Gusto pricing, price hikes and cheaper alternatives
Gusto (gusto.com) is a payroll and HR platform. Monthly base fee per plan plus a monthly fee per active employee or contractor, billed monthly.. No free plan.
What Gusto costs
- 10 employees: $109/mo (Simple $49/mo base + $6/person x 10 = $109; full-service single-state payroll with tax filings and W-2s, unlimited payroll runs)
- 1 employee: $55/mo (Simple $49 + $6 x 1 = $55; a Gusto Solo plan for owner-only S corps is linked from the pricing page but its price could not be verified)
- 50 employees: $349/mo (Simple $49 + $6 x 50 = $349; Simple has no published employee cap)
Plan compared: Simple. Prices are USD per month on monthly billing (annual-only plans divided by 12): the base fee plus per-employee fees for full-service payroll for employees in one US state paid twice a month, or the core HR plan for tools that do not run payroll. Products not sold in the US use their home-market price converted to USD. Setup fees, benefit and insurance premiums and taxes are left out.
Gusto price hikes
- Gusto made expenses a paid add-on on Simple and moved admin roles up · Sep 2026
Expenses and reimbursements became a paid add-on for the Simple plan, and custom admin roles were limited to Premium. - Gusto raised its Simple plan base fee from $40 to $49 a month · Apr 2025
The Simple plan's base fee rose from $40/mo to $49/mo (+22.5%); the $6/person fee did not change. A 10-employee company now pays $109/mo instead of $100.
Alternatives to Gusto
Gusto is the cheapest payroll and HR platform we track at a 10-employee company. The others:
- QuickBooks Payroll: $115/mo
- BambooHR: $250/mo
Gusto alternatives: 2 payroll and HR platforms compared, at every size.
Every change we logged
- Sep 2026 · Limits cut: Expenses and reimbursements became a paid add-on for the Simple plan, and custom admin roles were limited to Premium.
- Apr 2025 · Price increase: The Simple plan's base fee rose from $40/mo to $49/mo (+22.5%); the $6/person fee did not change. A 10-employee company now pays $109/mo instead of $100.
- Jul 11, 2022 · Repriced: Core ($39 + $6/person), Complete ($39 + $12) and Concierge ($149 + $12) were replaced by Simple ($40 + $6, single-state only), Plus ($80 + $12) and Premium (quote). The mid-tier base fee rose 105%, and multi-state payroll moved from the entry plan to Plus.
Sources
Pricing page: gusto.com/product/pricing. Prices last checked Oct 16, 2026. gusto.com blocks fetches (403). Current prices come from PricingSaaS captures (Oct 2026) and a third-party page checked on 25 Sep 2026 ($49+$6, $80+$12, $180+$22). PricingSaaS also logged a Plus hike to $89 + $14 in March 2026 that was reversed a week later, so it is not recorded. The Solo plan's price is unverified.