Gusto Review 2025: How to Use + Pros and Cons By a CPA Who Uses It

As a CPA who has used Gusto for the past eight or so years to run payroll for both my own companies as well as my clients’ companies, it seemed like the right time to put together a comprehensive Gusto review so you can know if Gusto is the right payroll software for your small business.

I have used Gusto to run payroll for over 100 employees over the years in over a dozen different states, and while there are some things that you will have to handle yourself, Gusto does most of the legwork automatically so that you can focus on running and growing your business, not preparing Form 941 and other payroll schedules for the IRS.

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Hi! My name is Logan Allec. I'm a CPA and use Gusto for my own firm's payroll.

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What Is Gusto?

Gusto is an online payroll and human resources solution designed for small- to medium-sized businesses, from the solopreneur S corporation owner to the mid-sized C corporation with 100 employees.

It’s designed so that even non-accountant business owners can run their own payroll and administer benefits such as:

• A 401(k) plan
• Health insurance benefits
• Paid-time off
• Sick leave
• And more!

What Does Gusto Do?

Gusto’s not free, and you’re not crazy to want to know exactly what Gusto is going to do for you.

So here you go — here’s exactly what Gusto does for a busy business owner like you.

Run Payroll

Primarily — and this is probably what most of you are wondering — Gusto runs your regular payroll for you.

If your employees are paid a flat salary per year, you can even run your payroll on “auto-pilot” (Gusto has creatively called this feature Payroll on AutoPilot), meaning that Gusto will automatically run your payroll for you every pay period.

Of course, if you have hourly employees who work variable hours every week, you will need to approve their hours (yes, you can track their time natively in Gusto) before you can run payroll.

The same is true if you have employees with irregular compensation — such as bonuses and commissions — that you have to manually input.

Takes Care of Payroll Compliance

Another thing that Gusto is great at is taking care of payroll-related compliance for you.

This includes such things as:

• Filing new hire reports with the state of hire for new employees
• Filing your federal payroll tax returns, such as Form 940 and Form 941
• Remitting your payroll taxes to the government

This is where so many businesses who try to do payroll “the old-fashioned way” — i.e., by themselves without the aid of an accountant or a payroll provider — get behind, leading to unfortunate fines, penalties, and interest.

Issues Your W-2s and 1099s

At the beginning of every year, the IRS requires your business to issue W-2s to your employees and 1099s to your independent contractors as well as file all these forms with the IRS itself.

Gusto will automatically file these forms with the IRS and can either electronically deliver your W-2s and 1099s to your workers — if they consented to electronic delivery — or mail the forms to them for a small additional fee.

Administers (Some) Benefits

Gusto allows for the native integration of some benefits, including:

• 401(k) plan provided through Guidelines
• Workers’ compensation insurance
• Health insurance
• Paid time-off
• Sick leave

How Much Does Gusto Cost?

Gusto has a variety of plans at different price points to suit the specific needs of your business.

The table below shows the different plans.

Gusto Pros and Cons

Gusto Pros: What I Like About Gusto

Here are my top three pros about Gusto.

Gusto Pro #1: Easy to use.

The first — and to me, most important — pro of Gusto is that it’s easy to use once you’ve gotten everything set up.

From running payroll to onboarding new employees, most of the normal things that a small business owner (or human resources administrator) will use Gusto for will be fairly intuitive and self-explanatory.

Gusto Pro #2: Employee self-service (to a degree).

Gusto also offers a degree of employee self-service for things like:

• Requesting time off
• Tracking time
• Update personal and banking information
• Obtain and download tax forms

Gusto Pro #3: Transparent pricing

It’s not uncommon for payroll software providers to keep their pricing hidden — they provide you with a custom quote after they learn a bit more about your business.

This can result — in my opinion, having been on the receiving end of these sales pitches — the commission-based salesperson (also known as your “account executive”) trying to gouge you for all they can get to juice their commission.

This is not the case with Gusto: As described earlier in this article, Gusto has several pricing plans available that all involve some combination of a base monthly fee plus a per-person monthly fee.

Gusto Cons: Where I Think Gusto Can Improve

Gusto Con #1: Somewhat pricy new state registration.

Although the specific pricing varies by state, Gusto’s fees to register your business in a new state for income tax and unemployment purposes are on the high side.

The reason for the elevated fees is that Gusto outsources this work to its partner Corpnet.

Now, you could do this yourself, but some business owners would prefer to just have their payroll provider handle it to ensure that nothing is missed.

If you plan on just operating in a handful of states, this shouldn’t be much of an issue; but if you plan on expanding to all 50 states, these fees could add up.

Gusto Con #2: No room for very custom benefit plans.

If you offer health insurance and a 401(k) with matching to your employees, Gusto has you covered through integration partners.

But if you have a very bespoke benefits plan, you may end up pulling your hair out trying to get everything to work, flow, and be reported properly with Gusto.

Gusto Con #3: More benefits, more fees.

While Gusto’s pricing is transparent for the Gusto platform itself, fees can add up if you want to pay for the additional benefits programs that Gusto provides through various partners (such as Guideline for 401(k) plans).

Gusto Review: The Bottom Line

There’s a reason why I as a CPA have stuck with Gusto for the better part of a decade: It fits my needs for a fair price.

Then again, my business is fairly straightforward from a payroll perspective: My staff are only in three states, a few are salary, the rest are hourly (and able to track their time using Gusto time tracking), and we don’t have a whole lot of variable compensation.

Additionally, the benefits I provide are fairly standard: health insurance, a 401(k) with matching, etc.

So Gusto does the trick for me.

Curious if Gusto would work for your situation? Feel free to leave me a detailed comment in the comment section below, letting me know about your specific business situation so I can share my thoughts about whether Gusto would be a good fit for you or not!