Last updated: March 2026
Gusto payroll review 2026
Gusto is the right payroll provider for 80% of small businesses under 25 employees.
The other 20% need something Gusto cannot do, and I will tell you exactly what those things are. After processing payroll on Gusto for dozens of clients alongside ADP, Paychex, Rippling, and OnPay, I can say that Gusto earns its reputation as the best small business payroll software for companies that want clean automation, transparent pricing, and an interface that does not require a training manual. It is not the cheapest option. It is not the most powerful. But for the business owner who wants to run payroll in five minutes and move on with their day, nothing else matches Gusto's balance of simplicity and capability.
Who Gusto is built for
If you have 1 to 25 employees in one or two states, pay people on a simple salary or hourly structure, and want benefits administration bundled with payroll, Gusto is your answer. The sweet spot is a company with 5 to 15 employees that needs full service payroll with automatic tax filing, direct deposit, W2 and 1099 preparation, PTO tracking, and employee self service access to pay stubs and tax documents.
Gusto also handles contractor payments on all plans. You can pay 1099 contractors alongside W2 employees without a separate system, and Gusto files the 1099 forms at year end automatically. For businesses that use a mix of employees and freelancers, this eliminates a common headache that other providers charge extra for or do not support at all.
The employee self service portal is where Gusto separates from budget competitors like Patriot and SurePayroll. Your employees log in, view their pay stubs, download tax documents, update their direct deposit information, and enroll in benefits without calling you. On Patriot, employees can view pay stubs but most changes still require admin involvement. On Gusto, the employee handles it themselves. For a business owner wearing six hats, that difference saves hours every month. The tradeoff: Gusto's self service is structured around Gusto's workflows, not yours. You cannot customize the employee portal layout, rearrange dashboard widgets, or create custom views the way you can on Rippling or ADP.
Gusto pricing in 2026
Three plans for W2 employers. Simple costs $49 per month plus $6 per employee. Plus costs $80 per month plus $12 per employee. Premium costs $180 per month plus $22 per employee. A separate Contractor Only plan runs $35 per month plus $6 per contractor with no W2 capability.
Here is the gotcha that catches most new Gusto customers: the Simple plan does not include next day direct deposit. Employees wait up to four business days for funds to arrive. That is fine for regular biweekly payroll where everyone knows when payday is. It becomes a real problem when you run an off cycle payroll to fix an error, pay a bonus, or process a termination check. Telling a departing employee their final paycheck will take four days does not go well. Upgrading to Plus for next day deposits costs $80 plus $12 per employee, which is a 63% jump in base fee and a 100% jump in per employee cost. For a detailed breakdown of what each Gusto plan costs at different company sizes, see our full pricing analysis.
Gusto does not charge setup fees, implementation fees, or per payroll run fees. You can run unlimited payrolls at no extra cost. This matters more than most people realize. ADP charges per payroll run, which means every off cycle correction, every bonus run, and every termination payroll adds another processing fee to your invoice. On Gusto, corrections are free. That single difference can save $200 to $500 per year for a company that runs even a handful of off cycle payrolls.
What Gusto does well
Payroll processing is fast and nearly foolproof. The guided payroll flow walks you through each step, flags missing information before you submit, and calculates federal, state, and local taxes automatically using the current IRS Publication 15 (Circular E) withholding tables. I have run payroll on Gusto in under three minutes for a 12 person company. On ADP, the same payroll takes eight to twelve minutes because of the additional screens and confirmation steps. Gusto also auto-files quarterly 941 returns, annual 940 forms, state withholding returns, and W2s at year end. If Gusto makes a tax filing error, they pay the resulting IRS or state penalty, not you. That guarantee is included on all plans.
Three minutes from open to submit is genuinely fast, and I have never seen another provider match it at this price point.
Benefits administration is genuinely integrated, not bolted on. You can shop for health insurance, dental, vision, life, and disability plans directly through Gusto's brokerage service, and employee premium deductions sync with payroll automatically. Setting up a 401k plan through Gusto's partnership is straightforward, and employee contributions flow through payroll without manual calculations. Workers comp is available as pay as you go through AP Intego, syncing premiums with actual payroll each period instead of requiring the large upfront deposit that traditional WC policies demand. For a small business that wants pay as you go workers comp integrated with payroll, Gusto is one of the easiest setups available.
Onboarding is another strength. New hires receive an email invitation, complete their W4, I9, direct deposit authorization, and benefits enrollment online before their first day. Everything flows into payroll automatically. No paper forms, no manual data entry, no chasing signatures. The tradeoff: Gusto's onboarding templates are rigid. You cannot fully customize the onboarding workflow, add custom fields beyond what Gusto provides, or create conditional steps based on role or department. If you need onboarding that adapts to different job types, Rippling's workflow builder is far more flexible.
When Gusto's onboarding creates problems: companies hiring in states that require specific state-level new hire forms beyond the federal I-9 and W-4. Gusto covers most states but occasionally lags on newly enacted state forms, and the employee cannot complete onboarding until the form is available in the system.
What Gusto does poorly
Reporting is Gusto's most significant weakness.
You get standard reports: payroll by pay period, year to date summaries, tax payment reports, PTO balances, contractor payments, and wage summaries. You can export to CSV or PDF. But you cannot build custom reports, create multi period comparisons, add custom fields to reports, or schedule automated report delivery. When your controller asks for a departmental labor cost breakdown with overtime separated from regular pay and allocated across cost centers, Gusto cannot produce it. You will export to Excel and build it manually. Rippling and ADP both offer custom report builders that handle this natively. For companies where the finance team lives in payroll reports, this limitation alone disqualifies Gusto.
Customer support has degraded noticeably since 2024. Phone support exists but wait times during peak payroll periods (end of pay periods, quarter end, year end) can stretch to 30 minutes or longer. Email responses take two to four days during busy periods. The chat function routes to a bot first, and getting to a human requires persistence. On the Simple plan, you do not get priority support at all. When your payroll is stuck on a Friday afternoon because of a tax filing issue, waiting until Monday for an email response is not acceptable. Paychex and ADP both offer 24/7 phone support on their base plans. Gusto does not.
When the support problem is overstated: companies that run clean biweekly payrolls with no mid-cycle changes rarely contact support more than once or twice a year, and at that frequency the wait times are irrelevant.
When the support problem is worse than advertised: companies processing payroll in states with frequent tax rate changes like California, New York, or Pennsylvania, where a Gusto tax filing delay or error requires immediate support contact and the 30-minute hold time turns into a missed deposit deadline with a 10% IRS penalty attached.
The four-day direct deposit delay on Simple is the single feature limitation that forces more upgrades than any other.
Multi state payroll requires the Plus plan at minimum. Simple does not support it at all. If you hire your first remote employee in another state while on Simple, you must upgrade your entire plan before you can process their paycheck. When your new marketing hire in Colorado starts Monday but your Gusto plan is Simple and only supports Idaho, you are either upgrading to Plus immediately or paying that employee incorrectly.
Gusto has no built in workflow automation beyond basic payroll processing. You cannot create if/then rules that trigger actions across departments. You cannot auto assign training based on role. You cannot provision software access during onboarding. Each of those requires either a manual process or a third party integration. For businesses under 25 employees, this rarely matters. For companies approaching 50, the absence of automation becomes a daily friction point.
Who should skip Gusto
Skip Gusto if you have more than 50 employees. The platform was designed for small businesses and it stays in that lane. Reporting limitations, the lack of workflow automation, and the absence of volume pricing make Gusto increasingly expensive and restrictive as headcount grows. Above 50, look at Rippling or ADP Workforce Now.
Skip Gusto if you need certified payroll for government contracts. Gusto does not generate WH347 certified payroll reports required for Davis Bacon prevailing wage projects. If you are a construction company bidding on public works projects, Gusto will not work. Look at Payroll4Construction or a construction specific provider. When this changes: construction companies that only do private work and never bid on government contracts do not need certified payroll, and Gusto handles their standard payroll just fine.
Skip Gusto if you have union employees. Gusto cannot handle multiple pay rates per employee, union dues tracking, or the complex seniority based pay structures that union contracts require. ADP and Paychex both support union payroll configurations.
When Gusto works despite union presence: companies with a small union bargaining unit alongside a larger non-union workforce, where the union employees are processed through a separate payroll service and Gusto handles the non-union staff. Split processing adds complexity but avoids migrating the entire company to a more expensive platform for a handful of union workers.
Skip Gusto if you need global payroll for more than a handful of international employees. Gusto's EOR service covers 100 plus countries but costs $599 per employee per month through a partnership with Remote. At that price, dedicated EOR providers like Deel and Remote offer more features and deeper country specific compliance support. When this pricing makes sense: companies hiring a single international contractor or employee where the convenience of keeping everything in one platform justifies the premium over a standalone EOR.
How Gusto compares
Against Rippling: Gusto wins on price and simplicity for companies under 25 employees. Rippling wins on reporting, automation, and scalability for companies over 25. If you plan to grow past 50 employees within three years, starting on Rippling avoids the pain of migrating later.
Against ADP: Gusto is cheaper, more transparent on pricing, and easier to use for small businesses. ADP is more powerful above 50 employees and offers 24/7 phone support on all plans. Choose Gusto under 25 employees. Choose ADP if you expect to need enterprise features within two to three years.
Against OnPay: both target the same small business market at similar price points. OnPay includes everything in one plan with no tier upgrades, which is simpler. Gusto has a cleaner interface, more integrations (150 versus about 40 for OnPay), and better employee self service. OnPay's advantage is that you never get forced into a more expensive tier because there is only one tier.
Bottom line
Gusto is the best payroll software for small businesses under 25 employees that want automated tax filing, employee self service, benefits administration, and transparent pricing on one platform. Every plan files Form 941 quarterly and handles year-end W-2s automatically. It is not the cheapest (Patriot is), not the most powerful (Rippling is), and not the best at customer support (Paychex is). But it is the best balance of all three for the company that does not want to think about payroll more than five minutes per pay period.
No other payroll provider gets the simplicity-to-capability ratio this right at this price.
Start on the Plus plan if you have employees in more than one state or need next day direct deposit. Start on Simple if you are single state with basic needs and want to save $31 per month on the base fee. Either way, set up your tax accounts and worker classifications before signing up so your first payroll runs without surprises.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gusto good for small business payroll?
Gusto is the best payroll provider for most small businesses under 25 employees. It handles automated tax filing, direct deposit, benefits administration, and year end W2 and 1099 preparation on all plans. It becomes less competitive above 50 employees where reporting limitations and the lack of volume pricing make larger platforms like Rippling or ADP Workforce Now a better fit.
How much does Gusto cost per month?
Gusto Simple costs $49 per month plus $6 per employee. Plus costs $80 per month plus $12 per employee. Premium costs $180 per month plus $22 per employee. A company with 10 employees on Simple pays $109 per month. The same company on Plus pays $200 per month. Gusto charges no setup fees and allows unlimited payroll runs.
Does Gusto file payroll taxes automatically?
Yes. Gusto calculates, files, and pays federal, state, and local payroll taxes on all plans. This includes quarterly 941 filings, annual 940 filings, state withholding returns, and year end W2 and 1099 forms. If Gusto makes a tax filing error, they cover the resulting penalties.
What are Gusto's biggest weaknesses?
Limited reporting with no custom report builder. Customer support wait times that can exceed 30 minutes during peak periods. No multi state payroll support on the Simple plan. No workflow automation for onboarding or HR processes. No certified payroll for construction or government contract work. These limitations primarily affect companies above 25 employees or those with complex payroll structures.
Is Gusto better than ADP for small business?
For businesses under 25 employees, Gusto is better than ADP in almost every comparison: lower cost, simpler interface, transparent pricing, no setup fees, and unlimited payroll runs. ADP becomes the better choice above 50 employees where Workforce Now's enterprise reporting and compliance tools exceed Gusto's capabilities.
Can I switch to Gusto from another payroll provider?
Yes. Gusto supports mid year payroll migration and guides you through importing year to date payroll data so quarterly and annual tax filings remain accurate. Most businesses complete the switch in two to five days. The key is importing accurate YTD wage and tax totals from your previous provider before running your first Gusto payroll.
This is not legal or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional for your specific situation.