Effective payroll and HR management plays a crucial role in ensuring the smooth operation and success of any business. It assists with streamlining team management, simplifying payroll, and ensuring compliance with federal and state regulations. Gusto and SurePayroll are two widely used options for top HR software .
Gusto is recognized for its all-in-one HR features and intuitive interface, making it a top choice for businesses seeking advanced HR capabilities. In contrast, SurePayroll is valued for its ease of use and simplicity, making it ideal for small businesses seeking dependable payroll processing without the need for extensive HR functionalities.
In this Gusto Vs SurePayroll comparison, we’ll examine each software’s unique and key features, user interface, pricing, benefits, and drawbacks to help you make an informed decision.
Gusto Vs SurePayroll: At A Glance
Feature
Gusto
SurePayroll
User-Interface
User-friendly interface with intuitive design
Intuitive interface with clean layout and easy navigation
Benefits Administration
Wide range of health insurance plans with workers compensation
401(k) solutions and compliance with state regulations
Payroll
AutoPilot for automated payroll processing and tax registration across 50 states
Accurate tax deductions and filings with easy-to-use automations
HR Services
Advanced HR capabilities with a centralized ATS
Basic HR features with guidance from HR experts
Pricing
Three paid plans, starting from $40/month
Three paid plans, starting from $20/month
What Is Gusto?
Gusto HR is benefits, HR, and payroll management software for small to medium-sized businesses, enabling them to streamline their international contractor payments and manage their remote teams. Many businesses have seen operational improvements after adopting Gusto. For instance, Little Fish Accounting successfully doubled its client base and boosted monthly revenue by providing People Advisory services with Gusto.
Gusto's platform streamlines complex administrative tasks, allowing businesses to prioritize growth and employee satisfaction. Gusto can be used in various industries, providing healthcare compliance for the medical industry and flexible benefits scheduling for manufacturing businesses.
Standout Features
Talent Management: Provides tools for HR teams to streamline their performance evaluation process and employee career development. It assists with retaining top talent, nurturing the team’s growth, and providing relevant feedback.
Insights And Reporting: Various features like customizable reports, automatic compliance alerts, and anonymous team surveys, enable businesses to get insights on their team’s performance.
Worker’s Compensation: The software offers simplified workers' compensation insurance, covering wage replacement and the team’s medical expenses. This seamlessly integrates with Gusto's payroll to calculate premiums accurately based on real payroll data.
Gusto Global: Offers global payroll capabilities, allowing businesses to hire, onboard, and pay contractors and employees in more than 120 countries while ensuring compliance.
Pros And Cons
Pros
Intuitive interface with user-friendly design
Payday email reminders keep users informed
Detailed income and tax breakdowns for clarity
Responsive customer service ensures quick issue resolutions
Cons
Occasional login issues occur on Android apps
Interface lacks intuitiveness for tax compliance tasks
What Is SurePayroll?
SurePayroll is a subsidiary of Paychex, offering features like direct deposits, automatic payroll, tax payments and filings, in-depth reporting, and compliance management. The software works well as a household finance manager, helping streamline payments for nannies, elder care workers, drivers, maids, and cooks.
It's also the best HR software for businesses who need to manage payroll and taxes for independent contractors. Surepayroll’s fully automated payroll system streamlines tax calculations, manages deductions, and guarantees timely payments.
Standout Features
Household Employee Services: Simplifies payroll and tax responsibilities for nannies, independent contractors, and other domestic workers, ensuring compliance with "nanny tax" regulations.
Small Business Employee Benefits: Provides access to a range of offerings, including workers’ compensation insurance, 401(k) retirement plans, and health insurance options.
Reporting: Offers in-depth reporting so HR teams can gain insights from the software’s up-to-date payroll, annual and quarterly reports.
Tax Payments And Filings: The software full-service plan enables businesses to get their federal, state, and local taxes filed and deposited.
Pros And Cons
Pros
Daily reminders keep the tasks on track
Strong reporting features provide valuable insights
Easy-to-use platform with responsive customer service
Cons
Finding reports could be difficult
Tax setup for employees can be challenging
Cumbersome cancellation process frustrates users
Gusto Vs SurePayroll: Key Features Comparison
User-Interface
Gusto offers a user-friendly interface with an intuitive design, making it easy for employees with varying levels of technical expertise to navigate the platform. This reduces the learning curve for new users, allowing them to quickly adapt to the system.
SurePayroll, on the other hand, isn’t as intuitive as Gusto, as its interface is somehow complex. Users often face challenges when navigating the platform.
Winner: Gusto wins this section as it offers a more intuitive interface that is easy for users to navigate.
Benefit Administration
Gusto's benefits administration platform delivers a full range of health and financial benefits to support businesses and their employees. It offers access to diverse health insurance plans, including dental and vision coverage. Employees can allocate pre-tax money for eligible medical expenses, leading to better financial planning.
Additionally, the software streamlines the process of securing and managing workers' compensation insurance, ensuring compliance and safeguarding both businesses and their teams.
SurePayroll offers cost-effective 401(k) solutions, including traditional, safe-harbor, and Solo(k) plans, to help employees save for retirement. The platform simplifies the process of obtaining and managing workers' compensation insurance, ensuring compliance with state regulations, and safeguarding the workforce.
Winner: Gusto stands out with its wider range of flexible benefits administration options.
Payroll
Gusto’s payrolls feature automatically files all the payroll taxes and comes with built-in time-tracking and benefits for fast and accurate payroll processing. It provides next-day direct deposits, an AutoPilot feature for automatic payroll processing, and unlimited payroll runs each month. Additionally, Gusto manages tax registration across all 50 states, ensuring businesses remain compliant with federal and state regulations.
SurePayroll offers a simplified payroll system for small businesses , enabling them to make timely payments, ensuring accurate tax deductions and filings. However, the software doesn't offer tax documentation or W-2 forms to the employees.
Winner: Gusto wins this section with its full-service payroll processing and automated tax calculations and filings.
HR Services
Gusto offers a wide range of HR services, such as hiring, onboarding, talent, time, and attendance management. The platform also provides custom job postings, offer letter templates, integrations, and a centralized applicant tracking system (ATS) to automatically track and manage applicants. Gusto’s wide range of HR tools enables businesses to automate their HR operations effectively and maintain employee satisfaction.
SurePayroll is focused more on payroll functionalities and offers basic HR features. It provides features like HR guidance from certified professionals, e-learning employee development, employee handbook, compliance insights, online HR library, and job description builder.
Winner: Gusto’s comprehensive set of HR tools makes it a winner in this section. It offers a centralized platform for efficient hiring, seamless onboarding, and effective employee management.
Pricing
Gusto provides three paid pricing plans designed for businesses of all sizes. The plan starts with a Simple plan for $40/month + $6/person, which includes features like full-service single-state payroll, employee self-service, employee financial benefits, and basic hiring tools.
The Plus plan is for $80/month + $12/person and includes multi-state payroll, advanced PTO management, time tracking, and custom reports features. The Premium plan is for $180/month + $22/person and offers a dedicated customer success manager, compliance alerts, and full-service payroll migration and account setup.
SurePayroll provides two primary pricing plans for small businesses. The No Tax Filing plan costs $20/month plus $4/employee and includes features like payroll tax calculations, unlimited payroll runs, direct deposit, and multiple pay rates.
The Full-Service Payroll plan is for $29/month plus $7/employee and includes tax filing and depositing services to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local regulations. For household employers, SurePayroll offers a Full Payroll plan at $39/month for one employee, with an additional $10 for each extra employee.
Winner: This section sends with a tie as Gusto's comprehensive feature set justifies its higher cost, whereas SurePayroll provides a more budget-friendly solution for businesses with straightforward payroll requirements.
Final Verdict: Which Platform Best Matches Your Needs?
Gusto and SurePayroll both provide dependable HR and payroll software , but they are tailored to different types of businesses. When deciding between these two platforms, evaluate your specific business requirements and determine if you need basic or advanced HR and payroll features.
Gusto’s user-friendly platform makes it the ideal choice for small businesses that are rapidly growing, with advanced HR features that manage the entire employee lifecycle, from hiring to retirement.
On the other hand, SurePayroll is a good choice for small startups, prioritizing affordability and simplicity. If you need a cost-efficient HR solution, with basic reporting capabilities, then this software will work well for your business.
Laiba Laeeq is a junior technical content writer at Software Finder, with a focus on project management and construction management software. As a Technical Content Writer, she can create engaging content that boosts brand visibility and drives conversions and stays ahead of industry trends. She collaborates with teams to create exceptional content. Outside of work, Laiba finds joy in expressing her creativity through painting, spending quality time with her cats, and indulging in her favorite movies and TV shows.
<p>Laiba Laeeq is a junior technical content writer at Software Finder, with a focus on project management and construction management software. As a Technical Content Writer, she can create engaging content that boosts brand visibility and drives conversions and stays ahead of industry trends. She collaborates with teams to create exceptional content. Outside of work, Laiba finds joy in expressing her creativity through painting, spending quality time with her cats, and indulging in her favorite movies and TV shows.</p>
Laiba Laeeq is a junior technical content writer at Software Finder, with a focus on project management and construction management software. As a Technical Content Writer, she can create engaging content that boosts brand visibility and drives conversions and stays ahead of industry trends. She collaborates with teams to create exceptional content. Outside of work, Laiba finds joy in expressing her creativity through painting, spending quality time with her cats, and indulging in her favorite movies and TV shows.
<p>Laiba Laeeq is a junior technical content writer at Software Finder, with a focus on project management and construction management software. As a Technical Content Writer, she can create engaging content that boosts brand visibility and drives conversions and stays ahead of industry trends. She collaborates with teams to create exceptional content. Outside of work, Laiba finds joy in expressing her creativity through painting, spending quality time with her cats, and indulging in her favorite movies and TV shows.</p>
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