and GST are settled here, which is unusual. Both vendors bill in SGD with GST already in the number [1][3] — no USD conversion, no FX spread, none of the imported-services GST arithmetic that muddies most automation tooling. One trap: talenox.com's global pricing page quotes US dollars. The Singapore entity is talenox.com.sg, and talenox.com/sg/pricing redirects there. Make sure you're reading the S$ page.

Which one for which business

• You want a number today, without a sales call: Talenox. It is the only one that gives you one, and at 5–30 staff you can compute your exact bill from the published base-plus-head formula [1].
• You're already planning a PSG application, and headcount is 20+: get a Payboy quote. The caret is real [5] and 50% is 50% [6]. Then take that quote to Talenox and make it honour "Send us any PSG grant quote – we'll beat it" [1]. That's the play the two pages set up for you, and it costs you one email.
• You run an ESOP or issue share awards: Talenox, for A8B [5]. Don't discover this in April.
• You want AIS to IRAS, CPF to CPF Board and MOM surveys from one screen: neither. Look at the vendors carrying both markers on the IRAS list [5].
• You're on QuickBooks or Xero and assumed payroll came with it: it doesn't, in Singapore. Add one of these, keep the ledger where it is [2][5].
• You have shift workers, overtime and claims: price the SUITE tier, not the Payroll tier — S$130.80/month at 15 staff billed monthly, S$114.45 billed annually [1] — or you'll buy the cheap plan and then buy the modules anyway.

You might need neither if…

Under about five salaried staff, with no overtime, no shift work and no claims, you are buying convenience, not compliance. Both government channels are open to you directly: CPF Board's CPF EZPay is "a digital service that helps you easily submit your CPF contributions" and "It's suitable for all employers regardless of the number of employees" — there is no headcount floor pushing you into software [8]. And IRAS states it outright: "Employers who do not have a supporting payroll software can still prepare and submit employment income information online at myTax Portal" [5].

The payslip obligation is real but small at that size. MOM requires that "All employers must issue itemised pay slips to employees covered by the Employment Act", given with payment or "within three working days of payment" [7]. For five people on fixed monthly salaries, every line on that payslip is the same as last month. That's a spreadsheet and a saved template, not a S$21.80–S$27.25 monthly subscription that will grow with you [1].

Buy software when one of these becomes true: variable pay (overtime, shift allowances, commissions) turns your payslips into monthly arithmetic; headcount passes roughly ten and you start losing an evening to it; or you cross into AIS being compulsory and want the filing to be a button rather than a file upload. Below that line, the honest advice is to keep your money.

Your first payroll month, step by step

1. Count what you're actually paying for. Full-timers and part-timers separately — part-timers bill at half rate on Talenox, so the mix changes your number [1].
2. Decide the tier before the vendor. Payroll only, or Payroll plus Leave and Claims? On Talenox at 15 staff that is S$81.75 vs S$130.80 a month billed monthly [1]. Most owners under-scope this and upgrade in month three.
3. Check the PSG list on GoBusiness Gov Assist yourself [6], for whichever vendor you're leaning towards. Do this before you pay anything — PSG requires no prior payment or deposit to the vendor [6].
4. If Payboy is on your list, request the quote, because there is no other way to learn the price [3]. Ask for it as a per-employee rate at your exact headcount, with the billing period stated, both before and after grant.
5. Take that quote to Talenox and hold it to its published price-match [1]. Now you have two real numbers instead of one published one and one mystery.
6. Run one month in parallel with your current method on the free trial — 30 days on Talenox SUITE, 7 days on Payboy [1][3]. Reconcile the CPF figure and one payslip line by line against what you did manually.
7. File one real submission through it before the trial ends. The demo is not the product; the AIS submission is.

FAQ

Payboy has PSG and Talenox doesn't. Isn't that the whole answer? Only if you can find out what Payboy charges. A 50% subsidy on an unpublished price is an unpublished price. Get the quote, then compare — and remember PSG comes with an application, eligibility conditions and the rule that you can't have paid the vendor first [6].

Is Talenox cheaper long-term even without the grant? At its published rates it can be. Fifteen staff on the Payroll plan billed annually is S$65.40/month, S$784.80 a year [1]. Whether a PSG-subsidised Payboy beats that depends entirely on the quote you get, which is the point of this whole article.

Why does Talenox's price look different every time I open the page? Because it opens on the annual-billing rate. "S$4.36 per employee / month" is what you pay committing to a year; the monthly-billed rate is S$5.45 [1]. Same page, same day, two numbers. Check the toggle.

Does being on the IRAS list mean the software is any good? No, and IRAS says so in the document itself [5]. It means submissions from that software can be accepted by IRAS's system. Ninety-seven vendors clear that bar.

Can I just use QuickBooks Payroll like my counterpart in the US? Not for Singapore statutory filing. Intuit is absent from IRAS's YA2026 AIS vendor list entirely [5]. Keep QuickBooks as the ledger if you like it, and run payroll in something that files here.

How confident should I be in these numbers? The Talenox figures were read off its Singapore pricing page on 18 Aug 2026, with both the monthly and annual states recorded [1]. The Payboy blanks are blanks because the page has no number in them, not because we didn't look. Per how we research, this is desk research against primary vendor and government pages — nobody here has run these systems through a Singapore payroll cycle, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

Next step

Do the two sums that decide this: your headcount on the Talenox ladder above, and a Payboy quote at that same headcount with the billing period written down. If the Payboy quote after PSG doesn't clearly beat Talenox's published rate, take the published rate — a price you can read is worth something on its own. And if you're under five salaried staff with no variable pay, do neither this month; go read the real cost of automation and spend the S$300 a year somewhere it changes an outcome.

Sources

1. Talenox Singapore pricing: talenox.com.sg/pricing — fetched 18 Aug 2026 (both monthly and annual states recorded; GST-inclusive)
2. Talenox Singapore: talenox.com.sg — fetched 18 Aug 2026 (CPF files, IR8A/AIS, Appendix 8A/8B, IR21, IR8S, bank files)
3. Payboy pricing: payboy.sg/pricing — fetched 18 Aug 2026 (calculator; no per-employee payroll rate published)
4. Payboy payroll module: payboy.sg/solutions/payroll-software — fetched 18 Aug 2026 (CPF, itemised payslips, GIRO-only bank files)
5. IRAS, List of AIS Payroll Software Vendors YA2026 (as of 5 Jan 2026): iras.gov.sg — fetched 18 Aug 2026 (PSG caret, One-Stop Payroll hash, form types, controls category)
6. Enterprise Singapore, Productivity Solutions Grant: enterprisesg.gov.sg/financial-support/productivity-solutions-grant — fetched 18 Aug 2026
7. MOM, itemised pay slips: mom.gov.sg/employment-practices/salary/itemised-payslips — fetched 18 Aug 2026
8. CPF Board, submitting CPF contributions via CPF EZPay: cpf.gov.sg — fetched 18 Aug 2026
9. Payboy annual plan promotion: payboy.sg/annual-plan-promotion — fetched 18 Aug 2026 (live page; offer stated as expiring 28 September 2023)