# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-zeal
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-zeal.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-zeal.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-zeal.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

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 Payroll: grade D, 50.4/100, rank #591 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/employment-hero.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/employment-hero.json
- Zeal: grade E, 45.4/100, rank #658 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/zeal.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zeal.json

## 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

| Category | Weight | Employment Hero Payroll | Zeal | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 42 | Employment Hero Payroll +23 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 51 | 68 | Zeal +17 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 63 | Zeal +10 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 46 | 34 | Employment Hero Payroll +12 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 10 | 0 | Employment Hero Payroll +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 61 | Employment Hero Payroll +7 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 51 | Employment Hero Payroll +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **50.4 · D** | **45.4 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Employment Hero Payroll | Zeal |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Employment Hero Pty Ltd | Puzzl Group Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.zeal.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Employment Hero's General Terms. The `KeyPayV2` .NET client is MIT | Proprietary service. The npm SDK declares MIT. The SDK repositories on GitHub carry no licence file |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-08 | 2026-07-31 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2026-01-16 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-01-16 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 6 stars | 0 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.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-zeal.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-zeal.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "employment-hero", "b": "zeal"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare employment-hero zeal`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/employment-hero.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/zeal.json

## Other comparisons with Employment Hero Payroll or Zeal

- [Argyle vs Employment Hero Payroll](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/argyle-vs-employment-hero.md)
- [Argyle vs Zeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/argyle-vs-zeal.md)
- [Employment Hero Payroll vs Finch](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-finch.md)
- [Employment Hero Payroll vs Paychex](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/employment-hero-vs-paychex.md)
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- [Paychex vs Zeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/paychex-vs-zeal.md)
- [Check vs Employment Hero Payroll](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-employment-hero.md)
- [Check vs Zeal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/check-payroll-vs-zeal.md)
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