Gusto review

Gusto is payroll software that covers everything a business needs to maintain a happy workforce. This includes organizing payments, insurance, support and initial onboarding.

It’s a comprehensive approach that sees Gusto rank among the best payroll software providers on the market. And, in this Gusto review, we help you decide whether it would be right for your business as we examine its pricing, features, support and overall ease of use.

Gusto is best suited to medium-sized businesses in the US, with smaller companies priced out with recent price rises and larger organizations uncatered-for in terms of some features and more advanced support.

• Our guide to the best payroll software

Gusto: Plans and pricing

Prices for Gusto have risen quite significantly in recent years. Back in 2023, we noted it had a $19/month base price, which has now climbed to $49.

That’s for the Simple package, which each person commanding a $6 monthly fee (something that hasn’t changed in those two years).

Plus ($80/month) and Premium ($180/month) unsurprisingly pack bigger punches, but unfortunately, you’ll be paying more per person as well as for the core functionalities.

Instead of $6/head, it’s $12 or $22 per person per month.

The Contractor Only packge, for companies who don’t have W-2 hires, is $35/month with a $6 monthly fee per person. At the time of writing in September 2025, this is free, so keep an eye out for discounts because Gusto clearly isn’t averse to them.

Solopreneurs can also use the platform for $49/month plus the $6 person fee, but that becomes a rather expensive way for filings returns.

Gusto: Features

More than just payroll software, Gusto gives you a full set of tools for effectively managing your workforce. These include full-service payroll, employee benefits, time tracking as well as HR tools for hiring and onboarding.

Think of it as an all-in-one solution for anything to do with people – be that time or money.

Gusto’s features include full-service payroll, like calculating taxes, filing federal/state/local returns and handling W-2s/1099s.

Really crucial to Gusto’s success is the fact that you can perform unlimited payroll runs (including off-cycle runs) without extra fees. Payment methods include direct debit, paper checks, payroll cards, the ability to split pay checks or deposit into multiple accounts, so most scenarios an HR team will ever encounter are covered.

Where its real strengths are, though, is in its combination of finance and human capital management solutions.

With Gusto, you can set up your payroll to run with just a few clicks; it can even be set to run automatically on the schedule you choose. The software can handle employees and contractors, multiple rates of pay along with payments in multiple states.

Gusto has a number of benefits features, including the Gusto Wallet app, which employees can use to manage their pay checks and access emergency cash.

Then there is workers’ compensation, health reimbursement (QSEHRA) - an alternative to traditional health insurance - and commuter benefits. Health insurance administration is also built into the platform at no extra cost (apart from the actual insurance premiums).

With Gusto, employees track their time for you to review and approve. You can also customize paid time off (PTO) policies with all liabilities automatically calculated. And accounting integrations exist for mainstream platforms like Quickbooks Online and Xero.

These tools from Gusto are designed to help you save time when introducing new team members. You’ll be able to send offer letters, work through an onboarding checklist, have all your documents signed and stored online, and set up your new hires with online tools like G Suite and Microsoft 365 with a single click.

Gusto has several measures in place to protect its customers’ data. It has its own on-site security team, actively tests its software, and all data is AES-256 encrypted between your browser and AWS servers.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) options are also available.

The Gusto application is kept secure with internal and third-party penetration testing, vulnerability scanning and a bug bounty program. Better still, all Gusto employees have specific security training.

Gusto: Ease of use

When you first log in to Gusto, you’ll begin the process of setting up all your company information, including your accountant, benefits, state and federal taxes, employees, pay schedule and workers’ compensation.

When you add an employee, they’ll be sent a welcome email, which will enable them to create their own account.

The onboarding process is simple and workers can self-onboard to free up some valuable time for HR teams.

Once setup is complete, you’ll be able to view all of your company’s employees, including ones who have been dismissed, and invite new hires to join the system.

Gusto’s platform has been praised for its intuitive and user-friendly interface, so it should be relatively easy to get your head around even if all of this comes new to you.

The dashboard design is clean, and things like tasks and to-do lists are highlighted easy to see, but there’s no real deep customization if you want to configure it to show precise metrics.

Gusto: Support

If you want to speak to Gusto sales, their website lists a number. But to get access to Gusto support, you need to be signed in to your account.

Once logged in, you’ll see a different phone number to call for support; or you can visit your account dashboard’s support page, where there is a multi-stage form that eventually provides a recommended resource.

If that doesn’t help, you can fill in another form to send Gusto an email.

Premium plans get more premium support, which includes a dedicated advisor, faster response time and more HR expert access – lower plans can add some of this at a cost.

While this might not be a huge problem for most companies, support is not around-the-clock – phone and email are only there during working hours.

Gusto: Final verdict

If you’re a small business owner who’s new to payroll, you’ll love Gusto because it’s so easy to use; you can finish important tasks with just a few clicks.

Once praised for its attractive pricing, costs have risen in recent years so it may be out of reach for more businesses. Its lack of some advanced features also means it may not be the perfect solution for the biggest businesses, so its appeal has tightened somewhat.

An alternative for larger businesses is OnPay, which has a very similar feature set, combining payroll and HR, but a simpler pricing structure.

Gusto is primarily a payroll platform with HR add-ons. Another alternative is Zenefits, which is the opposite: a complete HR solution with features like org charts and performance reviews and a payroll add-on.

If your workforce is small enough and the pricing is not an issue, Gusto provides first-class solutions for most of the important administrative areas of running a business.

• Read our guide to the best payroll software