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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    BrightHR

    Score7.9 out of 10
    N/ABritish company BrightHR offers a human resources platform which helps replace paper documents with edocuments and contains features for managing employee scheduling and ROTA, sick leave and tardiness, vacation and holiday shift planning, as well as providing employment law legal advice.N/A

    Gusto

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AGusto 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

    Pricing
    BrightHRGusto
    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
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    BrightHRGusto
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsPrices start at £4.50 (per employee/per month)Gusto offers three pricing plans for payroll, benefits, and HR.
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    BrightHRGusto
    Human Resource Management
    Comparison of Human Resource Management features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    7.3
    41 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    Employment history7.435 Ratings00 Ratings
    Job profiles and administration7.633 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.519 Ratings00 Ratings
    Organization and location management6.531 Ratings00 Ratings
    Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.418 Ratings00 Ratings
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    7.5
    16 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Gusto
    9.1
    612 Ratings
    10% above category average
    Pay calculation7.214 Ratings9.5588 Ratings
    Support for external payroll vendors7.28 Ratings8.58 Ratings
    Salary revision and increment management8.29 Ratings9.0463 Ratings
    Reimbursement management7.49 Ratings9.0197 Ratings
    Benefit plan administration00 Ratings8.6417 Ratings
    Direct deposit files00 Ratings9.7593 Ratings
    Leave and Attendance Management
    Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    7.3
    53 Ratings
    12% below category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    Approval workflow6.651 Ratings00 Ratings
    Balance details8.045 Ratings00 Ratings
    Annual carry-forward and encashment7.526 Ratings00 Ratings
    Employee Self Service
    Comparison of Employee Self Service features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    8.4
    52 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    View and generate pay and benefit information7.617 Ratings00 Ratings
    Update personal information8.750 Ratings00 Ratings
    View company policy documentation9.048 Ratings00 Ratings
    HR Reporting
    Comparison of HR Reporting features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    7.6
    25 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    Pre-built reports7.625 Ratings00 Ratings
    Onboarding
    Comparison of Onboarding features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    7.4
    16 Ratings
    8% below category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    New hire portal6.914 Ratings00 Ratings
    Manager tracking tools7.913 Ratings00 Ratings
    Performance Management
    Comparison of Performance Management features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    7.9
    19 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    Review reminders8.119 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multiple review frequency7.716 Ratings00 Ratings
    Recruiting / ATS
    Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of BrightHR and Gusto
    Feature
    BrightHR
    6.5
    14 Ratings
    20% below category average
    Gusto
    -
    Ratings
    Job Requisition Management6.27 Ratings00 Ratings
    Applicant Tracking6.26 Ratings00 Ratings
    Notifications and Alerts7.113 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    BrightHRGusto
    Small Businesses
    UZIO
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Patriot Payroll
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Zoho People
    Score8.6 out of 10
    APS
    Score6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    PeopleStrong
    Score10 out of 10
    ADP Streamline Payroll
    Score6.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    BrightHRGusto
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.5
    (57 ratings)
    9.1
    (634 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (14 ratings)
    Usability
    7.3
    (42 ratings)
    9.4
    (458 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.5
    (4 ratings)
    5.1
    (27 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    BrightHRGusto
    Likelihood to Recommend
    BrightHR
    I feel Bright HR is well suited to most small/medium sized businesses where they have a 'straight' forward resource set up. For larger businesses or for complex businesses similar to ourselves, where we operate 24 hours per day, rotational shift patterns, ambulatory staff, locums etc...we have to 'fudge' the way we use the information sometimes to make it work for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    I think Gusto is well-suited for any business, big or small, to use for accounting purposes. It makes it easy to keep track of many things, such as pay stubs, benefits, paid time off, and much more. Where I could see it being less useful is maybe for enterprise businesses with way more employees.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    BrightHR
    • BLIP is working very well. Staff find it easy to use and the geo-fencing that can be set up is very useful.
    • Reporting, in particular reporting of Absence. We run this monthly and the information we can download is flexible and useful.
    • Sick analysis - helps in controlling absence.
    • Holiday planning and authorization is very helpful and details including date booked helps manage requests.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    • New employee/contractor onboarding - all the documents are stored and easily accessible (the same goes for off-boarding).
    • A one-click option for syncing hours worked with payroll.
    • The option to run payroll on auto-pilot.
    • Ensuring I'm tax compliant with the states we have employees in.
    • Always having digital records of payroll runs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    BrightHR
    • Notifications for requests should be optional based on individual employees. For example an admin won’t necessarily want every staff members leave requests by email and push notification. The settings only currently allow for notifications for everyone or no one. Being assigned as a manager may not allow data viewing required of wider staff.
    • Toil should automatically be accrued into a balance if the employees clocked in time amounts to more than the target hours. It shouldn’t have to be calculated and requested.
    • When reviewing hours worked for the week, the history calculation should take into account approved leave and sickness etc. I have a staff members target of 37 hours, but if their hours show 29 hours worked then I have to work out why they worked less. It should account for this if the absence is approved.
    Read full review
    Gusto
    • Digital compliance tools for remote teams
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    BrightHR
    It's not entirely my decision - we are members of a 'community' of veterinary practices who have signed up to the contract with pensinusla and have bright hr as part of that contract however, I am usually involved in the tender process as I am one of the biggest users of both bright hr and the services from peninsula
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    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.
    Read full review
    Usability
    BrightHR
    Onboarding took too long due to our unique working ways however the support team tried their hardest to make it work (still ongoing) In particular Leyla S. who has been our point of contact, she has ensured our issues are addressed and always follows up.
    Read full review
    Gusto
    Gusto is pretty user-friendly, and the website is easy to navigate overall. They also offer good, responsive customer support and have helpful articles available when needed. So far, I have not had any major issues with the platform and am overall very happy with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    BrightHR
    The team are proactive, having an advocacy team is just amazing and a great way to really understand their product roadmap and have input into useful features or feedback
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    BrightHR
    it was fairly easy to do but timely as i had to enter everything from scratch - i didn't at the time realise how important it was to set up the variable or fixed working pattern correctly given future changes as this is very tricky once it has been set up and i wished i had been aware that sometimes you can't make future changes without deleting the whole profile and starting again
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    BrightHR
    I chose BrightHR as it offered a one-stop platform for HR management for which we have dedicated UK and ROI HR specialists who not only give HR advice but also write policies and handbooks, etc. They are a one-stop-shop, which was very important as when I signed the contract I did not have an HR person in my team and they were essentially my back office. Also, by signing up, I got access to Bright Safe too; which is great as again it's a one-stop-shop for Health and Safety in the workplace. So I can roll out toolbox talks, training, and accident management.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    While I never actually got to the point of trying out ADP, I had several conversations with an ADP representative, and it seemed that they would be able to provide the same (if not less) level of service for a significantly higher price
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    BrightHR
    • Able to reduce one member of staff in personnel from 5 days to 3 days.
    • Able to reduce time spent by payroll on holiday records significantly and improve accuracy significantly.
    • Able to improve control of sick absence and improve record keeping.
    • BLIP meant we did not need to buy expensive attendance software.
    • Looking at possible use of payroll and other aspects of Bright HR not used at present.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Gusto
    • Time tracking + payroll calculations me 30-60 minutes every time I run payroll.
    • Integrated workers' comp, so I didn't have to find an outside carrier and get quotes—it's all taken care of in the same platform.
    • Improved employee experience with onboarding.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    BrightHR Screenshots

    Screenshot of BrightHR dashboardScreenshot of Brainbox+Screenshot of Bright ExchangeScreenshot of BrightSafeScreenshot of PoP by BrightHRScreenshot of BrightHR Payroll

    Gusto Screenshots

    Screenshot of Gusto's automated payrollScreenshot of the time-off tracking interfaceScreenshot of the source of truth for HR data