Made for South African buyers. Every price in rand, read from the vendor.
In depth review
Sage Group plc · Payroll software
The long running desktop payroll that Sage still updates, sold by quote, with cloud payroll beside it.
Sage Pastel Payroll is the desktop payroll product that many South African employers have run for years. Sage's community hub shows it still receives legislative updates, and Sage's cloud payroll range, Payroll Professional and Payroll Advanced with built in HR, sits beside it. Pastel Payroll is quoted on request.
Price
On request
Sold by quote
Type
Desktop payroll
Installed on your PC
Cloud siblings
4
Payroll, Payroll Professional, Payroll Advanced and 300 People
Vendor founded
1981
Sage Group plc
Figures marked as a vendor's own are that vendor's claims about itself and are not tested here.
Every plan Sage Pastel Payroll lists, in rand, with a button to Sage Group plc's own pricing page.
Quoted by the vendor
Sage South Africa quotes Pastel Payroll on request.
Each button opens Sage Group plc's own page in a new tab, where you buy or sign up. Prices are the vendor's, shown in rand.
Sage Pastel Payroll does not publish a price. Sage Group plc gives it after you contact them, and the quote is the product: ask for the monthly price with the VAT basis stated, what is charged once only, and which SARS returns it handles for you.
Opens Sage Group plc's own page in a new tab. Nothing is bought on this site.
Price on request
Starting prices of the priced products in the same category, cheapest first. This is a price sort, not a ranking: the cheapest product is not the best one, and some are priced per user, some per month and some excluding VAT.
Bar lengths use a square root scale, so a very high price does not flatten the rest. The figures are exact.
The middle starting price of the paid products here is R60.
Price on request, so not charted: PaySoft, PaySpace, Sage Pastel Payroll.
A dot is one plan. Free plans and plans on request have no price to place. A per user price is the price of one user.
An official video from Sage Customer Support and Training on YouTube. Software Register did not make or edit them. They are the vendor's own account of the product, so read them beside the prices and limits on this page.
How to run the payroll
How to, 1:58, published 13 May 2021. From the Sage Customer Support and Training channel on YouTube.Made for South Africa
A video loads from YouTube only when you press play. The still picture before that comes from YouTube's image servers.
Pastel Payroll is the desktop payroll and HR software from Sage's Pastel heritage. Sage's community hub posts legislative updates for it, which shows the product is still maintained.
Sage Payroll Professional is a true cloud payroll with automatic updates for PAYE and UIF, Employment Equity guidance, leave management, personnel records for interviews, training and qualifications, and employee and manager self service for payslips. Sage says it is available across Southern Africa and the wider continent, with a simple migration for existing customers. Sage Payroll Advanced adds built in HR, and Sage 300 People targets South African businesses with 100 or more employees.
For SARS, Sage's community hub documents how Payroll Professional produces the live run IRP5 file and how that file is imported into SARS e@syFile, where the EMP501 declaration, including the EMP201 values for PAYE, SDL, UIF and ETI, is completed and submitted.
As a desktop product it needs installation, updates and backups to be managed, and it cannot match a cloud product's remote access. The cost cannot be compared without a quote.
Strengths
Limits
Best for
Think twice if
In short
Right for an employer that already runs it and has no wish to move. For a new purchase, look at Sage Payroll for a small business or Payroll Professional for a larger one, and ask Sage what the migration path costs.
Start where the vendor sells it, and keep this page open beside you for the limits.
Price on request
Sage's community hub posts legislative updates for it, so it is still maintained. Ask Sage how long it will keep supporting your version.
Sage publishes a migration path to Payroll Professional and Payroll Advanced. Ask Sage what the migration costs for your employee count.
Sage Pastel Payroll gives its price on request, so there is no published figure to quote. Ask for the monthly price in rand with the VAT basis stated, and for any one off charges in writing.
Desktop payroll from Sage South Africa, still receiving South African legislative updates.
On this register the closest are PaySoft, PaySpace, Sage Payroll, SimplePay. Each has its own page, and the compare tool sets any two side by side.
South African guides that help you weigh Sage Pastel Payroll: what the rules ask, what to test and what to put in writing.
From payslip to EMP501
Payroll is the one kind of business software where a mistake reaches your staff and SARS in the same month. These are the checks that matter in South Africa, from the payslip to the EMP501.
Read the guideDue by the 7th of every month
EMP201
South African payroll produces a chain of statutory documents. A mistake in one link costs penalties in the next.
Read the guideThe day the EMP201 is due, every month
7th
VAT, payroll, provisional tax and the annual returns each have their own rhythm. One page showing what falls when, and what your software should do about it.
Read the guideEvery price and fact on this page was read from Sage Group plc's own pages, researched on 11 October 2026. A figure the vendor states about itself is marked as the vendor's. This review gives no score and no rank, and a vendor cannot pay to change it. Read how the register works.
Something wrong on this page? Suggest a correction, with a link to the vendor's page that shows it.
Sage Pastel Payroll is priced on request. Go to the vendor to buy or to ask, or compare it with another product first.
Price on request
Use Sage Pastel Payroll? Tell other South African buyers what it does well, where it falls short and who it suits. An editor reads each review before it appears, and it is published as written.
Sage Pastel Payroll
Price on request
