Gusto vs. Skyward HRMS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Gusto
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Gusto offers payroll, benefits and compliance capabilities. Gusto is scaled for small to mid-sized businesses, and emphasizes an easy to use interface.
$496
per month
Skyward HRMS
Score 9.0 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Skyward HRMS is all-in-one HRM software provided by Skyward Techno. The vendor says it helps organizations to enhance their productivity and improve their HR processes, including recruitment & selection, training or performance related information, employee database management, leaves, track record and history, or allied analytics. The overall aim of Skyward HRMS is to reduce operational cost and streamline functioning of HR. Each HRMS module can be customised to make the software user…N/A
Pricing
GustoSkyward HRMS
Editions & Modules
Simple: A streamlined set of automatic payroll features and benefits integrations
$49/month + $6/mo per person
per month
Plus: Comprehensive payroll, benefits, and HR tools for employers building a great place to work
$80/month + $12/mo per person
per month
Premium: Scalable payroll and benefits, expert HR, and dedicated support for the complex needs of growing teams
$180/month + $22/mo per person
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
GustoSkyward HRMS
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsGusto offers three pricing plans for payroll, benefits, and HR.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
GustoSkyward HRMS
Features
GustoSkyward HRMS
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Gusto
9.2
Ratings
11% above category average
Skyward HRMS
9.0
Ratings
12% above category average
Pay calculation9.60 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration8.90 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management9.30 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Reimbursement management9.50 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Gusto
-
Ratings
Skyward HRMS
9.0
Ratings
14% above category average
Employee demographic data00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Employment history00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Gusto
-
Ratings
Skyward HRMS
10.0
Ratings
22% above category average
Approval workflow00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Balance details00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Gusto
-
Ratings
Skyward HRMS
8.7
Ratings
8% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information00 Ratings10.00 Ratings
Update personal information00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
View job history00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
GustoSkyward HRMS
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.1 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
GustoSkyward HRMS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
1.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
GustoSkyward HRMS
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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For a medium sized company I believe Skyward is an acceptable and not too complicated system. I do not work with the back end so I am not aware of the reporting capabilities which would be a deciding factor for some companies. For K12 Education it seems to check all the boxes
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Pros
  • Gusto makes onboarding employees and ensuring their documents are signed very easy.
  • The way you can integrate things like Google Workspace makes both onboarding new employees into the apps you use a breeze, as well as when you need to offboard them.
  • Managing benefits is simple, because they take care of all the heavy lifting. I just have to review the options, make a selection, and they take it from there.
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  • Skyward is superior in tracking and submitting PTO
  • Skyward is accessible in the cloud so 24/7 access
  • Menus and screens are fairly easy for non-technical users to navigate
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Cons
  • 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.
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  • The Captcha screen can be needlessly complex or hard to guess due to letters overlapping
  • Then time off screen defaults to 0 hours when creating a new entry and the zero does not get replaced... turning 8 hours into 80 hours unintentionally
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
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.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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Not part of the selection process, but the new Skyward system is fr easier, user friendly and full featured than previous systems I have used
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Return on Investment
  • I am not involved enough to know well, but I would say that Gusto has saved me about 1-2 hours in my onboarding process with my new company compared to my past experiences trying to onboard with ADP. I have also finished the process and am not frustrated like usual.
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  • Previously we had multiple systems for licensed and unlicensed staff, Skyward brings it all together creating a same experience for all users
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ScreenShots

Gusto Screenshots

Screenshot of Gusto's automated payrollScreenshot of the time-off tracking interfaceScreenshot of the source of truth for HR data

Skyward HRMS Screenshots

Screenshot of