The payroll infrastructure
API for Latin America.
Compliant payroll, embedded into your platform for Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and beyond — with a detailed breakdown, audit trail, and employee payments in a single integration. Integrate in weeks, not months.
{
"country": "MX",
"scheme": "ordinario",
"year": 2026,
"period": {
"type": "monthly",
"start_date": "2026-03-01",
"end_date": "2026-03-31",
"days": 30
},
"employee": {
"id": "emp_001",
"daily_salary": 800.00,
"factor_integracion": 1.0493
},
"employer": { "id": "employer_001" }
}{
"id": "01HX9B2KM3V4W5X6Y7Z8A9B0CD",
"status": "success",
"country": "MX",
"scheme": "ordinario",
"summary": {
"gross_salary": "24000.00",
"total_deductions": "3960.75",
"net_salary": "20039.25",
"employer_total_cost": "28150.40"
},
"deductions": [
{ "id": "isr", "label": "ISR", "amount": "3210.50" },
{ "id": "imss_obrero", "label": "IMSS", "amount": "750.25" }
],
"dsl_version": "2026.1",
"audit_trail": [ /* every formula, traced */ ]
}Aligned with local regulations across LATAM
Product
The primitives a serious payroll product needs.
Clevis is a pure computation engine — no UI, no opinions about your data model. Six things we obsess over so you don't have to.
Audit trail per calculation
Every formula, traced step-by-step with resolved inputs and result. Required for legal compliance — and a lifesaver in support tickets.
Decimal-safe by design
Monetary values are returned as strings to prevent floating-point precision loss. Parse with your language's Decimal type — never silently lose a cent.
Calculate and pay, one API
Compute the breakdown, then move the net to the beneficiary's account — same Bearer key, same JSON shape. Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile.
Versioned rule sets
Each scheme is pinned to an explicit DSL version. Tax law changes mid-year don't quietly mutate yesterday's payslips.
Sync + async batch
Run up to 500 employees in a single call. Synchronous under 50, async with a poll URL above. P99 under 2s for typical batches.
Simulate without persisting
Quote-and-preview UIs for free: run multiple salary scenarios in one request. Results never hit your reports or audit logs.
Integration
Calculate, then pay. Same key, same integration.
Two-to-three weeks to production. Four steps end-to-end.
Authenticate
One API key, Bearer auth. No SDK to ship to production.
POST employee data
Monthly salary, period, country, payroll scheme. JSON in, JSON out.
Get a fully itemized result
Net pay, perceptions, deductions, employer contributions, audit trail.
Pay the beneficiary
POST the net to /v1/payouts with the beneficiary's local account. Idempotent, signed webhooks on every status change.
API surface
A small API. On purpose.
Calculate, batch, simulate, then pay — same Bearer key, same JSON shape for all the countries. Authenticate with a Bearer key and you're calculating and paying within the hour.
Full API reference/v1/payroll/calculate/v1/payroll/batch/v1/payroll/simulate/v1/payroll/schemes/v1/payouts/v1/payouts/{id}/v1/payouts/{id}/cancelWhy Clevis
Build it, buy a SaaS, or embed an API.
The honest comparison. Most platforms over-estimate the build path and under-estimate the compliance tail.
Who it's for
Built for platforms that need payroll inside their product.
Vertical SaaS
Restaurant, construction, healthcare software adding payroll to retain customers and grow ARPU.
Restaurant POS calculating biweekly tips and overtime, then paying staff per location.
Neobanks & Fintechs
Offering payroll-as-a-service to SMBs, or pricing earned-wage access against real net pay.
Neobank sizing payroll advances against real net pay and settling them through the same API.
Gig economy platforms
Delivery, transport and on-demand services calculating contractor withholdings at scale.
Delivery platform computing per-driver withholdings and paying drivers next-day across MX and CO.
HR-tech startups
Time tracking and workforce platforms adding payroll without a 12-month build.
Time & attendance product running payroll and the actual payout on the same data set.
Team
Built by people who've shipped payroll at scale.
“After building payroll engines and infrastructure twice — at RunaHR and adjacent at dLocal — I kept seeing the same gap: every technological platform that needs payroll ends up rebuilding the same compliance work. Clevis is the API I wish I'd had.”
Need to calculate and pay payroll across LATAM?
Book 20 minutes with the team. We'll walk through your use case and show you the calculate-then-pay flow end to end.