BambooHR runs Payroll subscription fees at $0 through December 2026 — in exchange for a 12-month commitment

BambooHR is discounting the add-on it has never priced. A promotional banner on the Payroll product page reads “Limited-Time Offer: Find out how to run Payroll processing for FREE until January 2027!” — and its terms are worth reading in full, because the headline is broader than the offer.

Verbatim from the terms served with the page:

“Offer valid August 1, 2026–December 31, 2026. Eligible customers who purchase qualifying BambooHR Payroll offerings and commit to a minimum 12-month agreement may receive BambooHR Payroll subscription fees at $0 through December 31, 2026. For customers purchasing BambooHR Payroll with the Elite HRIS plan, offer is available through a new purchase or an eligible upgrade completed at the time of Payroll purchase; customers must not have previously received Payroll or Elite billing through BambooHR. For customers purchasing BambooHR Payroll with Managed Payroll Services, offer is available to new customers and existing BambooHR customers adding both services; existing Payroll customers are not eligible. Implementation, multi-state filing, and additional payroll or service fees are excluded and will be charged at standard rates. Offers cannot be combined with other applicable Payroll product discounts. BambooHR reserves the right to modify or terminate this offer at any time. Additional restrictions may apply.”

Four qualifiers matter commercially:

• It buys a commitment. The waiver requires a “minimum 12-month agreement” — landing in the same year BambooHR introduced Extended Term Subscriptions with an Employee Minimum in its 11 December 2025 Terms of Service. The free months are the incentive for the term, not a standalone discount.
• It waives subscription fees only. “Implementation, multi-state filing, and additional payroll or service fees are excluded and will be charged at standard rates.” A $0 line on the quote is not a $0 payroll bill, and none of the excluded fees is published anywhere.
• It is new-customer-only. Existing Payroll customers are not eligible, and Elite-plus-Payroll buyers “must not have previously received Payroll or Elite billing through BambooHR.”
• It is geo-gated. The banner carries eyelash-allowed-audience: geo-us and never renders for a non-US visitor — consistent with Payroll and Benefits Administration being footnoted “US employees only” on the pricing page.

The offer runs at most five months (August through December 2026) even though the banner headline says “until January 2027.”

Source note: the banner is invisible to a non-US browser session, so the terms above were recovered verbatim from the first-party HTML BambooHR served for bamboohr.com/platform/payroll/ on 10 September 2026.