Roll With Paid. vs Paragon Payroll
A service bureau with banking relationships. The employer role stays with you.
Paragon has served cannabis since 2016 and leads with something operators genuinely struggle to find: a compliant banking partner. That is a real problem solved. It is a different problem from the one we solve.
Cannabis payroll and HCM service bureau
A payroll and HCM service bureau for cannabis, with a compliant banking partner and a published pricing tool. Your business stays the legal employer.
Employer of record
The same operating tools, plus we become the W-2 employer and carry the coverage behind your team.
First, the thing people expect us to dodge
Paragon publishes a pricing menu and an estimator, which almost nobody in this category does, and that transparency deserves credit. They have served cannabis since 2016, they support multi-state operators with multiple employer identification numbers, and their banking relationships address one of the most practical barriers a cannabis operator faces. Their CannaU training module is a thoughtful addition for an industry with high turnover.
If banking access is your binding constraint, Paragon is addressing exactly that, and you should weigh it seriously. What a service bureau does not change is who the employer is. The filings carry your identification number, the workers’ compensation policy sits with your business at your own experience mod, and the unemployment account is yours. Those are the items our rate absorbs, and they are the reason the two prices look different.
The question a feature grid cannot answer
Three questions decide this, and none of them appear on a comparison chart:
- Whose federal employer identification number is on the payroll filing?
- Whose workers’ compensation policy takes the claim, at whose experience rating?
- Who is the named respondent when the state opens a wage investigation?
Side by side
| Item | Paragon Payroll | Roll With Paid. |
|---|---|---|
| Payroll and tax filing | Yes, with a compliant banking partner | Yes |
| Scheduling | Yes | Yes |
| Time and attendance | Yes | Yes |
| Hiring and onboarding | Yes, including applicant tracking and mobile onboarding | Yes |
| Reporting and dashboards | Yes | Yes |
| HR compliance support | HR, tax and compliance services, plus a cannabis training module | Guidance, and we carry out the filings and notices ourselves |
| Named W-2 employer | Your business | Roll With Paid. |
| Workers’ compensation | Not described on their cannabis page. Benefits partner network referenced | Included in our rate, on our policy |
| Unemployment insurance | Your account and your experience rating | Our account and our rating |
| Employment practices and general liability | Not described on their cannabis page | Included |
| Name on the employee paystub | Your business | Ours, which helps your crew with banks and landlords |
| Pricing model | Published pricing menu and estimator on their site | A rate applied to gross wages by workers’ compensation class code, plus an optional flat HR retainer |
Paragon Payroll details reflect their published pages as of 11 September 2026. Their product and pricing change, so check their site for current terms. We have not reviewed their customer agreements and make no claims about them.
Compare the total, not the invoice line
A subscription or a service fee is a smaller number than a rate on gross wages. It is also a smaller thing. Put them side by side as written and you are comparing a tool to a tool plus insurance plus an employer.
To make it a fair comparison, add everything the other side leaves for you to buy and staff:
- Workers’ compensation premium, paid separately to a carrier at your own experience mod
- State unemployment tax at your own rate, where a bad layoff year follows your rate for years
- Employment practices liability and general liability coverage
- The hours your team spends running payroll, chasing onboarding paperwork and working the compliance calendar
- What one wrong workers’ compensation class code costs when it surfaces at audit
Because the software layer is genuinely comparable on both sides, it cancels out. What is left inside our rate is the coverage and the employer role. That is the actual purchase, and it is the only version of this comparison worth running.
What we are not going to claim
We would sell more by leaving this out. An operator who signs on a misunderstanding is an operator who is angry in eight months, so:
An employer of record is not blanket immunity
We absorb employment administration and statutory employer risk. We do not indemnify you for your own conduct. Discrimination, harassment and unsafe direction of work stay with the business that did them.
We do not solve 280E
Your tax position is yours. Clean payroll records substantiate it. We do not prepare returns and we do not advise on positions.
You will not be invisible to your team
Employees see a different name on the paystub, and they should hear it from you before they see it on a pay period.
Timing matters
Changing the employing entity partway through a year can restart wage bases absent successor treatment. We will walk through it with you rather than discover it together in March.
Paragon Payroll is not doing anything wrong. They sell what they say they sell. If that is what you need, buy it.
Common questions
Banking is our real problem. Does an employer of record help with that?
It changes the shape of it. When we are the employer of record, payroll funds move through our banking arrangements rather than yours, which removes one dependency. It does not give your business a bank account for its own operating needs. If banking access is the whole of your problem, say so early and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right answer.
Paragon publishes prices. Why do you not?
We publish the structure: a rate on gross wages by workers’ compensation class code, plus an optional flat HR retainer. We do not publish a single number because the rate depends on your class codes and census, and a headline figure would be wrong for most people reading it. Our pricing page shows illustrative rates and how they are built.
We are a multi-state operator. Does that change the comparison?
It usually strengthens it. Every additional state means another unemployment account, another registration, and another set of filings under your own identification number. Under an employer of record those sit with us. Bring the list of states to the first call so it is built into the setup rather than bolted on.
Bring us your actual numbers
Not a demo of a dashboard. Your census, your class codes, your workers’ compensation premium, and whatever is currently held together with a spreadsheet. We will tell you what the real comparison looks like, including when the answer is that you should stay where you are.
Paragon Payroll is a trademark of its respective owner, is not affiliated with Roll With Paid., and does not endorse us. This comparison is based on information published on their site as of 11 September 2026 and on our own service description. Roll With Paid. is not a law firm or an accounting firm and does not provide legal or tax advice.