What does it cost to have a shakai hoken roumushi run your payroll?

In short: Outsourced payroll is generally priced as "a base fee plus so much per employee." The per-employee figure is most often described as 200-500 yen a month (before tax), which comes to roughly 220-550 yen including tax. The base fee sits on top of that. It is a structure in which the fewer people you have, the heavier the cost per person becomes. 四葉's HR Outsourcing Plan is from 33,000 yen per month for 1–3 people on the payroll, including tax / initial setup and workflow design from 88,000 yen, including tax.

When people set out to have payroll handled elsewhere and start reading fee schedules, we often hear that the amounts are put together so differently from office to office that they cannot be compared. Look into it and you find that the differences lie less in the prices themselves than in how the fee is assembled.

How is payroll priced in the market?

Shape	Example pricing	Character
Base fee + per head	Base fee + 200-500 yen per person per month (before tax)	The most common shape. With few employees the base fee weighs heavily
Included in the retainer	Payroll is included within the retainer fee	The breakdown is hard to see. What happens when headcount grows is settled by the contract
Support for doing it in-house	From 6,980 yen a month (from around 10 people)	★Not outsourcing, but support that walks you through using a cloud service. Not directly comparable with outsourcing
Adopting software and running it in-house	The software fee only (depends on the plan)	Not engaging an office at all. No outsourcing fee arises, but entry, checking and judgement stay with you. Outsourcing the procedures is a separate contract
Not offered	—	Some offices that specialize in one-off work have a policy of not taking payroll at all

The third row calls for care. Even where you see "payroll from 6,980 yen a month," whether that is outsourcing or help with doing it yourself changes the work required entirely. When you compare, line that up first.

As in the fourth row, there is also the option of adopting software and not outsourcing at all. What you would still ask a shakai hoken roumushi for in that case, and what stays with you, is set out in We've brought in freee HR. So what does a retained shakai hoken roumushi actually do?. If you switch to in-house processing, the support scope, fees and data transfer conditions are confirmed individually.

Why is there a "base fee"?

Payroll divides into work that scales with headcount and work that arises every month regardless of headcount.

Work that scales with headcount

• Checking attendance records and reflecting them
• Calculating payments and deductions
• Producing pay statements

Work that arises every month regardless of headcount

• Handing over and reconciling data at each cut-off date
• Keeping up with revisions to premium rates and withholding tax tables
• Producing the transfer data
• Tracking down the cause when the amounts do not agree

Because of the latter, most offices set a base fee. Even at a company with one employee, the work at the end and start of each month still happens.

What does Yotsuba do?

The main service is the HR Outsourcing Plan, covering payroll, routine filings and labor advice. We present from 33,000 yen per month for 1–3 people on the payroll, including tax / initial setup and workflow design from 88,000 yen, including tax together.

Number of people on the payroll	Monthly fee, including tax
1–3	33,000 yen
4–5	44,000 yen
6–10	55,000 yen
11 or more	55,000 yen + 3,300 yen for each person above 10

The monthly fee includes freee人事労務 Standard, LINE time clock, online payslips, payroll, routine labor advice and routine social insurance and employment insurance filings. It excludes freee会計. The initial fee includes freee configuration, LINE time clock setup, pay structure and allowance/deduction settings, employee registration, social insurance information, the first payroll test and workflow design.

Have a question about your situation?

Tell us about your social insurance, payroll or employment enquiry.

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The company is responsible for checking and finalizing attendance and giving final approval of payroll results. Initial insurance registration, residence status applications, year-end tax adjustment, full recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), specialist translation and extended interpreting are charged separately. 四葉行政書士事務所 handles residence status applications under a separate contract. Each office is an independent business, with direct contracting, direct billing and direct payment. No referral fees are paid or received.

Compare the scope of payroll calculation alone with this plan, which also includes routine filings, advice and software. For a switch to in-house processing, support scope, fees and data transfer conditions require individual confirmation. We do not promise universally free support or an automatic fee reduction. See our article on in-house payroll with freee for comparison points.

Four things to line up when you compare

Setting the figures from fee schedules side by side is not yet a comparison. Line up these four first.

1. Outsourcing, or support alongside you — whether your own staff do the data entry
2. Tax included or tax excluded — 500 yen and 550 yen per person can be the same amount
3. How bonuses are treated — whether a charge arises separately from the monthly fee
4. How the year-end tax adjustment is treated — check whether it is included, who handles the tax-related work and what it costs

The fourth is easily missed. We do not handle the year-end tax adjustment either; we refer you to a tax accountant.

The fees as a whole, payroll included, are on the fee schedule, and how we think about the retainer is set out in What is a shakai hoken roumushi's retainer actually paying for?.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Can we ask you for payroll alone?
A. 四葉's main service is the HR Outsourcing Plan, including payroll, routine filings and labor advice. We discuss the work you need before explaining the available scope. Support for in-house processing and its fees are confirmed separately; it is not universally free.

Q. Is payroll work that only a shakai hoken roumushi may do?
A. No. Payroll itself is not exclusive to shakai hoken roumushi. However, the procedures that arise alongside payroll — acquiring and losing social insurance coverage, the standard remuneration base notification, notifications of monthly remuneration changes — require registration as a shakai hoken roumushi if they are carried out for a fee (Article 27 of 社会保険労務士法).

Q. Is there a separate charge when bonuses are paid?
A. Routine filings under the HR Outsourcing Plan include bonus payment reports. Conditions that have not been finalized, such as fees from the third bonus onward, are confirmed individually before signing.

Q. Does this assume employees enter their own data?
A. If you use a cloud HR and labor management system, the basic arrangement is for employees themselves to enter their details and My Number when they join. Where you receive the information on paper and we enter it on your behalf, the volume of work changes, so please raise it with us individually.

Sources for this article

• The description of 四葉's services and fees has been updated to the V10 specification dated September 9, 2026. See the fee schedule for the current scope.

• 社会保険労務士法 (Act No. 89 of 1968), Article 2, paragraph 1, item 1; Article 27

• The market figures are drawn together from the fee schedules and explanatory articles published by several social insurance and labor consultant offices and services as of August 2026. Conditions differ from office to office, so please treat them as a guide.

• "200-500 yen per person per month" is written in most sources in a way that reads as excluding consumption tax; converted to tax-included figures it corresponds to 220-550 yen. Because the original sources do not always state whether the figure excludes or includes tax, this conversion is our own reading.

This article is general information. A judgment on your individual circumstances is made by a qualified professional after a consultation. Written by Joji Uramatsu (Shakai Hoken Roumushi, Gyoseishoshi, Registered Real Estate Transaction Specialist).