Gusto vs. Paychex vs. PurelyHR

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

It is best suited for payrolls from 1 to 150 employees, because their constant attention and flex system are easy to use. Any problem is taking care by your Paychex Agent, and they always listen to you. Better yet, when you become a client with more than 5 years, you get special discount on your renewal. Honestly, I can't not think on nothing that will be less appropriate.

Incentivized

PurelyHR helps to manage our timeclock with 19 locations that are spread over Middle TN/KY. Supervisors can approve request for time off, view a consolidated calendar showing all PTO scheduled. There are settings to block too many request in one day per our own guidelines. Time punches can easily be approved by the employee and then by a supervisor. PurelyHR helps make the timesheet process easy to manage and get reports for processing payroll in a timely manner

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

• It provides a well account of Retirement Plan Account Information.
• Alerts are sent to email when there is new information to access.
• Employee access both online and thru app.
• Paperless options.
• Easy and quick access to paystubs and tax forms.
• Easy employee retirement management.

Incentivized

• Timesheet reports available through PurelyHR are exactly what we need
• PurelyHR makes PTO request and approvals easier to manage
• PurelyHR has an easy to use timesheet approval system

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

• I understand logging you out is a security function, but I'd prefer it not to log you out so soon.
• The training we received for the team's meeting was subpar, in my opinion. Probably better geared for people with little to no computer experience. Very slow pace; we could have easily received all of this from some tutorials in a few minutes.

Incentivized

• Changing employee settings (auto lunch) can be tedious

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.

Overall I like the features that Paychex Flex offers. I am sure that there are other features that I am unaware of, so I am excited to see if there is more that Flex is capable of to make my job easier. The basic features are really user friendly and easy to access. If there ever is an issue customer service is great

Incentivized

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

Once you are set up in the system, it is very user-friendly and usability is on par with my expectations. Onboarding new employees is simple, employee access is simple and easy for them to use. Tax documentation, reporting, and entering payroll is easy and user-friendly. Running reports and finding information necessary to keep the flow moving foward is easy to do

Incentivized

We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.

Incentivized

Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.

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

The dedicated support we are given is good and very responsive. If there is a change to the dedicated support, we are notified quickly and have temporary support in place while we wait for our new rep. The phone support is knowledgeable and quick to help if there is an immediate need. However, the chat support can be the slowest option and doesn't always launch so I rarely use it.

Incentivized

We did online training only

Incentivized

It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.

Incentivized

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

Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.

Incentivized

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

In addition to the ones listed above, we also used BenePay, a local payroll company. We found Paychex Flex priced in the middle, with ADP the most expensive and too complicated, with many features that were unnecessary for us. We found that Paychex Flex's features and reporting to be sized right for our size (around 30 employees). Paychex Flex also offered a very reasonable service to apply for the ERTC

Incentivized

We have used Paychex Flex and found that PurelyHR provides a better fit for our team. It was important for our company to find an easy to manage PTO request and tracking system and a time keeping system with certain reports. We also like that PurelyHR has a feature where documents can be uploaded for employee review and sign off.

Incentivized

I generally do payroll at the office, however I have had to go remote due to internet issues and also had to take payroll on vacation with me. Very easy to log in wherever you are and manage your TAA and payroll

Incentivized

• 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

• With Paychex Flex we have been able to improve our compliance with required documentation for new/rehires
• Moving everyone to direct deposit and mobile clock in/out eliminated lines at punching stations and paycheck pickup stations
• Lost checks is a thing of the past

Incentivized

• PurelyHR has saved our employees and supervisors valuable time (an average of an hour each pay period per employee to manager their time keeping and approval) from the old way of using manual timesheets along with emailing or faxing copies.
• PurelyHR has solved our PTO tracking needs, offering an easy to use request and approval system
• The PTO calendar shows all employees' schedule PTO on one calendar, this is a time saver for Operations Managers

Incentivized