Gusto vs. Toast Payroll & Team Management

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
Toast Payroll & Team Management
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Toast Payroll & Team Management offers HR, payroll, and benefits solutions to meet a variety of restaurant needs. It is based on the former StratEx product, developed by the company of the same name in Chicago that was acquired by Toast July 2019.N/A
Pricing
GustoToast Payroll & Team Management
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
GustoToast Payroll & Team Management
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
GustoToast Payroll & Team Management
Features
GustoToast Payroll & Team Management
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Gusto
9.2
Ratings
11% above category average
Toast Payroll & Team Management
8.1
Ratings
2% below category average
Pay calculation9.60 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.50 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration8.80 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management9.30 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Reimbursement management9.50 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
User Ratings
GustoToast Payroll & Team Management
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(0 ratings)
6.4
(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
GustoToast Payroll & Team Management
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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Toast Payroll and Team Management is great for people in the restaurant business that have trouble keeping record of tips and splitting tips among several employees. Restaurant business can also print reports by category to see earnings by type of employee. The software is niched to mainly restaurants, so any other industry would typically not use Toast Payroll.
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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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  • HR Services. StratEx provides you a dedicated HR Services Account Manager. This person not only knows the intricacies of the HR software, but also supports all HR functions within the organization. Our StratEx HR Services Manager stays up-to-date on all laws and governmental guidance and provides support across our multi-location workforce.
  • Sales Experience. We sat through several proposals and demos from lots of companies (including the big players, like ADP, Ultimate, and Ceridian) and all of them were just completely useless. We often left with more questions than we had and we could get no answers--just the same corporate jargon. StratEx offered a different experience. A quick introductory call before we even started looking, and a low-pressure, friendly conversation where they really discovered who we are as a company and then proposed how they could meet our needs.
  • Software support. From the very beginning, the software support was out of this world. During implementation, I could pick up the phone and call one of two people who I had started building a relationship with. They knew me, our account, our practices --- everything. They waited until I told them I was ready to move to General Support. General Support isn't a bad thing! Our dedicated team of two specialized in implementation and they were released to go work on the next client. General Support is a dedicated group of three or four people who also know me and our practices. They are available when I need them to support any issues or changes that come up. StratEx's support is fantastic.
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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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  • Fees
  • Accounting integration and syncing
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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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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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Without a doubt, StratEx wins. Against all the major players in the HRS/HRIS industry, StratEx's biggest win is cost, both implementation and ongoing costs. The other's we evaluated offered tons of flashy things that most companies don't really need. When it was all said it done, we looked at what we needed and what we will need and determined that there is no reason to pay for a "big" brand name and be a small fish in their large ponds. I cannot imagine there is a company that would need anything StratEx doesn't offer. And, when it came down to it, all the major players came down from their original proposals by $100,000 or more to be more competitive with StratEx and we still went with StratEx. They've kept every promise, they've always been available, and they know where they are going as a company.
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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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  • It has streamlined our expense reporting & reimbursement process and has saved us time & money by saving us time.
  • It has streamlined our health care benefits administration and renewals.
  • It has streamlined our PTO process - calculations are much easier and faster to do now.
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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