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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

    Zendesk Guide

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/AZendesk Guide is a smart knowledge base built to help support teams continuously improve content, keep it up to date, and serve it to customers.N/A
    Pricing
    GustoZendesk Guide
    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
    GustoZendesk Guide
    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.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    GustoZendesk Guide
    Considered Both Products
    Gusto
    No answer on this topic
    Zendesk
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    563 Answers
    88%
    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
    6 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    576 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 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
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    5 Answers
    Features
    GustoZendesk Guide
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of Gusto and Zendesk Guide
    Feature
    Gusto
    9.1
    611 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Zendesk Guide
    -
    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
    GustoZendesk Guide
    Small Businesses
    Patriot Payroll
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Slite
    Score5.7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    APS
    Score5.7 out of 10
    Bloomfire
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ADP Streamline Payroll
    Score6.1 out of 10
    Bloomfire
    Score8.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    GustoZendesk Guide
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (633 ratings)
    7.4
    (8 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (14 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.4
    (457 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    4.3
    (27 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    GustoZendesk Guide
    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
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    Zendesk
    In our company, we host our benefit articles based on country on our Zendesk Guide. However, these articles should not be seen by employees that are outside their respective article country. For example, an employee that is based in Thailand shouldn't be seeing Malaysia benefits article as employees might compared benefits. With Zendesk Guide, the system allow us to set the configuration of the article so it is only visible Thailand-based employees, and for Malaysia article, only Malaysia-based employees
    Incentivized
    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
    Zendesk
    • They give us ability to control the whole frontend of the Communities by giving us access to manipulate HTML (in HBS file), CSS and JS
    • They give handlebars templating engine in backend which helps us to show various listing rendered through server side without having need to implement client side rendering of the listing and features.
    • They provide us dynamic content fields, which can be useful for mapping categories or storing category and topic IDs so we don't need to hard code IDs in Sandbox and Production separately.
    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
    Zendesk
    • Formatting according to our brand guidelines can be tricky
    • Reporting metrics are lacking
    • The user interface can be confusing
    • Their support team takes a long time to respond
    • They have comments open on their KB articles, but almost noone responds, which is frustrating.
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Zendesk
    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
    Zendesk
    The support is good but can sometime be frustrating to get a quick answer. We end up being sent articles that don't answer the question and then we have to go back and try again
    Incentivized
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    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
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    Zendesk
    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
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    Zendesk
    It is an attribute of Zendesk that allows for easy over the phone communication between agents and customers. It is more personal and allows for better productivity. Phone support from anywhere with reliable internet connection which is essential to call center communication whether in the office or in the home of the agent.
    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
    Zendesk
    • We used it for multiple customer so we can say ROI of Zendesk Guide is very competitive.
    • Zendesk meet[s] most of the business objective[s], which suits [a]s best product among its competitor.
    • I highly recommend to use Zendesk for knowledge base and tickets and agents.
    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