Guideline vs. Rippling

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Guideline
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Guideline headquartered in San Mateo offers a cloud-based 401k management software for businesses priced on a per employee basis.N/A
Rippling
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Rippling HR is a human resources platform for managing employee records, onboarding, benefits, time and attendance, compliance, and other core people operations in one system. It serves as the HR layer of the broader Rippling platform, giving companies a central place to manage the employee lifecycle while connecting HR data to payroll, IT, and finance workflows when needed.
$8
starting price per user, per month
Pricing
GuidelineRippling
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Recommended
$8.00
starting price per user, per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GuidelineRippling
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFor additional pricing details visit the Rippling pricing page.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GuidelineRippling
Considered Both Products
Guideline
Chose Guideline
Guideline is useful to keep track of employee retirement portfolios and keep the information visible instantly for the employees.
It handles contributions towards the retirement account.
Chose Guideline
We went with Guideline as it was more affordable than alternatives. I believe this ended up being a terrible mistake. Invest in a stronger 401k partner. Human Interest was the other provider we were considering. I don't know if closing an account would have been as …
Chose Guideline
We selected Guideline due to their relationship with Gusto, our payroll service. However, we did review alternative options for our 401k program and found them very competitive as to price and quality. We were thinking about going with one of the bigger companies like Schwab, …
Chose Guideline
Not listed, but I have used ADP Retirement services and we switched vendors to Empower. Both vendors have much more robust employee tools to calculate dollars needed at retirement and how percentage changes in the 401(k) allow for changes later in life at retirement. In …
Chose Guideline
The only other employer retirement planning system I've use is Voya. I felt much more in the dark about how my financial planning was working, and honestly didn't even know how much money I had deposited until I left for my new job. I also had no clue on what my risk level was …
Chose Guideline
Guideline has a great interface, but with a system like ADP you can have full integration that is more agile since it is all housed within one system!
Chose Guideline
We didn't find any viable competitive option for Gusto that had the trifecta of low fees, Gusto integration and that handled all the plan management. There were plenty of other companies like Sharebuilder, Fidelity or Vanguard (to name a few) that do have low cost 401(k) …
Rippling
Chose Rippling
Rippling is hands down the best in the competition. ADP can be slow and laggy while Rippling makes it seamless. It was almost impossible to find time off and paystubs at times with ADP and Rippling made it so easy for me and my other employees to stay on top of everything.
Chose Rippling
Rippling is miles ahead in intuitive, modern design. Maas360 feels outdated and makes connecting devices and tracking them a puzzle to be put together. Rippling makes assigning simple and easy.
Chose Rippling
It blows it out of the water. ADP is one of the worst product with the worst support I have ever encountered. The switch to Rippling is one of the best moved I have made.
Chose Rippling
Some features have been helpful but for the most part the features are comparable from the employee perspective. For the finance and operations teams I know the Rippling has been easier to manage from a customer support and service angle, in terms of more complicated payroll …
Chose Rippling
Compared very well, I don't see any differences.
Chose Rippling
BambooHR was a great system as well. Looking toward the future Rippling offered more that we use currently and will use in the future. We are not looking to change systems in a few years. We are looking forward to growing with Rippling.
Chose Rippling
Gusto is very user friendly but lacks some of the "extra" features like review cycles and applicant tracking.
Chose Rippling
Rippling has a better UX design. This is significant because poor UX makes a huge difference to employees who are trying to complete HR or Hiring processes. Rippling PEO has been seemless and the onboarding team were excellent.
Chose Rippling
I'm sorry I wasn't involved in the decision-making process for switching to Rippling so I don't know what other HRIS software they looked at. Apologies.
Chose Rippling
Rippling had better pricing, more integration capabilities (360s where Paylocity only had 180s), and better access to customer service. It's been an absolute blast to use Rippling, it's got very good flow to it. It easy to find what you need organically or through the chat bot. …
Chose Rippling
I am not the one who actually changed from Clockify; I am just a Rippling user. But what I can tell you is that I used Clociky for almost a year, and it's the best. Rippling has more features, and those actually impact how the job is done and our daily production.
Chose Rippling
It helps keep all the systems centralized and unifies processes into a single tech stack. This is very helpful for small HR teams, especially remote ones that might need assistance with different laws and regulations from different states or countries. It also helps to have a …
Chose Rippling
I think Gusto is easier to use as a platform in terms of how to navigate it, however, I think it is more limited in terms of functionality and is also more expensive overall which is why I chose Rippling to try.
Chose Rippling
I like Rippling better than just works. The UX/UI is friendlier for employees of all backgrounds and it's easier to manager from the backend. As a manager, I prefer Rippling as well to help support my team through the website. It made it easier and had more features than …
Chose Rippling
Rippling was chosen because the price was more reasonable than other companies, and it had features that we needed. It is the perfect system for our business. Althought it could have more functions, it has all the functionality that our company needs.
Chose Rippling
It's way easier to navigate, things are in much cleaner spots. I used to get pretty lost on the workday interface, but I feel Rippling has everything that's important and in the areas you want them to be as a user. It also includes pay, whereas in the past we used MyPay as a …
Chose Rippling
Rippling is much more straightforward and easier to navigate than Workday, in my opinion. The layout feels more intuitive, and it’s easier to find what you need without having to click through multiple menus or search extensively. Tasks like onboarding, benefits selection, and …
Chose Rippling
Rippling was miles above Bamboo, UKG, and ADP. I think that they're very comparable to Paycom. Rippling was, by far, the most tech-driven HRIS we tested which was why it was ultimately chosen in favor of other options.
Chose Rippling
Rippling is way more advanced than Deel, I use that in past, especially UI and UX is way better, and overall product is really giant as compared to Deel, support is amazing, the mobile app is really amazing, the documents managements make it even better. So Rippling is much …
Features
GuidelineRippling
401(k)
Comparison of 401(k) features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
6.3
Ratings
19% below category average
Rippling
-
Ratings
Payroll Integration5.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance Maintenance6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Plan Flexibility7.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Filings and Disclosures5.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Ease of Enrollment7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.0
Ratings
10% above category average
Employee demographic data00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Employment history00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Job profiles and administration00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Organizational charting00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Organization and location management00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.2
Ratings
13% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.3
Ratings
13% above category average
Approval workflow00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Balance details00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.2
Ratings
12% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Update personal information00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
View company policy documentation00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Employee recognition00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
View job history00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
8.8
Ratings
9% above category average
Tracking of all physical assets00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.0
Ratings
18% above category average
Report builder00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Pre-built reports00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.4
Ratings
17% above category average
New hire portal00 Ratings9.50 Ratings
Manager tracking tools00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.0
Ratings
11% above category average
Corporate goal setting00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Individual goal setting00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Performance tracking00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.2
Ratings
16% above category average
Performance plans00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Performance improvement plans00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Review status tracking00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Review reminders00 Ratings9.40 Ratings
Multiple review frequency00 Ratings9.30 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
9.1
Ratings
15% above category average
Create succession plans/pools00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Candidate ranking00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Candidate search00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Candidate development00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Guideline
-
Ratings
Rippling
8.9
Ratings
13% above category average
Job Requisition Management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Company Website Posting00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media00 Ratings9.10 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GuidelineRippling
Small Businesses
OnPay
OnPay
Score 8.6 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GuidelineRippling
Likelihood to Recommend
6.5
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GuidelineRippling
Likelihood to Recommend
Guideline is well suited for a comprehensive 401k service to most any business, whether small (10 or fewer employees) or far larger businesses. They can help employees understand how to invest their money and provide options for them. An employee can allow the people at Guideline to invest their money based upon a simple algorithm of conservative/moderate/less moderate risk or the employee can invest as they choose. Guideline is probably not the best suited as far as the type of financial advice one might get from more established investments and financial groups.
Read full review
It has a favourites section for commonly used functions. This is perfect for logging in pre-sift and managing my timekeeping. It is easy to view my payslip. It is well-documented and accurate, and it also provides me with an accurate timeline for when to expect my pay to clear. Overall, very easy to use and great interface.
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Pros
  • Administrate individual 401(k)
  • Understand the contributions accumulated in total and per year
  • Understand the percentage of salary being contributed per pay period.
Read full review
  • It is really easy to navigate, I barely needed instruction on how to do things in it as it is very intuitive.
  • Ease of workflow mapping, it was easy to have emails auto-generated to our staff regarding their eLearn content or compliance requirements.
  • Onboarding was made much easier with the workflows, auto emails sent at different points in the onboarding process, ensuring everything gets done to prepare the company to accept the new hire and to inform the new hire of what to expect.
Read full review
Cons
  • I feel that the customer support was abysmal - In my experience, we were consistently given conflicting advice and statuses as we closed our account with Guideline. Despite many, many follow-ups attempting to clarify our current status and remaining steps to close the account, Guideline's reps continued to provide, I believe, misleading and inaccurate steps. This cost us thousands and thousands of dollars given Guideline was not able to appropriately pull the funds before closing the account.
  • Guideline's integrations - I believe there is clearly a broken pipeline between Guideline and Rippling. In my experience, contributions were not funded as expected when we first opened the account, and when we closed our account, there was no communication between Guideline and Rippling. Guideline continued to expect contributions into perpetuity despite closure of the account
  • I feel that Guideline's product itself is just broken in critical places - most importantly, statuses of contributions were reflected incorrectly in the software (Guideline thought funds were transferred, but they were not and Guideline never attempted to pull the funds from our bank). This, combined with the terrible customer support, cost us thousands and thousands of dollars after we closed our account. There are many absolutely critical features that are broken -> to give just one of many examples, it was not possible to update the bank account information and no error message was thrown. I was told that our account ended up in an exceptional state given our last payroll contribution date and account closure, but these seem like very basic things a 401k provider has to get right if there are going to manage people's money.
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  • Rippling could improve their payment days. Currently they make employee payments around the 15th and 30th of the month, but it varies slightly with every month. It would make more sense to do this payment on every other Friday or every other Monday.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
I've been fully impressed with the tool so far in my 6 months of being a daily user. It's rare to run into an issue that can't be solved. Customer service is quick to respond and are usually very helpful. The price is great for the upgrade we got from our past tool. We hit our ROI within the first month.
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Usability
Well thought out and intuitive user experience for employees and administrators. Educational documentation has been a plus
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Very intuitive, user-friendly, and modern interface that doesn't make you cringe when you have to access it for anything. The admin navigation is easier compared to our previous system, and doesn't feel like a maze of complicated jargon. On the user side, the benefits enrollment process was a breeze, and felt so much more informative and efficient. Accessing the benefits post-enrollment is also very straightforward.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
I like that the availability in using Rippling at any given time is useful to me. Getting on the site freely when I need gives me security of knowing that I can be in control of viewing health insurance and hours information. I have yet to get any errors in using the Rippling app.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
Rippling's performance has been great, no errors or glitches yet so far. I am confident that Going from one page to the next and all its complexity usage does not lag or times out, it works effectively and efficiently. While using Rippling and other apps it does not tend to slow it down, works great. No complaints.
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Support Rating
The few questions that we've had have been answered quickly and helpfully. The implementation was a breeze and the onboarding contacts were really helpful. There was some stuff I had to learn about 401(k)s in making the decision to implement Guideline, but the Guideline team was helpful in pointing me in the right direction.
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The highlight of my customer support experience was my first interaction with them: I had a small issue with my birthdate, and it was fixed very quickly—on the same day. It's pretty incredible to have things like that sorted out in the same day, which is a rare thing to see lately.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
The trainer went slow and and answered our questions.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
It's really easy to implement in comparison to other tools or applications. Different key points are easily configured and implemented as per need, having different configurations in systems. Implementation is something which binds the different parameters of an organization in a single row. Implementation of rippling is much easier, quicker, and error free than any other software. I recommend it strongly!
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Alternatives Considered
We went with Guideline as it was more affordable than alternatives. I believe this ended up being a terrible mistake. Invest in a stronger 401k partner. Human Interest was the other provider we were considering. I don't know if closing an account would have been as complicated with other providers, but I certainly know the support would have been better and more transparent with a provider like Human Interest
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I am not the one who actually changed from Clockify; I am just a Rippling user. But what I can tell you is that I used Clociky for almost a year, and it's the best. Rippling has more features, and those actually impact how the job is done and our daily production.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
I can go on here and see all my hours and pto plus health benefits. I like to have the work handbook handy to refer to legal things. How to work my role within it's limits. Being able to put in my hours and view when they are approved is a huge benefit for me.
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Return on Investment
  • Allow small employees to enhance benefit package
  • Great recruitment tool for new employees
  • Connection with payroll vendor allowed for less manual work
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  • As an individual contributor we have not used Rippling yet in terms of goal calculation and it would be nice to see where I'm at for my bonus payout
  • Many employees are very happy having Rippling compared to their other HR softwares at previous jobs which helps retention
  • Documentation that needs to be signed is much easier to track as opposed to tracking documentation through simple emails
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ScreenShots

Rippling Screenshots

Screenshot of the Rippling Dashboard: Employees' home for their payroll, benefits, documents, devices, expenses, and apps.Screenshot of Rippling Payroll: Runs payroll in 90 seconds. Pays employees and contractors around the world. Automatic tax filing.Screenshot of Rippling Benefits Administration: For the management of employees' Medical, Dental, Vision, 401K, FSA, HSA, and commuter benefits.Screenshot of Rippling Single Sign-On: Employees can access all of their SaaS apps in one click from their Rippling dashboard.Screenshot of Rippling’s Time & Attendance platform. This integrates with the rest of the product suite so that when employees clock in, their approved hours automatically synced with payroll and accounting systems.Screenshot of Rippling Mobile Device Management: To manage employees' computers and devices 100% remotely.