The Complete Guide To Gusto Pricing Plans

Gusto is a cloud-based payroll and HR software designed to make payroll processing easy for small to large businesses. Understanding how much Gusto costs can help your business make an informed decision when considering the software’s services.

While both Gusto’s payroll and time-tracking software aren’t free, Gusto does offer multiple pricing plan tiers and add-ons. Business can assess their payroll needs, compare Gusto’s pricing plans, and consider Gusto’s add-ons to build the perfect payroll and HR service package.

This article breaks down each plan’s pricing structure to help you figure out which one benefits your company the most.

How Much Does Gusto Payroll Cost?

Gusto boasts three main pricing plans for salaried, W-2 employees and 1099 contractors that are paid on a monthly basis. Gusto’s Simple pricing plan starts at $40 per month + $6 per person and includes all basic payroll features.

The Plus plan costs $80 per month + $12 per person paid and adds in onboarding features, more options for employees to request paid time off, stronger reporting features, health insurance broker integrations, an organization-wide employee directory, and more add-on features.

Gusto’s highest-tier Premium plan uses custom pricing for larger businesses that need advanced features and support. Gusto Premium suits companies that want to enjoy a full-fledged HR resource repository, access to certified HR professionals, and top-notch support.

An additional Contractor Only plan is available for companies that only hire 1099 employees. The plan comes with no base fee and starts at just $6 a month per employee. Gusto’s Contractor Only plan is mainly useful for companies who haven’t yet brought on full-time, salaried employees to their team and may not for some time.

How Does Gusto Pricing Work?

Gusto offers customers a three-tiered catalog of pricing plans for salaried employees that scale with the complexity and size of their business. Gusto is transparent and upfront about the pricing behind its plans, for which payments are made monthly.

There’s no requirement that business owners sign a contract before they get started with the platform, and Gusto even throws in a free, 30-day trial that eases customers into the software’s features. This free trial is especially useful if you need extra time to decide which pricing plan makes the most sense for your business.

Gusto Pricing Breakdown

Gusto lets you choose the plan that’s right for your business with three tiers of plans, plus a Contractor plan for 1099 employees. Above is a snapshot of each plan’s starting base price, as well as the per-month, per-employee rates that come with each of them.

• Simple plan starting at  $40/month + $6/month per person
• Plus plan for $80/month + $12/month per person
• Premium plan with custom pricing for larger businesses
• Contractor Only plan for $6/month per person

It can get tough to keep track of which features come with which Gusto plans at a glance. Let’s dig a little deeper to see which tools and services set these plans apart from each other.

Gusto Simple

Gusto’s Simple plan is perfect for up-and-coming companies that need to automate internal processes like payroll and HR management since it grants access to the Payroll on Autopilot feature. The Simple plan also offers unlimited payroll services backed up by a customer support team with whom you can chat, mail, and call daily. This plan starts at $40 per month + $6 per-person monthly fee.

With Gusto’s Simple plan, you get:

• Full-service payroll for W-2 and contractor employees
• Employee onboarding tools and forms
• Access to the Gusto Wallet mobile app
• Automatic tax-filing options
• Two-day direct deposit
• Customer service over phone, email, and chat support
• Health benefits
• Accounting software integrations
• Custom admin permissions
• Hiring tools
• Employee ecards and celebrations

Gusto Plus

Gusto’s Plus plan costs $80/month + $12 per person. The Plus plan sets itself apart from the Simple plan with options for employee surveys, a comprehensive employee directory, time/project tracking, and workforce cost projections.

The Plus plan offers features such as:

• Next-day direct deposits
• Multistate payroll
• Requests for both PTO and time-off policies
• Custom paid holidays
• Expenses and reimbursements
• Employee directory and org chart
• Tracking options for projects
• Workforce cost reports
• Custom reports
• Extended live support hours
• Job description templates to streamline new-hire to-do lists

Gusto Premium

Created with full-fledged HR departments and resources in mind, Gusto’s Premium plan is only available for growing teams. Your business will need to contact Gusto directly for pricing. Customers on Gusto’s Premium plan may receive discounted or waived rates for health insurance broker integration services, R&D tax services, Guideline 401(k)s, and other Gusto services.

The Premium plan is best for companies that are finally ready to fully automate their HR processes and departments but that also need a few more HR resources to make that a reality:

Gusto’s Premium plan boasts a range of features, including:

• Anonymous employee surveys
• Performance reviews
• Federal and state compliance alerts
• Advanced features
• Advanced tools
• Dedicated customer support
• At-your-service certified HR professionals
• A complete resource center for HR processes and tools
• Custom document eSigning
• Job postings
• Applicant tracking system
• Custom onboarding checklist and offer letter templates
• Software provisioning management

Extra Gusto Costs & Fees

In addition to their different tiers of pricing plans, Gusto boasts strong add-on services that can make the software platform more customizable. These add-ons make it easier for businesses to scale their software solutions with their activities without committing to a more expensive plan. Here are Gusto’s most popular integrable add-on services that you can purchase for your plan of choice:

Gusto 401(k) Retirement Plans

Gusto offers a free setup for its 401(k) retirement plan options through Guideline, which begin with a base fee of $49 per month and an $8 fee per person. Companies can add as many participating employees as they want to their 401(k) benefits system, each of whom can enjoy affordable investment options and investing guidance.

Gusto’s 401(k) plans truly highlight the software platform’s ease of integration. You can jumpstart your team’s saving opportunities by syncing their integrated retirement plans with Gusto Payroll. The portal also gives your employees options to change their contributions as they see fit at any given time. Gusto partners with Guideline to give employees an easy-to-use portal that lets them quickly find and choose recommendations to add to their investment portfolio.

Gusto College Savings Accounts

Like its 401(k) retirement plan options, Gusto offers a free setup for its 529 college savings benefits. This add-on starts at a minimum of $18 per month and includes a $6 per-month fee for each participating employee. Gusto’s tax-advantaged savings accounts are made possible through a partnership with Gradvisor and make it easy for employees to allocate their savings for higher education.

Gusto HSA & FSA Accounts

Gusto offers pre-tax accounts for qualified health savings starting at $2.50/month per participant. Employees can use their Gusto Wallet app, which integrates with different Gusto Cash Accounts, to help allocate their pre-tax savings. The HSA add-on, unlike Gusto’s options for FSAs, doesn’t include a per-month minimum. For pre-tax FSA expenses and qualified dependent care expenses, Gusto offers FSA benefits starting at $20 per month and $4/month for each participating employee that you add.

Other Gusto Add-Ons

Beyond the already mentioned 401(k) retirement plans, college savings accounts, and HSA and FSA accounts, Gusto has a long list of add-on services and features. Gusto’s add-on features are generally only applicable to the service’s employee payment plans and exclude its Contractor Only plan.

Here’s a list of Gusto’s other add-on services:

• Workers Compensation
• International Contractor Payments (Available for Contractor Only plan, too)
• Life & disability insurance
• Health insurance broker integration (Plus plan only)
• R&D tax services (20% of tax credits used + fees)
• State tax registration
• HR Resource Center (Plus plan only)

Which Gusto Pricing Plan Is Right For Your Business?

It’s no question that you’re getting an integration-friendly, easy-to-use software with Gusto, no matter the plan you choose. But the additional fees and added features that come with Gusto’s more expensive tiers may not be worth it to newer, growing companies.

If you only pay contractors, the decision is easy, and you can choose the Gusto Contractor-Only plan with confidence. If you’re looking for a W-2 plan, we’ve put together a comparison table of Gusto’s different pricing plans to make it as easy as possible to choose the one that’s right for you.

The Bottom Line On How Much Gusto Will Cost You

Gusto is a quality software platform that blows most of the competition out of the water in terms of pricing. It easily integrates with several add-ons, for which it provides best-in-class customer support. To top it off, it scales with both new businesses that need a limited amount of resources as well as growing companies that have already automated many of their internal processes.

Here are the biggest takeaways from our Gusto price plan comparison and the main price factors to consider before you make your final purchase:

• Benefits such as 401(k) plans and health reimbursement carry premium prices
• The majority of HR resources only come with the Plus plan and up
• Best-in-class customer support and automated full-service payroll for all plans
• Free trial and no contract sign-on for any plan

Gusto is a company among very few others that understands that small businesses have limited resources to work with. The software provides flexible resources in all of its plans to automate payroll processes and streamlines ease of use with on-call customer support. Companies that want to automate and consolidate their internal HR resources and processes will probably want to consider the Plus plan.

Ultimately, though, Gusto’s three main plans are flexible enough to accommodate nearly any small business that wants a robust, affordable software solution to its business needs.

Gusto Pricing FAQs