Head to head · Payroll run · October 2026 research run
Check vs Worklio
Check scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Worklio's 38.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Worklio leads on payments & pricing. Both do payroll run.
Which one, for what
Check B
Good for A software platform that wants to sell US payroll inside its own product and can sign a partnership, with Check handling tax calculation, money movement and filings.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 80 against 25
- Schema & documentation, 78 against 71
- Agent ergonomics, 83 against 44
- Security & auth, 74 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 72 against 25
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 48
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Worklio loses 3 points for them
Watch for
No public price and no self-serve signup. The documentation says to request an API key through Check's sales contact
Worklio E
Good for A software platform, PEO or payroll bureau that wants to sell US payroll under its own brand and can sign a partner agreement, with Worklio handling tax filing and money movement.
Ahead on
- Payments & pricing, 25 against 5
Watch for
No rate limits, 429 handling or idempotency keys were found in the reviewed documentation
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Check | Worklio | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 80 | 25 | Check +55 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 78 | 71 | Check +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 83 | 44 | Check +39 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 74 | 48 | Check +26 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 5 | 25 | Worklio +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 72 | 25 | Check +47 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 62 | 48 | Check +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | 67.5 · B | 38.6 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Check | Worklio |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Check Technologies, Inc. | Worklio, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.checkhq.com | https://api.worklio.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Check's terms of service and partner agreement. The MCP server and CLI on GitHub are MIT | Proprietary service. The public Terms of Use date from 2014 and the partner agreement isn't public. The front-end library sits in a private repository |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-06-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2021-09-03 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-04-18 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | |
| Popularity | 18 stars | none |
Verdicts
Check
Graded as embedded payroll through a partner API key, not access to an existing employer's payroll account. The API has idempotency keys on writes, a required preview before approval and queryable request logs. No price is public, a sandbox key comes through Check's sales team, and one API key carries the whole partner account.
Worklio
Worklio documents 853 REST operations with an OpenAPI fragment on every reference page, and a developer can register for the sandbox without a sales call. No rate limits or public SDK were found, the status page is password protected, and the payroll guide tells callers to treat an HTTP 500 as the signal to finalise.
Before you call either
Check
- Use https://sandbox.checkhq.com with the sandbox key and https://api.checkhq.com with the production key. A key is not valid across environments
- Preview a payroll before approving it, then pass
preview_started_atto POST /payrolls/{id}/approve so a stale preview fails with 409 - Send
X-Idempotency-Keyon every write. Keys expire after 24 hours, so list the resource before retrying later than that - On 429 wait for
Retry-After. The limit is 10 requests a second in sandbox and for partners paying fewer than 1,000 payees a month, with 100 concurrent requests - Connect the MCP server with
?read_only=trueorX-MCP-Readonly: trueunless writes are intended. In production, approving a payroll moves money
Worklio
- Send
api-version: 2.0on/wepcalls. The reference marks the header as required - Get a token from
POST https://api.worklio.com/connect/tokenwith the password grant and scopeapi. It lasts 24 hours, so fetch a new one daily - Run payroll as start,
nextuntil it answers 500 with "Next step operation is not allowed", thenfinalize. Don't treat that 500 as a failure - Don't retry bonus, off-cycle, void or termination payroll starts blindly. The reference says those calls are not idempotent
- Most
/weplist endpoints return the whole result set. Paging,filterandsortwork only under/api/public, and aDataTokenexpires after 60 seconds
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Check or Worklio?
Check scores 67.5 (B) on agent readiness against Worklio's 38.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Worklio leads on payments & pricing.
Do Check and Worklio need an API key?
Check takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Worklio uses an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Check and Worklio without installing anything?
Yes. Check has a hosted endpoint at https://api.checkhq.com and Worklio at https://api.worklio.com.
Other comparisons with Check or Worklio
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/check-payroll-vs-worklio.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/check-payroll.json·/api/v1/tools/worklio.json - From a terminal
anchor compare check-payroll worklio(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "check-payroll", "b": "worklio"}at/mcp, no key