Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Gusto
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Gusto offers payroll, benefits and compliance capabilities. Gusto is scaled for small to mid-sized businesses, and emphasizes an easy to use interface.
$46
per month
Harvest
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Harvest is used to track time, gain insights from past projects, and get paid for work. Dedicated apps and integrations with popular tools like Asana and Slack allow Harvest to fit into a team’s workflow. A selection of visual reports are offered to keep projects running smoothly and an organization's team supported. Harvest also helps to turn a team’s tracked time and expenses into professional nvoices and collect payment quickly with integrated online payments.
$0
per user
Pricing
GustoHarvest
Editions & Modules
Simple: A streamlined set of automatic payroll features and benefits integrations
$40/month + $6/mo per person
$12 per employee/contractor
Plus: Comprehensive payroll, benefits, and HR tools for employers building a great place to work
$80/month + $12/mo per person
Premium: Scalable payroll and benefits, expert HR, and dedicated support for the complex needs of growing teams
Exclusive pricing, contact Gusto
Harvest Free
$0
forever
Harvest Pro (Annual)
$10.80
per month per seat
Harvest Pro (Monthly)
$12
per month per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GustoHarvest
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsGusto offers three pricing plans for payroll, benefits, and HR, so you can choose the plan that meets your business needs.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GustoHarvest
Considered Both Products
Gusto
Chose Gusto
ADP works great too, but they have so many password changing rules that it's too much of a hassle to worry about it.
Chose Gusto
Compared to Intuit (the only other tool I've used that is similar to Gusto), Gusto is much more fun and easy to use. It is also more affordable. Sometimes it doesn't provide as much detail, but that's something I don't care too much about as a young professional. For my …
Chose Gusto
I love Xero, but the payroll product offered a couple of years ago was woefully inadequate. Xero has made great strides in improving their payroll product but I still prefer Gusto for small business payroll processing.

The other payroll products I have worked with, like ADP and …
Harvest

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
GustoHarvest
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Gusto
8.6
162 Ratings
4% above category average
Harvest
-
Ratings
Pay calculation8.6154 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.58 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.9106 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.7157 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.4133 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management9.511 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GustoHarvest
Small Businesses
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
FunctionFox
FunctionFox
Score 8.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
TimeCamp
TimeCamp
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GustoHarvest
Likelihood to Recommend
7.2
(175 ratings)
9.0
(47 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
2.0
(23 ratings)
8.4
(18 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GustoHarvest
Likelihood to Recommend
Gusto
I would love to use Gusto for companies of all staff sizes but I understand that larger businesses will opt for a PEO and willingly give up flexibility and features to do that. However, I love that Gusto can be customized on so many levels – offer letter, adding documents for new hires, document verification, deploying documents to existing staff, tracking who has signed, helping staff select health benefits (love that this is an entirely paperless process!), screen share support (love this!), a host of integrations with other apps are easy to link up. The interface is delightful (love the piglet!), HR support for Master Admins is very professional. There are templates, forms, rules and updates provided for all States. And the reports are so easy to read, customize and understand. Amazing!
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Harvest
Harvest is ideally suited for a variety of scenarios, particularly in the realms of freelance or consulting work, where accurate hour tracking for billing is crucial. It excels in small to medium businesses managing team projects, allowing for effective resource allocation and time management across multiple concurrent projects. For budgeting and forecasting, Harvest provides valuable data, aiding in accurately estimating the duration and cost of future projects based on past data. It's also highly beneficial for remote or distributed teams, thanks to its cloud-based platform that facilitates seamless coordination. Additionally, its detailed reporting features enhance client transparency, fostering trust through clear communication of time spent on projects. However, Harvest may be less suitable for larger enterprises with complex integration needs or specialized industries requiring more niche features. Small startups or individuals on tight budgets might find the cost challenging, especially if they don't fully utilize all its features. Lastly, for those needing only basic time tracking, simpler or free tools might be more appropriate, making Harvest an unnecessary expenditure for basic needs.
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Pros
Gusto
  • The self-service aspect of the software is very nice. We rarely need to get customer service involved.
  • For the first 2 years of our subscription to Gusto, customer service has been good when we needed it.
  • We have also had good experience with third parties recommended by Gusto including a 401(k) administrator, R&D tax credit analyst, and background check software.
Read full review
Harvest
  • Offers several options on using the tool, for example, you can use the app on your phone, the app for desktop, or simply have the website open.
  • The timer integrates with other platforms. For example, our team uses Asana as our project management tool. Now, in real-time, I can know which projects my team is working on and whether we're implementing good time management strategies to meet our goals.
  • The summary break downs are wonderful! You can view an individual's hours as well as project hours. There are even notifications you could receive when your team is getting close to reaching the allotted time for a client's project.
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Cons
Gusto
  • The support isn't very impressive, although it's rare that we even need their help.
  • I would like to see a better scheduling tool for the staff. Currently I have to use Homebase for this feature alone because Gusto's offering is lacking in this area.
Read full review
Harvest
  • I’m still trying to figure out how tasks best associate to a specific project. There’s a couple different places to edit that and I’m a little confused as to best practice.
  • Does not integrate into basecamp which is our project management system
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Likelihood to Renew
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
Harvest
No answers on this topic
Usability
Gusto
The UI is clean and simple. It's incredibly easy to find what you need to find, and if you can't, a quick search of their help files will direct you where you need to go about 90% of the time. For that last 10%, a support e-mail will result in a quick answer. Almost any time I try to do something new I haven't done before with Gusto, I can do it in a few minutes.
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Harvest
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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Harvest
They're very responsive and do their best to answer whatever questions we've had. Sometimes, the question or request we've made is for a feature that doesn't yet exist, however in most cases those features have been built later and did eventually address our need.
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Implementation Rating
Gusto
Super easy to implement and use!
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Harvest
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Gusto
Gusto was the only payroll provider we used for our business. Before Gusto we were running payroll manually, which was cumbersome and didn’t account for our tax liability. Gusto is heads and shoulders above running payroll manually. It takes the load of payroll management off your shoulders and gives employees and easy to use portal to manage their personal payroll information.
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Harvest
Harvest is significantly better than Jira. I think Jira's is not originally intended to be used as a time logging/management system, but we had been previously using it as that. It was much clunkier, and many employees had a difficult time using it as a user interface goes. Harvest is much more user friendly and has simplified the daily time-logging process for everyone in our office
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Return on Investment
Gusto
  • Saves me time and time is money so I've definitely saved money using Gusto over other payroll providers
  • 401k integration was not a good fit for my size company unfortunately, which I was disappointed about initially, but if you are a larger company it could be an excellent asset to your benefits structure for your team
  • Has increased employee retention because of its ease of use
Read full review
Harvest
  • Harvest has improved our payment schedules. Since we switched, we get paid for projects much sooner.
  • Harvest has saved us a ton of time with payroll. We are able to track our users time and pay them appropriately based on their billable hours.
  • Harvest is becoming a lifesaver around tax time. The reporting features have allowed us to pull reports for our tax accountant.
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ScreenShots

Gusto Screenshots

Screenshot of Flexible, automated payrollScreenshot of Time-off trackingScreenshot of The source of truth for HR data

Harvest Screenshots

Screenshot of the time tracking experience in HarvestScreenshot of project progress tracking, with budgets and costsScreenshot of team capacity trackingScreenshot of a visualization displaying where a team's time is goingScreenshot of Harvest invoicing, that turns tracked time and expenses into invoices so users can get paid online