Re-imagining payday with wages on demand

The longstanding norm of being paid weekly, fortnightly or monthly is being re-examined as workers seek greater flexibility over when they can access wages they have already earned.

While pay frequency has remained relatively stable, work patterns often sit at odds with the realities of modern work and household finances. 

2025 data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that just over 50 per cent of Australian employees are paid fortnightly, around one-third are paid weekly, and just over 10 per cent are paid monthly. 

 

"We are hearing about these more bespoke ways of paying employees, and it can be a significant advantage in retention."

 

According to Deel’s Payday Expectations report, 38 per cent of workers surveyed said they would prefer to receive their salary sooner than they currently do. For those struggling to get by, the percentage is 50 per cent, while for those whose household income is below A$50,000 per year, the figure is 55 per cent.

In response to the misalignment between modern-day finances and legacy payroll practices, over half of workers surveyed (52 per cent) said they had used at least one financial service to access their pay early in the last 12 months, not just through earned wage access but through short-term payday loans, credit card cash advances or buy-now-pay-later services. 

Slavic Teplitsky, Deel’s US-based director of Fintech Product, says the company’s research shows that 75 per cent of employees who access wages early do so to manage emergencies.

In paying bills, he said, they also avoid late fees and punitive interest rates on loan products.

“It helps smooth cash flow between paydays since expenses happen every day,” says Teplitsky. “It is not just about smart finances. It is a simple change in pay timing that can meaningfully improve economic resilience.”

Tyson Armitage, co-founder and chief strategy officer at workforce management platform foundU, says payday advances work in the same way as regular deductions from payslips, such as superannuation contributions. 

If an employer has turned on the foundU platform feature Wageflo, then a worker is able to access all or part of their pay, on demand, as soon as their shifts have been completed and recorded. The employee pays a small fee to access this feature.

Armitage says features like this are a differentiator and an attractive feature for employers who want to offer their employees some flexibility.

“You might have an event company that pays on a fortnightly basis, but if employees work one or two days at the start of that period, they are not seeing the money in their bank accounts until maybe 16 days after they have done the work.

“Many of these people are contingent workers who work casually for a number of different employers, and some of them need the money much sooner than they’d get through a normal pay run.”

On-demand wages provide an employee retention advantage

Richard Webb, CPA Australia’s superannuation lead, sees this trend as part of the push to attract and retain talent.

“We are hearing about these more bespoke ways of paying employees, and it can be a significant advantage in retention,” says Webb. “For employers who pay this way, it means their payroll systems have to be up to the job because they also have to comply with sick leave, annual leave and PayDay super — the latter of which is coming in soon.”

Webb says he has conversations with payroll providers who are responding to the trend and changing their systems to enable the functionality.

Armitage’s view is that established providers have been too slow to respond. foundU itself was created out of the frustration he experienced when he was running his own labour hire company. 

 

"You might have an event company that pays on a fortnightly basis, but if employees work one or two days at the start of that period, they are not seeing the money in their bank accounts until maybe 16 days after they have done the work."

 

As payroll systems evolve, the challenge for employers will be balancing flexibility with compliance and financial wellbeing. 

While on-demand pay can reduce reliance on high-cost credit and support employee financial wellbeing, it also raises questions about fees, transparency and whether access is being used as a substitute for adequate wages or secure hours. 

These considerations are likely to attract greater scrutiny as uptake increases.

Yet, the direction of travel appears clear. For many employers, when they pay staff may soon matter almost as much as how much they pay — and payroll systems are being reshaped accordingly.