Payroll bureaus Clear competitive charges

We like to keep things simple. This applies to our charges as well as everything else.

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Our charges

  • No payroll bureau set-up charges
  • No payroll bureau monthly charges
  • No employer set up charges

Our monthly employer services charge includes: 

  • step-by-step guidance to managing your client’s workplace pension with us 
  • access to the now:u website where you can quickly and easily upload pension details for your clients 
  • clear, easy-to-understand communications that meet statutory requirements, sent to your client’s workers by email 
  • access to help and support from a network of local relationship managers, and 
  • dedicated webchat and phone helpline. 

Cost-effective basic charges 

To help your smaller clients with five or fewer workers enrolled in their workplace pension, we reduce our standard employer services charge. The table shows how this works.

Number of workers paying in Monthly charge Discount
Employer with payroll bureau using now:pensions 1-4 £12.50 + VAT 65%
5 and over £20.00 + VAT 44%

If you have any questions or want to discuss our charges, please email us.

We may be able to offer bespoke pricing for larger workplace clients or those with an existing workplace pensions arrangement. Get in touch with us at new-business@nowpensions.com.

The benefits of now:pensions

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Trusted by over 20,000 British businesses and over 2 million members, with over £5 billion under management

Access to a dedicated client relationship management team

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Keeping your clients compliant by sending statutory communications to workers

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Your clients' workers can have their pensions at their fingertips with the now:u app

Charges for workers at a glance

Charge Amount
Administration £2 a month – £24 a year
Investment management  0.3% of value of pension savings each year 
Transaction costs  Factored into investment returns 


These charges still apply if a worker stops paying in to their now:pensions savings. The charges could eat away their pension savings over time. It may be sensible for workers who aren’t paying in any more to think about:  

  • transferring their now:pensions savings out to another provider, or  
  • transferring other pensions they’ve got into now:pensions.   

In line with the law, we don’t take the whole administration charge if this would make the value of a member’s pension savings lower than £100.   

We don’t charge workers to transfer their savings out, or transfer other pensions in. 

Frequently asked questions

See all support for payroll bureaus

Pension regulations say you must upload your first pension data file after your duties start date.

If you upload your first file too early – before this date – you could get errors such as:

  • incorrect worker communications
  • the wrong contributions being collected, or
  • incorrect dates for workers’ opt-out windows.

In every pay period after your duties start date you’ll need to upload a pension data file to now:u. This file should contain details of your workers’ payments in to their pension savings, and your payments on their behalf.

If you’ve asked us to manage your statutory auto enrolment communications, uploading a pension data file will trigger tailored assessment, enrolment or postponement communications for each worker. 

Before your next pay period, download your employee action file to see information about workers who’ve opted out, started or stopped paying in, or changed how much they pay. You’ll need to put these changes into your payroll so they’re reflected the next time you upload a pension data file. 

You set up your first payroll as part of setting your organisation up on now:u. Run through the steps on how to do this in our guide.

now:pensions is a net pay pension scheme. You, the workplace, take pension contributions out of workers’ gross pay and pay them into now:pensions before income tax is deducted.  

You’ll need to: 

  • work out pension contributions on gross (before tax) pay, and 
  • calculate and deduct your workers’ income tax after you’ve taken their pension contributions. 

As a result, your workers who are taxpayers won’t pay any income tax on their pension contributions. They automatically get full tax relief. 

Workers who don’t earn enough to pay tax don’t normally get tax relief. The government has set up a scheme to pay a tax top-up to these workers, so they don’t miss out. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) will contact workers who aren’t taxpayers directly about this. Payments are expected to begin in 2026 for the 2024/25 tax year.

Self-employed workers will need to claim tax relief through their annual self-assessment tax return.

What other types of tax relief are there? 

There’s another type of tax relief arrangement called relief at source. In this kind of arrangement the workplace takes workers’ pension contributions from their pay, after income tax has been taken off. 

The pension scheme then claims the tax relief from HMRC each month, adding the basic tax rate of 20% to workers’ contributions.

Higher or additional-rate taxpayers can claim back the rest of their tax relief from HMRC through their annual Self-Assessment tax return. 

Make sure you set up your tax relief correctly

For now:pensions, you must set up your workplace pension for tax relief on the net pay basis. Otherwise, your workers’ contributions won’t be worked out correctly and you could end up having to compensate for any losses they may incur. If you’re not sure how to do this, please ask us for help using webchat.

As an employer, you are responsible for assessing each of your workers aged at least 16 and under 75, to identify which category of worker they belong to. This will help you to determine what steps you need to take for each worker. The Pensions Regulator has additional guidance that can help you.

However, your payroll team or payroll provider is best placed to assess whether your workers qualify to be auto enrolled into your workplace pension. This can help speed up the process and reduce the risk of you missing contributions.

now:pensions doesn’t assess your workers.