Gusto pricing in 2024: Is it worth the cost? (2024)

Gusto offers a simple interface for payroll and HR solutions catered to small and medium-sized businesses. If your business falls into one of these categories and you’re not looking to maintain a large in-house HR and payroll team, Gusto offers a strong solution.Before you make a decision, however, it can be help to explore Gusto pricing plans. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know.

Who is Gusto best for?

Gusto’s plans range from a contractor payment plan (including international contractor payments) to full-scale HR solutions (including contractor payments, payroll processing, tax compliance, performance reviews, onboarding and more).

Gusto is a great addition to your business tech stack with close to 200 available integrations, including Shopify and Asana and other apps to meet your collaboration, accounting, business operations, human resources and employee development needs.

Gusto also allows you to provide benefits to your employees, including:

• Medical.
• Dental.
• Vision.
• 401(k).
• College savings.
• Retirement plans.

If you already offer these benefits, Gusto will integrate them into its payroll system.

Gusto serves employers looking for a comprehensive, scalable solution to attract and retain top talent and provides several automation options to manage a growing workforce.

However, Gusto is not without weaknesses. Users who encounter technical issues often have trouble resolving them with Gusto’s customer support team. And, though the company offers human options for live chat support, a thorough knowledge base and live phone support, many users report difficulties finding the information needed to resolve their issues.

With these reported customer support issues, if you have complex business needs and are not comfortable with setting up and managing automations, Gusto may not be the solution for you. For a payroll provider with excellent customer and setup support, consider OnPay.

Gusto overview

Gusto offers a variety of plans to fit the needs of growing small- and medium-sized businesses. However, with employee payroll support limited to the United States, it was not designed for enterprise-level organizations with a global workforce.

For startups and businesses using a contractor-only model, Gusto’s lower-tiered plans provide a variety of benefits that take the hassle of payroll off the employer. However, if you are looking to grow and do not have a large in-house HR or payroll department to support you, you may need to look at its more costly plans.

Gusto support options

Depending on the complexity of your needs, Gusto’s Plus and Premium plans offer the most robust support and may be worth considering for growing businesses.

Contractor-only plan

Gusto’s contractor-only plan is free for the first six months and then $35 per month thereafter. It allows you to make unlimited payments to contractors in all 50 U.S. states. Contractors receive their payments via direct deposits within four days. If new-hire reporting is required in your state, Gusto will complete it under this plan.

Employers can also take advantage of Gusto’s international contractor payments add-on to pay contractors in over 120 countries. Example countries include the United Kingdom, Philippines, Australia and Canada. International payments do come with a small non-specified exchange fee.

The contractor-only plan does not offer any add-ons beyond international contractor payments. The solution also does not include backup withholding or other contractor withholding required by state agencies.

Simple plan

Gusto’s Simple plan is $40 per month plus $6 per employee. It includes:

• Single-state payroll services for W-2 and 1099 workers.
• Access to Gusto’s full support suite.
• Payroll and time-off reports.
• Basic hiring and onboarding tools.
• Employee financial benefit administration.
• Gusto-brokered health insurance options.
• Custom administrator permissions.
• A number of integration options, such as time tracking, accounting and expense management apps.

Plus plan

Gusto’s Plus plan runs $80 per month plus $6 per employee. It includes everything in the Simple plan, plus:

• The ability to manage multi-state payroll, including W-2 and 1099 workers.
• Next-day direct deposit.
• More advanced hiring and onboarding tools.
• Workforce optimization tools, including performance reviews, time and project tracking, paid-time off (PTO) management tools and policies, workforce costing and reports and employee surveys.

This plan is a more ‘end-to-end’ solution for a growing business to manage its HR needs.

Premium plan

Gusto does not offer Premium plan pricing details online. Instead, you must call for a custom quote. This plan includes everything available in the Plus plan, plus:

• A dedicated customer success manager.
• Priority support.
• Complete migration and account setup.
• Access to HR-certified experts and an HR resource center.
• Compliance alerts.
• A health insurance broker integration.

This is a more ‘white glove’ plan that may be well suited to businesses looking for a suite of experts to help them get the most from their payroll platform.

Gusto drawbacks

Gusto’s main drawback centers around the types of customer support offered in its lower-tiered plans. These plans lack access to a dedicated customer success manager and priority support. On the Plus plan, you must pay an extra $8 per person per month to access HR experts and resources or email and phone support. This means more wait times when issues arise unless you pay more. And the lowest-tier, Simple plan doesn’t offer a paid add-on for additional support at all.

If you are not tech-savvy and need extra support, Gusto may not be the right solution for you. Additionally, if you prefer to have a dedicated support professional to help migrate your company’s payroll to the platform, you may want to consider the Premium option.

Or, for a better deal, you might consider an alternative payroll software, such as OnPay. Its flat rate is also $40 per month plus $6 per employee, but it offers free account migrations; integration setup; compliance audits; an HR resource center; weekday phone, email and chat support and weekend email support.

Gusto alternatives

Gusto vs. Patriot

Patriot offers many of the features that Gusto offers but at less than half the price. However, while Gusto offers Gusto-brokered health insurance administration in its most basic plan, Patriot does not offer benefits administration tools or plans.

However, even in its basic plan, Patriot offers some features Gusto does not, which may make it more suitable for small companies. For example, it allows users to pay employees with paper checks and support features such as free setup and email, phone and live chat customer support in all plans.

As such, Gusto may be a better fit for mid-sized companies looking to attract top talent with competitive benefits packages. However, with a lower price point, added support features and the ability to pay employees with paper checks, Patriot may be a better fit for small companies needing basic payroll features and ample guidance.

Gusto vs. Rippling

At its most basic level, Gusto and Rippling are quite similar. Both offer the ability to pay workers via direct deposit, tax filings, a self-serve employee portal and benefits administration tools. However, Rippling takes payroll software to the next level.

For example, Rippling offers an HR, IT and finance cloud. It also adds a pathway to unite all of these clouds so you can manage a global workforce from end to end. Such unity tools include workflow automation, policies, permissions and reporting. Its other features among the clouds include expense management, bill pay, inventory management, device management, talent management, benefits management and more.

In contrast, Gusto offers payroll services in all 50 U.S. states but does not specialize in global workforce management. While Rippling is a great option for large enterprises with a growing global presence, Gusto’s plans are best for companies that begin as a single-state business and may expand to other states, such as U.S.-based franchise companies.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)