Gusto vs. isolved

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

There is always room for improvements and updates. More workflows and ways to make the process easier for both employees and managers as well as the HR department. More functionality improvements vs esthetics as the platform already looks great. More ways for a manager to be involved with their employees without having to add separate module.

• 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.

Incentivized

• isolved is incredibly accurate and effective for processing out payroll and executing payment of wages. isolved is incredibly accurate and effective for processing out payroll and executing payments for wages.
• The system enables employees to access their own data and perform their own leave management and pay maintenance without risk.
• The data analysis and reporting/data export functions are second to none. It allows access to and manipulation of fully relational employee records and information.

Incentivized

• 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

• More reminder notifications would be great!
• A way to email hiring managers and our IT department at the same time with a template would save us from so much email communication
• Transfer all attached documents such as interview notes from iHired applicants to isolved employee documents would save us time uploading into multiple places

Incentivized

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.

Due to the continued problems (time clock disconnects, regular post-update issues) and users' negative attitude, we are unlikely to renew. Another important factor is that TF is US-centric, so it does not account for local Philippine specifics, which is important to us.

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

It is very intuitive and user friendly. iSolved is always updating and improving things before they even become a problem. I like how they inform us of the new updates and provide us with the details of what is changing and how it will improve the usuage.

Payroll due dates and send to us at the beginning of the year, with email reminders for holidays. The support email address is fairly fast, within 24-48 hours. But if something is needed immediately, I can just call and they help me out right then.

Incentivized

We do not use the integration, so we have a csv file that I upload manually for payroll. That is our decision based on the software at our restaurants. Pages loaded fairly quickly, but reports to pdf lag about 15-20 seconds

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

Super supportive and courteous. The initial set up and integration process was great. They helped every step of the way. They are great to get a hold of by email or phone and will find a solution. I have never run into any issues that they couldn't resolve. They make it easy to add or change processes when needed.

All over the phone, but it was comprehensive.

Incentivized

We loved taking the course, we went through most of them before we went live and I believe that was very helpful. The online training helped us learn to navigate in the program. We still refer to the training and assign our managers and supervisors to it as well. I highly recommend using it. We have also been able to attend the Connect Conferences with are extremely valuable and we learn tips and tricks to help us better utilize our system.

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 system was very cumbersome setting up as well as time consuming. There were times I just wanted to walk away and sometimes I did have to get up and walk away for a break and come back with a fresh perspective. The setup took me over a period of two to three months getting it to serve the purposes that we needed it two. I am very intuitive when it comes to computer software however getting all the right buttons checked in order for it to do what I needed didn't always work.

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

I used the other platforms in previous companies. isolved was in place when I started here 3 years ago. I found the system effective for the amount of staff we have. In previous roles I worked with larger groups and I am not sure in a restaurant industry or company of 1500 employees isolved is the right fit.

We are a company of about 135 people at 9 locations in 2 towns. We were able to set locations and departments, and also have each location seperate so only that manager can see their employees.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Electronic Timecards in the app - less room for error manually figuring punch cards and better use of time management.
• Available Reports streamline my workload - Employee data, payroll records all at the click of a button in a report. Weekly, Quarterly and Year End data is easy access for all companies on one site.
• 90% Positive 10% negative on using personal cell phones for the app to clock in and out. Can't make everyone happy 100% of the time... we try though!
• Positive impact on employees with the security settings on their phone. They didn't like the hassle in the beginning, but understood why it was important to protect their data.