Why Payroll Is Becoming the Latest Loyalty Product

As more Americans earn income outside traditional employment, payouts have quietly replaced paychecks.

And it’s against this backdrop that the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Beyond Speed: The Case for Instant Payout Adoption and Stickiness,” a collaboration with Ingo Payments, found that once employees experience instant payouts, they rarely want to go back.

Gig workers, freelancers, contractors, marketplace sellers, tipped employees and creators depend on disbursements not as occasional windfalls but as primary income. For this growing segment of the workforce, waiting days for funds is no longer an inconvenience but a failure of the system.

The report’s findings show that instant payments become meaningfully “sticky” when they are tied to income. Among consumers who rely on disbursements as core cash flow, nearly 7 in 10 (68%) convert from one-time instant users into regulars. In other words, once instant becomes payroll, it stops being optional. It becomes infrastructure.

Users who rely on instant disbursements as core cash flow, those for whom payouts represent primary or substantial income, are far more likely to convert to habitual instant users than those who receive payouts occasionally. For these workers, payouts are not ancillary. They are rent money, grocery money, childcare money. Delays can introduce real risk.

For platforms that depend on flexible labor such as rideshare companies, delivery services, marketplaces, staffing firms, and more, instant payroll can anchor long-term relationships in an otherwise fluid workforce.

When payouts arrive instantly, predictably, and reliably, they can create a sense of continuity even in nontraditional employment arrangements.

Instant Payroll Reshapes Loyalty

For years, instant payments have been framed as a technology story: faster rails, real-time settlement, money that moves at the speed of data. But speed, it turns out, was only the opening act.

Instant payroll, with its countless downstream impacts across employee loyalty and broader macroeconomic growth, is becoming the next phase of instant payment adoption.

The reason? It’s because while, across traditional employment, payroll has never been a meaningful differentiator, in flexible labor markets, the opposite is true.

Platforms that depend on independent workers compete not just on pay rates, but on pay experience. Workers can and do switch platforms based on how quickly and reliably they can access earnings.

When workers associate a platform with immediate liquidity, leaving carries a real cost. Delayed access elsewhere feels like a downgrade. At the same time, faster pay shortens the feedback loop between work and reward, reinforcing participation and increasing frequency of activity.

For core cash flow users, the report found that payouts have even replaced traditional paychecks.

Read the report: Beyond Speed: The Case for Instant Payout Adoption and Stickiness

Still, the report highlighted that the most effective instant payment strategies recognize that workers are not monolithic and neither are payouts. Payroll should be optimized for immediacy and usability. Other disbursements may require different trade-offs around destination, familiarity, or integration with existing accounts.

A closer look at the data shows that digital wallets lead, regardless of whether recipients rely on payouts as primary income or receive only occasional disbursements. For core cashflow recipients, digital wallets have a 37% stickiness ratio, well ahead of push-to-debit (32%) and real-time bank account deposits (26%).

The broader implication of this shift is that payroll can no longer be treated as a background function.

When payouts replace paychecks, instant delivery stops being optional. When income depends on speed, habit forms quickly. And when payroll is designed with the right rails, it creates stickiness that marketing alone cannot buy.

In a world where income is fragmented and competition for labor is constant, payroll is one of the few guaranteed, recurring touchpoints between a company and the people who power it. When delivered instantly, it becomes a signal of respect, reliability and alignment with how workers actually live.

At PYMNTS Intelligence, we work with businesses to uncover insights that fuel intelligent, data-driven discussions on changing customer expectations, a more connected economy and the strategic shifts necessary to achieve outcomes. With rigorous research methodologies and unwavering commitment to objective quality, we offer trusted data to grow your business. As our partner, you’ll have access to our diverse team of PhDs, researchers, data analysts, number crunchers, subject matter veterans and editorial experts.