Lettuce Unlocks Benefits Access For Solos with Check

More Americans than ever are choosing to go solo. The number of full-time freelancers in the U.S. has increased dramatically since 2020, and that shift isn't a pandemic-era blip. We’ve seen a durable move toward independent work, from doctors and lawyers to truck drivers and marketers.

Lettuce is a platform built for "perma-solos" who've made business-of-one their destination rather than a stopgap. They exist to help these entrepreneurs run their back office like a pro so they can focus on their craft.

Tax savings and benefits access are central to Lettuce’s mission, and payroll is the key to unlocking that. Operating payroll through a professional employer organization (PEO) grants customers access to the benefits that solos have historically been locked out of (i.e. health coverage, dental and vision, retirement savings). Rather than leave customers to sort that out themselves, Lettuce built an opinionated, fully embedded back office experience so business owners never have to think about it.

Before meeting Check, Lettuce had already partnered with another embedded provider. When they realized they wanted to expand and grow their payroll product to include health & benefits access, the search led them to Check, where they found a partner whose purpose-built embedded approach matched their own vision, a team that was easy to work with from day one, and the API-first flexibility to build the capabilities Lettuce needed.

"We love working with partners aligned on mission and vision, who care about the customer and can move quickly," said Ran Harpaz, Founder and CEO of Lettuce. "Check was able to develop the capabilities we needed in an API-first, reliable, fast approach to build the benefits solution our customers need."

Since partnering with Check, Lettuce has moved quickly. Commercial and technical teams were brought together from day one to solve problems jointly rather than negotiate around existing product specs. That collaborative approach has let Lettuce ship new health benefits for solos, including its recent expansion into dental and vision coverage, on top of a payroll engine built to scale.

The impact on Lettuce's customers has been significant. Solos who spend weekends wrestling with payroll on their own, or who stay in corporate jobs they don't love just to keep a benefits package, are now able to run their business-of-one with the same advantages once reserved for employees of large companies.

As Lettuce continues to expand its offering, Check's infrastructure is built to grow with them, without breaking as they go from thousands to millions of customers. We're proud to power payroll for Lettuce and help solo business owners access payroll and benefits without a worry.