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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

    Patriot Payroll

    Score8.6 out of 10
    N/APatriot Software headquartered in Canton, Ohio offers Patriot PAY, their benefits administration and payroll software.

    $17

    per month

    Pricing
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    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
    Basic Payroll
    $17/mo + $4 per employee/contractor
    Accounting Basic
    $20/mo (unlimited use)
    Accounting Premium
    $30/mo (unlimited use)
    Full Service Payroll
    $37/mo + $4 per employee/contractor
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    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.Patriot Software has two payroll options to choose from: Basic Payroll, and Full Service payroll software. Both start with a simple three-step payroll process. With the Full Service Payroll, Patriot will collect, deposit, and file federal, state, and local payroll taxes on the customer's behalf; end-of-the-year payroll tax filing is included at no extra charge. Print W2s on 8 x 1/2 x 11 plain white office paper to hand to employees, or post to the free employee portal. Also, Patriot Software offers free direct deposit.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    Considered Both Products
    Gusto
    Chose Gusto
    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 …
    Incentivized
    Patriot Software
    Chose Patriot Payroll
    QuickBooks Online Payroll is literally the devil. They make things unclear, very difficult to tell what has been filed and what has been missed, hard to adjust owner salary whenever you want. I hate it! Gusto is more robust than Patriot and so for bigger companies with more …
    Incentivized
    Chose Patriot Payroll
    My early experience with Gusto was exceptional...then the wheels started falling off. I won't go into the details but I lost a couple payroll clients due to their errors and was on the verge of losing more. That coupled with massive fee increases made it necessary to find …
    Incentivized
    Chose Patriot Payroll
    Patriot Payroll is cheaper with their partner program and customer service seems better. As well Quickbooks Desktop Payroll specifically was charging per direct deposit action which is cost prohibitive and Quickbooks customer service is virtually non existent. As well, Patriot …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    563 Answers
    100%
    Would buy again
    10 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    464 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    10 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    576 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    316 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    9 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    376 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    Features
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    Payroll Management
    Comparison of Payroll Management features of Gusto and Patriot Payroll
    Feature
    Gusto
    9.1
    611 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Patriot Payroll
    8.3
    15 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Pay calculation9.5587 Ratings9.515 Ratings
    Support for external payroll vendors8.58 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Benefit plan administration8.7417 Ratings6.03 Ratings
    Direct deposit files9.7592 Ratings9.211 Ratings
    Salary revision and increment management9.0462 Ratings8.213 Ratings
    Reimbursement management9.0196 Ratings6.36 Ratings
    Off-cycle/On-Demand payment00 Ratings8.75 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    Small Businesses
    Patriot Payroll
    Score8.6 out of 10
    RUN Powered by ADP®
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    APS
    Score5.7 out of 10
    APS
    Score5.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    ADP Streamline Payroll
    Score6.1 out of 10
    ADP Streamline Payroll
    Score6.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.1
    (633 ratings)
    9.7
    (20 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (14 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.4
    (457 ratings)
    9.3
    (10 ratings)
    Support Rating
    4.2
    (27 ratings)
    8.7
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    GustoPatriot Payroll
    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
    Read full review
    Patriot Software
    Patriot PAY is well-suited to a company that has a 10-day window between the end of the pay period and the payday. The company size makes very little difference and it is easy to use for any company. It is also very progressive in development and improvement. If a company has a small window for turn-around, but fairly consistent payroll amounts (such as a lot of salary workers), Patriot PAY might also be a good fit for them.

    Companies with tight turn-around times or payrolls that vary significantly in direct deposit amounts might have difficulty using Patriot PAY.
    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
    Patriot Software
    • It is simple, intuitive and straightforward in its design. Someone with little experience with roles in human resources roles, bookkeeping or payroll can quickly learn how to set-up the software and run payroll regularly by reading through the support portion of the site, or by contacting the helpful staff at Patriot. Patriot staff have walked me through issues or guided me on the phone as I learned how to use a function of the software.
    • Patriot provides comprehensive quarterly tax filing records, including 941s, state unemployment compensation tax payments, state employer's tax and local employer's tax filings. You can also generate payroll or tax deposit reports over a specific time period or per employee.
    • The support and FAQ pages available on Patriot are very practical and written in an easy to understand manner. Using the information provided there, I was able to properly set up new employees according to local and state filing requirements.
    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
    Patriot Software
    • Connecting with outside software - we have an issue of Patriot not recognizing donors when connected to other websites when all the information is the same minus a middle initial
    • Giving an error page when something small is off. Instead of giving an easy to fix error notification, Patriot brings the user to an error page and they have to reenter everything.
    • Fixing dates easily. If a date is entered incorrectly, 8/13/21 instead of 2021, an error pop up appears but the user has to click enter/okay many times or refresh the page in order to fix this issue.
    • Enter vs Tab key - Patriot loves the tab key but if the user clicks enter instead, many times it brings them to the home page.
    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
    Patriot Software
    It works well because it is cheap for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Patriot Software
    I think it is great once things are setup as for general user looking to look for simple things like a copy of a paystub or a current pay rate for an employee. However, to find specialized things like a state withholding number or payroll integration settings those do require a bit more digging to find or possibly a call to customer service for help.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
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    Patriot Software
    Generally speaking it is pretty good that when I need to call somebody up for a payroll question I can generally within five minutes get somebody on the phone and they can help me resolve the problem or specify where specifically I need to go or contact to find my answers. However, that being said, for my specific situation as a partner my assigned contact has not always been very responsive.
    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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    Patriot Software
    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
    Read full review
    Patriot Software
    I briefly used Intuit Online Payroll, and it was expensive, had no support, and was very frustrating to use. I also used 3 local tax companies for payroll - they were extremely expensive and messed up all of the time. Their employee turnover was very annoying (and it seemed to happen every other month) and each employee did things differently. When I let one of my employees go, the last company paid them after termination (2 weeks of salary), and had to get into a legal battle because the employee would not give the money back.
    Incentivized
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    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
    Patriot Software
    • It boosts my time available for client-facing activities by not having to spend as much time processing payroll.
    • It helps me deliver accurate reports to my CPA at tax time regarding employee wages and employer taxes.
    • Through the online portal, I can easily track year-to-date taxes my company has paid.
    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

    Patriot Payroll Screenshots

    Screenshot of the 3-step process to carry out payrollScreenshot of the Payroll interface, which can be used run payroll on any device with internet or data connection. There is no need to download and maintain a separate payroll app.Screenshot of a payroll report, to sort by work location, employee, and date range.