10 Best Gusto Alternatives for Payroll, PEO and EOR

Looking at Gusto alternatives because your team has outgrown what Gusto was built for?

Ten providers make the shortlist across four categories. Costs run from $10 per employee per month for an HR system up to $699 for a global employer of record, and four of the ten quote per company.

Maybe you are the founder who just hired someone outside the United States, or the HR lead watching one payroll tool stretched across jobs it was never built for. Here is what each alternative does, what it costs and what moving takes.

Which are the 10 best Gusto alternatives?

The ten strongest Gusto alternatives are Rippling, ADP RUN, Paychex Flex, OnPay, QuickBooks Payroll, BambooHR, Justworks, Deel, Remote and Wisemonk. They fall into four categories.

• US payroll software: runs payroll, tax filings and W-2s for people you already employ. You stay the employer.
• HRIS: the system of record for people data, with payroll attached as a module.
• PEO: co-employment. The provider shares employer liability and pools benefits. United States only.
• Global EOR: becomes the legal employer in a country where you have no company.

If you are weighing the last two, PEO vs EOR is the fork that decides who carries the employment liability.

A custom quote is not a signal that a provider is expensive. It means the number arrives by email.

Gusto's own cost is the baseline, so start there.

How much does Gusto cost?

Gusto sells three plans, Simple, Plus and Premium, each a base monthly fee plus a fee for every person you pay. Several capabilities sit outside that plan fee and carry their own charges.

One fact changes how you read the rest. Gusto Global is powered by Remote, and Remote is the legal employer on those contracts. BambooHR's global add-on runs on Remote too.

So moving to Remote for international hiring is not leaving Gusto’s global product. It is buying the same legal employer without the layer in front.

Gusto’s own contractor payments reach 120+ countries with no monthly fee per contractor. Employing someone abroad is the different purchase, and EOR software explains what that buys.

Here is how that compares against the ten alternatives, side by side.

Price is only half of it. The other half is why people leave.

Why do companies leave Gusto?

Three things usually drive it: the team outgrows one payroll tool, someone gets hired outside the United States, or you would rather hand payroll and benefits over. Each points somewhere different.

• One system instead of five: Rippling, for HR, IT and payroll on one record.
• A cheaper, simpler payroll line: OnPay or QuickBooks Payroll.
• Service rather than self-serve: ADP RUN or Paychex Flex, with a named contact.
• HR data before payroll: BambooHR, an HR system with payroll attached.
• Someone else to carry HR: Justworks, a co-employment PEO.
• A hire outside the United States: Deel, Remote or Wisemonk, a legal employer in that country.

If the reason is geography, no amount of software fixes it. A payment rail is not an employer of record.

Here is how the ten sort out, category by category.

1. Rippling

Category: HR, IT and payroll on one platform.

Rippling holds HR, IT and spend on one employee record, so onboarding a person can also issue their laptop, apps and cards. Nothing else here retires four systems at once.

Best for: companies replacing several tools in one project.

Pricing: custom quote. Its pricing page asks which services you need, and the total climbs as you stack modules.

Rippling vs Gusto puts the two on one rubric, and Rippling alternatives covers its own field.

2. ADP RUN

Category: United States payroll software.

RUN Powered by ADP sells to employers with 1 to 49 people, the band Gusto targets. Its draw is room to grow: ADP sells separate products by company size, and Celergo covers what ADP calls 140+ countries.

Best for: small firms that want the incumbent, and teams scaling past 50 people or running union or government contract payroll.

Pricing: custom quote. Confirm which product in the ADP family you are being quoted on.

ADP competitors and alternatives sets out the field, and ADP’s co-employment product belongs on a PEO shortlist instead.

3. Paychex Flex

Category: United States payroll software and services.

Paychex is service-led rather than self-serve, so you get a named contact and a team running the cycle with you.

Worth knowing: Paychex acquired Paycor in April 2025, so the two are no longer independent, and Paycor's old small-business rates are gone.

Best for: teams that would rather phone someone than open a ticket.

Pricing: custom quote, per employee and per pay run.

Paychex competitors covers the service-led end of the market, and handing the function over entirely is outsourced payroll.

4. OnPay

Category: United States payroll software.

OnPay sells one plan instead of a ladder, with every feature included, so there is no tier to outgrow. It covers all 50 states and DC, and nowhere outside the United States.

Best for: small United States teams that want payroll to be one line, and the closest like-for-like swap for Gusto.

Pricing: $49 per month plus $6 per worker per month.

The W-2 employer requirements are the same whichever provider files them.

5. QuickBooks Payroll

Category: United States payroll bundled with accounting.

If your books already sit in QuickBooks Online, payroll in the same product removes an integration and a monthly reconciliation. Intuit prices it inside an accounting bundle.

Best for: companies already on QuickBooks Online who want one vendor.

Pricing: bundles run $88 per month plus $7 per employee, $125 plus $7, or $203 plus $13, with accounting included.

Whichever tier you pick, switching payroll companies follows the same sequence.

6. BambooHR

Category: HRIS with a payroll add-on.

BambooHR is a system of record for people data first, with payroll, time tracking and benefits attached. That is the opposite build order to Gusto.

Worth knowing: its Global Employment add-on is powered by Remote, so Remote is the legal employer on those hires, not BambooHR.

Best for: teams whose real gap is HR data rather than the payroll run.

Pricing: $10, $17 or $25 per employee per month, with a flat rate from $250 per month for 25 employees or fewer.

BambooHR alternatives covers the rest of the HRIS category.

7. Justworks

Category: United States PEO, co-employment.

Justworks shares employer liability with you and pools benefits across its clients, which buys plans a 20-person company could not buy alone.

Best for: small United States teams that want benefits buying power and multi-state compliance handled.

Pricing: custom quote for the base PEO rate, with a benefits add-on at $25 per month per enrolled employee.

Gusto vs Justworks shows what changes when you move to co-employment, and Justworks alternatives covers the field.

8. Deel

Category: global employer of record.

Deel prices each engagement type separately, so a mixed roster of staff and contractors is easy to model. It runs entities and payroll in 130+ countries, headline claim 150+.

Best for: teams hiring in several countries at once.

Pricing: EOR from $599 per employee per month, contractors $49, Contractor of Record $325, and United States PEO $125.

Deel alternatives covers the field, and Deel vs Gusto is the direct comparison.

9. Remote

Category: global employer of record.

Remote owns its entities rather than routing hires through local partners, covering 90+ countries, and prices each line separately.

Best for: buyers who want every line priced up front.

Pricing: EOR $699 per employee per month, global payroll and contractors $29, Contractor of Record from $325, PEO from $99, and equity from $39.

Remote competitors covers the rest of that field.

10. Wisemonk

Category: India-specialist employer of record.

We cover one country. If your team is not in India, one of the global platforms above is the better answer.

A specialist earns its place on depth. We hold our own entities, deal directly with the TDS, EPFO and GST authorities, and handle onboarding, benefits and equipment locally.

Best for: United States, United Kingdom and global companies with an India team.

Pricing: EOR from $99 per employee per month, PEO from $49, and Contractor of Record at 6% per contractor payment, with no setup fees and no minimums.

Best EOR companies show how the specialist field stacks up against the global platforms.

Three more names sit outside these four categories. Patriot Payroll competes at the budget end, Square Payroll suits retail and food teams on Square, and Homebase is built for hourly shift teams needing scheduling alongside pay.

A headline rate and a final invoice are rarely the same number.

What sits outside the headline price?

The US payroll tools charge a base fee plus a per-person fee. The EOR rates are per person only. The gap to the invoice is usually three lines.

• Setup and implementation: Gusto and OnPay charge nothing. Ask the rest whether it is billed or waived.
• Extra state filings: if you employ across state lines, ask what a second and third state costs.
• Year-end filings: check whether W-2 and 1099 filing sits in the plan or arrives as a January invoice.

A payroll rate and an employment rate are not the same purchase. An employment rate covers being the legal employer in a country, which is why the $99 and $599 figures sit so far above the $6 and $13 ones. EOR pricing breaks it apart.

Choosing the provider is the easy part. Moving is the other one.

How do you move off Gusto without breaking payroll?

Pick the boundary first. A quarter or year end closes the filing period cleanly, which means fewer part-period reconciliations. Then run four steps in order.

• Export everything: employee records, year-to-date earnings and deductions, tax registrations, benefit elections and prior filings.
• Confirm the import in writing: the new provider must load year-to-date balances rather than start from zero.
• Run one cycle in parallel: process the same period in both systems and compare gross, tax and net line by line.
• Reassign the filings: agree which provider files the final returns for the period you are leaving.

Done in that order it is an admin project. Skipped, it becomes an amended return. Switching EOR providers carries a longer notice tail, and international payroll outsourcing covers keeping your own entity.

Price the option of no provider at all too. EOR versus your own entity crosses over at a headcount the EOR vs entity calculator will show you.

And if India is the market driving this, there is a shorter route.

How does Wisemonk help if you are hiring in India?

Wisemonk is an India-native Employer of Record that helps global companies hire, pay and manage people in India without setting up a local entity.

We support 300+ global clients and 2,000+ employees, process $20M+ in annual payroll, and hold 4.8/5 on G2. EOR starts from $99 per employee per month.

• Employer of Record: we become the legal employer, so contracts, payroll, statutory filings and benefits sit with us.
• PEO services: from $49 per employee per month if you already hold an entity.
• Contractor of Record: compliant agreements, tax documentation and payouts at 6% per contractor payment.
• Managed payroll: we run the payroll cycle, statutory filings and payslips under your entity.
• Entity setup: we register the India company when the team is big enough, and ship laptops to home addresses.

We are a leading EOR in India, now expanding our services to the US and UK.

I'm very Happy that I discovered Wisemonk. They have been a pure pleasure to work with, and their attention to detail is impressive. They helped us understand their pricing model, find top-qualified individuals, interview them, and then onboard them. I gave them criteria for the type of people we sought, and they delivered. The individuals they were able to find have been some of the best engineers I have ever worked with. I recommend Wisemonk to anyone who is in need of staffing assistance.
- Dan Sampson, Head of Engineering at Cobu, USA