Gusto 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
Sage Accounting
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Sage Accounting is online accounting software made to simplify life for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers by providing the functions needed to take care of daily business to-dos.
Users can create and send professional quotes and invoices, track income and expenses and know where the business' financials stand. Every Sage Business Cloud Accounting subscription includes unlimited access to support as well as automatic backups and product updates.
$19
per month
Pricing
Gusto
Sage Accounting
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
Gusto
Sage Accounting
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Gusto offers three pricing plans for payroll, benefits, and HR.
Versions and pricing listed are for CA products. Versions available and pricing may vary by country.
* 2 months free to start, or free for 1 month to try, then $19/$43/$62 +tax/mo (tier depending). Offer valid for new customers only on monthly subscriptions of Sage Business Cloud Accounting. After the promotional period, the monthly subscription rate will renew at the then current rate. May not be combined with any other offers or discounts. To ensure continuous service the subscription plan is an automatically renewing plan. Subsequent months will automatically be billed to the same credit card each month on the anniversary date of purchase. Plans can be terminated at any time prior to the renewal data and not charged for renewal.
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.
I wish Sage Accounting had an option to pay for a full year all at once and receive a discount like Series XM does. It was not clear that the yellow dot in customer contacts meant it was NOT default email. Everyone should clearly see who the default email and contact is.
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!
Bank integration - being able to extract banking transaction into Sage Accounting.
Allocation rules - transactions are auto-allocated once allocation rules have been set up. This is a great time-saver.
Flexibility - the ability to view transactions, click on them to the allocation point and rectifying if required saves having to create journals, and therefore time. General ledgers therefore stay cleaner and more user-friendly.
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.
The packages for integrating with Sage50 desktop application files are not backwards compatible, so we must store many copies in order to support multiple versions of the Sage50 application that our customers use, in case they aren't immediately updating to the latest version at all times.
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're very happy with the functionality and overall experience of using Sage Accounting for our accounting needs. Currently, we are not even considering whether we would need to look around for a different option. The only things that would make us consider changing would be a significant increase in price or changes to the software which reduce it's ease of function.
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.
We have been using Sage Accounting ever since the original Simply Accounting versions. All through the versions, we've noticed that the app has remained consistent with its screen usage; therefore, retraining of staff is not necessary between versions. As well as the ability to have staff members put down and pick up the use of Sage Accounting
Sage has been always available when I want it. If there is any maintenance work to be done by the Sage team, you are told well in advance. Maintenance is generally carried out late at night or before the day begins for most of us. It continues to be the most reliable software I use.
Performance is top notch, if it is not, it is probably your wi-fi connection. It has happened that pages load slowly because of an error on Sage side but almost never. Overall reports load fine, the site is fast, navigation is fine. I have a client that has so many invoices, it is slow or gets stuck when you try to load a report for a whole year but it is just too many invoices, it makes sense. Just take 2 report for 6 months and combine them, its not an issue for me. I am happy with Sage Accounting's performance.
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.
Sage Accounting are easy to contact and have knowledgeable and helpful staff. Whenever I've encountered a problem I've always been able to get assistance and guidance and it feels like the person at the end of the phone/screen knows the product well.
Staff are always friendly, and patient, always work at a speed that suits you. You are never rushed, and In only a short time they seem to be able to help you make great strides. It has been a pleasure not a chore, learning how SAGE Accounting works and benefits me and the company.
I find the online training was very informative and they answered all my questions. I am also certified in Sage One and provided online training in the program which I have set up several people on and they love how it keeps them organized.
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
The clients' business owner worked with Sage on implementation before I began working for them. After consultation with them it is clear the process was quickly performed and without complication. The key takeaway was that Sage is seen as a partner to the business. That said, it was always necessary to engage with an accountant such as myself to extract the best out of the software.
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.
All Sage products work together, and the systems are set up in similar ways, making training/learning easier. Sage is used by many companies locally and internationally, making managing accounts for both providers and clients/customers easier. It is a complete package for macro enterprises.
The pricing structure is fair and offers good value for money. The billing is done through their online system and you can access your bills at any time. Most contacts only require 30 days' notice, so no need to feel tied in, although I can't imagine why you would want to leave Sage.
You can use Sage in your company for various aspects/positions such as bookkeepers, invoicing clerks, accountant, purchasing etc. Everyone can have their own user login and permissions can be set that specific people can do specific jobs without being able to access other peoples progress or accounts of the company.
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.
