Gusto vs. isolved

Gusto is a great fit for small teams and startups that want a simple, reliable way to run payroll, manage tax filings, and give CPAs access without constant micromanagement. It’s especially useful for founders who need something that “just works.” The human support has been excellent—especially when forwarding confusing IRS mail.
That said, it’s a bit less intuitive when it comes to benefits and compliance for fully remote companies. For example, labor law poster distribution isn’t streamlined for digital teams, and setting up benefits felt more complex than it needed to be. Still, I’d recommend Gusto to any startup looking to get payroll right from day one.

Incentivized

I have not yet run into a scenario that isolved is not appropriate. There have been a few specific functionalities that isolved couldn't accommodate, such as paid PTO plans. If employees frequently switch between different legal companies with different EINs, isolved really isn't built to handle that, and we've had to come up with creative solutions.

Incentivized

• Gusto really kills it on the simplicity. The app and website are very clear and straightforward.
• Gusto also does a great job at being easy to navigate, visually pleasing, and logically posed.
• Gusto communicates very clearly and provides just the right amount of communication.
• Gusto makes the onboarding process very easy. I recently started at a new company and the process of filling out the necessary documents, filling out forms, and getting my benefit information input was soooooo easy!

Incentivized

• The payroll processing has been a huge benefit in keeping our weekly payroll process on track and accurate.
• The COBRA services are very beneficial and we do not have to do any tracking. I appreciate this process is no longer on my duty list.
• I would say the third id probably the timekeeping. The system is effective for daily tracking and timecard review. The access to the time clock is exceptional with multiple access points. The adjustments for additional pay on holidays has been helpful.

• Adding in previous time manually could be more accessible.
• Notifications for when employees manually change hours.
• We should allow 1099 users to use the mobile app instead of restricting them to the website, especially since they can just log into the full website on their mobile device.

Incentivized

• Reminders/Notes to staff through the app that they have to read to be able to move forward to clock in or out.
• More key words to search in the library/help desk.
• Check boxes to delete Reports from the Que, rather than having to delete each one individually would be a nice enhancement!

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.

I believe Isolved has helped with allot of our previous payroll and HR issues but I am not the sole person responsible for making the decisions. If it were my responsibility to make the decision I would say yes, my input does weigh heavily on the choices but it's not guaranteed.

The overall platform and its speed of response are amazing. I would recommend this to any other business owner for ease of use and reliability. Email reminders are great if I’m super busy and have forgotten a few tasks. The price point compared to local payroll service is hands down a huge win.

Incentivized

It is very intuitive and user friendly. iSolved is always updating and improving things before they even become a problem. I like how they inform us of the new updates and provide us with the details of what is changing and how it will improve the usuage.

Payroll due dates and send to us at the beginning of the year, with email reminders for holidays. The support email address is fairly fast, within 24-48 hours. But if something is needed immediately, I can just call and they help me out right then.

Incentivized

We do not use the integration, so we have a csv file that I upload manually for payroll. That is our decision based on the software at our restaurants. Pages loaded fairly quickly, but reports to pdf lag about 15-20 seconds

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

They are very responsive and they have support for the specific issues. Clients receive a dedicated Support Representative with a back up dedicated support team. They also receive an Account Manager who follows up quarterly to discuss the company and future needs. They do have a support ticket hub, but it still needs a little work to fine tune it.

All over the phone, but it was comprehensive.

Incentivized

We loved taking the course, we went through most of them before we went live and I believe that was very helpful. The online training helped us learn to navigate in the program. We still refer to the training and assign our managers and supervisors to it as well. I highly recommend using it. We have also been able to attend the Connect Conferences with are extremely valuable and we learn tips and tricks to help us better utilize our system.

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

The system was very cumbersome setting up as well as time consuming. There were times I just wanted to walk away and sometimes I did have to get up and walk away for a break and come back with a fresh perspective. The setup took me over a period of two to three months getting it to serve the purposes that we needed it two. I am very intuitive when it comes to computer software however getting all the right buttons checked in order for it to do what I needed didn't always work.

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

isolved provides a system and capabilities right at the sweet spot for our organizations. It is not overly complex and feature laden as to make it confusing and complex. On the other hand, it is fully functional and effective at the core requirements of HR and payroll without requiring additional work outside of the system. All of the systems we have previously considered or used were with limited on functionality or prohibitively expense and complex.

Incentivized

Price increases do happen every year. I understand that the cost of living rises, but every year to us is a bit excessive.

We are a company of about 135 people at 9 locations in 2 towns. We were able to set locations and departments, and also have each location seperate so only that manager can see their employees.

Incentivized

All of iSvoled services are conducted very professionally

• For me, it is hard to quantify payroll software as having an ROI. It does save quite a bit of time per pay period, so perhaps we could assign a theoretical number to an employee taking that time. I'd say, at the least, it saves 30-60 minutes a pay period compared to a more difficult-to-use payroll software.

Incentivized

• When we had Paycom, we had 1/4 of our staff that were not logging in and using the system. That number is down to maybe 5% now
• Employees love having the ability to easily view and verify their timecards prior to payroll submission.

Incentivized