Head to head · Payroll run · October 2026 research run
Salsa vs Zeal
Salsa and Zeal score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 46.1 (D) and 45.4 (E). Zeal leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community. 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
- Schema & documentation, 73 against 68
- Security & auth, 56 against 34
- Payments & pricing, 5 against 0
Watch for
API tokens come from Salsa after a sales contact. No self-serve signup, public price, free tier or trial was 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
- Reliability, 42 against 36
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 48
- Maintenance & community, 61 against 50
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 this run | Salsa | Zeal | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 36 | 42 | Zeal +6 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 73 | 68 | Salsa +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 48 | 63 | Zeal +15 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 56 | 34 | Salsa +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 5 | 0 | Salsa +5 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 50 | 61 | Zeal +11 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 51 | 51 | even |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 46.1 · D | 45.4 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Salsa | Zeal |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Salsa Software Inc. | Puzzl Group Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.salsa.dev/api/rest/v1 | https://api.zeal.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| 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 npm SDK declares MIT. The SDK repositories on GitHub carry no licence file |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-07 | 2026-07-31 |
| Terms last updated | 2022-04-07 | 2026-01-16 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-09-24 | 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 | yes | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 435 npm/wk | 0 stars, 8 npm/wk |
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.
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
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
Zeal
- Use the Test API key until a person has approved live payroll. Error code 0 (403) means the account has no production access
- Send
companyIDon almost every call andpartnerIDon partner-level calls, in the body for POST and PATCH and the query for GET - Create cheques with
approval_required: true, run POST /preview/checks, then PATCH /employeeCheck withapproved: true. Without the flag Zeal processes pending cheques automatically - Send
x-idempotency-keyon every create so a retry within 24 hours doesn't pay twice - Previews and reports are jobs. Keep the
job_idand poll GET /preview or GET /reports, or wait for the Job Queue webhook - 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, Salsa or Zeal?
Salsa and Zeal score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 46.1 (D) and 45.4 (E). Zeal leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and maintenance & community.
Do Salsa and Zeal need an API key?
Both need an API key.
Can an agent call Salsa and Zeal without installing anything?
Yes. Salsa has a hosted endpoint at https://api.salsa.dev/api/rest/v1 and Zeal at https://api.zeal.com.
Other comparisons with Salsa or Zeal
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/salsa-vs-zeal.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/salsa.json·/api/v1/tools/zeal.json - From a terminal
anchor compare salsa zeal(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "salsa", "b": "zeal"}at/mcp, no key