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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Gusto

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/AGusto offers payroll, benefits and compliance capabilities. Gusto is scaled for small to mid-sized businesses, and emphasizes an easy to use interface.

    $49

    per month

    Kudos®

    Score8 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Kudos® is an employee engagement and recognition platform, that harnesses peer-to-peer recognition, casual rewards, values reinforcement, and open communication to help organizations boost employee engagement, reduce turnover, improve culture, and drive productivity and performance.N/A
    Pricing
    GustoKudos®
    Editions & Modules
    Simple: A streamlined set of automatic payroll features and benefits integrations
    $49/month + $6/mo per person
    per month
    Plus: Comprehensive payroll, benefits, and HR tools for employers building a great place to work
    $80/month + $12/mo per person
    per month
    Premium: Scalable payroll and benefits, expert HR, and dedicated support for the complex needs of growing teams
    $180/month + $22/mo per person
    per month
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    GustoKudos®
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsGusto offers three pricing plans for payroll, benefits, and HR.Kudos® pricing is based on the number of users and the length of the contract.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    GustoKudos®
    Considered Both Products
    Gusto
    No answer on this topic
    Kudos®
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    563 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    464 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    5 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    576 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    7 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    316 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    376 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    GustoKudos®
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of Gusto and Kudos®
    Feature
    Gusto
    9.1
    611 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Kudos®
    -
    Ratings
    Pay calculation9.5587 Ratings00 Ratings
    Support for external payroll vendors8.58 Ratings00 Ratings
    Benefit plan administration8.7417 Ratings00 Ratings
    Direct deposit files9.7592 Ratings00 Ratings
    Salary revision and increment management9.0462 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reimbursement management9.0196 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    GustoKudos®
    Small Businesses
    Patriot Payroll
    Score8.6 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    APS
    Score5.7 out of 10
    Bonusly
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ADP Streamline Payroll
    Score6.1 out of 10
    Achievers
    Score9.8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    GustoKudos®
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (633 ratings)
    9.1
    (13 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.4
    (457 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    4.3
    (27 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    GustoKudos®
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Gusto
    I think Gusto is well-suited for any business, big or small, to use for accounting purposes. It makes it easy to keep track of many things, such as pay stubs, benefits, paid time off, and much more. Where I could see it being less useful is maybe for enterprise businesses with way more employees.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    Kudos is especially useful and helpful during project deployment where team members can be awarded kudos and appreciation and motivation for their team efforts in meeting milestones and targets. In some instances, the reward types or gifts may seem irrelevant to some departments in certain regions or my company' operations in other parts of the African continent.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Gusto
    • 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
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    • One of the most useful aspects of this tool is that it allows you to save the profile of each of the employees individually and to be able to track their activities and give them the recognition they deserve.
    • Another useful feature of "kudos is that the system allows you to assign badges to each profile based on their job performance.
    • I also really like that the platform has a dedicated portal for employees. In which they can see their badges, recognitions and awards obtained for their efforts.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Gusto
    • 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
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    • Rewards take a long time to be given out, but this I would put on the company's policy.
    • From my own perspective on a mobile phone, it's not so smooth like on desktop, like searching for a colleagues name sometimes is difficult.
    • Sometimes email notifications take too long to come, or they don't even come at all.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Kudos®
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Gusto
    Gusto is pretty user-friendly, and the website is easy to navigate overall. They also offer good, responsive customer support and have helpful articles available when needed. So far, I have not had any major issues with the platform and am overall very happy with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Gusto
    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
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Gusto
    While I never actually got to the point of trying out ADP, I had several conversations with an ADP representative, and it seemed that they would be able to provide the same (if not less) level of service for a significantly higher price
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    I used to work at a company called Sparc that developed its own in-house platform called Teamphoria. It was great software that coupled a lot of the same features as workday but also with a recognition system. Essentially it allocated certain types of recognition levels per month, 1 platinum, 5 gold, 20 silvers, where each was worth a drawing ticket. At the end of the month, someone would be drawn from that pool based on their received recognition and then receive a gift card. However, some abused this system and devalued its purpose and inflated the meaning behind it. Kudos seems to do a good job by having a direct point/monetization system which isn't up for random chance. This can help even incentivize employees to go above and beyond, getting them to work harder since they are receiving recognition for it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Gusto
    • Time tracking + payroll calculations me 30-60 minutes every time I run payroll.
    • Integrated workers' comp, so I didn't have to find an outside carrier and get quotes—it's all taken care of in the same platform.
    • Improved employee experience with onboarding.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kudos®
    • Incentivizes employee to work harder.
    • Helps with thanking our employees for jobs well done without having just a normal "Thank You."
    • Allows the employees to use kudos for company SWAG or items they may need in their lives and it's all possible to get thanks to KUDOS.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Gusto Screenshots

    Screenshot of Gusto's automated payrollScreenshot of the time-off tracking interfaceScreenshot of the source of truth for HR data

    Kudos® Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot