Head to head · Payroll run · October 2026 research run
Salsa vs Worklio
Salsa scores 46.1 (D) 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
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
- Reliability, 36 against 25
- Security & auth, 56 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 50 against 25
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where Worklio loses 3 points for them
Watch for
API tokens come from Salsa after a sales contact. No self-serve signup, public price, free tier or trial was found
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 | Salsa | Worklio | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 36 | 25 | Salsa +11 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 73 | 71 | Salsa +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 48 | 44 | Salsa +4 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 56 | 48 | Salsa +8 |
| 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 | 50 | 25 | Salsa +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 51 | 48 | Salsa +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| Total | 46.1 · D | 38.6 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Salsa | Worklio |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Salsa Software Inc. | Worklio, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.salsa.dev/api/rest/v1 | https://api.worklio.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| Pricing | Paid | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary 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 | 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 | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-06-30 |
| Terms last updated | 2022-04-07 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-24 | 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 | yes | |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | |
| Popularity | 435 npm/wk | none |
Verdicts
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.
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
Salsa
- 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
- Call POST /payroll-runs/preview before creating a run, then confirm the PENDING run in a separate call. Confirming starts the employer debit
- Send your own externalId on every create. A repeat returns a uniqueness error, which is the only duplicate protection
- Make sure externalId values are unique across all employers, since each entity type has one namespace
- Mint a user token with the lowest role and the fewest employerIds the task needs, and keep the partner token on the server
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, Salsa or Worklio?
Salsa scores 46.1 (D) on agent readiness against Worklio's 38.6 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Worklio leads on payments & pricing.
Do Salsa and Worklio need an API key?
Salsa needs an API key. Worklio uses an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call Salsa and Worklio without installing anything?
Yes. Salsa has a hosted endpoint at https://api.salsa.dev/api/rest/v1 and Worklio at https://api.worklio.com.
Other comparisons with Salsa or Worklio
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/salsa-vs-worklio.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/salsa.json·/api/v1/tools/worklio.json - From a terminal
anchor compare salsa worklio(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "salsa", "b": "worklio"}at/mcp, no key