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Most business owners have a sure-fire need for payroll providers. Small, medium or large, business owners find themselves prioritizing more important things rather than spending hours on manual payroll and forms. With that being said, odds are if you’ve been in the market for a payroll provider, you’ve heard of either Gusto or ADP, or both! But which one is better? Let’s dive into the services each of them offer, the quality, the prices, and finally Gusto vs ADP: the verdict.
What Is Gusto?
Gusto is, well, a payroll provider. Shocking, I know. But that’s not all Gusto is: it’s actually a full human resource management software that prioritizes over 200,000 small businesses, like my own. It’s, in fact, the very service I use to run my own payroll, pay myself a salary, and save the big bucks each year with taxes.
Like I said, payroll isn’t the only thing Gusto offers. Here’s just some of the features Gusto has:
- Onboarding and hiring tools. Gusto offers beginning to end hiring tools like offer letters and checklists.
- Time tracking. They offer basic time tracking services even with time off requests and PTO policies.
- Benefits. Gusto offers 401ks, HSAs, FSAs and even full insurance (medical, dental, vision).
- Automated taxes. Gusto automatically takes care of taxes, withholdings, and even statements.
What Is ADP?
More specifically, RUN is the small business version of ADP prioritizing businesses of 49 employees or less. If your business is 50 employees or over, that would be when you’d be looking at the regular version of ADP.
Back to RUN: it’s a cloud based payroll solution powered by ADP targeting small businesses rather than online entrepreneurs, like myself. Mostly because the services they offer are really tailored towards those mom and pop shops and physical locations, rather than digital business owners.
To see the full comparison of Gusto vs ADP, watch my in depth video right here!
Gusto: Pros and Cons
Pros
Features and quality. Between benefits, onboarding, automated taxes, and its payroll services, Gusto really is the one stop all for small businesses and online entrepreneurs. Like I said before, payroll is one of those things that most business owners would probably rather not do as it can be tedious and time consuming to do all manually. Their time is most likely best used elsewhere, and Gusto offers a streamlined platform to handle that end of the business for them.
Pricing. Gusto is on a ‘tiered’ pricing template but what I use, personally, runs at $40 per month plus $6 per employee thereafter. So for a one-manned online entrepreneur like myself, Gusto costs me $46 per month. Let’s also not forget they offer a $100 Visa gift card when signing up, so don’t miss out on that right here.
Cons
With any software or platform or service, there will always be parts or features that are lacking, and Gusto is no different. Complaints about their customer service has been a recurring theme that I’ve seen. Personally, I have yet to have any issues.
Granted, I’ve only used their customer service maybe 4 or 5 times for things like switching my business to a new state or help around tax time. I will say they do not offer 24/7 service. They are closed on weekends, so if 24/7 availability is what your business needs, then that could hinder your decision.
Another downside to Gusto is that it’s not free. Well duh, right? Nothing is free nor is any other similar service. Any ‘free’ option would be you doing all the payroll yourself manually, and just how ‘free’ would that feel, right? The upside to this is Gusto doesn’t start charging until you run your first payroll, which I have personally taken advantage of.
ADP: Pros and Cons
Pros
Their customer service is substantially better than Gusto. You do get 24/7 customer service, rather than just during weekdays. Keep in mind, you do pay for it with ADP so factor that in to your per month cost.
Secondly, they do have way more features, functionality, and customizability for those small businesses like pizza or ice cream shops where you can tailor it to your certain business with features like Ziprecruiter, background checks, and enhanced HR support. Even their pricing structure is ‘quote based’ where you tell them what your needs are and they spit out a quote for you.
Cons
While the customizable pricing can be nice for more specific operations, if you’re looking for bare bones tiered pricing, this is where ADP may struggle. You could be paying more for all the added features your business may need as well as for that 24/7 customer service.
There are a lot of added on features as well that can quickly add up cost-wise. Keep in mind the more your business needs, the more your quote will come back compared to Gusto’s kind of ‘one-stop-all’ pricing.
ADP is also not quite geared towards the online, digital entrepreneurs as most of their services and features tailor towards the physicality of most of their customers.
Gusto vs ADP: The Verdict
I’ve personally spent dozens and dozens of hours researching both options of payroll providers and I came to one conclusion: you want to choose one correctly because it’s not something that you’ll be switching a whole lot and it’s a headache to do so.
Gusto is geared towards online entrepreneurs like myself who want the bare bones, all inclusive, easily priced option that has a streamlined interface and within budget. ADP (RUN) is geared towards the physical small businesses like pizza shops or ice cream shops where the customers can take full advantage of all the features ADP has tailored for them.
The Verdict
With this being said, my biased opinion leans towards Gusto as that is what has worked out for me and my small business. The price points align with my business and running payroll is as easy as a click of a button.
So if you’re in the market for a payroll provider, I really do recommend Gusto as a tried and true option that I personally use myself. If you’re ready to sign up, do so here and make sure you get that $100 Visa gift card!
