Gusto's no longer the place to be...
March 21, 2022
Gusto's no longer the place to be...
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Gusto
This was initially great and very smooth with Gusto. However, in the last two years, the problems began. Two years ago we were probably 20 employees, we're now at 30 employees. Anything related to Gusto that involves human beings is abominably terrible. The service and sales, anything with people is horrifically bad. Support regularly makes commitments to get back to us or resolve issues and does not meet their commitment, we have to continuously follow up. When there are more involved problems like tax errors and such that we need Gusto to resolve, this essentially takes weeks or months and in some cases is never resolved. I've currently been waiting months to get tax and other payroll errors resolved, initially Gusto told me it was a very busy time and they would respond in three weeks, however, it's been four months and after continuous pestering and attempts at escalation, our issue is still unresolved. We're now leaving Gusto, a company that at one time was my favorite partner yet now I have absolute disdain for. Even in our departure, it's a completely terrible experience where we can't get Gusto to furnish us the data related to the taxes paid on our final quarter with Gustoso that the new payroll processor can take over. I would run from this company fast, they have one of the best user interfaces, but anything with people is insanely bad, the service and support. What's worse is anyone I try and escalate to doesn't get it and thinks it's normal that Gusto replies in 3 weeks (which they actually don't reply). A company that thinks three weeks is normal, is a broken company. Even experiences related to sales like transferring our health insurance management over to Gusto were completely screwed up and a mess, with no response from Gusto or the sales rep that pitched me on the idea. After numerous attempts to contact and resolve health ins issues and no responses, I moved back to our prior solution. Again anytime you need support, they will be braindead and 'not get it and after a few attempts, you can usually get simple things fixed. Anything bigger or more complex Gusto absolutely falls on its face and creates a lot of liability as you can't fix things in your own business. RUN. I'm fairly confident Gusto and Rippling and others have paid reviewers or something as some of these companies have 5/5 on the largest reviews sites. It's impossible to make software or services, or really anything for that matter, but especially software that would garner hundreds of 5/5 reviews. Legendary products that work really well like the iPhone or iTunes in its prime probably never got 5/5 reviews, so this is very fishy.
- User interface - fast and simple and clean
- Relatively responsive to simple issues though may take numerous followups
- Could be ok or even very good for very very small companies with just 2-3 employees as that tends to generate only very simple issues
- Anything to do with people or service where people are involved is very flawed
- Incredibly unresponsive and incapable of handling tax-related issues, whatever dept that does this is completely underfunded, understaffed, or unqualified. Tax-related issues = mistakes on the payroll end that needs to be resolved
- Gusto inserts various messaging into employee paystubs that have nothing to do with payroll, this ranking from asking employees to donate to charities Gusto has chosen, Presidential elections, or other causes/events they choose
- Do not under any circumstances put Gusto in charge of managing your insurance, the rollout is extremely flawed and they are unresponsive to resolving it
- Gusto thinks responding in days or weeks is perfectly normal and acceptable, this is probably one of the core problems
- Automation such as employee self-onboarding
- Friendly and positive look and feel
- Early on, the automation and simplicity were incredibly helpful, it was one of my favorite and most key products to our success early when we were super lean doing everything ourselves
- Presently, the inaccuracies and lack of professionalism and response are an extreme liability to our business and we're moving on.
Gusto has a better and much simpler UX than Rippling, however, Rippling has a much larger scope than Gusto. Gusto does seem like a fairly finished idea and finished product whereas everything I look at in Rippling seems unfinished. TriNet is a much different animal and more like outsourcing your payroll and health benefits. I didn't want to be 'locked-in' to a single vendor for so many things and not have options to get insurance from wherever I choose to meet our needs.
Do you think Gusto delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with Gusto's feature set?
Yes
Did Gusto live up to sales and marketing promises?
No
Did implementation of Gusto go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy Gusto again?
No