Gusto vs. Human Interest vs. Paycom

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

Actually you guys serve a lot of variety of clients that we have. So everything from simple clients on your 316 and then you got your 338 platforms to some more of the complex clients that want to carve out their own funds. You guys integrate well with financial advisors if they wish to use that, but a lot of times it's, those aren't necessary if clients want to save money.

I've implemented at least 7 HRMS and/or performance suites over the years. I have no true complaints about the platform. We have found that for one of our client codes, the scheduling functionality doesn't accommodate the constant scheduling adjustments our transportation company requires. That said, our routes can change more than once an hour and start/end times often change with routes. We have found that managing the full employee life cycle is even more streamlined with the recent Position Seat updates. We also value that the platform is a native build - so no lagging API integrations to navigate.

• 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

• So as a user of it, since I was being paid by these companies, being able to manage my level of risk, being able to manage how much I was putting in from a percentage standpoint was always super easy. Even in a situation where my last company was acquired, we had to go through transferring over to different solutions was super useful. The team was always very open, honest about, Hey, what can we do? How can we work with them? And accommodating in that way. I think as a provider it was so easy to get team members set up. I never had any complaints. I never had anybody worry. I never had somebody come to me and go like, I don't understand Human Interest.

• Before Paycom we were using Paylocity and in about six months of running payroll with Paylocity, we never once had 100% accuracy from a payroll standpoint. So we had disgruntled employees because either their time was off or their pay was off. With Paycom, we've never had a case where our payroll was not 100% accurate.

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

• The only thing I can think of right off hand is that there's a day delay when we look at our total. So for instance, we heard the other day that there was a rally in the markets on Friday and that everybody had supposedly recouped all of their losses from March. We actually had to wait the whole weekend until Monday to log in to actually see what those were. And I know real time is really, really hard, but anytime we could get something faster, that would probably be my only.

• I think that when we do need a response back, which is very unlikely from the contact about something that's happening or going on, it can take a little long to get back to us. Longer than we would like because obviously it's an emergency to us, but we understand they have tons of emergencies they have to solve. But I think that's the only aspect.
• I know from a payroll standpoint, which I'm not really privy to because I don't work on the payroll side, there have been some little hiccups that about certain formulas used, certain credits being issued that we've already filed for tax credits that we filed for. So I know that my CFO's already on top of it and pay comes on top of it as well and it's getting resolved, but obviously that's a big issue that needs some work there.

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.

We will drop Human Interest as soon as they rectify their error in withdrawing $3600 in additional fees earlier this year

we are having no problems with how the system works and our support system at paycom is the best - we are learning more and using the system in more ways all the time the only thing that could be better is pricing on some things

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

It's really easy to get, well, first of all, they get enrolled automatically so they get added to the platform automatically. They get removed from the platform automatically and everything is really easy to understand for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience. And that's actually a lot of our employees have never had a retirement benefit before. They don't know anything about it. They really don't understand how it works. There's also a little bit of a fear factor with deducting money from their paycheck to be able to contribute to this. And so how easy it is for them to get it set up and then the information that Human Interest gives them about what the benefit is, how it works, all that, it's great

The interface is very intuitive, you can navigate it pretty well. Everything's pretty much spelled out and the features just flow really well. They make it easy for you to go back and forth with the UX/UI type of interface. So I think it was built pretty well.

Incentivized

no issues so far

They are very dependable and I have never experience any outages

Incentivized

Easy to navigate

Incentivized

Yes, Paycom's performance is excellent, no issues.

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

So we had a designated rep and he was fantastic. I don't remember his name at the moment, but he was almost immediately responsive. And you guys also partnered with us for client knowledge webinars and he was great. Great at that too.

Have been bounced around alot in our 3 years of partnership. Wanted a dedicated rep but that did not provide us the care and attention we required. Work with a team first and then get to your representative. Sometimes an issue with time differences - representative working on different timebelt and not accessible, or we had to wait a day to move an issue along

Incentivized

They were a sales person and not really a good trainer.

Incentivized

super easy to get going

All the online training modules were short and straight to the point. Every module teach you how to use the system. If there is one thing they know how to do is training. We did implementation during the pandemic so all had to be done online or via zoom meetings.

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

A key insight from our implementation of Human Interest is that early coordination across finance, HR, and leadership is critical. The platform itself is straightforward, but ensuring payroll integration, compliance documentation, and employee education are aligned from the start makes the rollout smoother and increases adoption. Another insight is that employees respond best when given clear, simple communication about how to enroll and the benefits of participation—this minimizes confusion and builds trust in the program. Finally, dedicating time up front to review compliance and reporting features helps avoid issues later and gives leadership confidence in the plan’s long-term stability.

Incentivized

Not at all satisfied it was a nightmare we spent over 8 months with the implementation team having issues after issues all related to the Puerto Rico regulations (half my employees are in Puerto Rico) and at the end we were moved over from the implementation team to the production team without all the issues being resolved

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

Insperity was horrible. Expensive, hidden fees at every corner, not communicative. They messed up my plan and didn't include the requested Safe Harbor provision and I had to pay the piper for their mistake. Nothing Insperity did was customer first, fiduciary, or even compliant. I have had the exact opposite experience with Human Interest and they cleaned up Insperity's mess without any complaints and dealt with Insperity dragging their feet on the conversion over a $1k offboarding fee I refused to pay after they screwed up my plan

Incentivized

We really only had Paychecks and that was our biggest problem is that with several different companies, it was very hard If you had a salary employee and didn't terminate them in the prior company, they get paid twice, so this has really been definitely a big help for us.

Incentivized

it was all great

we are only using it for one employee but when we hire more, it will be easy to expand already setup

They are not able to meet our current needs

Incentivized

Very professional

Incentivized

• 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

• It's been super positive because everyone wants payroll to be streamlined and not have to go into different systems. And I solved at Coastal, our platform is fully integrated with Human Interest and there's no fee to the customer for that. So that's definitely the best.

• I would think the most time would come from applicant tracking and I don't think that's a Paycom issue necessarily. I think it was a training issue during implementation. I would say that that has improved now that we had onsite training. But initially the applicant tracking piece can be difficult when you're used to just using an ATS. That's specifically for talent acquisition because there's a lot of nuances that goes into the system that Paycom bills.

Incentivized