9 Best Gusto Competitors & Alternatives for 2023

TriNet Zenefits’ HR solutions make managing the entire employee lifecycle easy for HR teams. It has offer letters and self-onboarding tools to help automate hiring processes. Scheduling and performance management solutions are also available, allowing you to monitor your employee’s schedules and goals at work easily. It even has compensation planning tools to help you identify whether your staff’s salaries are on par with the market and your competitors—a functionality that none of the software in this guide has, including Gusto.

While it provides access to employee benefits options, the coverage of health plans is limited—it isn’t available in Hawaii as of this writing. For employee benefits covering all 50 US states, consider Square Payroll, Paychex, SurePayroll, and OnPay. Rippling and Gusto are also good choices, but the former’s employee benefits are paid add-ons while the latter’s health plans are not available in 13 states: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

What sets TriNet Zenefits apart from Gusto and the other competitors in this guide is its compliance solutions, which include built-in overtime safeguards and pay stubs that comply with most state regulations. It even has a “Compliance Assistant,” which alerts you of important form submission deadlines and monitors your compliance with HR, payroll, tax, and benefits rulings.

Similar to Homebase Payroll and Square Payroll, TriNet Zenefits includes time tracking functionalities in all payroll plans. Gusto and QuickBooks Payroll also have similar features but these are included in their higher tiers. Rippling, Paychex, and Patriot Payroll offer this as paid add-ons while SurePayroll and OnPay don’t have built-in time tracking tools.

TriNet Zenefits has all the essential tools you need to compute and process employee and contractor payments. It comes with unlimited pay runs, supports direct deposit payments, and handles multiple pay rates and schedules with ease. Aside from calculating and withholding payroll taxes, it also remits tax payments and files tax forms for you at no extra cost―SurePayroll and Paychex charge additional fees for some of their tax filing services.

Running payroll with QuickBooks Payroll is easy—you can even set it to run automatically. Aside from unlimited payroll, it handles tax filings and year-end tax reporting on your behalf. However, you have to get either its Premium or Elite plan if you want the provider to handle local tax filings.

QuickBooks Payroll’s “Contractor Payments” plan is great for businesses that hire and pay only contract workers. It’s even more affordable than Square Payroll’s contractor-only package (which is priced at $5 per worker monthly)—QuickBooks’ plan only costs $15 monthly for up to 20 contractors (plus $2 for each additional worker). If you have QuickBooks Accounting, this feature is included in all plans.

Unlike Gusto, which provides next-day direct deposits in its higher tiers, QuickBooks Payroll offers this in its basic Core package, plus a same-day option included in its premium plans. Square Payroll also offers next-day and instant payouts through its Cash App, but this requires a Square Instant Payments account. Meanwhile, the other Gusto alternatives in this guide have either two- or four-day direct deposit options.

While QuickBooks Payroll doesn’t integrate with many third-party software, its native integration with QuickBooks accounting allows seamless data transfers between Intuit QuickBooks products. This means that your payroll information can flow directly to the general journal, plus you can use wage-related information for analytics and other reports.

You are granted access to payroll experts that you can contact via phone and chat. If you subscribe to its highest tier, you get an HR professional who can provide expert advice. This is unlike Square Payroll and Patriot Payroll, which don’t offer access to HR experts, and Rippling and Homebase Payroll, which charge extra for it.

If you’re a Square POS user and only need to process contractor payments, Square Payroll won’t bill you its base monthly fee of $35 and will only charge you a per-person monthly rate of $6 per contractor. This is great for companies that primarily contract work out vs hiring employees.

However, QuickBooks Payroll’s contractor payments plan provides better value for money than Square (and Gusto). Instead of paying Square $125 per month to process payments for 25 contractors, QuickBooks will only charge you $25 monthly. Although, if you only need to pay two contractors every month, Square is slightly cheaper than QuickBooks ($12 monthly vs $15 monthly).

Square Payroll lets you pay employees and contractors through manual checks, aside from four-day direct deposits. You can also pay employees via Square’s Cash App, which allows you to process two-day direct deposits and even send payments instantly—provided you use Square’s Instant Payments feature.

A unique feature that Square Payroll offers, which Gusto and the eight other competitors in this guide don’t, is that tips and commissions import from Square POS automatically into its payroll solution. This makes it easy for you to process employee payments without extracting and uploading tip and commission data from one system to another manually.

Aside from unlimited and automatic pay runs for both employees and contractors, Square Payroll integrates seamlessly with Square products, such as Square POS and Square Team Management. It also connects with third-party software, such as QuickBooks Online and partner timecard solutions.

Rippling has an integrated HR platform in which all of its solutions connect with the other automatically. It lets you manage your employees’ payroll, benefits, devices, and apps in just one platform. Although the other Gusto alternatives in this guide also offer similar HR and payroll features, the comprehensive app and device management tools are unique with Rippling.

Rippling can handle both your US and global payroll needs while providing your employees easy access to online pay stubs and tax forms through a self-service portal. It also calculates and files payroll taxes automatically and provides year-end tax reporting. Note that QuickBooks Payroll requires you to upgrade to its higher tiers if you need local tax filings while OnPay and Paychex charge extra for some of their tax services.

When looking for a more solid set of HR features with robust third-party integrations, you can choose Rippling over Gusto since the former integrates with more than 500 systems. Rippling is also the only provider in this guide with an extensive partner network, which includes accounting, time and attendance, expense management, recruiting, training, and office management solutions.

In case your HR needs have grown, but you don’t want to hire or expand your HR team, Rippling and Paychex offer PEO services to help you manage day-to-day HR and payroll operations. Gusto and the other alternatives in this guide don’t have this option. However, unlike Paychex, Rippling allows you to turn its PEO services on and off and switch back to using its software again easily.

If you are on a budget and would prefer to let Patriot take care of your payroll and then file your employees’ taxes on your own, then you can opt for its Basic plan. If you don’t want to handle payroll tax filings yourself, then you should sign up for its Full Service option. What’s great about this package is that it’s more affordable than Gusto’s offering. For a company with 10 employees, you have to spend $1,200 per year with Gusto. Meanwhile, Patriot Payroll will only charge you annual fees of $924.

Patriot allows you to run unlimited payroll and pay your employees with different pay schedules, such as weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, and monthly. You can also use its standard hours and money types or create your own, including employee deductions and other company-paid contributions, all for free.

If you are unsure how to calculate bonuses for employees and don’t want to do gross-up calculations for taxes yourself, then you can use Patriot Payroll’s net-to-gross payroll tool. Input the bonus amount to be paid out, and it will gross it up for you automatically. None of the other Gusto competitors on this list have a similar feature.

OnPay supports multiple pay rates and schedules, including multistate payroll with no extra cost—SurePayroll and Patriot Payroll charge additional for this. It also enables you to pay employees through direct deposits, manual checks, and pay cards.

However, you can’t choose the direct deposit turnaround time of two or four days because OnPay will identify this for you following the results of its risk assessment. If you want to choose a direct deposit that fits your payroll needs, consider any of the providers in this guide or Gusto. If you need next-day or instant payouts, then QuickBooks Payroll and Square Payroll are great options.

OnPay caters to specific niches, including churches and nonprofits, restaurants, and farms. It calculates wages and tip payments (for restaurants) and processes the applicable tax filings for these particular industries at no extra cost. For small agricultural companies with workers on H-2A visas, OnPay can handle the applicable tax calculations. in addition to Form 943 reporting.

The other providers on our list may offer customizable reports, but OnPay’s reporting tools are more robust. It has a report designer that lets you add and remove over 50 data points. You can set up filters, select date ranges, and move columns to fit your reporting requirements. It also lets you save custom reports, and if you don’t want to create your own, OnPay has over a dozen built-in payroll reports to help you analyze and plan labor costs.

Compared to Gusto and the other providers listed in this guide, only Paychex has a system that can grow with your business. It provides efficient pay processing tools regardless of whether you have 10 employees or more than 1,000 workers. You just need to reach out to a Paychex representative who can recommend a package that fits the changing HR needs of your business.

Like Gusto, you can pay employees through pay cards, direct deposits, and paper checks. Furthermore, Paychex is the only provider that offers check signing and stuffing services among all the Gusto alternatives on this list. However, it doesn’t have QuickBooks Payroll’s fast direct deposit options and Square Payroll’s instant payments.

In addition to payroll, Paychex has a suite of HR solutions and services to help you manage hiring, new hire onboarding, time and attendance, workers’ compensation, garnishment payments, business insurance, employee benefits, and a financial wellness program. None of the Gusto competitors we reviewed have financial wellness tools you can offer your employees.

Aside from its team of compliance and HR professionals who can provide expert advice, you get dedicated support from a highly trained payroll specialist who will help you with your payroll and tax needs. While the other Gusto competitors in this article may offer HR advisory services, they don’t provide dedicated payroll support.

Homebase Payroll offers a reasonably priced payroll plan with several HR features. Aside from full-service payroll and tax filing services, you get basic scheduling, time tracking, and employee messaging tools—all for only $39 plus $6 per employee monthly (provided you have 20 employees in one business location and subscribe to its core platform’s free plan). The other software in this guide may have similar functionalities, but these tools are either included in its higher tiers or available as paid add-ons.

Unlike Paychex, Homebase Payroll offers unlimited pay runs so you can process employee payments as many times as you need in a month without having to pay extra. While its software can print paychecks, you have to do this yourself. You can also send payments via four-day direct deposits—it only offers its two-day options to qualified companies.

For payroll taxes, it calculates, withholds, and remits taxes for you automatically. Homebase will even prepare and file your quarterly and year-end tax forms. W-2 and 1099 tax reports are also available for viewing through its self-service portal, making it easy for your employees to access and print their tax forms online. Plus, you don’t have to pay extra for these services (Paychex charges additional fees for tax filings).

While it doesn’t provide benefits plans that you can offer to employees, Homebase Payroll offers an employee perk that grants your staff early access to wages. Similar to Square Payroll, your staff can transfer a portion of their salary to their bank account before payday to help pay for emergency expenses.

With little prep work, SurePayroll lets you start unlimited and even automatic pay runs while it deducts payroll taxes and benefits contributions accurately. Its system also supports multiple pay rates and pay schedules.

Unlike QuickBooks Payroll, which only includes federal and state payroll tax filings in its basic plan, SurePayroll’s full-service option comes with quarterly and annual tax filing services on federal, state, and local levels—provided your business isn’t located in Ohio or Pennsylvania. If it is, you have to pay an additional $9.99 per month.

Unlike Square Payroll and Patriot Payroll, SurePayroll grants you access to an HR advisor if you need expert guidance on managing employee issues. However, if you want a dedicated payroll specialist, consider Paychex, as it offers this in its higher tiers.

Gusto is a popular and highly rated payroll software for small businesses. It even ranks first in several of our payroll buyer’s guides, such as best restaurant payroll software and top HR payroll system.

For a payroll software company, Gusto provides more than pay processing solutions. Its intuitive platform has recruiting, new hire onboarding, time tracking, benefits administration, performance reviews, and HR management features (similar small business payroll providers don’t have a solution suite that’s as wide as Gusto’s).

In addition, Gusto’s employee benefits offerings include both standard and nonstandard plans, such as 529 college savings. Its compliance tools also help you stay compliant not only with labor laws and tax rulings, but with Affordable Care Act (ACA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) regulations as well.

Yes, Gusto offers global payroll tools to help you manage cross-border payments across 95 countries. However, this is a paid add-on and limited to international contractor payments only (as of this writing).