Human resource software includes features like payroll, benefits management, and compliance assistance. In today’s digital world, small businesses are adopting human resource software alongside other foundational software systems like document management software and accounting software.

This article will discuss the differences between two of the largest players in this space: Justworks and Gusto. We’ll discuss the notable strengths and weaknesses of each tool, and provide recommendations for who each tool will suit best.

All of our recommendations are based on first-hand research, product demos with the software companies, and dozens of hours spent hand-testing human resource tools. More details regarding our research process can be found on our human resource category page.

Justworks & Gusto Comparison Summary

We researched and extensively tested both Justworks and Gusto. Justworks received a SoftwarePundit Analyst Rating of 93 while Gusto received a rating of 92.

Here’s a breakdown of our review criteria and how Justworks and Gusto performed in each category.

In terms of pricing, Justworks is less affordable than Gusto. Justworks’ pricing starts at $49 per month per user. Gusto starts at $6 per month per user with an additional monthly platform fee of $39.

Both solutions offer the standard features found across human resource software tools. These include payroll, benefits, time tracking, compliance assistance, and custom reports. Justworks’s strongest points are its compliance assistance and benefits. It offers benefits in all 50 states unlike Gusto. Gusto offers more flexible time-tracking features.

Overall, the primary factor in choosing between Justworks and Gusto lies in whether Gusto supports benefits in your state and what your general human resource software needs are. For example, Justworks is the ideal solution for your business if you require strong compliance assistance and user permissions. However, Gusto is best for businesses strictly interested in an affordable payroll tool.

Here’s a quick breakdown of who will prefer each option:

Table of Contents

• Justworks & Gusto Comparison Summary
• Justworks & Gusto Price Comparison
  • Justworks Pricing
  • Gusto Pricing
• Justworks & Gusto Top Feature Comparison
  • Payroll
  • Benefits
  • Time Tracking
  • Compliance Assistance
  • Custom Reports
• Justworks & Gusto Integrations
• Bottom Line

Justworks & Gusto Price Comparison

Overall, Justworks is less affordable than Gusto. Both applications come with payroll and benefits in their base plans.

Justworks Pricing Details

Justworks’ pricing starts at $49 per month per employee. Pricing is split in two tiers, Basic and Plus. Note that the following plans are for businesses with less than 25 employees. Justworks is around 15% more affordable if you have anywhere between 25 and 99 employees.

Gusto Pricing Details

Gusto pricing starts at $6 per month per user. Gusto also comes with a platform fee starting at $39 per month. Pricing increases depending on the number of employees added to your account.

Justworks & Gusto Feature Comparison

Overall, both Justworks and Gusto have a similar breadth of features. However, both solutions do not offer applicant tracking features such as job posting and distribution.

For a full analysis of each solution’s features, read our Justworks review and Gusto review.

Payroll

Both Justworks and Gusto offer strong, unlimited payroll for full-time, part-time, and contingent employees. If your primary concern with HR software is running payroll for an affordable rate, we recommend Gusto. An example of payroll in Gusto is seen below.

Justworks and Gusto offer high level views of which employees are being paid in their payroll dashboards. Both applications also handle federal and state taxes for your payroll. Justworks and Gusto can calculate, remit, and file the following taxes:

Both applications also let you run a number of off-cycle payments. Here are some common off-cycle payments you might run if your business uses Justworks or Gusto:

Benefits

Benefits are easy to set up in both software solutions. However, Justworks supports benefits in all 50 states while Gusto only supports 39. Justworks also comes with a benefits overview feature that is unique and helpful for gaining prospective employees.

If you are only interested in leveraging HR software for benefits management and your state is supported, Gusto will be sufficient. Otherwise, we recommend Justworks.

Selecting and managing benefits in both Justworks and Gusto is a user-friendly and guided experience. Both software solutions support common medical, dental, and vision plans. You can also offer employees health care FSAs, HSAs, 401(k)s, and commuter benefits.

Justworks supports benefits management in all 50 states. Gusto does not support the following states:

One feature that Justworks supports that Gusto doesn’t is its company benefits overview. This is an overview you can generate once you’ve selected your company’s benefits. This organized document clearly lays out your company’s benefit plans to persuade prospective employees to join your company.

Time Tracking

Time tracking in Justworks and Gusto is similar for salaried employees. You can clock in and out or manually input hours using both applications. Finally, creating paid-time-off (PTO) policies in both solutions is a guided experience.

Gusto’s time tracking is catered to employee self-service. You can clock in through Gusto’s desktop or mobile app. This will be particularly advantageous for workers who need to clock-in on the go such as field service management employees

Creating PTO policies in both applications is a guided process. You can create multiple policies that suit the needs of your employees. This includes bereavement, jury duty, floating holidays, and more. You can define how much time employees can take off and PTO accrual methods.

One particular advantage of Justworks is its guidance in creating PTO policies for non-U.S. employees. This means that Justworks will be helpful for you if you need to offer benefits for full-time, part-time, or contingent employees that are not U.S. citizens.

Compliance Assistance

Justworks has stronger compliance assistance than Gusto. This is because in addition to its alerts on new legislation and missing compliance tasks your business must fulfill, Justworks offers a number of free online workplace training courses. This means that your business can stay up to date on federal and state compliance for both your company and employees.

Seen above is Justworks’ training course library. Courses are automatically compliant with the state your company is registered in. Justworks offers these three main courses, each one adjusted to your state’s legislative policies:

Gusto’s compliance assistance lies in its compliance checklist. This checklist clearly shows what tasks your company needs to take to stay compliant with state and federal laws. Justworks does not have a dedicated dashboard for these tasks. Instead, your company is alerted through email.

Although Gusto offers a more effective way to visualize important legal steps your company must handle, it ultimately does not outweigh the breadth of training courses Justworks offers. This is especially true considering that Justworks still alerts businesses of missing compliance tasks, albeit not through a dedicated dashboard.

Reports

Creating and accessing reports in Justworks is more convoluted than in Gusto. In fact, we found that Gusto’s custom report creator was amongst the best we’ve analyzed in the human resource software category. This is primarily due to its user-friendly interface and preview function.

Gusto’s report creator is seen above. You can select from three report types: employee, payroll, and trend. Once you’ve selected your report type, you can customize your report with columns and filters. These help segment your reports and make them as specific as possible.

Building reports in Gusto is easier to do than in Justworks. Justworks merely allows you to check off boxes to include or exclude statistics. The biggest disadvantage is that you cannot preview your report before exporting it. This means that Gusto’s report creation is easier for your workflow than that in Justworks.

Finally, both applications come with a number of pre-made reports, including:

Integrations

Justworks and Gusto both offer a number of popular integrations found in standard human resource software. Both solutions primarily integrate with accounting, field service management, and integration software. Here are some of the most popular native integrations both solutions offer:

Bottom Line

Overall, the primary factor in choosing between Justworks and Gusto lies in whether Gusto supports benefits in your state and more so what your general human resource software needs are. For example, Justworks is the ideal solution for your business if you require strong compliance assistance and user permissions. However, Gusto is best for businesses strictly interested in an affordable payroll tool.

If you’re interested, visit Justworks or Gusto today to get started.