Gusto Alternatives: 10 Platforms Compared

Almost nobody leaves a payroll provider because the software is bad. They leave because the company changed and the plan did not. The first hire in another state, the fifteenth employee, the quarter where the bill quietly passed what the accountant costs: those are the moments people start searching, not a bug.

I have watched founders go through this three or four times now, and the pattern is always the same. They compare starting prices, pick the lowest one, and discover in month two that the feature they actually needed sits one tier up, or that the second state carries a surcharge, or that support at the entry tier is a queue. The starting price was never the number that mattered.

So this comparison does it the other way around. Every rate below was read off the vendor pricing page in August 2026, the cost math runs at 10, 25, and 50 employees rather than at one, and each product is matched to the specific situation it suits instead of being ranked as if all small businesses were the same company.

Why small employers leave Gusto

Four things push small employers off Gusto: the per-person fee compounding as you hire, a feature that turns out to sit one tier up, support that costs extra at the entry tier, and a purchase that has simply outgrown a self-serve product. Contract terms are the one complaint that does not apply here, and it is worth saying so before anything else.

The published price, and what it becomes

Gusto publishes its rates, which is more than half this category does. Here is the ladder as it stands on the pricing page.

At 10 employees Simple is $109 a month, which is a fair price for automated federal, state, and local filing. At 50 it is $349. That trajectory is normal for the category and it is not a trick. What surprises people is the second line: multi-state payroll is a Plus feature, so one hire across a state line does not add a surcharge, it doubles the per-person rate from $6 to $12. At 50 employees that is $680 a month instead of $349.

The things that are add-ons

The second frustration is discovering what is billed separately. None of these are hidden, they are all listed on the pricing page, but they are easy to miss when you are comparing headline numbers across five tabs.

Read that list next to the plan ladder and the real shape of the product appears. A 25-person company on Simple that wants faster support and HR guidance pays $199 for payroll, $105 for priority support, and $175 for HR Resources. That is $479 a month, which is a different conversation than the $199 you budgeted.

Support, and the one thing to give credit for

Support at the Simple tier is the basic queue. Priority positioning in phone and chat is a paid upgrade, and a dedicated service advisor exists only on Premium at $180 plus $22 per person. For an employer whose payroll question is time-sensitive, that structure is a real reason to look elsewhere, and several alternatives below include phone support at every tier.

Contract terms, on the other hand, are a point in Gusto's favor. The pricing page states there are no contracts, account setup is free, and you can switch or cancel at any time. Three of the ten alternatives below will not tell you a price without a call, and at least one promotional offer in this comparison requires a two-year minimum term. If month-to-month billing matters to you, check it on the way out as carefully as you would on the way in.

10 Gusto alternatives at a glance

The fastest way to narrow ten products to two is to sort them by whether they publish a rate at all. Seven of these show you a number on their own site. Six of those seven also let you sign up without speaking to anyone; Paychex publishes rates but still routes every plan through sales. Three will not show you a number for US payroll at all.

If you already know your constraint, the short version is below. The detailed reviews follow, and the cost math for every published product sits further down the page.

How we compared them

Every product here had to be something a US small employer could actually run payroll on, and every number had to come from the vendor rather than from a roundup. Four tests decided the ranking.

The 10 alternatives reviewed

OnPay charges exactly what Gusto Simple charges and gives you the whole product for it. There is one plan. The pricing page commits to W-2s, 1099s and year-end filings included, unlimited pay runs and schedules, federal, state and local tax filings included, workers paid in as many states as you need, support by phone, chat and email, and no implementation or integration fees.

That last cluster is the entire argument. The reason to move here is not a lower number, because at a single-state 10-person company the number is identical. It is that the number stops changing shape. A second state does not move you up a tier, year-end forms do not appear as a December invoice, and phone support is not an upgrade. For a company that got burned by a tier boundary, this is the cleanest payroll swap on the list.

Patriot is the cheapest legitimate full-service payroll with a published price. Full Service is $37 per month plus $5 per worker paid and covers federal, state, and local tax filings and deposits, with year-end payroll tax filings at no additional fee. Basic at $17 plus $4 does everything except file, which means you handle deposits yourself.

Two billing details make it cheaper than the sticker suggests. The per-worker fee applies to workers you actually paid that month, and in a month with no payroll you are charged only the base. Two details make it more expensive: each additional state filing is $12 per month, and the Time and Attendance and HR modules are separate products at $6 per month plus $2 per employee each. A single-state shop pays $287 at 50 people. A three-state shop pays $311 before add-ons, and adding both modules for those 50 people costs a further $212 a month.

Square Payroll has the lowest published base of any full-service plan here at $35, and for a business already on Square hardware it removes an entire category of work. Timecards import from the Square point of sale or the Team App, direct tips are tracked and imported, overtime is calculated, and labor cost reporting reads against the same sales data.

The full-service plan includes multistate payroll, new hire reporting, and multiple pay rates. The contractor-only plan at $6 per person paid does not, and it also drops auto payroll and off-cycle payments, so read the two columns carefully. Seasonal businesses get one unusual benefit: months with no payroll are free rather than billed at the base, which for a seasonal restaurant is worth real money.

SurePayroll, which is a Paychex company, has the lowest entry point of the group at $29 per month plus $7 per worker, and its pricing calculator is refreshingly literal about what you will pay. Multi-state payroll is a flat $9.99 per month no matter how many states you operate in, which is the friendliest multi-state structure on this page.

The catch is the per-head rate. At $7 per worker it is the highest in the budget group, so the advantage narrows as you grow: cheapest at two employees, more expensive than OnPay by 25. Year-end W-2 and 1099-NEC forms are billed annually at a $50 base plus $5 per form rather than included, accounting integration is $4.99 per month, and time clock options start at $5 per month plus $3 per employee. The separate nanny and household product at $45 per month is the reason many people find it at all.

The argument for QuickBooks payroll has always been the ledger, and it still is. Payroll entries land in QuickBooks Online without an export, a mapping step, or a monthly reconciliation ritual. Entry pricing is $50 per month plus $7 per employee, above Gusto Simple on both halves, and there is no annual contract.

The tiers move fast. Time tracking arrives with Workforce Premium at $88 plus $13, and tax penalty protection covering IRS penalties and interest up to $25,000 per year sits at the Elite tier at $134 plus $17. The three-month 90 percent discount is aggressive enough that month four feels like a price rise, so budget from the list price. If your books are somewhere else, there is no reason to be here.

Rippling sells a single employee record that spans HR, payroll, benefits, learning, recruiting, device management, and app provisioning. Its pricing page is explicit that you tell it which services you need and it sends a custom quote, so there is no published number to compare against Gusto and no self-serve signup.

What you are buying is the joins. Hiring someone triggers payroll setup, benefits enrollment, a laptop, and account provisioning from one action, and the HR Services module lists automatic state and local payroll tax account registration, which is precisely the chore that makes multi-state expansion painful. For a 12-person single-state company with no IT complexity, that is a lot of platform to pay for.

ADP is the default answer when a company has grown past the point where payroll can be a self-serve subscription. The compliance engine is the deepest in the category, statutory changes reach the tax tables without anyone at your company reading a state register, and multi-jurisdiction payroll is included in every RUN package rather than gated. RUN itself is sold to businesses with 1 to 49 employees in four packages, Essential, Enhanced, Complete, and HR Pro, with a separate product line above 50.

The cost of that is opacity. ADP does not publish RUN pricing anywhere on its site; every package sits behind a Get Pricing button that opens a quote request and a phone number, and even W-2 and 1099 form delivery is flagged as an additional fee. The standing offer is three months free for new small business payroll customers, which is the most generous introductory term here, but the ongoing rate, the contract length, and the notice period all arrive in a document rather than on a page. Read them before you sign.

Paychex competes with ADP on the same ground and serves approximately 840,000 customers by its own count. The product is sold as a service relationship rather than a subscription: payroll, HR guidance, talent, benefits, insurance, and retirement from one vendor, with people attached. It also owns SurePayroll, which is why the two appear at opposite ends of this list, and it has since acquired Paycor.

Unlike ADP, Paychex does put numbers on the page. Its compare-packages page lists Basic at $65 per month plus $8 per person, Foundations at $160 plus $10, Advanced at $300 plus $14, and Complete at $450 plus $18, each labelled with the headcount it is meant for: Basic from one employee, Foundations from ten, Advanced from twenty, Complete from thirty. Read those labels carefully, because they are the catch. The entry rate is the one you can quote back at Gusto, but a 30-person company is being pointed at $450 plus $18 per head, which is $990 a month.

What you do not get is a checkout. Every button on every tier is a contact form or a phone number, so the published rate is a starting position rather than a price you can act on, and term, renewal, and notice period still arrive in a contract. That is the right model if your real problem is that nobody in the building knows the answer to a payroll compliance question. It is the wrong model if you wanted to compare a number against $109 a month and get on with your day.

Justworks is two products wearing one name. Payroll at $50 per month plus $8 per employee is ordinary payroll software priced slightly above Gusto Simple. PEO Basic at $79 per employee per month and PEO Plus at $124 are something else entirely: a co-employment arrangement that lets a 20-person company buy health coverage priced off a much larger risk pool.

Publishing PEO rates at all is unusual and worth crediting. Modules are priced the same way: time tracking $8 per employee, US contractors $8 per paid contractor, international contractors $39, and, on the two PEO tiers only, dedicated HR consulting at $30 per employee and an employer-of-record product at $599. Just be clear about which problem you are solving. At 25 employees the PEO is $1,975 a month against $199 for Gusto Simple, so this is a benefits decision wearing a payroll costume.

Deel solves a problem the other nine do not touch. If you need to employ someone in Portugal or Brazil without opening an entity, its employer-of-record product handles legal employment, local compliance, payroll, and benefits at $599 per employee per month. Contractors are $49 each per month, contractor of record is $325, and a US PEO is $125 per employee per month.

For domestic payroll it is less compelling. Deel Payroll for the US is described as built for companies with fewer than 200 US employees, but no rate for it appears on the pricing page, so that piece is a quote like ADP or Paychex. Read the promotional terms too: the three months free PEO offer requires an order form with a minimum two-year term, which is the longest commitment attached to anything in this comparison.

What each one costs at 10, 25, and 50 employees

This is the table that decides most switches, and it is the one almost nobody publishes because half the field will not quote a rate. Every figure below is calculated from a published base plus per-person price, with the two Gusto tiers included as the baseline you are comparing against.

Three things fall out of it. At 10 employees the published entry plans sit between $87 and $145, close enough that entry price is a bad way to choose. By 50 employees the same plans span $287 to $465, and Gusto lands at $349 on Simple or $680 on Plus depending on one variable: whether anyone works in a second state.

The second pattern is that the cheapest base is rarely the cheapest bill. SurePayroll has the lowest base at $29 and the highest per-head rate at $7, so it wins at two employees and loses to OnPay by 25. Square wins on base and holds its lead because $6 per person matches the market. Patriot wins outright on a single-state team and gives some of it back at $12 per extra state.

The third is that the software line is not the whole cost. State tax registration, year-end forms, time tracking, and multi-state fees are billed differently by every vendor here, and the gap between a bundled and an unbundled product at 25 employees is comfortably over $100 a month.

Names that did not make the shortlist

A few products appear in almost every list of alternatives and are missing from this one. They are excluded for a reason, and the reason is usually the same: a small employer replacing a published subscription should not have to book a call to learn a price.

The TriNet entry is worth a note because the naming has moved. Zenefits is now the TriNet HR Platform: TriNet acquired it, and the TriNet site still labels that login as HR Platform, also known as TriNet Zenefits. Alongside it sits TriNet HR Plus, the outsourced administrative services offering, which states that pricing depends on headcount and service level, runs on a per employee per month model, and requires a conversation with the team. If you arrived here from a Zenefits comparison written a few years ago, that is where the product went, and it is no longer a self-serve HR platform you can sign up for and price in an afternoon.

How to choose a Gusto alternative

Five questions separate a switch that pays for itself from a lateral move that costs you a quarter of cutover work. Answer them before you book a single demo.

One last piece of process. Whichever way you go, run the cutover at a quarter boundary so year-to-date wages and taxes transfer cleanly, keep the old system readable until you have filed a full quarter on the new one, and re-collect nothing you already have. Broader guidance on evaluating workplace technology is available from SHRM.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best alternative to Gusto for a small business?

OnPay, for most companies. It charges the same $49 per month plus $6 per worker as Gusto Simple but sells one plan, with federal, state, and local tax filings, year-end forms, unlimited pay runs, and payroll in as many states as you need all included. If cost is the driver, Patriot Full Service is $37 plus $5. If your team clocks in through a point of sale, Square Payroll at $35 plus $6 fits better.

Why do small businesses switch away from Gusto?

Four reasons: the per-person fee compounding from $109 a month at 10 employees to $349 at 50, multi-state payroll sitting on the Plus tier, support and HR resources being paid add-ons at the Simple tier, and outgrowing a self-serve product. Contract terms are not on the list, since Gusto bills month to month with no contract.

How much does Gusto cost per month?

Contractor Only is $35 plus $6 per person, with the base discounted to $0 for the first six months. Simple is $49 plus $6. Plus is $80 plus $12. Premium is $180 plus $22. Add-ons such as priority support at $30 plus $3 per person and HR Resources at $50 plus $5 per person are billed on top.

Is there a cheaper payroll service than Gusto?

Yes. Patriot Full Service is $37 plus $5 per worker paid, Square Payroll is $35 plus $6 per person paid, and SurePayroll starts at $29 plus $7 per worker. Check the extras before switching on price alone: Patriot adds $12 per month for each state beyond the first and SurePayroll charges $9.99 for multi-state.

Which alternative handles multi-state payroll without an upgrade?

OnPay and Square Payroll both include it in the base rate. SurePayroll charges a flat $9.99 per month for multi-state regardless of how many states, and Patriot charges $12 per month per additional state. Only Gusto puts multi-state tax filing behind a tier change.

Do ADP, Paychex, and Rippling publish payroll pricing?

ADP and Rippling do not. ADP offers three months free for new small business payroll and asks you to call. Rippling states that you tell it which services you need and it sends a custom quote, because the platform is sold as modules rather than plans. Paychex is the exception: it lists Basic at $65 plus $8 per person through to Complete at $450 plus $18, but sells every tier through a sales contact rather than a signup.

Should I move to a PEO instead of another payroll product?

Only if benefits pricing is the real problem. Justworks publishes PEO Basic at $79 per employee per month and PEO Plus at $124, and Deel publishes a US PEO at $125. At 25 people that is $1,975 a month against $199 for Gusto Simple, so it is a different budget rather than a cheaper swap.

What should I check before switching payroll providers?

Confirm filing coverage in every state and locality where you have workers, who pays if a deposit is late, what year-end filing costs, and the contract term. Then plan the cutover for a quarter boundary so year-to-date wage and tax records transfer cleanly instead of mid-quarter.