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Head to head · Payroll run · October 2026 research run

Employment Hero Payroll vs Salsa

Employment Hero Payroll scores 50.4 (D) on agent readiness against Salsa's 46.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Salsa leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do payroll run.

Employment Hero PayrollEmployment Hero Pty Ltd · HTTP API D50.4/100#591 of 722 SalsaSalsa Software Inc. · HTTP API D46.1/100#651 of 722

Which one, for what

Employment Hero Payroll D

Good for An agent acting for an employer or bureau already on Employment Hero Payroll in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Singapore or Malaysia, and white label partners who create businesses through the brand endpoints.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 36
  • Agent ergonomics, 53 against 48
  • Payments & pricing, 10 against 5
  • Maintenance & community, 68 against 50
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 51

Watch for

An API key carries the whole access of the user who generated it. No per-key scopes were found

Salsa D

Good for A software platform that wants to sell payroll to its own business customers and can sign a partner agreement, with Salsa handling tax filing and money movement.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 73 against 51
  • Security & auth, 56 against 46

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

API tokens come from Salsa after a sales contact. No self-serve signup, public price, free tier or trial was found

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runEmployment Hero PayrollSalsaEdge
Reliability16%206536Employment Hero Payroll +29
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25173Salsa +22
Agent ergonomics13%16.25348Employment Hero Payroll +5
Security & auth14%17.54656Salsa +10
Payments & pricing10%12.5105Employment Hero Payroll +5
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86850Employment Hero Payroll +18
Transparency & trust7%8.86051Employment Hero Payroll +9
Negative events≤1500
Total50.4 · D46.1 · D

Facts side by side

FactEmployment Hero PayrollSalsa
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorEmployment Hero Pty LtdSalsa Software Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.salsa.dev/api/rest/v1
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPaidPaid
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Employment Hero's General Terms. The KeyPayV2 .NET client is MITProprietary service. The website Terms of Use are public and the partner agreement isn't. The browser library @salsa-payroll/salsa-js on npm is MIT
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-082026-10-07
Terms last updatedno date given2022-04-07
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2025-09-24
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessyesyes
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the textnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the textyes
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the textyes
Popularity6 stars435 npm/wk

Verdicts

Employment Hero Payroll

Five public Swagger 2.0 files describe 660 to 821 operations per region, and any payroll user can generate an API key without a partner review. The key carries its user's whole access, no idempotency keys or API changelog were found, and the only official client is for .NET.

Salsa

Salsa is reached as an embedded-payroll partner, not through an employer's existing payroll account. The REST API has a public OpenAPI 3.1 spec with 123 operations, a payroll preview, a separate confirm step and short-lived user tokens limited by role. Access starts with a sales conversation, and no public price, self-serve sandbox, status page or API changelog was found.

Before you call either

Employment Hero Payroll

  1. Send the API key as the Basic auth username with a blank password, for example curl -u {api_key}: https://api.yourpayroll.com.au/api/v2/user
  2. Pick the Swagger file for the business's region (swagger-au.json, swagger-nz.json, swagger-uk.json, swagger-sg.json, swagger-my.json). Paths and models differ by region
  3. Stay under 5 requests a second per key and IP address. A 429 answered our test with retry-after: 1
  4. Page lists with $skip and $top (100 at most). Filter property names are capitalised, unlike the camelCase JSON
  5. Read GET /api/v2/business/{businessId}/payrun/{payRunId}/warnings before POST .../finalise. Finalise can lodge with the tax office and publish pay slips in the same call

Salsa

  1. Use the sandbox token against https://api.sandbox.salsa.dev and the production token against https://api.salsa.dev. Each environment has its own token
  2. Call POST /payroll-runs/preview before creating a run, then confirm the PENDING run in a separate call. Confirming starts the employer debit
  3. Send your own externalId on every create. A repeat returns a uniqueness error, which is the only duplicate protection
  4. Make sure externalId values are unique across all employers, since each entity type has one namespace
  5. Mint a user token with the lowest role and the fewest employerIds the task needs, and keep the partner token on the server

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Employment Hero Payroll or Salsa?

Employment Hero Payroll scores 50.4 (D) on agent readiness against Salsa's 46.1 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Salsa leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

Do Employment Hero Payroll and Salsa need an API key?

Employment Hero Payroll takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Salsa needs an API key.

Can an agent call Employment Hero Payroll and Salsa without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Employment Hero Payroll. Salsa has a hosted endpoint at https://api.salsa.dev/api/rest/v1.

Other comparisons with Employment Hero Payroll or Salsa

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