Gusto vs. OnPay vs. SurePayroll

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

OnPay is well-suited for small nonprofits or organizations new to payroll that want clear guidance and responsive customer support. OnPay may be less ideal for large or highly complex organizations that need extensive customization, very advanced reporting, or deep integrations with a wide range of enterprise systems.

Incentivized

We use SurePayroll to make monthly payrolls in our company, as well as to close the month and year with all the income and expenses and most importantly to make tax payments. The application is perfect for making payrolls when the personnel adapted for it is not in the head office, SurePayroll has an application for mobiles that allows to make these operations remotely. The application is perfect when you want to make immediate payments, at the time of loading the payroll to the system, it proceeds to automatically perform transactions for each employee entered without any error.

Incentivized

• 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

• Communication - From my first call I was so impressed at the level of care and compassion OnPay expressed. I was assigned specific employees who were available in the sign up process to walk me through each step and to answer all my questions. I know some of my questions were probably "stupid" but OnPay never minded answering them and I was always treated with respect.
• On Boarding - The nightmare I had experienced with a competitor became a dream with OnPay. They said if I would authorize them to sign onto my account they would take care of the sign up process. And they did!!! They also did it correctly. All of the numbers and information was error free. The only information I was required was input was direct deposit bank information.
• Resolving an Issue - I have only had one issue that needed to be resolved. The person I talked to had to check with another person for an answer but she stayed on the line with me to make sure the problem was resolved. Then I received a follow up email outlining exactly what action they had taken.
• Ease of using the website - I can find what I am looking for! I like the verification code. And every time I sign on to my account the red heart by our company name makes me smile.

Incentivized

• Super easy interface - honestly running payroll couldn't be easier on their site.
• Incredible customer service - VERY knowledgeable, professional and friendly. They will walk you through anything you need to do on the site and understand payroll, tax and benefit issues.
• Tax filing and payments and year-end paperwork for 1099 contractors and W-2s. They make it so easy.

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

• You can add additional additions or benefit items such as a car allowance. The process required me to contact a representative as that wasn't as easy to navigate.
• The process for handling additional withholdings for pre-payed taxes required support to ensure the calculations were accurate.
• Process for on-boarding is a little tricky if you don't start the process from the point of hire. You can add various things easily but it reflects differently in terms of completion of an Employee file.

• My chief complaint is the software sometimes requires me to have a code sent to my phone before I can continue with some process. That in itself is fine. The problem is the check box that lets SurePayroll remember the computer doesn't actually do that. I select that check box every time, but the software doesn't remember me or my computer.
• Fees have creeped higher every year over the last two or three years. I feel like I'm nitpicking here, though. What I spend for the service is reasonably priced for the amount of headaches it prevents.
• I have a case where an employee is sometimes salaried and sometimes contract. There's not a way to handle that without terminating him when he needs to switch.

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 have used OnPay for a few years now and we do continue to renew our annual use of OnPay. We are only a small organization and although OnPay provides a lot of additional services that larger organizations might ind useful, OnPay still meets our limited requirements of running bi-weekly payroll and submitting our quarterly state and federal tax documents, and at a price that we still find affordable.

Incentivized

Very likely, easy to use, support system in place.

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

OnPay is very easy to use. The computer interface is setup very well. You can quickly add people, enter your Payroll, print reports, etc. If your Payroll doesn't change from pay period to pay period (example, salaried employees) it takes mere seconds to enter in your Payroll.

Incentivized

It's a poor user interface. It feels like the interface is twenty years old. If you make a mistake with payroll in their terrible UI, and try to correct it 15 seconds later, they want to charge you $39 to correct your mistake. Overall, a very poor experience in terms of user interface.

OnPay immediately responds to any of my inquiries.

Incentivized

No complaints on OnPay's integration with Xero.

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

As mentioned previously, I appreciate the Chat feature and have used it several times. I've also used the help database and found it wonderful. And I've had many email support interactions. Every time I've interacted with many individuals from the support team including...(who has helped me a number of times). The interactions have been professional and courteous and extremely helpful. Often they're able to resolve my problems and questions very quickly. OnPay has provided great support to our team here at Strike Visuals.

Incentivized

SurePayroll was great when we had questions or needed support, ie. if we messed up with a payroll, needed to submit tax documents or get documents. The ease of communication between us and the organization was great and they made it easy for users to call in with support requests.

Incentivized

They were awesome. They knew the system very well and could help me very much.

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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

Easy to implement and easy to convert any other payroll reports to the OnPay system when making the switch

Incentivized

No, I can't think of any.

Incentivized

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

OnPay is tremendously less expensive and technically superior to Quickbooks in my opinion. OnPay is less expensive and offered the ease of managing a restaurant payroll that was better in my opinion than When I Work. My experience when evaluating all of the payroll products that I felt the company could afford was that OnPay had a superior staff of professionals who knew their product and could explain how to use it most clearly.

Incentivized

SurePayroll offers a comparable service at a better rate. They are better designed for small companies who need to save money any way they can. Their fees are more appropriate than ADP but the service offerings are just as good.

Incentivized

In retrospect, I wouldn't change anything.

Incentivized

OnPay works.

Incentivized

We were able to calculate different hourly numbers when we completed Certified Payroll for professional services.

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

• Cut our payroll fees by more than half of what was being paid to CPA firm
• Save time in dealing with CPA firm for payroll returns and filing
• Could easily generate various payroll related reports..even from the past....this was not possible with the CPA firm previously used

Incentivized

• SurePayroll helps us process payroll quickly and effortlessly 97% of the time.
• On the rare occasion when there is an issue SurePayroll needs to address, it can take hours and hours of time over many months to get that issue resolved. Through the process, SurePayroll employees have always been professional and courteous in their communication.

Incentivized