Gusto vs. QuickBooks — Which Is the Best Payroll Software?

While Gusto and QuickBooks have fairly similar pricing, their middle tier being the same price, Gusto offers a custom-priced enterprise and a free contractor plan. Comparatively, QuickBooks is slightly more expensive and does not offer a custom pricing option. 

Both services offer the essentials for running and automating payroll, preparing for tax season, and providing a self-service solution for employees. However, Gusto offers a slightly more robust suite of features, especially for the price. Including the ability to add additional features to any package. 

Gusto offers a myriad of add-on services for everything from healthcare benefits to tax credit assistance to retirement savings features. It is possible to bundle other services with QuickBooks payroll, however, it is costly and offers less customization opportunities. 

Both platforms offer an easy-to-learn interface – even for non-technical users. Whether you opt for Gusto or QuickBooks, you can expect helpful step-by-step instructions and onboarding checklists to make adopting the platform simple for you and your team. 

QuickBooks and Gusto both offer self-service portals for employees to access and manage their documents, such as W-2s and paychecks, on their own. However, the two services do differ in additional features within the self-service portals. 

While QuickBooks offers chat 24/7 and Gusto only during work hours, their customer support options are fairly comparable. Both services offer phone support on workdays, whereas Gusto offers chat and email during those hours as well. 

Gusto is used by entrepreneurs who:

• Run small- to mid-sized businesses 
• Need a comprehensive solution for employee management 
• Prefer an easy-to-use, intuitive interface 

Here are some verified Pipedrive reviews (from TrustRadius) by customers who used this software to help their business:

“Gusto is well suited for any company looking to outsource payroll, regardless of size. It is incredibly easy to use and interfaces with my accountant, taking extra work off my plate.”

"If I can do it, you can too. I am not tech-savvy at all, and this was truthfully just so easy and quick to learn. My employees love it because they can log in and get their information without having to ask me as well.”

“Gusto is incredible for our small team. I don't know enough about the options offered to large teams to know if it's well suited for companies with 100s of employees - but for our size, it's truly a flexible, cost-effective, excellence solution. Our payroll is not highly complex, so I'm unsure of how the solution would fare with a wide variety of employee and pay classifications, but the system seems prepared to handle it.”

QuickBooks is used by entrepreneurs who:

• Have small teams 
• Are already users of the QuickBooks suite of products 
• Need payroll software with accounting features available 

Here are some verified QuickBooks reviews (from Capterra) by customers who used this software to help their business:

"Quickbooks Payroll has been easy to use. We just recently started using Quickbooks for payroll. If I would have known how easy it was, I would have switched along time ago. I do not like change much, so if it works why switch. Quickbooks has been working well for our business."

"Our company started with Quickbooks Payroll 5 years ago with 2 employees and we are still using them today with 25 employees. It is simple enough to use for a start up company, but has the features that are needed to comply with required regulations as the company grows."

"Though [QuickBooks] payroll makes it easy to file everything, you need to make sure you set everything up correctly. You have to do some homework on your end to make sure you fully understand all your obligations because some taxes are not [handled] completely by QB like state unemployment or local taxes."

Gusto and QuickBooks both offer competitive pricing for their services, though QuickBooks' least expensive package is slightly more expensive than Gusto's. Overall, the two services boast feature-heavy packages built to make payroll easy for business owners, here’s how the two payroll services’ packages match up against each other.

Simple ($40/month + $6/month/user)

Notable Features:

• Full-service single-state payroll, including W-2s and 1099s
• Self-service and employee profiles 
• Gusto-brokered health insurance administration 
• Employee financial benefits 

Plus ($80/month + $12/month/user)

Notable Features:

• Full-service multi-state payroll, including W-2s and 1099s
• Workforce costing and reports 
• Employee surveys, insights, and performance reviews 
• Next-day direct deposit 

Premium (Custom pricing)

Notable Features:

• Dedicated customer success manager 
• HR resource center 
• Compliance alerts 
• R&D tax credit discount 

Contractor Only ($6/month/contractor)

Notable Features:

• Unlimited contractor payments across all 50 states 
• 4-day direct deposit 
• New hire reporting in required states 
• 1099-NECs at the end of the year 

Payroll Core ($45/month + $6/month/user)

Notable Features:

• Full-service payroll, including automated taxes and forms 
• Automated payroll
• 1099 e-filing and payments 
• Next-day direct deposit 

Payroll Premium ($80/Month + $8/month/user)

Notable Features:

• Full-service and automated payroll 
• Next-day direct deposit
• Ability to connect three sales channels 
• Time tracking on the go 

Payroll Elite ($125/Month + $10/month/user)

Notable Features:

• Full-service and automated payroll 
• Same-day direct deposit 
• Time and project tracking features
• Tax penalty protection and HR advisory services 

Both Gusto and QuickBooks offer helpful payroll services for businesses and their teams to better manage payments and prepare for tax season. However, Gusto’s offerings are slightly more appealing for their lower cost, customizable packages, and feature-rich packages. 

Gusto’s payroll service boasts helpful features and integrations with several packages to choose from to suit your business size and needs. Try it today.