Gusto Payroll Review

9.2Expert Score

Gusto Payroll Service Review 2023

When it comes to the payrolling industry, there are not many companies out there like Gusto. Gusto is a extremely popular platform for business owners to outsource their payrolling and has even been named one of the best platforms online today. With that being said, we have decided to review this company to see what they are all about. Are you ready?

Price

8.5

Customer Service

9.5

Payroll Standard Features

9.5

Payroll Add on Features

9.5

Reporting

9.5

Time in Business

8

Other Expert Ranking

9.2

PROS

• According to numerous surveys, and their website, Gusto has been said to be easier to use than any other payrolling platform or solution.
• Gusto Payroll Services provides business owners with a comprehensive full-service payroll features.
• You can find all the information you need on their website, including fees and prices at gusto.com
• Business owners may sign up for a one month free trial.

CONS

• No mobile app
• Gusto is a newer company
• No Geo tracking for time tracking

Gusto a leader in payroll services 

Gusto services help businesses stay compliant and pay employees easily. Gusto has been helping businesses with accounting, taxes, and payroll since 2011. While the company is just only 10 years old, has amassed over 100,000+ clients, and growing.

Payroll is one of the most significant expenses for small businesses, so it needs to be processed accurately. It is also critical for employee taxes to be filed and paid correctly to help keep companies out of hot water with the IRS. Gusto Payroll helps business owners, accountants, and HR team members efficiently process payroll and files employee taxes for salary, hourly, and contract workers.

Gusto, while still relatively new in a crowded field of established payroll services, stands out. It provides a smart set of commonly-used payroll tools for small businesses and an exceptional user experience that should especially appeal to managers unfamiliar with payroll

What is a Payroll Service?

Payroll services help businesses process payroll accurately and calculate the required local, state, and federal payroll taxes. Managing payroll processing and calculating employee taxes allows business owners or their accountants to free up resources for other operations. Most business owners and accounting team members report that services such as Gusto Payroll saves them many hours of work per week.

Payroll services most often do not work alone. Usually, they connect to compatible accounting and human resource solutions. However, some offer a few extra tools that may be enough for small operations to function without additional services.

What businesses are best served by Gusto?

Gusto is suitable for small or med-sized businesses such as nonprofits. An accountant version is available for those who provide financial services. Gusto is very adaptable and integrates with over 100 different platforms, box, Boomr, freshbooks, to name a few, a detailed list can be found here on their website.

What services does Gusto offer?

Gusto offers three affordable payroll plans: Core, Complete, and Concierge. Each plan includes a full-service payroll plan plus additional tools such as employee tools, benefit support, and integrations. Upgraded versions include additional HR, time tracking, and support options.

All plans include basic payroll processing services, which include:

• Unlimited payroll runs
• Automated payroll functions
• Direct deposit or check payments
• Garnishment and child support deductions
• Local, state, and federal tax filing
• Multiple pay rate and schedule support
• Payroll reports
• PTO management
• W-2 and 1099 filing
• W-4 and I-9 support

Gusto Core: $39 plus $6 per employee per month

Payroll services plus,

• Accounting software integrations
• Employee portal and profiles
• Health benefits
• Time tracking software integrations

Gusto Complete: $39 plus $12 per employee per month

Everything included in the Core plan, plus:

• Hiring and onboarding support
• Job costing
• Next-day direct deposit
• Project tracking
• PTO management
• Team management tools
• Time tracking

Gusto Concierge: $149 plus $12 per employee per month

Everything in Core and Complete plans, plus:

• Compliance notifications
• Dedicated support
• HR pro support
• HR resource center access

If you only need to pay contract workers, Gusto provides an option to support 1099 workers for $6 per month per person paid.

Gusto Features and Benefits

Every Gusto plan comes with a complete payroll processing package, which includes tax support, direct deposit payments, and deduction processing. Each plan also includes some HR administration tools, employee self-service features, business software integrations, and benefit support.

Depending on which plan and benefits you choose, you’ll have access to the following Gusto features:

Payroll processing services

• Automated employment tax support
• HR features
• Integrations
• Gusto debit card and wallet

Gusto Pros and Cons

Reviewing Gusto’s pros and cons is a quick way to see if this online payroll processing service may be suitable for your business. Overall, the positive aspects of Gusto include that it supports unlimited payroll runs and that it is easy to use. While most customers give Gusto positive reviews, there are a few things that might be considered negative to some such as lack of 24/7 support and limited out-of-the-box integrations.

What are some of Gusto greatest strengths?

While the payroll services is the main component of Gusto, we give Gusto a high five for its effort to offer clever, morale-boosting features for both employers and employees alike. This might help redeem Gusto’s simple HR component; however, this bonus can be a great fit for smaller, simpler staffing operations. In fact, small business owners love Gusto’s insightful employee surveys, onboarding checklists, proactive alerts when labor laws change, and more.

Gusto ability to continually improve offering additional services is one of its core strengths, all the while making each of these different modules very user friendly and pretty robust for an all-in-one platform for small business.

What makes Gusto unique?

The payroll solution is simple to use because it walks you through the setup and basic processes and is very intuitive. Taking the guesswork to using the software by providing check-off lists to show your progress regarding certain tasks, such as adding an employee or setting up benefits.

How simple the product is to use gives the user confidence in that they are doing things right and that the outcome will be correct. When you first start using Gusto Payroll, you’ll find it intuitive. If you need to import a large volume of employee data, you can request help to set up the software correctly.

What makes Gusto a top payroll service provider?

Gusto integrates with over 110+ business solutions. However, those integrations may be to Gusto accounting solutions and not directly with the payroll service. If you also use the Gusto accounting solution, you’ll find these integrations helpful.

What integrations does Gusto offer?

Over 100 Gusto integrations are available. Integrations include accounting, HR, POS, performance, and time tracking. Gusto also offers discounts for popular business solutions if you are not already a customer.

Here is an abbreviated list of Gusto integrations:

Accounting software:

• Expensify
• FreshBooks
• QuickBooks (online and desktop)
• Sage
• Xero

Point of sale:

• Clover
• Shoopify
• SpotOn
• Upserve

Human resources:

• Bonusly
• Breezy HR
• EasyLlama
• Greenhouse
• JazzHR
• Lattice
• Lever
• Sapling
• Trainual
• Traliant

Time tracking:

• 7Shifts
• Boomr
• ClockShark
• Deputy
• Homebase
• OnTheClock
• Sling
• Time Tracker
• QuickBooks Time (TSheets)
• When I Work
• Workforce

Collaboration and project management:

• Asana
• Box
• Dropbox
• GitHub
• Google Workspace
• GoToMeeting
• Microsoft 365
• Monday
• Slack
• Trello
• Webex
• Zoom

Does Gusto offer data migration from other providers?

Data migration support is available. The level of service depends on the plan. Gusto Payroll Core customers do not receive migration support. Premium plan subscribers have to import data themselves, but Gusto will help with the QA process to ensure data is transferred and set up correctly. Elite plan customers receive full migration support. Your accountant should also be able to help you set up payroll correctly.

What is Gusto’s security and reliability?

Gusto was built on a foundation of security. It’s why businesses trust them to process tens of billions of payroll dollars annually. Here are just a few reasons why our customers are confident in Gusto’s platform:

1. Gusto actively test our software to prevent problems.
2. Gusto use industry-standard encryption to secure your data, from your browser all the way down to our servers.
3. Gusto have an on-site security team ready to help in case there are issues.

If there is any potential security issues, Gusto request that info be emailed to them for them to jump on the security threat immediately.

Gusto’s financial position 

With its humble beginnings in 2011, Gusto has grown is amass a $9.5 billion dollar valuation in August 2021. With the focus since inception being on payroll services, some spin offs including the HR platform was natural fit. However, the most recent valuation is soaring, because Gusto is looking to monetize an IPO for its HR platform which has taken on such a huge role for the services offered. Through the remote work revolution of 2020 and beyond, Gusto has adapted in such a way that it has leverage a potential death spiral into a triumph. Josh Reeves, co-founder of Gusto says that revenue grew more than 50% from May of 2020 to April 2021 with no slow down in the future.

As part of the growth of the company coming from organic, the significant growth has come from strategic growth through acquisitions. Two most recent acquisitions 2021 summer, tax compliance software Ardius and Symmetry , these acquisitions helps with tax calculation software.

Resources about Gusto

• Customer success stories
• Find the latest news about Gusto
• Free hourly and salary paycheck calculators
• Gusto APIs and developer resources
• Gusto for accountants
• Gusto Help Center
• Gusto online payroll processing FAQs
• List of Gusto investors
• Resources for new businesses
• Small business resources
• Terms of Service
• The Gusto Talk Shop blog

For more information about Gusto

If you’d like to further check out Gusto to see if it may be the ideal payroll solution for your business you can call sales at 855-741-2702 (9 am to 2 pm PT), or you can submit your contact information online and a sales team member will contact you.

Customers can contact Gusto by email or chat when logged into their accounts. Telephone support hours are limited to Monday thru Friday 8 am to 4 pm PT and chat hours are 6 am to 4 pm PT.

You can reach out to Gusto my mail by sending correspondence to 250 20^th Street, San Francisco, CA 84107 or to 1201 16^th Street, Denver, CO 80202.