APS is a national workforce management and cloud-based HR solution provider. The platform includes core HR, payroll, time and attendance (including manager and employee self-service), compliance tools, and onboarding.
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Gusto
Score 8.9 out of 10
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Gusto offers payroll, benefits and compliance capabilities. Gusto is scaled for small to mid-sized businesses, and emphasizes an easy to use interface.
$49
per month
Paylocity
Score 8.2 out of 10
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Paylocity provides 24/7 access to your online payroll and human resource data management. Paylocity offers highly customizable payroll functionality, as well as HR, benefits administration, and time and talent management programs.
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Pricing
APS
Gusto
Paylocity
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Simple: A streamlined set of automatic payroll features and benefits integrations
$49/month + $6/mo per person
per month
Plus: Comprehensive payroll, benefits, and HR tools for employers building a great place to work
$80/month + $12/mo per person
per month
Premium: Scalable payroll and benefits, expert HR, and dedicated support for the complex needs of growing teams
$180/month + $22/mo per person
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
APS
Gusto
Paylocity
Free Trial
No
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Optional
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
The Payroll solution is offered as a standalone service, but additional solutions must be used in conjunction with the Payroll solution.
Gusto offers three pricing plans for payroll, benefits, and HR.
In my opinion, Gusto cannot compare to Paylocity in terms of service or premiums.
Verified User
Employee
Chose Gusto
I've used both Workday and Paylocity for years and they don't even compare. Between the mobile app and the website, everything feels seamless, well thought out, and easy to navigate. I'm so used to the frustration of navigating these apps, even after years of working with them. …
UKG is just annoying and hard to navigate. Paylocity is more similar to Gusto but just not quite as user friendly - thought Paylocity DOES do Payroll processing a bit earlier. Workday is the most frustrating site in the world.
Gusto is much easier to navigate, find what you are looking for, and much more appealing to the eyes. Once you know Paylocity it is fine but Gusto has a lower learning curve.
I could not understand the logic of these platforms and found myself constantly using the help articles, which were also not that helpful. They were very confusing, and I was often not sure if the things I had been trying to do were actually completed.
Our CEO selected Gusto after having some awful experiences with other payroll products. SO MUCH TIME was spent checking their numbers, fixing mistakes, sending info to employees because employees couldn't access things... ugh. Gusto has been a dream.
In terms of GUI, Gusto is well-made. It's much prettier than APS and Bamboo. Bamboo and APS both have a lot more capability and, thus, are a little more complicated to use. Bamboo does not have a built-in payroll, though they do have a partner. We ultimately ended up going with …
Comparable prices are overall with other payroll service companies. I can't do all the complicated payrolls like a few others, but overall good to work with 90% of our clients.
Gusto generally wins on price compared to its competitors. Some organizations nickel-and-dime on billing with headcount, states filed, etc. while Gusto's bills are very easy to calculate and understand. Competitors generally will handle state registrations that Gusto won't do, …
While Dayforce is more robust than Gusto in some ways, Gusto is a nicer overall experience. We all enjoy using the product. It was thoughtfully designed and that shows in the way the information is organized. It gives our employees a central place to find the data they need, …
It is better for growing organizations due to its integrations with Bswfit and BambooHR. It saves time when we do not manually enter benefits, which we had to do while we were on Gusto.
Gusto is horrible, and Paylocity blows it out of the water. Paycom and Paycor and comparable, but for us it came down to the price, and the relationship that we established with our account manager and sales representative. Mike Vezzoli was excellent and was incredibly genuine …
I think Paylocity is robust. While it still has some kinks to iron out, it is building out over time nicely. ADP is a really nice system, but a bit dated. PeopleAdmin requires an immense amount of time to build ones system. BambooHR and Gusto aren't as robust in my opinion.
ADP and Gusto, those are all my least favorite products. As it relates to continuity and streamlining of different modules, some of them do not operate the best, in my opinion from my previous experience. I don't know what they're doing now because I've been with Paylocity for …
Patriot Software, ADP and ADP Run, Paychex, Gusto, Sure Payroll. When it comes to the Batch creation and Processing, Paylocity is great. And when it comes to customer service and reachability, Paylocity is Best of Class! Sometimes, the User Experience and navigation is hard for …
Rippling and Paycor were close contenders when we evaluated a new tool, but ultimately, I feel confident we made the right choice in selecting Paylocity for our growing business. We had about 115 employees when we migrated, and we have 150+ today across 4 countries, and the …
Products have a lot of the same functions, so I believe the key is to pick a product and stick with it - commit to learning how it functions, and train employees to do the same. Flip-flopping between products is the worst you can do.
We like Paylocity best. Overall we've found Paylocity's system to be more intuitive, flexible and full featured than some of these other systems. We also like their high level of support Paylocity provides, and proactive publishing of guidance when rules change around …
Paylocity was much cheaper and appeared to have a much more streamlined approach compared to these other systems. I actually was not at the organization during the Paylocity decision making process, but our major concern was cost and ease of use and Paylocity has not …
Paylocity stacks up a lot higher than these two platforms. We had to use two platforms and as we made the shift to Paylocity we now get everything in one place. We are slowly Integrating all aspects of the organization onto Paylocity, and hope to continue to adapt and utilize …
Some of these other platforms were less expensive than Paylocity but lacked the integrations we sought. They also did not have the customer support and knowledge base Paylocity does. The demo for Paylocity was far more robust and curtailed our pain points than any other demo …
APS Payroll is an easy to use payroll system, and integrates well with some things such as the APS Hire feature, which handles onboarding, and the eSelfServe timeclock feature. It exports well to Quickbooks, but is only ok with NetSuite. (It works but is a completely manual process and takes a lot of setup.) Our tax registration and filing has been fine and we're always apprised of any tax discrepancies such as small Unemployment overages/underages when filed compared to what was withheld.
Gusto is well-suited for small businesses looking for a one-stop platform for payroll, tax-related tasks, and onboarding. It has many automated features that make tasks related to running a business/running an S-Corp simpler. I have not tried any other similar platforms, so I am unsure how it compares, but the pricing Gusto offers feels reasonable compared to other providers.
I have already recommended Paylocity to another company and they are using it. The ability to streamline multiple platforms into one is the key feature as it saves time. Also, the speed of loading, the customer service help, and the ease of payroll processing are all reasons why we like utilizing Paylocity. It would be nice to have a referral bonus program as I was told there wasn't one when I referred the company and they signed up
It's fast and intuitive. Our previous contractors were ADP and Paychex and neither were intuitive. Our payroll runs have less errors now than with previous vendors. Payroll prep time is down from 5 hours with ADP to 2 hours with APS for the HR Manager.
The limiters are great. I'm always afraid of that error that no one caught. Let's assume that you add a $200 limiter to overtime. Any time that a staff member is about to receive more than $200 in overtime for that pay period, a red flag goes up for the HR manager to double check.
We have 3 programs in public schools that block certain ports. APS has a 2nd feature using GPS so that staff can only check in for their shift while they are in the designated GPS range. Great for someone who has to report to a remote location. Just add the GPS coordinates and they can't check until they get to the project.
Payroll is made pretty easy. I love that we have the ability to log into payroll, we just upload the information from commissions, things like that where there are exceptions to a regular payroll run. It may make it very easy to do that, just a quick upload. Additionally, when we're in the payroll grid, it gives us the ability to just make quick changes to people's pay or their tax schedule, tax withholdings, things like that without having to go through a lot of different screens. It's just very easy to access just for the click of a button. Love that.
We talked about performance reviews, talked about payroll with benefits administration, it allows us to utilize EDI feeds with our benefit vendors so it creates a seamless, but we just enter the information into Paylocity and then it seamlessly provides that information to our vendors. That's been really helpful. And adjusting benefits is also very easy within Paylocity. I love the recent edition of compensation analysis information, so I'm able to go into the compensation module and look for jobs that are similar to a job title at our company. I can enter the job description, I give them what state that the person or the job is in, and it pops out compensation data. It gives me different options, so titles that might be similar. So if there's not something that's an exact fit, I'm able to find something really, really close. It's been a huge upgrade because before that I was having to use a different vendor and paying $400 per job and now it's significantly less expensive to Paylocity and I'm still getting great quality data. It's been very helpful.
Reporting - We have six different business units and the reporting is separate for all three. Most reporting I do requires information from all business units so am running six reports and then copying and pasting to get the report I need.
Multi-state taxes - We have a number of employees who live in New York and work in New Jersey. APS OnLine is designed to accommodate one state withholding so ability to have "worked in" state and "lived in" state taxes withheld went away. This was a shortfall.
The Carrier connection setup took much longer than expected. After a year, we are still having some issues with some items transferring over to the GL.
The CA overtime calculation does not calculate after 8 hours per day, only on the 40 per week so we override each week.
Reporting - when running Benefit reports, it recognizes employees who formerly carried the plan but may have dropped it. To get around this, we have to delete off the employee's record so the history is not readily available.
Gusto upsold us labor law posters, but I later found them available for free online. Since we’re a fully remote team, I had to manually download and distribute them digitally. It would be much more efficient if Gusto offered free, auto-distributed digital posters tailored to remote compliance.
Benefits setup is unintuitive for startups
While our rep was helpful, navigating the benefits system felt complex and not tailored to early-stage companies. More guided flows or simplified options for small, remote startups would be a big help.
Limited dashboard customization for remote workflows
As a fully online company, we’d benefit from dashboard options that highlight relevant tools for remote operations—like compliance tracking, digital communications, or onboarding checklists.
I'd like to see a forum in which users could discuss the platform, raise both questions and concerns. I feel that changes are done without enough input from users.
Improving hold time recently with customer service.
Accuracy of new 'graphic' payroll report - the new report is not complete when payroll is done, so it is unusable from my perspective. I rely on the preprocess payroll register. This is one of those 'improvements' that have not been positive in my experience.
I have been using the system for over a year now and feel more comfortable with the functionality of it. I have just recently implemented the benefit administration portion.
Unless they break it, I'm never leaving. It's just too easy. Gusto is also really affordable, and for what I pay, it's worth having the historical record within the system. I like that I can go back and pull up W2's for year's past. This sort of easy access reporting, has been helpful especially when getting reports for PPP loans.
There are several technical issues we have experienced this past year with the employee onboarding process that we are still waiting to have resolved. Overall our experience with Paylocity has been positive, and we love how user-friendly and easy to navigate the system is. It has made all of our HR processes much more streamlined and efficient.
The APS Payroll software is very easy to use, and it is easy to train new employees on it. The APS Payroll support team is very helpful and response time is quick. It is easy to enter/change employee information, adjust salaries and benefits, etc. New features have also been added that makes it even better, such as being able to set up your own income/deduction items.
Wonderful overall usability – especially for the new business owner. The user interface is clean and intuitive, so it's easy to find what you're looking for. They also have great explanation pages ingrained into the process, so if you get stuck knowing what to do next, there's a link right there to walk you through the process!
I simply love Paylocity! We have run into some issues, but no company is going to be perfect. The flow of the modules is really nice, no double entry of data. The Time & Labor flows into Payroll nicely and Benefits flows into the employees Pay Setup which goes onto the employees paycheck with little to no issues.
Over the last 3 years, we've only had one major service issue that rendered Airbase unusable for us for about 24 hours. That said, they navigated the SVB bank crisis very well and made sure funds were available during that time.
We had some minor hiccups throughout the year but they have all been fixable. Paylocity integrates well with our 401k provider, Principal, and our benefits, OneDigital. It makes it simple to house everything and have it all connected. It doesn't slow anything down to have Principal integrated. It makes it more efficient
I had to learn APS on my own, and the support team held my hand. They are still there when I have an occasional question. Anytime I need support, I can call my rep or send an email and help is on the way, without failure. The support team is awesome
Gusto's customer service has really deteriorated lately and they seem to have really changed their focus. It used to be when you called you were routed to an individual who knew about payroll, benefits, reporting, etc. but now you get someone who seems to have not received the correct training. My last call about a dismissal payroll took me over an hour of my time and the person still could not help me and finally transferred me to someone else.
It is very hard to get answers to your questions, you cannot speak to someone without days of requesting assistance or answers and then eventually can get a call back and then it is usually resolved fairly quickly. But NOT easy to get that help.
I didn't have in-person training, but I'm sure it was just as great as any other training/assistance Paylocity provides. Paylocity customer service is always available. You never have to be on hold and their answers are always accurate and timely. Documents in the help section are helpful as well. My in-person training was conducted y one of our employees who was involved in the initial set-up and training of all employees. She was excellent.
Our rep was very thorough and made sure we fully understood the software before turning us loose alone. Paylocity was very good to do periodic check ins to ensure we understood the features and answered any questions we had. The training reps are very well trained and are very patient with clients.
It would have been helpful to understand the phases of the implementation up front so I could have prepared differently for enrollments, billing, and transfer of information to payroll. At the end of the day, I'm happy with the selection and the system and anticipate I will like it better as we go along. We have done a number of other system implementations in the past few years, and this has been pretty painless, however, I've had a few surprises.
Reach out to support immediately if you are having trouble setting up Gusto. Rather than being confused and trying to figure it out yourself, it's much better to talk to someone who knows what they are doing. Save yourself time and frustration and reach out to support
Implementation was a bit bumpy and Paylocity team not always available for next steps and/or questions. I feel like Paylocity could have done a better job in their fact finding as far as what we were currently doing, our payroll policies and needs, etc. so that we would have run into less issues as we moved forward.
We had used ADP for years and had always struggled with their customer service. With over 20 locations (20+ W2s, quarterly filings, etc) we had a lot of questions. We would have to call and sit on hold for long periods of time to talk to someone who couldn't always answer our questions. Then we would get different answers from different people or have to re-explain our issue. It was a major time suck for my employees and they dreaded having to call all of the time. For us - the final straws for us to switch providers were: +Numerous year end filings with incorrect names and addresses (they couldn't keep our 20+ locations separate even though our paperwork was completed correctly) +Incorrect SUI rates for several locations that resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in overpayments which was a lot of money for small hotels. We had sent in numerous requests for them to fix this but it never happened +Lack of care - even though we were having all of these issues, nobody would work with us to get them all resolved and make sure to remedy the situation. We had to seek out a manager to get them resolved but even after this, we still had more issues. Overall - DON'T stick with ADP or even think about switching to them. They might be able to slash prices but their poor customer service and lack of care will cost you in the end. It's not worth it. APS does everything ADP had the capability of but we don't have the errors or headaches we did before. I am really looking forward to this year end!
It's been a while since I used QuickBooks for payroll, but it doesn't even come close to it. Gusto is infinitely easier, allowing for employee time tracking, handling calculations and payments of payroll and payroll taxes, managing regulatory compliance in the background, and more. I had a lot of moments using QuickBooks Payroll where I thought, "Am I even doing this right?" — it felt like you had to have additional knowledge of HR regulations in your state to do everything correctly. Gusto has it ALL handled so you can focus your time on higher-impact tasks in your business.
ADP was very similar to the way Paylocity is, but I seem to favor Paylocity to be honest. Miter was VERY difficult to use and set up. I wouldn't ever consider using that software ever again. I didn't like a lot of aspect Miter had to offer either. Paylocity would always be my choice.
We have gone from a medium sized company to a larger company with no issues whatsoever with Paylocity being able to keep up or do what we need it to do for the size of our needs. In fact, it does more than we even use at this juncture
Some are knowledgable others not as much and sometimes instead of helping you fix the issue will just give you some directions and expect you to try to figure it out yourself. Also, when your Account Manager needs to escliate the issue to another group, it can take a long time for them to get to your issue and there's no commuication.
We were able to transition quickly and continue to successfully hire and onboard new hires for several Clubs that opened within weeks of moving to APS.
We do struggle a bit with the ease of reporting simply because our locations are all under separate EIN and that can make it difficult to easily combine data queried under custom reports, so the volume of reporting that I might wish to be able to push through weekly in order to help address 'real time' trends is not always available.
The lack of effective dating for position and wage changes does mean that HR and available APS data is not 'real time' accurate and that HR does need to return to the system to update changes well after-the-fact, which is not ideal.
I am not involved enough to know well, but I would say that Gusto has saved me about 1-2 hours in my onboarding process with my new company compared to my past experiences trying to onboard with ADP. I have also finished the process and am not frustrated like usual.
Paylocity has helped us with recruitment by streamlining the process and making it efficient. It is saving me time.
Paylocity has also helped us with compensation so we can create a fair and robust compensation plan.
I also like using the data insights feature, which helps me keep track of over time, payroll and benefits costs, and retention numbers. This also saves me time as it is all in one place.
