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
When I Work
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
When I Work is a way for businesses to schedule, track time and attendance, and communicate with their hourly employees. The schedule and time clock is placed in every employee's pocket with When I Work's iOS and Android apps. It can be used to keep track of time off, employee availability, and manage shift swaps with a few clicks. When I Work integrates with payroll providers to streamline the process and avoid human error.
$2.50
per month per user
Pricing
Gusto
When I Work
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
Essentials
$2.50
per month per user
Essentials + Attendance
$4
per month per user
Pro
$5
per month per user
Pro + Attendance
$7
per month per user
Premium
$8
per month per user
Premium + Attendance
$10
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Gusto
When I Work
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.
When I Work is much more detail oriented. When I Work has less features and the app is confusing. Gusto houses all of the systems I use to manage more than just When I Work and how much I earn/earned. I like Gusto much more than When I Work.
Both When I Work and Wave Accounting are not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison with Gusto, as each one has a benefit that Gusto does not currently provide (scheduling shifts in When I Work, and accounting in Wave). Gusto wins on all other fronts. However, I can integrate …
I love both but prefer the pay calculation abd time off management features in Gusto. They are easier to use and navigate. I love the scheduling and group work chat feature better in When I Work. It is the main aspect of the app and prioritized communication in the app.
Gusto is cheap and easy if you just want to process payroll. If you want customer service, support, and any help whatsoever from a live person, do not use Gusto. They have no sense of urgency in resolving problems, and reaching a live person who can actually provide …
I felt that the customer reviews and feedback for Gusto spoke volumes, and the Gusto interface was straightforward and simple to use. The value of the tier-based subscription model is great too. I found that other HR software plans were more expensive and more cluttered, less …
Gusto is better than all of its competitors - hands down. The closest competitor is sure payroll, and they are lightyears behind what gusto does. For small business and for the price there is no comparison. Gusto is the best. They fixed what ADP/Paychex were lacking, which is …
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 recommend When I Work to those companies that are looking for a way to manage work schedules and want to increase the productivity of all employees. This is an important platform that would bring excellent results to small, medium and large companies. This is a constant monitoring system which allows employees to complete their tasks in the indicated time, When I Work sends automated alerts when an employee is not complying with their tasks and this allows us to know exactly the productivity we are having in each one of the sectors. It is an excellent platform for planning and administration of working hours, it has a very easy-to-use UI that allows schedules to be easily managed. Without a doubt, When I Work would be a perfect implementation for any sector or company, since it has a lot of potential to collect exact data on compliance with working hours.
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!
When I Work allowed me to color-code each employee's schedule.
When I Work allowed me to show who was "off" during what time of day. This was essential for morale, as our event included 16-18 hour days, and I wanted to show that everyone had down time each day.
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.
When pulling up the schedule on the app, it defaults to Tuesday when the screen is done loading.
If you pull up an individual's schedule it removes your default settings. For example, I have mine set to just my store, but if I need to see an employee's schedule it resets those defaults. You're always looking at the last schedule you pulled up.
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.
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.
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.
Every time I contact When I Work staff with an issue, someone is there with a quick solution to my problem. I love the chat feature. I can continue to work on other things while the When I Work representative assists me.
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
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.
When I Work seemed a bit easier to implement for our team and employees. When I Work had all the things we needed without a lot of the bells and whistles that we wouldn't really utilize. When I Work was also a bit more affordable for our budget. Overall, it was the better choice.
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.
