GoCo vs. Gusto vs. Paychex

It's great for a small company who needs an easy way to save employee data. It's harder to use if you have complex needs or compliance. I often find I know more about HR-related things than our customer support representative, and they're unable to share how GoCo will comply with legal changes.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Paychex is great option for smaller employers as the site offers perk benefits to employees at no cost to the employer. I don't see anything like this being offered at competitors such as ADP RUN/Total Source, Bamboo, Trinet, Justworks or Gusto. Also, the initial set up is relatively easy and the dedicated support for set up is great along with our regular dedicated payroll support.

Incentivized

• Support staff is ready to respond with any questions I have.
• Communication about new offerings and ways to make things easier is great.
• Site is very user friendly and easy to find what I'm/staff is looking for.

• 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

• It provides a well account of Retirement Plan Account Information.
• Alerts are sent to email when there is new information to access.
• Employee access both online and thru app.
• Paperless options.
• Easy and quick access to paystubs and tax forms.
• Easy employee retirement management.

Incentivized

• Handling exceptions for staff PTO requests for employees in their 90 day probationary period
• Ease of managing different hourly work week exceptions

Incentivized

• 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

• I understand logging you out is a security function, but I'd prefer it not to log you out so soon.
• The training we received for the team's meeting was subpar, in my opinion. Probably better geared for people with little to no computer experience. Very slow pace; we could have easily received all of this from some tutorials in a few minutes.

Incentivized

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.

Overall I like the features that Paychex Flex offers. I am sure that there are other features that I am unaware of, so I am excited to see if there is more that Flex is capable of to make my job easier. The basic features are really user friendly and easy to access. If there ever is an issue customer service is great

Incentivized

We are very pleased with the product and the support we receive when we have a question or a request. We have been assigned specific support members who know our business and our expectations. Our employees find the platform to be user-friendly and self-explanatory which reduces the number of questions that our HR team has to field.

Incentivized

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!

Incentivized

Employee usability is very good and user-friendly. For the most part, the employer usability is good, but for complicated rules and policies, it requires technical assistance, which in our case, was clunky and slow in implementation. Once is place, everything works as it should

Incentivized

We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.

Incentivized

Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.

Incentivized

GoCo has done a great job of being responsive to us in working through issues in the system.

Incentivized

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

Chat has been helpful but the person I chat with isn't always able to help me with my questions. Phone support is ok, depending on your payroll specialist. We have a great one currently, but the few before that were never available and did not return calls.

Incentivized

We did online training only

Incentivized

It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.

Incentivized

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

Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.

Incentivized

GoCo was my first choice during the selection process. It was the most user friendly. It has the cleaned appearance. The staff was easy to communicate with. And as a small non-profit, the pricing was good.

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.

Incentivized

We still use QB Desktop Pro to maintain a Check Register / Overall Balance for the company, but once having tried QB Payroll Online for about 3 months prior to finding Paychex Flex I can tell you that there's just no comparison. QB online is VERY EXPENSIVE and not so user-friendly. I hated every minute of those 6 payrolls we ran through QB online.

Incentivized

I generally do payroll at the office, however I have had to go remote due to internet issues and also had to take payroll on vacation with me. Very easy to log in wherever you are and manage your TAA and payroll

Incentivized

• We save so much time when onboarding new employees
• We look much more organized and professional in the new hire process (because we are, thanks to GoCo)

• 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.

Incentivized

• With Paychex Flex we have been able to improve our compliance with required documentation for new/rehires
• Moving everyone to direct deposit and mobile clock in/out eliminated lines at punching stations and paycheck pickup stations
• Lost checks is a thing of the past

Incentivized