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Our research found that ADP Payroll is slightly better than Gusto, thanks to its robust customization and integration options that make it more scalable overall. Still, Gusto is an excellent choice, providing an intuitive platform and unmatched customer support for users. Our expert testing found that both were worthy of being ranked among the best payroll software providers.
Simply put, ADP Payroll is a better fit for larger businesses that may have a global workforce, while Gusto will mesh well with smaller organizations that might be new to business tools, like payroll software.
In this Gusto vs ADP Payroll guide, we’ll look at how these two payroll software providers compare, from features and pricing to scalability and customer support. If you’re just getting started with your search for payroll software, take our payroll quiz to be matched with a trusted provider based. They’ll then be in contact with obligation-free quotes.
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Note: All Tech.co insights are backed up by our own unique, in-depth, and independent research that is formulated by our team of experts, who weigh criteria like data security, expert assistance, and scalability.
Gusto vs ADP Payroll – Head-to-Head
Now that you’ve seen how Gusto and ADP Payroll match up on the basics, let’s dive into what makes these two providers different.
Our expert research team broke their work down into six key categories: customizability, scalability, features, data security, customer support, and onboarding. Then, they spent hundreds of hours exhaustively logging the quality of each feature or function related to those categories. Here’s our head-to-head between Gusto and ADP Payroll:
- ADP Payroll is more customizable and scalable than Gusto, which provides limited integrations.
- Gusto pricing is available and affordable while ADP Payroll requires you to get a quote for pricing information.
- ADP Payroll offers hands-on training, whereas Gusto provides a wealth of online resources and an intuitive interface.
- Gusto provides email, phone, and live chat support options, whereas ADP Payroll only provides phone and live chat support.
- Both Gusto and ADP Payroll offer excellent control and data security with their platforms.
Click the links below to get started with Gusto or ADP Payroll, or use our quote finder if neither is a good fit for your business.
Gusto Pricing vs ADP Payroll Pricing
While both Gusto and ADP Payroll offer four pricing plans, they are anything but similar when it comes to cost. In fact, the primary difference between Gusto pricing and ADP Payroll pricing is that one of them has publicly available costs and the other doesn’t.
That’s right, Gusto’s pricing is clear and available, while ADP Payroll requires you to contact the company for a customized quote based on your business. Still, some of the plans are comparable, at least in their overall functionality, but the price point comparison will remain a mystery until you reach out.
The Simple plan from Gusto, for example, is similar to the Essential and Enhanced plans from ADP Payroll, as these options only offer payroll functionality — like direct deposit and tax filings — with no additional HR tools.
The Plus and Premium plans from Gusto, on the other hand, are most similar to the Complete and HR Pro plans from ADP Payroll, as they add that HR functionality, like time tracking and applicant status. Overall, ADP Payroll offers more in terms of these HR tools, largely because of the available integrations like SAP and Oracle. However, given the lack of pricing information, it’s difficult to distinguish whether Gusto or ADP Payroll offers better value.
For a closer look at the pricing for Gusto and ADP Payroll, we’ve created an in-depth breakdown of all the pricing plans available from each provider below.
Applicant tracking on ADP Payroll
Photo: adp.com
ADP Payroll pricing plans
ADP Payroll may not have publicly available pricing for its plans, but you can get a clear picture of what these plans offer, even if you don’t know the cost.
For starters, the Essential and Enhanced plans are simply payroll plans, offering features like direct deposit, tax filing, and delivery. The Complete and HR Plus plans, on the other hand, offer more HR functionality, including salary benchmarks, forms and documents, and helpdesk features.
Check out a summary of the four ADP Payroll pricing plans that you can choose from below:
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Highlights
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Time tracking
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Dedicated HR advisor
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Essential |
Enhanced |
Complete |
HR Pro |
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Custom pricing |
Custom pricing |
Custom pricing |
Custom pricing |
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Everything in Essential, plus:
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Everything in Enhanced, plus:
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Everything in Complete, plus:
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Available as add-on |
Available as add-on |
Available as add-on |
Available as add-on |
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Gusto pricing plans
Gusto pricing starts at $40 per month for basic payroll and benefits software services, as well as an additional $6 per month for each employee. There’s also an $80 per month (and $12 per month for each employee) plan that adds HR tools like PTO management and performance reviews.
There’s the Premium plan that adds a dedicated customer success manager, but you’ll have to contact Gusto to get customized pricing for your business. Finally, Gusto does provide a contractor-only plan, which costs $35 per month and $6 per contractor, although you can get it for free for the first six months.
Here’s how the four Gusto pricing plans match up against each other:
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$49/month + $6/month/person |
$80/month + $12/month/person |
$180/month + $22/month/person |
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$49/month + $6/month/person |
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Visit our guide to Gusto pricing for more in-depth detail.
Do Gusto or ADP Payroll have free plans?
Unfortunately, neither Gusto nor ADP Payroll offer a free forever plan. However, ADP Payroll does offer a generous 3-month free trial, while Gusto offers free demos upon request.
It’s worth remembering that if you’re in the market for a free plan, these are best for small businesses. When it comes to a function as important as payroll, you don’t want to cut corners. While free payroll software exists, you’ll definitely want to opt for a paid plan when it comes to paying your team.
Best for Scalability – ADP Payroll
Our research found that ADP Payroll is better than Gusto when it comes to scalability, largely because it offers more and better integrations with its payroll software. In fact, we found ADP Payroll to be the best payroll software when it comes to scalability.
For starters, ADP Payroll supports all of the integrations. The biggest difference, however, is that ADP Payroll integrates with HR information systems like Oracle, SAP SuccessFactors, and Workday, whereas Gusto doesn’t offer any HR information system integrations. This limits the scalability of Gusto substantially, which is why we gave ADP Payroll the edge in this category.
In addition to this, for accounting software, ADP Payroll integrates with QuickBooks, Wave, and Xero, whereas Gusto only integrates with QuickBooks and Xero. ADP Payroll and Gusto do both integrate with a wide range of benefits administration as well as time and attendance software (like ClockShark and 7Shifts).
Payroll benefits on Gusto
Photo: gusto.com
Best for Control Over Your Payroll: Tie
When it comes to core payroll features and functions, the “Gusto vs ADP Payroll” battle is a dead heat.
They both offer nearly all of the most important elements of a payroll: Depending on your plan, you’ll be able to conduct off-cycle payments as well as automatic payroll runs. Both services support auto-tracked sick pay, holiday, and deduction calculations, time tracking, and even multiple pay rates within a single payroll for a single employee.
ADP and Gusto both process direct deposits quickly: ADP guarantees funds are deposited “within 24 hours,” while Gusto says employees will receive deposits “by 5 p.m. local time.”
In addition, ADP Payroll and Gusto offer plenty of reporting options, both letting you view a payroll register for tracking all employee addresses, pay rates, hours worked, taxes withheld, and more metrics. You’ll also get individual employee reports, tax reports, user dashboards, and a custom report builder.
Both services fail to offer one reporting perk — the ability to easily view changes between an upcoming payroll and the previous one — but you can manually switch between the two to gain the same insights. On the whole, ADP and Gusto both cover all typical payroll needs.
Best for Customer Support – Gusto
While Gusto and ADP Payroll take very different approaches for customer support, both provide robust offerings that should help your team get through any issues you might have.
For starters, Gusto offers a modern type of customer support, offering a wealth of self-service resources that can help you maximize the potential of the platform. ADP Payroll, however, takes a hands-on approach, providing live training sessions so users can get the full-on experience.
Additionally, Gusto offers more support channels, allowing users to contact them via email, phone, and live chat. ADP Payroll, on the other hand, only allows for phone and live chat, so you won’t be able to email the team with your problems.
In the end, Gusto and ADP Payroll may offer solid customer support, but it’s Gusto that takes the win as email has become a reliable medium for customer service, and the lack of support is a huge con for ADP Payroll.
Best for Expert Assistance: Tie
Both ADP and Gusto make it easy to get set up and trained on everything the software can do. They both offer live training courses alongside the more common pre-recorded courses and tutorials.
These are helpful resources that our research team benefited from, although they also appreciated the final assistance that both ADP and Gusto provided: Written set-up instructions to help with creating accounts and getting a payroll off the ground.
ADP and Gusto also offer great compliance tools, including filing state and federal taxes on behalf of your company, making tax resources available, and supporting alerts that will proactively warn you if you are not in compliance with labor laws (although Gusto’s alerts are part of its package, while ADP charges extra for the SmartCompliance add-on).
Granted, you’ll still need to put in some time to understand the interfaces and what tools to expect. This is why ADP’s 3-month long free trial might be helpful, as it gives you more than enough time to figure out the software without paying a cent, while Gusto simply offers a free demo for the same.
Best for Data Security: Tie
Payroll software needs to track some of the most immediately sensitive information your company deals with: All of its employees’ bank details. Our researchers have good news, though, as both ADP Payroll and Gusto more than meet the standard security protocols, and ultimately tie with each other for data security.
First, they both offer user permissions, which refers to a system’s ability to restrict access to certain information, depending on the role that has been assigned to any given user’s account within the software. This keeps information need-to-know, and stops potential phishing attacks before they start.
Other helpful protocols that both ADP and Gusto offer include Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption, ISO 27001 certification, and US-based data centers for storing all client data. Plus, neither Gusto nor ADP has been the victim of a data breach within the last two years.
About Our Research
This Gusto vs ADP Payroll guide is powered by in-depth research from a team of experts. We’ve put hours of time into thorough tests of eight different payroll software providers to ensure you’ve got the most actionable data possible to inform your decision.
To give you a clearer picture, we focused on certain metrics to rank and rate these payroll software providers. As for the specific metrics, payroll software was compared based on control, data security, expertise/assistance, scalability, and customer support options.
To learn a bit more about our process, check out our in-depth research guide, which outlines how we evaluate all business tools, not just payroll software.
How Do Gusto and ADP Payroll Compare With Other Platforms?
If Gusto and ADP Payroll don’t seem like the right fit for your business, there’s nothing to worry about. There is a wide range of the best payroll software providers out there, all offering a different set of features and price points that may better suit your particular needs.
Rippling Payroll is the top choice in our research, thanks to its fast and easy functionality as well as the many supported integrations it has. Alternatively, check out our table below to get a clear picture of your options:
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Our research found that ADP Payroll is slightly better than Gusto as it is more customizable and a scalable for larger businesses. It offers more integrations with other HR services, which means ADP Payroll can be rolled into an all-in-one HR hub for companies that need it.
However, Gusto is still a solid choice thanks to its intuitive platform and top-tier customer service options, support email, phone, and live chat channels. It is worth noting that it does lack the HR integrations offered by ADP Payroll, which is why it falls slightly behind.
For more help finding a payroll software provider that meets your needs, make sure to head on over to our payroll quiz, which will match you with a top software provider.
ADP vs Gusto Payroll: FAQs
Our research found that ADP Payroll is better than Gusto, largely due to its substantial customizability, which makes it decidedly more scalable. However, Gusto offers an intuitive interface and better customer support options.
Gusto Payroll is an intuitive platform that comes with a lot of resources to help users learn how to use it properly and effectively. It offers solid automation alerts to keep you compliant and provides robust data security to ensure your information is protected.
ADP Payroll is a robust platform that offers a lot of customizability and integrations, allowing you to combine it with other business tools. As a result, the platform is extremely scalable and allows larger businesses to handle everything they need easily.
ADP Payroll offers integration with a wide range of human resources systems, like Oracle, Workday, and SAP SuccessFactors. Gusto offers no such integration in this category. Check out our guide to ADP Payroll competitors for alternatives that offer similar integrations to ADP.
Gusto pricing starts at $40 per month, which is on the higher end of the spectrum when compared with other options in the industry. However, ADP Payroll pricing is only available via quotation, which means you can’t really compare the two.
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