Gusto vs. QuickBooks Online vs. TriNet HR Plus

Gusto is a great fit for small teams and startups that want a simple, reliable way to run payroll, manage tax filings, and give CPAs access without constant micromanagement. It’s especially useful for founders who need something that “just works.” The human support has been excellent—especially when forwarding confusing IRS mail.
That said, it’s a bit less intuitive when it comes to benefits and compliance for fully remote companies. For example, labor law poster distribution isn’t streamlined for digital teams, and setting up benefits felt more complex than it needed to be. Still, I’d recommend Gusto to any startup looking to get payroll right from day one.

Incentivized

I appreciate the ability to auto-generate invoices for recurring transactions, which saves time, as well as the option to set up auto-generated transactions. The report option is super helpful when reviewing information, as you can click to view the details in the report without having to go back and forth.

Incentivized

I think as a small business owner, this system gives peace of mind. When I'm onboarding an employee I can automatically integrate the process with Gmail and Quickbooks. I feel like they are always doing work in the background and I don't have to keep checking up on them or verifying the work that's been done

Incentivized

• Gusto really kills it on the simplicity. The app and website are very clear and straightforward.
• Gusto also does a great job at being easy to navigate, visually pleasing, and logically posed.
• Gusto communicates very clearly and provides just the right amount of communication.
• Gusto makes the onboarding process very easy. I recently started at a new company and the process of filling out the necessary documents, filling out forms, and getting my benefit information input was soooooo easy!

Incentivized

• Workflows for accounts payable invoice review are terrific.
• Bill payment allows you to pay vendors online via ACH or check without having to write a physical check, which reduces admin time.
• The cloud based login lends well to a remote or hybrid work environment for staff.
• QuickBooks Online allows you to pre-configure vendors' general ledger expense accounts. This helps with general ledger coding accuracy and consistency.
• QuickBooks Online integrates with Rippling HRIS, Coast, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, etc., which lends well to an efficient month-end closing and reduced administrative time.

Incentivized

• Payroll services in all 50 states, including payroll tax filings
• Integrations with tools like QuickBooks, Google Workspace, Slack, and Human Interest (401(k))
• Simple yet powerful mobile app for employees to access information including paystubs, benefits, and time off requests
• Streamlined admin portal for People Ops professionals

• Adding in previous time manually could be more accessible.
• Notifications for when employees manually change hours.
• We should allow 1099 users to use the mobile app instead of restricting them to the website, especially since they can just log into the full website on their mobile device.

Incentivized

• The upsells have gotten worse over time and are on every screen in the most awkward positions. I don't need a constant reminder to upgrade, especially on a very old account that's paid thousands over the years.
• The interface has never been especially intuitive, but I was an old Quicken user and it was somewhat familiar. Over time, it's gotten worse, and in the last 2 years, the program seems to move things more often than I would expect.
• The software constantly adds features that I don't want and want to turn off, but the interface is so difficult to use that I find myself skipping it. Imagine seeing a message that the system recognized invoices that hadn't been paid so it prepared reminder notices for you that can be sent at the click of a button. Who thinks using canned reminders that you've never seen is a good thing?
• A lot of functionality seems to derive from connecting your bank accounts to QBO. I don't want Intuit to have an always-on connection to any bank accounts, even checking.

Incentivized

• Support doesn't exist once you are a customer
• Tax team has a 3-6 month response time
• Poor Menu/Navigation structure
• Fails to pay taxes on time, results in delinquency notices and fees
• Glitchy UI, sometimes you need to wait a day or two for a section to work again
• Feels like a perpetual beta product, nothing polished about it

Unless they break it, I'm never leaving. It's just too easy. Gusto is also really affordable, and for what I pay, it's worth having the historical record within the system. I like that I can go back and pull up W2's for year's past. This sort of easy access reporting, has been helpful especially when getting reports for PPP loans.

It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.

Incentivized

We've already renewed after our first year with Zenefits due to the cost savings, ease of administration, reduction in overhead required to perform HR functions, and the employees happily embracing and liking the software. I've found employees generally hate anything new, but we've had no complaints about Zenefits outside the first few weeks of getting used to it.

Incentivized

The overall platform and its speed of response are amazing. I would recommend this to any other business owner for ease of use and reliability. Email reminders are great if I’m super busy and have forgotten a few tasks. The price point compared to local payroll service is hands down a huge win.

Incentivized

I had very little trouble setting up the program and migrating from our old accounting system. The daily usage is also very intuitive and easy. Anytime we run into minor trouble with the program, there are always tons of help available on YouTube, so we don't even look up the online manual anymore.

Incentivized

It's extremely user friendly and customer service is super helpful. The app needed help a while back but it has greatly improved. There were issues with files being cut off, and when I was onboarded, it actually cut my offer letter off hiding important information. Since then, it's been fixed so they are continually improving.

We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.

Incentivized

We have not experienced any application errors or unplanned outages in the two years I have been using this app. Sometimes there is a lag in the time keeping/ confirming your location, however, it quickly resolves itself within seconds and more often than not is an internet connection error

Incentivized

Everything process has its bugs lately with the new interface. Nothing has worked smoothly since this all began last month.

Incentivized

This app always loads extremely quickly and in a reasonable time frame. Like I said, when we do experience lags from this app, it is more often than not an internet connection error

Incentivized

Gusto's customer service has really deteriorated lately and they seem to have really changed their focus. It used to be when you called you were routed to an individual who knew about payroll, benefits, reporting, etc. but now you get someone who seems to have not received the correct training. My last call about a dismissal payroll took me over an hour of my time and the person still could not help me and finally transferred me to someone else.

Incentivized

In my experience, most representatives keep me on the phone for hours, literally, for a single issue and then usually cannot resolve it satisfactorily. I have 10 open cases that need resolution and, in my experience, there has been NO follow-up communication on any of them.

Incentivized

Not good at all. Basically I typically feel like they can solve the issue at hand. However, they take forever and it never feels like they really care. It can be frustrating that the agent will never speak with you on the phone or just give you their direct contact info so that you can continue to follow up on the same issue. Once they "close" the issue - you have to go back to the main customer service email or line again, even though it may be related to something you've contacted them about in the past

Incentivized

Can't really say just because I would not know.

Incentivized

It went through successfully.

Incentivized

Reach out to support immediately if you are having trouble setting up Gusto. Rather than being confused and trying to figure it out yourself, it's much better to talk to someone who knows what they are doing. Save yourself time and frustration and reach out to support

Incentivized

The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations

Incentivized

Unfortunately I do not have any insights on the implementation of Zenefits as I was not employed with this company when Zenefits was introduced. Based on how effortless it is to use Zenefits, I wouldn't image there would be many issues with the implementation of Zenefits

Incentivized

It's been a while since I used QuickBooks for payroll, but it doesn't even come close to it. Gusto is infinitely easier, allowing for employee time tracking, handling calculations and payments of payroll and payroll taxes, managing regulatory compliance in the background, and more. I had a lot of moments using QuickBooks Payroll where I thought, "Am I even doing this right?" — it felt like you had to have additional knowledge of HR regulations in your state to do everything correctly. Gusto has it ALL handled so you can focus your time on higher-impact tasks in your business.

Incentivized

As a freelance bookkeeper, the Desktop version of QuickBooks Online doesn't allow for ease of access from any device. Having to be on a computer with the software downloaded creates additional work to gain access to all required filings etc. Also, I personally find the linking functionality on the Online version to be much more streamlined and user friendly.

Zenefits has been a better tool for our purposes than Paychex Flex. While Zenefits is a fairly rigid tool without a lot of options for customization, Paychex has even fewer options for customization and their customer services is even more difficult to deal with

As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere

Incentivized

It is very easy to use and does not require the end user to go to multiple sites to obtain many facets of HR/ Payroll information that the app offers

Incentivized

• For me, it is hard to quantify payroll software as having an ROI. It does save quite a bit of time per pay period, so perhaps we could assign a theoretical number to an employee taking that time. I'd say, at the least, it saves 30-60 minutes a pay period compared to a more difficult-to-use payroll software.

Incentivized

• QuickBooks has given us a useful portal by which to get an overview of our financials.
• QuickBooks has given us a relatively easy way to send out invoices quickly and efficiently.
• Due to the customization limitations on QuickBooks, we've had to get creative in third-party implementations to better represent our brand and to track financials.

Incentivized

• California Meal Break Violations cost a full hour of each employees pay rate. If an employee clocks in 1 minute early it costs us at least 10.50 (minimum wage Ca, 15.00 in Los Angeles) which adds up quickly. We had 37 meal break violations when we first rolled it out. They need to add a feature that disallows them to clock in ahead of 30 minutes, or add a feature that shows them how long they've been on break.