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001Payroll · W-2 · Pay Stubs · Visa Compliance

Neo back office for
payroll, W-2s, pay stubs,
and visa compliance.

Built for the person running a U.S. business for the first time, and for visa holders trying to make their own thing legal. Auto-payroll, tax withholding, year-end W-2s, on-demand pay stubs, and a specialist who actually understands H-1B, O-1, and STEM OPT.

Free consultation See how it works
10 minAverage setup, end to end
AutoPayroll and tax withholding
24/7AI agent, human backup
$0For your first month
EIN application support Form W-2 filing State tax registration Payroll for solo founders 1099 contractor pay Single-member LLC ready Quarterly 941 filing Year-end W-2 distribution EIN application support Form W-2 filing State tax registration Payroll for solo founders 1099 contractor pay Single-member LLC ready Quarterly 941 filing Year-end W-2 distribution

Your first month on us.

The five things every first-time U.S. business runner gets stuck on. We will set them up for you, by hand, before charging a dollar. No credit card to start, no upsell calls.

01
EIN application help
A real person walks you through the SS-4, including the right answers if you do not have a U.S. SSN. Most filings approved within 24 hours.
Free, always
02
Offer letters
State-aware templates for full-time, part-time, and contractor offers. Reviewed against the latest pay-transparency and at-will language.
Free, always
03
Payroll setup
Bank linkage, state tax accounts, pay schedule, direct deposit. We file the registrations on your behalf and confirm each one.
First month $0
04
W-2 filing
Year-end W-2s prepared, distributed to employees, and filed with the SSA and your state. Includes corrections if anything changes.
First month $0
05
Tax withholding
Federal, state, and local withholding configured per employee. We keep the rates current as your team and locations change.
First month $0

From the EIN to the landing page. We do the rest.

A lot of our customers had nothing the day they signed up. No company, no domain, no email, no website. Foothold is not just a finance team in the back office. We sit with you on day one and stand the whole thing up, so by the time you run your first payroll, the rest of your business is already there. You spend the week on the product you actually wanted to build.

06
Company formation
Single-member LLC or C-Corp, filed in the state that fits your team and your visa status. We handle the operating agreement and the registered agent.
State fees only
07
Business domain
A clean domain registered in your name. We pick something that is not a parked squatter and that your future customers will actually remember.
At cost
08
Business email
Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 set up under your domain. Your team's accounts and shared inboxes ready on day one.
At cost
09
First landing page
A clean one-page site so customers can find you, banks can verify you, and payment processors stop asking for "your business URL."
Included

English, Mandarin, Spanish. Whatever you think in.

Answers come back in seconds, with sources. The chat agent is wired into your payroll, pay stubs, W-2s, and tax records. Ask for a pay stub, a deduction breakdown, or what to do about a missed filing in the language you are most comfortable in, and it answers in kind.

AInstant chat & email agent

A back office that answers back.

Most payroll tools are read-only dashboards. Ours is a colleague. Ask it a question over chat or email, and it will pull the right pay stub, the right tax form, the right historical balance, and explain what it means.

  • Pulls real data. The agent has read access to your books, contracts, and filings, scoped per user.
  • Cites its sources. Every answer links to the document, line item, or filing it came from.
  • Writes things back. Approve a draft and the agent files it, sends it, or schedules it.
  • Email works the same. Forward an IRS notice and you will get a plain-language summary plus a draft response.
BHuman review on hard things

AI for speed. People for what matters.

Anything that touches the IRS, your state agency, or a person's livelihood gets seen by a real specialist before it leaves the building. You will know who handled it and how to reach them.

  • Routing by topic. Tax notices go to enrolled agents. Visa-related questions go to teammates who have done it themselves.
  • Same person, every time. You get a primary specialist on your account and a backup, not a queue of strangers.
  • Plain-language updates. No portals to log into for status. Status comes back to you in chat or email.
  • One business day, end to end. Most back-office issues are resolved within 24 hours of you raising them.
CEmail is a first-class interface

Forward anything. Get a real answer.

You do not have to log in to ask a question. Forward the IRS letter, your landlord's W-9 request, or your bookkeeper's spreadsheet to your private Foothold address, and a written reply lands in your inbox the same day.

  • Document-aware. Attachments are parsed, summarized, and stored with your records.
  • Drafts, not just answers. If the email needs a response, you get one drafted and ready to send.
  • Loops in a human. Anything ambiguous is flagged for review before reaching you.

Real customers. Real cases.

Two stories that show the kind of work Foothold takes on. The names and numbers are theirs, with permission.

Case 01 / Local consulting practice, three on payroll
I run a small consulting practice. Three of us, all on payroll. I am not a finance person, and I never wanted to be one. Before Foothold I was on Gusto and spent half a Sunday a month figuring out which box to click. Now I just tell the chat what I need. They caught a withholding error on my second pay run before it ever became an IRS letter. That alone paid for two years of Foothold.
3People on payroll, all square
$0In tax penalties this year
SM
Sam M.
Owner, three-person marketing consulting practice. American small business, salaried team.
Case 02 / AI lab, multi-visa team, New York
I started New York AI Labs as a first-time founder, here on an O-1. We tried QuickBooks. We tried Gusto. Neither was intuitive, and I ended up filing the EIN myself and fighting through the initial registrations alone. The hardest part came later: paying a team that mixes an H-1B colleague, an OPT teammate, and a few U.S. citizens, all under one payroll. Foothold understood every piece of it. Now when I need to pay myself or my teammates, I pull it from the system. I do not think about payroll anymore.
3Visa types on one payroll, plus U.S. citizens
2Payroll tools tried before Foothold
AS
Andrew S.
Founder & CEO, New York AI Labs, Inc. AI research, New York. O-1 founder. Team mixes O-1, H-1B, OPT, and U.S. citizens.
Get started

Tell us where you're stuck. We'll un-stick you.

Book a free consultation. Tell us about your business in five fields. A specialist comes back within one business day with a setup plan, a cost estimate, and the corner cases that apply to you. No card required, no upsell call.

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