Get an audit

Head to head · Payroll run · October 2026 research run

Employment Hero Payroll vs Zeal

Employment Hero Payroll scores 50.4 (D) on agent readiness against Zeal's 45.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Zeal leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do payroll run.

Employment Hero PayrollEmployment Hero Pty Ltd · HTTP API D50.4/100#591 of 722 ZealPuzzl Group Inc. · HTTP API E45.4/100#658 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 42
  • Security & auth, 46 against 34
  • Payments & pricing, 10 against 0
  • Maintenance & community, 68 against 61
  • 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

Zeal E

Good for A US staffing platform, marketplace or workforce product that will sign a partnership and run payroll for many employers under its own brand, including daily and on-demand pay.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 68 against 51
  • Agent ergonomics, 63 against 53

Also in its favour

  • A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for

No self-serve signup. Zeal's team creates the partner account after a demo request, and no price is published

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runEmployment Hero PayrollZealEdge
Reliability16%206542Employment Hero Payroll +23
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.25168Zeal +17
Agent ergonomics13%16.25363Zeal +10
Security & auth14%17.54634Employment Hero Payroll +12
Payments & pricing10%12.5100Employment Hero Payroll +10
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.86861Employment Hero Payroll +7
Transparency & trust7%8.86051Employment Hero Payroll +9
Negative events≤1500
Total50.4 · D45.4 · E

Facts side by side

FactEmployment Hero PayrollZeal
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorEmployment Hero Pty LtdPuzzl Group Inc.
Hosted endpointno (local only)https://api.zeal.com
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingPaidPaid
x402nono
LicenceProprietary service under Employment Hero's General Terms. The KeyPayV2 .NET client is MITProprietary service. The npm SDK declares MIT. The SDK repositories on GitHub carry no licence file
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnoyes
Last release2026-10-082026-07-31
Terms last updatedno date given2026-01-16
Privacy policy last updatedno date given2026-01-16
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 textnot found in the text
Popularity6 stars0 stars, 8 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.

Zeal

Graded on the partner REST API at api.zeal.com, which is the only access route. Three OpenAPI specs, llms.txt, a test environment that moves no money, a preview endpoint and a per-cheque approval flag are documented. Access starts with a demo request, prices are not published, each environment has one unscoped key, and no status page or working 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

Zeal

  1. Use the Test API key until a person has approved live payroll. Error code 0 (403) means the account has no production access
  2. Send companyID on almost every call and partnerID on partner-level calls, in the body for POST and PATCH and the query for GET
  3. Create cheques with approval_required: true, run POST /preview/checks, then PATCH /employeeCheck with approved: true. Without the flag Zeal processes pending cheques automatically
  4. Send x-idempotency-key on every create so a retry within 24 hours doesn't pay twice
  5. Previews and reports are jobs. Keep the job_id and poll GET /preview or GET /reports, or wait for the Job Queue webhook
  6. Check dates must be bank days and submitted before 2 PM Pacific two bank days ahead, or the call fails with code 89

Questions

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

Employment Hero Payroll scores 50.4 (D) on agent readiness against Zeal's 45.4 (E), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Zeal leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics.

Do Employment Hero Payroll and Zeal need an API key?

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

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

No hosted endpoint is listed for Employment Hero Payroll. Zeal has a hosted endpoint at https://api.zeal.com.

Other comparisons with Employment Hero Payroll or Zeal

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report