Honest Gusto Review by an ex-Morgan Stanley VP 2023

Want to sign up for the Plus plan and receive guidance from Gusto’s HR specialists? For a fee of $8 per employee per month, you can add on those HR services and receive faster support. Gusto plans offer integrated payroll, benefits and HR, with higher tiers offering additional features.

• However, BBB does not verify the accuracy of information provided by third parties, and does not guarantee the accuracy of any information in Business Profiles.
• The Gusto ATS features might not be as extensive as many third-party ATS options, but the system is comprehensive enough to handle standard recruiting and onboarding processes.
• We also love that if you only want to use Gusto to process payroll, you can, and the vendor excels at that task.
• Overall, Gusto excels when it comes to payroll, but does not offer the hiring and onboarding features that alternatives do.
• If you do manage to get in touch with someone, odds are low that they can actually help fix your problem.
• Its primary limitations are its lack of robust hiring and expense management tools.
• Data labels are written out completely when you first open the page, but they turn to initials once you enter a number.

There was nothing I couldn’t find, though I had to orient myself to seeing data in chunks, since the horizontal desktop view had to be translated to a vertical one. Employees can get advances on their paychecks through the company’s Cashout program, available in 45 states at this writing. Setting up a payroll application is complicated and accuracy is critical. Your first run will not be correct if you make even a small error. Gusto’s tech teams regularly test its software to prevent problems and outages and it has an on-site security team ready to take action in case any issues arise.

Gusto Integrations

Square Payroll’s monthly fee starts with a $35 base price plus $5 per person, compared with Gusto’s monthly fee starting at a $40 base price plus $6 per person. Like Gusto, Square Payroll has a contractors-only option, but without the monthly base fee. It also offers unlimited payroll runs, includes features to automatically file payroll taxes and can help you manage employee benefits. And similar to QuickBooks, Square has an Instant Payments option that allows you to pay employees the same day using the Cash App. Gusto offers good payroll features, strong employee management, and excellent customer support.

• Gusto displays an employee list that includes both salaried and hourly workers.
• The software’s HR resource center includes custom employee handbooks, job description templates, HR policy templates and proactive compliance updates.
• If you’re not ready to hire an in-house HR person, this investment is a worthwhile alternative.
• When the benefits ported over, they had in their system that benefits skipped when they didn’t, so their system calculated overcharges.
• The software’s downsides are limited time-tracking features, potentially long payroll processing, long wait times for problem resolution, and limited reporting.

This means you’ll have to manually look up each specific report you want, as opposed to having recurring reports automatically sent to your inbox. This isn’t a deal-breaker for most users, but recurring automated reports can be useful for some employers. If workflow automation is a top priority for you, consider our GoCo review instead. Gusto has an autopilot feature, which is a great option if your employees’ pay doesn’t fluctuate each pay period.

HR & Onboarding

However, it also syncs with most other time-tracking software for easy integration, including Homebase and When I Work. Plus, workers can use Gusto’s features to request time off or time-track project-specific tasks. Gusto’s platform allows businesses to pay their contractors in over 120 countries. The platform also offers automatic filing and emailing of 1099s at the end of the year. This feature allows businesses to expand their workforce globally and streamline the payment process for contractors. We also contacted the company and posed as a potential customer to see what their customer service was like.

• There are also recommendations for tasks your business should complete, like setting up a Workers’ Compensation policy.
• As part of our investigation, we compared Gusto to dozens of other payroll providers.
• Though Gusto has standard benefits offerings, they are exclusive to price tiers and aren’t as expansive as they could be.
• Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services.
• Every competing service I’ve reviewed also offers such support, and they all request similar data.
• I looked into and corrected the issue and gave Gusto the go ahead.
• Unlike some payroll services that sell only one or two plans, Gusto gives businesses a choice of four service plans.

Managers can monitor recorded hours, and approve time-off requests in the Time Tracking module. Gusto includes a basic set of tools that help with the hiring and onboarding process. However, Gusto is not a recruiting or talent management software solution.

Standout Features of Gusto

Clearly they have paid someone to post positive reviews on TrustPilot. After talking with several professionals about Gusto I can tell you they have a terrible reputation and are famous for making a mess of you payroll. PCMag.com is a leading authority on technology, delivering lab-based, independent reviews of the latest products and services. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

I have been waiting for an update for now almost two weeks and no update has been given. Rippling, like Gusto, supports the most common capabilities needed for payroll and then some. gusto login The sheer volume of modules and features and options that it offers may be intimidating to very small or simple businesses, though, and they might be better served by Gusto.

Best business software

With just a few clicks, businesses can complete their payroll tasks, including automatic tax filing and identification of tax credits to help save money. The cost of Gusto depends on how many people you employ and which plan you select — the lowest plan, for example, starts at $40 per month plus $6 per employee per month. If you don’t have any full-time employees, you can choose the Contractor package, which costs just $6 per contractor. For self-guided assistance, the vendor also provides a complete library of resources on its website with tips for both using the payroll system and running a small business. A searchable database encompasses featured articles and tips, tax forms and compliance data, plus an app directory.

Our Gusto VS ADP comparison takes a deep dive into the differences between the two payroll software options. I’ve been using Gusto for more than two years and it’s been fantastic. I made some initial payroll mistakes, my fault, and they spent a chunk of time helping me fix them and rolling back the issues. I’m writing this review primarily because I saw the negative reviews and found them very unrepresentative of how helpful and hands-off Gusto can be for a small business. I’m very happy with them and have and will continue to recommend them wholeheartedly. Gusto has a rating of 1.44 stars from 9 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases.