Gusto VS ADP Comparison 2023

Across all their plans, Gusto and ADP offer full-service payroll for W-2 and 1099 employees in all 50 states and payroll automation. For small businesses with tipped workers, Gusto can automatically adjust wages to claim the tip credit and abide by FLSA minimum wage requirements.

Gusto can also handle garnishments and multiple pay rates and schedules, which can come in handy if employees earn a commission or bounce between multiple roles (host and server at a restaurant, for example). ADP Run only offers garnishment payment services for its three heftier plans (Enhanced, Complete, HR Pro) but also boasts a mobile app for running payroll on the go.

Both Gusto and ADP Run allow small businesses to use direct deposit and cash cards to pay their employees across all plans. With Gusto, the Simple, Plus, and Premium plans allow users to run payroll just two days before employees need to be paid.

The most notable difference in payment methods between the two is that Gusto supports in-house printing of paychecks, whereas ADP Run can only mail checks through the Enhanced, Complete, and HR Pro plans.

On paper, both Gusto and ADP deliver payroll reports with any plan. However, ADP reporting features go incredibly in-depth. ADP Run users can access dozens of payroll, taxes, benefits, and HR reports.

On the flip side, Gusto supports just 17 reports. Although it is considerably less extensive, users can still view and export reports related to payroll summaries, taxes, benefits, and employees.

Only Gusto’s priciest Premium plan comes with HR compliance help, policy guides, and templates, although its Plus plan users can add HR services to their pricing packages. Meanwhile, ADP Run has HR features available with all four plans. The Essential plan gives access to an HR newsletter and checkups.

Upgrading to more advanced plans can bring additional HR perks, including poster compliance assistance, background checks, a ZipRecruiter subscription, legal assistance, and employee training.

Employees can access payroll and HR resources and information with either software. After logging into Gusto’s employee portal, workers can look into pay stubs, time off, benefits, and upcoming paydays with just a few clicks.

ADP’s portal and mobile app — MyADP — helps employees access their pay stubs, tax information, and HR features, such as making PTO requests or updating personal information.

As a Gusto customer, you can reach support staff by phone, email, live chat, and social media from 7 AM – 6 PM (MST) Monday through Friday, including access to a dedicated support representative on the Premium plan. Gusto’s Help Center, Resource Center, and Ask Gusto how-to articles are loaded with useful tips and information.

ADP customers can reach a company representative 24/7 by phone and live chat. Visual learners will appreciate that ADP has its own YouTube channel with tutorials and resources.

Both Gusto and ADP offer plentiful integrations, including accounting programs QuickBooks and Xero. ADP also supports dozens of time and attendance software, such as ClockShark, Deputy, Homebase, and TSheets.

If small businesses don’t find Gusto’s time-tracking features up to par, they can also integrate with a more robust time-tracking app, such as TSheets (now QuickBooks Time). If you have in-house developers, Gusto offers API to support any further integration needs.

Both ADP and Gusto offer basic benefits administration features, including workers’ compensation, health insurance options, and 401(k) retirement plan management.

Gusto takes benefits administration a bit further by adding options for HSAs, 529 college savings accounts, FSAs, and commuter benefits.

Both Gusto and ADP offer payroll tax filing support. However, filing and distributing W-2s and 1099s to employees and contractors, respectively, will cost extra when using ADP.

Gusto is a solid payroll software option for small to mid-sized businesses looking for reliable payroll, HR tools, benefits administration, and tax support.

However, ADP Payroll may be a better fit for larger businesses that need stronger hiring and onboarding tools, a la carte add-on options, and health insurance benefits across all 50 states.

Both Gusto and ADP are great payroll software solutions.

Gusto is an excellent solution for small businesses looking for payroll software with robust payroll features, including unlimited payroll runs, garnishments, tip credits, multiple pay rates and schedules, check-printing, direct deposit, tax support, and much more. With Gusto, businesses can pay both contractors and employees, automate payroll, and enable employees to take control of their benefits and payments.

If you’re interested in looking at how Gusto handles small business payroll, check out our post on how to process Gusto payroll.

ADP Payroll is best suited to mid-sized to enterprise businesses looking for advanced payroll features, benefits administration, tax support, and HR tools. If ADP doesn’t fit your business’ payroll needs, there are plenty of payroll software alternatives to consider, including Gusto, QuickBooks Online Payroll, and Square Payroll.

Each payroll software has its strengths and weaknesses, but these ADP alternative payroll software options will offer your business all the essential payroll features needed to get your employees paid.

If you find that Gusto isn’t a good payroll solution for your business, there are several payroll software alternatives to Gusto that may be a better fit for your business. Some of the best Gusto alternatives include ADP Payroll, Paychex, and Paycor.

It’s challenging to determine whether Gusto is cheaper than ADP because ADP does not publish its prices online and creates a custom pricing plan for each business. So you’ll need to get a quote from ADP to compare costs effectively.

That said, Gusto’s pricing starts at $40/month plus $6 per employee, plus variable premiums for health benefits and other add-on costs. On the flip side, ADP users complain of hidden fees and add-on costs.

It depends. ADP offers several different tiers and products. However, the cheapest ADP payroll service is Roll by ADP, which starts at $29/month + $5/employee.

Gusto’s pricing starts at $40/month + $6/person paid per month for its full-service payroll plan. For businesses that are only paying contractors, Gusto offers a Contractors Only plan which costs $35/month + $5/contractor paid.