Best HR Software Of 2024

SAP is a well-known enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that provides a variety of business solutions to small to large companies. Its human resources solution, SAP SuccessFactors, is a collection of modules you can piece together to create the best platform for your needs. It’s a complex and comprehensive system, which is why we named it one of the best human resource systems available.

Vit Koval, co-founder of Globy, a talent acquisition company, added his thoughts on SAP: “SAP SuccessFactors dominates greatly in the field of performance management and employee engagement for a global workforce. This is largely due to its full suite, which allows progress tracking at highly granular levels and delivers strong analytics to be used for making informed HR decisions within the context of a multinational company.”

General Features

At its core, SAP SuccessFactors is a human experience management system, as it calls itself. The Employee Central module includes most of the core HR features you need for managing new hires and current employees, whether they work in-office or remotely. There’s global compliance, employee profiles, a self-serve employee portal and an organizational chart. We found it easy to add new employees with SAP’s walkthrough and managing a time off calendar was intuitive.

Through other modules, you can manage just about anything related to human resources, including performance evaluations, compensation, documents and employee feedback. SAP SuccessFactors is a robust program that’s deeply customizable. It’s also an old program with an outdated interface, but this doesn’t detract from its power. One of the first things we tackled in our test of SAP SuccessFactors was to set up role-based permissions. It isn’t difficult, per se, but it is a complex task that requires you to create groups with specific access and/or roles with specific permissions.

Most of the actions we took in the employee central module were straightforward. We set up automated workflows so that when a new employee was added, the action would trigger onboarding workflows. There is a way to run custom reports using specific data and filters. We viewed the data in a table before running a report, so it’s similar to the process of creating reports manually, but it’s easier with the automation, like most of the best HRMS.

Additional Features

Though SAP SuccessFactors is a comprehensive HRMS, it doesn’t include every feature as a module. Some things need to be added as integrations, whether they’re third-party or SAP-built, such as for shift planning. We were hard-pressed to find a feature that SAP doesn’t support. In addition to its employee module, SAP also offers:

• Recruiting marketing and management
• Onboarding
• Learning management system (LMS)
• Career development (Opportunity Marketplace module)

What we liked most about SAP SuccessFactors (for employees) is the mobile app and employee portal. It’s easy to see what needs to be done, such as completing onboarding steps or requesting time off. For the HR team, you can use the app to approve requests, make notes and contact employees by phone or message from the app.

Support

As with any SAP product, SAP SuccessFactors offers 24/7 support via phone, live chat and email. There is a method for requesting help through case management. And as far as training, you’ll have to pay for courses for all employees to make implementation as seamless as possible. We found videos and documentation online (for free) that can help you learn how to use most modules and features.

Reputation

As expected, the SAP SuccessFactors mobile app scores a bit higher with users than the platform, but that’s likely because employees use the app more than the HR modules and provide more reviews. The biggest complaints are about how time-consuming it is to set up the platform, the occasional bugs and the cost per user. Ratings vary wildly from 2.9 to 4.5, but many of the reviews from experts are older.

Pricing

Although there’s no single public pricing page for SAP SuccessFactors, we’ve found per-user-per-month pricing for some elements. Here’s the cost of each module:

• Recruiting: $31.92 per user per month (annual contract)
• Employee Central and Core HR: $75.60 per user per month (annual contract)
• Compensation: $23.40 per user per month (annual contract)
• Onboarding: $91 per user per month (annual contract)
• Performance: $44.64 per user per month (annual contract)
• Opportunity Marketplace: $22.32 per user per month (annual contract)
• Employee Development: $22.92 per user per month (annual contract)
• Learning: $22.20 per user per month (annual contract)

Based on published pricing, you would pay $334 per user per month (annual contract), which is much higher than many of the other providers we named in our list of the best human resource management systems. Rates may be negotiable, so we suggest contacting a SAP sales representative for a quote.

Who Should Use It?

SAP SuccessFactors is best suited for medium to large businesses that require a full suite of HR products and services. It’s a highly customizable option (choose the modules you need) for a personalized and secure HRMS.

UKG Pro uses AI-powered analytics to deliver insights into payroll, pay equity and more. Users can visualize data in various ways, including bubble charts, heat maps, scatter graphs and other formats. UKG Pro also uses AI to support performance management by removing bias, but the vendor’s site doesn’t make it clear how exactly this capability works

General Features

The UKG Pro platform offers tools to help you recruit, hire, onboard, manage, retain and develop employees. This all-in-one platform also includes payroll, time and attendance tracking, scheduling, compliance support, workforce planning and analytics. We spent some time with the software both as admins and employees.

Using UKG Pro as an employee is as simple as any other portal we’ve used. The dashboard includes shortcuts to goals, direct deposit and personal contact details. There’s a workforce management solution that’s easy to use for requesting time off (though it’s a bit confusing without training). There are tools we tried, including personal development and goal setting, that required little explanation. Simply fill out the fields and follow the prompts.

As an admin, we had a lot more navigation options and access to settings, of course. The employee directory looks a bit like a more structured spreadsheet with drop-down menus so you can easily filter to find a specific employee by number, name, role or other data point. We ran an employee report based on a few data points and saved them for easy access the next time.

Though both employee and admin interfaces are a bit outdated in appearance, they are simple to navigate. We experienced some lag and slow loading at times, but no errors.

Although we didn’t have an opportunity to meaningfully test some features because of the sensitivity of HR functions, we did confirm that UKG Pro offers these tools:

• Onboarding
• Performance management
• Document management
• Compliance support
• Succession and compensation management
• Time and attendance management
• Payroll
• Benefits administration
• Reports and analytics
• Org chart

Vit Koval, co-founder of Globy, a talent acquisition company, also finds UKG Pro to be easy to use: “UKG Pro has easy navigation. … [and] it contributes to dealing with a diverse workforce since it provides explicit details for a host of HR functions—time and attendance, to be specific. It can be perfectly configured to any exact business.”

Additional Features

It’s safe to say that UKG Pro is a comprehensive HRMS, but what we liked most about it came in the form of its nice-to-have features. You can add your own brand to your platform, which helps employees know they’re logging into the right portal. There are engagement and career tools to help encourage learning. AI assistance is one of the most recent additions that helps admins and users.

UKG Pro added Bryte, an AI tool that offers suggestions and smart searching. For example, employees can avoid hunting for the tool or section they need and just type a question into a search bar to get the right result.

We tested the AI generation as an employee (manager) by searching for our time off. The AI assistant responded with how many days of PTO I had accrued and how many of our reports were on PTO this month. It also suggested when would be a good time to take off a large chunk of time based on others’ PTO plans.

Support

Our biggest frustration with UKG Pro came on the support level. There’s plenty of documentation, so if you have a common question, you can likely find the answer in help files or through the UKG community center (we did). However, finding an avenue to speak to a live agent seemed impossible. Finally, we came across a phone number to contact a support agent. We were on hold for about 10 minutes and the agent we dealt with was kind and helpful. He confirmed that support is available by phone 24/7, especially if you have an issue with payroll or anything else time-sensitive.

Reputation

There’s a wide range of reviews for UKG, which is to be expected because you’ll find a mix of user reviews from employees using the system and admins setting up the system. Many of the negative reviews are regarding implementation (both the time required and the lack of support), the UI being difficult to use or at least outdated, and the system’s complexity. On the other hand, many users say UKG is easy to use, especially for employees, and the system offers integrations with various modules for you to build out the HRMS you need.

Pricing

Like many other human resource management systems, UKG doesn’t publish its pricing publicly. Based on our research and user reviews, we’ve found that there is likely a one-time setup fee that tends to run in the tens of thousands and is based on the annual cost of your total number of users. The average range we’ve seen is $40 to $50 per user per month (billed annually), but this isn’t official. You will need to contact a sales representative for a quote for your company.

Who Should Use It?

Midsized to large businesses looking to automate HR processes, use AI for smart insights and tailor the system and its functions to meet their unique needs.

Learn more: Read our full UKG Pro review.

Paycor might be best known as a payroll solutions tool, but it also packs quite the punch with its HR features. It gives you the ability to automate mundane routine tasks to save you a ton of time. The software also has employee self-service tools so that they can update their profiles, sign digital documents and complete any assigned tasks without interrupting your day.

We also like Paycor’s transparent employee reports. You can have instant access to your headcount, turnover rate, compensation levels and absenteeism. Company-wide communication is also easy with mobile push notifications and chat messages.

Vit Koval, co-founder of Globy, a talent acquisition company, shared his thoughts on Paycor: “Paycor is a solution that I would recommend to businesses scaling quickly. Their offering is a great solution to managing an entire employee lifecycle—from recruiting to retiring an employee. I am particularly fond of their reporting capabilities when it comes to strategic planning and compliance.”

General Features

Notable features offered by Paycor include its payroll processing capabilities, tax support and compliance solutions and mobile wallet. Here is a brief look at each.

• Payroll Processing. Paycor offers an autorun payroll feature, which allows employers to schedule payroll beforehand to run on a specific day and time, even if they don’t log in. And employees can view their pay stubs three days before payday to ensure no errors occur before payroll is processed. They can receive their pay via direct deposit into a bank account or using the Paycor Visa Card. As follow-up to running payroll, the platform offers payroll reporting that covers necessary data points such as your cash requirements and employee and employer tax liabilities. In particular, we found the payroll process in Paycor quite intuitive. It offered a familiar spreadsheet-like view where we could click on cells to update information before running payroll. Filters also allowed us to view more data options to ensure accuracy as needed. If you’ve had experience with Excel or Google Sheets, this experience will be similar. Once we were happy with the data, it took two clicks to approve and run payroll.
• Tax Support. Paycor handles all payroll taxes within the 50 U.S. states, such as tax filing, W-2 and 1099 processing. It also offers automated updates regarding tax rates to ensure you are always in compliance with the taxes you’re paying. Its tax compliance dashboard provides alerts and notifications when such changes need your attention or action. And, to give you peace of mind, the platform offers in-product compliance feedback so you know how well you’re doing.
• Mobile Wallet. Paycor offers employees a mobile wallet to view their wage data and access up to half of their wages before payday—a unique feature that sets it apart. Its Visa card means employees can receive payments two days in advance of when they would otherwise be deposited into a bank account. In turn, employers can use the app to approve time-off requests, accept timesheet exceptions and time cards, track applicants, view expense tracking reports and add or delete employee punch-ins and punch-outs.

Additional Features

Paycor’s payroll toolset comes with HR solutions built in. This means you get access to the following tools and capabilities:

• Predictive analytics showing the likelihood of resignations, benchmarking trends, compensation analysis and turnover and headcount data
• Workflows and automations
• Employee recognition tools
• Document sharing tools
• Performance management solutions
• An employee self-service tool
• Paperless document management tools

We found the reporting function to be highly customizable when testing. Its report builder gave us access to tools to build the exact report we wanted by simply selecting available reporting data points to add to already existing report templates. For example, we could select a payroll or HR security report and then add or remove columns by checking the boxes next to the column options provided with the report builder. We could further filter the data by department or pay type, for example.

Support

Paycor offers phone support in all of its small business plans. Its hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Easter time, Monday through Friday. You can also contact its support by logging into your account to chat during these business hours.

In addition, it offers a knowledge base with training videos and step-by-step guides on how to use the software. Topics include how to set up your account, how to navigate its time home screen and how to use its mobile app. It also offers feature lists pertaining to its individual tools, such as its mobile app.

Reputation

Paycor earns a 4.4-star rating on Capterra with 2,769 user reviews and a 3.9-star rating with five 720 user reviews on G2. Users say they like the combination of HR and payroll features in one solution and how easy it is to use. They also like that the platform helps them stay in the loop on compliance updates they need to adhere to. However, some say it is difficult to get hold of the right customer support representative to address their issue and problem resolution can be a slow and tedious process.

Pricing

Paycor offers four small business plans for companies with 50 or fewer employees. Its pricing is not published online. However, it does report a 50% discount for the first six months and no setup fees. Here are the features you can expect in each plan.

Basic

The Basic plan is designed with payroll and tax compliance in mind. It offers:

• Federal, state and local tax filings
• Direct deposit
• Check stuffing services
• An employee self-service portal
• Federal, state and local tax filings
• Direct deposit
• Check stuffing services
• An employee self-service portal
• New hire filing
• Wage garnishments
• Off-cycle pay runs
• Reporting and a report builder
• OnDemand Pay
• The Worker Opportunity Tax Credit
• Payroll AutoRun

Essential

The Essential plan allows you to run payroll efficiently and easily, remain compliant with payroll and HR laws and support new hires. Here are the features of this plan:

• All features in the Basic plan
• Reporting and a report builder
• A general ledger report
• Labor distribution tools
• Month-end accounting package
• A general ledger report
• A month-end accounting package
• Onboarding
• A time-off manager
• Job costing
• 401(k) processing
• An HR support center

Core

The Core plan gives you in-depth insights to aid in business decisions. It includes:

• All features in the Essential plan
• One-on-one guidance from an HR-certified professional
• Expense management tools
• Employee engagement tools

Complete

Finally, the Complete plan offers a complete package of tools for attracting, retaining and developing your team. Its features include:

• All features in the Core plan
• Career management tool
• Talent development tools
• Compensation planning

Paycor also offers a solution for mid-sized to large businesses. It also requires a custom quote for pricing details. In this solution, you can access the following features:

• A workforce management solution
• Talent management tools
• Benefits administration
• Employee experience solutions
• Automated HR workflows
• Payroll processing
• Tax compliance tools
• Analytics

Who Should Use It?

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees can benefit a ton from Paycor’s combination of HR and payroll software.

Learn more:  Read our full Paycor review.

Workday excels at offering customized reports about your workplace. You can set up your home screen to show data automatically, such as year-to-date (YTD) turnover—sorted by voluntary, new hire and high performer turnover—headcount, open positions and hire and terminations by quarter.

But perhaps its most unique feature is its global compliance support. Managing HR for a company with employees in different states—or even different countries—can be a headache. Workday eliminates the stress by helping you stay on top of regulatory changes in over 80 jurisdictions to reduce labor or tax violations. You can spend less time investigating location-specific laws and more time improving your company’s culture.

Another feature that makes Workday a top pick is its informative org charts that allow you to give feedback or promotions right from the same drag-and-drop interface. Talent procurement is also easy thanks to a skill-focused strategy that narrows down applicants based on their knowledge. Workday even offers benefits administration that lets you manage eligibility and available plans easily, no matter where your workers are located.

Dylan Cleppe, co-founder and CEO of OneStop Northwest LLC, shared his thoughts on Workday: “Workday is another robust system that I’ve witnessed in use during partnerships with larger enterprises. Its analytics capabilities stand out, offering deep insights into workforce planning and operational impacts, which are critical for strategic decision-making. However, for smaller businesses, the complexity and cost might be a consideration.”

General Features

Workday offers a full suite of HR solutions for small businesses, providing support for everything from recruiting and onboarding to cultural and employee development. To do so, some of its standout tools include work experience optimization tools, workforce analytics and career and staff planning. Here is a closer look at each of these.

Work Experience Optimization

Workday offers the tools to help you create a satisfactory work environment that attracts and retains top talent. Here are a few ways it accomplishes this:

• Sentiment analysis: Workday offers tools to help you understand your workforce’s sentiments, then optimize their work experience for greater satisfaction and retention.
• Workplace safety programs: You can also create a safer work experience by always complying with evolving local public health recommendations. Workday can help you manage vaccination, emergency preparedness and testing programs for your business.
• Compensation management tools: Workday helps you tailor employee compensation, benefits and time-off programs to meet today’s top talent expectations. You can even measure the impact of new initiatives to better your employee experience to determine what works and what doesn’t.
• Hybrid or remote work activities: Workday has the tools you need to allow employees or contractors to work wherever they want to whenever they want to.
• Employee development opportunities: Workday offers tools to help manage opportunities for employees to take on new roles and assignments that build their skills. Employees can record their skills interests and view and accept opportunities to take on work that demonstrates those skills.

Workforce Analytics

Workday’s workforce analytics solutions are add-ons that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help you surface insights for better business decision-making and planning. It offers over 2,800 pre-built and customizable dashboards so you can easily see the data you want to. You can even embed those reports in strategic places for instant insights when making decisions. And, you can create rules that dictate who can access such reports, ensuring sensitive worker information is never shared with unauthorized individuals.

Insights you can surface using Workday’s analytics tools include:

• Your top business drivers
• Your business risks
• Your business opportunities
• A blending of Workday and non-Workday data for a holistic view
• Comparative scenario insights
• Benchmarking against industry pears
• Employee feedback trends
• Your company’s average compa-ratio over time
• Your company’s employee headcount and years of service by employee age range
• Where emerging talent is at the management level
• An overview of racial and gender diversity in new hires
• The ethnic representation existing at your company’s management levels
• Terminations by gender, age or ethnicity
• Upskill worker opportunities
• Top skills categories in upper management
• Gaps in promoting females
• Talent trends
• Turnover rates and locations of top performers

Career and Staff Planning

Workday offers tools to help you understand what skills you have on staff and what skills your company still needs. You can then gather feedback from your team to verify purported skills. Then, review reporting that helps you identify skill trends and gaps among your workforce. In doing so, you can develop a plan for building new needed skills among existing employees, putting them in positions that best suit their skill sets and hiring new talent to fill skill gaps.

Additional Features

Workday’s VIBE product stands for value, inclusion, belonging and equity. It offers dashboards with reporting to help you understand where your business stands in terms of equity and inclusion among your workforce. These reports show your VIBE standing during the employee journey, from recruiting, screening and onboarding to cultural development and sentiment analysis. It also supports you with tools for initiating VIBE programs.

For example, company feeds within Workday give you a way to announce opportunities for employees to get involved in inclusive initiatives such as:

• Joining employee VIBE councils
• Honoring memorial days such as Juneteenth
• Taking surveys to help the company gauge sentiment around inclusion and equity

Support

Workday offers 24/7 customer support for all customers. However, some customer support features are reserved for higher-tiered plans. For example, while all plans come with product overview trainings, only the Accelerate and Accelerate Plus service plans offer the ability to learn on-demand or access Workday’s administrator library of resources. In addition, while the first-tier Standard plan does not offer the ability to attend webinars or ask an expert about HR concepts, its Accelerated Essentials, Accelerate and Accelerate Plus service plans do.

When you sign into your Workday account, you can also access the Workday community, where users ask and answer each other’s questions. You can ask questions there or browse other users’ questions to see if your question has already been asked and answered.

Reputation

Workday earns a 4.5-star rating out of over 1,340 user reviews on Capterra and a four-star rating on G2 with over 1,300 user reviews. Users like that the software easily integrates with their tech stacks and data syncs across all such programs. However, many say its plethora of features can sometimes be overwhelming, creating a tedious navigation experience as they try to find the features they need. They also say the price can be steep for the average small business to afford.

Pricing

Workday does not publicly offer pricing details. Instead, you must contact the company to request a quote for a mix of Workday products to meet your business’s specific needs. You can do so by accessing its “contact sales” page on its website and filling out the form for a call from the company or by calling its sales phone number.

Who Should Use It?

Workday is best for mid- to large-sized companies that need custom HR and financial management over several locations.

Learn more:  Read our full Workday review.

Paycom offers a comprehensive feature set for small business HR, payroll processing and labor management. Throughout these tools, automations help companies scale their processes for a better employee experience, data accuracy and reduced labor costs around HR processes. For example, it offers a self-service payroll tool, allowing employees to do their own payroll. It also offers automatic time tracking that syncs to payroll for accurate data every payroll run. And automation tools aid in efficient employee enrollment into benefits programs.

Vit Koval, co-founder of Globy, a talent acquisition company, also noted Paycom’s employee tools: “They provide a single-database solution that makes it easy to manage employee records without running your data sync across other various platforms. That is because the self-service features they offer are able to empower the employee to be in a position to manage most of his or her HR tasks, which can greatly reduce the administrative burden.”

General Features

Paycom offers a comprehensive solution for all small business HR needs, from recruiting and hiring to talent management, payroll and time and attendance tracking. Here is a look at some of their standout general features.

Time and Labor Management

Paycom offers virtual time clocks, time tracking terminals, geofencing to ensure employees are where they should be when clocked in, labor tracking and automatic time tool syncing with payroll processing tools. Its drag-and-drop calendar ensures you can allocate shifts easily and get a big picture of labor gaps and overstaffing. To ensure labor costs stay in check, the system allows you to restrict punch types or unauthorized punches. In all, Paycom tools help you allocate labor efficiently, ensure all team members know when and where they’re to clock in and out and ensure accurate and on-budget payroll.

HR Process Management Tools

Paycom offers a suite of tools to help you manage your business’s HR processes. These tools include:

• Manager On-the-Go: This tool is a mobile app managers can use to supervise their team members from wherever they are.
• Document management: Paycom offers tools to store and organize all your HR documents.
• Global HCM: This software gives you the tools to manage a mixed team of international and domestic workers.
• Benefits administration: With this tool, you can automate the benefits enrollment process for your employees while protecting their sensitive data from unauthorized access. In doing so, you meet HIPAA, Cobra and other requirements and avoid non-compliance penalties.
• Personnel action forms: Set up and employ a payroll and HR approval chain for any changes made within the system.
• Paycom Surveys: Use this tool to maintain a pulse on employee sentiments and feedback, allowing you to root out problems before they grow.

Payroll Processing

Paycom offers a customizable payroll software you can scale for complex workforce needs. It offers the ability to pay employees using direct deposit, paper checks or Paycom’s proprietary payroll card. Here’s a look at its core payroll processing features:

• Beti: This tool gives employees a platform to do their own payroll tasks with a guided self-service process.
• Vault: This is a Paycom pay card on which employees can receive their pay without using a personal bank account. This is especially helpful when managing global workforces, as the card is accepted everywhere Visa is.
• Everyday: This Paycom tool allows you to create unique pay periods, even paying employees daily as needed.
• GL Concierge: This is a general ledger consolidation tool to ensure accurate payroll data across all systems.
• Expense management: This feature gives you the automation processes to reimburse employee expenses through payroll.

Additional Features

Using Paycom, you can find, hire and onboard top talent and also develop and retain them. Its talent acquisition tools offer applicant tracking, screening and onboarding tools, coupled with automations for efficient selection of the best fits for your roles. For example, its e-verify tools confirm employees are eligible for work with little effort on your team’s behalf.

Once you’ve hired a new candidate, Paycom’s talent management tools offer self-serve tools for employees to learn their roles and continue developing new skills. Its performance management tools then kick in, allowing you to evaluate employees and reward them for their development efforts. It even offers compensation budgeting tools so you know how to best award them without breaking your budget.

Support

Paycom’s salespeople are your first-phase support when you sign up for Paycom. They walk with you through the implementation process, answering all of your setup and troubleshooting questions and even training your staff on the platform. Once setup and implementation are complete, you are put in contact with a dedicated specialist who learns your business and then offers the following services:

• Finds opportunities for your business to most benefit from the software, then helps you optimize your software usage to this end
• Ensures accurate payroll runs and tax management
• Serves as your direct contact for questions that come up
• Offers availability using one click from the Client Action Center within your account

Reputation

Paycom earns a 4.4-star rating on Capterra with 874 user reviews and a 4.2-star rating on G2 with over 1,170 reviews. Users say the software is easy to use and that customer service is responsive and helpful. They appreciate having a designated specialist who knows their business and works as an advisor. They also appreciate that the HR software is complete, meaning they don’t have to lean on complimentary systems to meet their overarching HR needs. Some say the reporting is not as in-depth or as customizable as they would prefer and some would like to see some more integration options so they can streamline their tech stack processes.

Pricing

Paycom does not offer any pricing transparency on its website. It requires you to sign up for a free demo, at which point your needs are assessed and you are given a price for a solution feature mix that will meet them.

Who Should Use It?

Companies that need a comprehensive suite of HR and payroll tools and would like to couple those tools with automations for greater efficiency as they scale should consider Paycom.

Learn More: Read our full Paycom review.

Namely HR is an HRMS that can be as lightweight or hefty as you need because you can start with the low-priced entry-level plan and build as your business grows. For $9 per user per month, you can get access to core HR features and payroll. As you gain more employees, you can add on modules à la carte, working with a sales representative to give you a custom system at a custom price.

General Features

Like many HRMS, Namely HR offers its services by module. You can choose a plan that works best for your company’s needs and get even more nuanced with specific features or tools when you work with a sales representative. It’s a nearly complete program to help HR admins lead their team in managing people operations. Here are the core HR and general features you can opt for:

• Handbooks and policies
• Onboarding
• Employee recognition
• Performance and progression management
• Learning management
• Compliance support
• Benefits administration
• Payroll
• Reporting

We especially liked the UI of the platform. Nothing about Namely HR comes across as outdated or old. It’s an important feature of any HRMS. The employee self-service portal is also easy to use. We prefer the mobile version because it’s easy to view timesheets, request time off and connect with colleagues without cluttering your own contact list.

Lisa Lindsey, PHR, SHRM-CP, our advisory board member, also noted the platform’s UI: “Namely’s interface mimics those of some popular social media sites, which makes it an attractive and familiar tool, encouraging employees to engage with the system.”

Additional Features

Though we think Namely HR is an excellent fit for small to midsize companies, its HRMS is lacking in one area: recruiting. There are a few features to help you track applicants, but there are no sourcing or interviewing tools. For a more robust recruitment platform, you may want to consider integrating an applicant tracking system (ATS) such as JobScore or LinkedIn Talent Hub.

Speaking of integrations, Namely HR connects to many systems you may already use, including 15Five, Slack and VerifiedFirst. Additional tools we liked include the engagement tools to help HR reps show employees recognition and the easy-to-use shift scheduler.

Support

Namely HR offers 24/7 support via case management, and usually, they will issue a response within 24 hours. Phone support is now available 24/7 with live. Our experience with support was excellent. An agent answered quickly (our wait time was less than two minutes) and she answered our questions as well as possible (every agent specializes in specific modules). She confirmed the support hours and then transferred us to a sales representative to speak to new features.

Reputation

Overall, Namely HR gets positive feedback from users (both admins and employees) that use the platform and mobile app. The platform and functionality are what get rave reviews, but customer support suffers. Many users have reported that it’s difficult to get a hold of support because you have to open a case (and it takes up to a week to get help). Additionally, there are complaints about the UI becoming more cluttered, so it can be difficult to find what you need.

Pricing

The cost of Namely HR is affordable at the entry-level at only $9 per user per month, but it’s limited. It only comes with HR and payroll modules, which would be fine if that’s all you need. For a complete HRMS, though, there is no transparent pricing. You have to contact a sales representative for a custom quote.

Who Should Use It?

Namely HR is an HRMS built for small to midsize businesses that want the basics at just $9 per user per month to start.

Learn more: Read our full Namely HR review.

GoCo offers its unique “Magic” docs feature that helps you automatically create offer letters and other documents with just a few key pieces of information you submit. Its easy-to-create workflows can automate almost any HR process, from onboarding to announcements to offboarding.

Jonathan Feniak, General Counsel at LLC Attorney, finds GoCo a useful system:

“GoCo is a decent, cloud-based tool that allows us to automate workflows and manage benefits while integrating easily with our ATS for relatively easy hiring. It’s user-friendly, and the employee self-service options are a great fit for small businesses without robust HR teams. Employees can monitor their PTO and manage the process themselves for faster approvals and less strain on HR and managers. We’ve had reports freeze occasionally, though reloading them solves the problem quickly. I’d love to see more features added, like performance reviews, but they’ve done a great job with their offerings so far.”

General Features

GoCo is HR software that focuses on facilitating HR processes through easy-to-create automated workflows. There’s almost no process GoCo can’t automate, which frees you and the rest of the HR team to focus on engagement and hiring. However, GoCo doesn’t do everything that many of its competitors do, such as recruitment, expense management and succession planning.

What we do like about GoCo especially is its ease of use after the initial setup. In fact, a lot of the work we found happens on the front end and then it’s just a matter of pressing the right button. For example, we liked how simple it was to create an onboarding workflow to include the proper documentation for each type of employee. You can set one up for full-time and part-time employees, interns and seasonal workers. Each one gets a separate workflow with different requirements and messaging. All of this starts with templates and then you simply fill out the fields for compensation and start date, and then GoCo’s “Magic” doc creator will write up an offer letter to send to the new hire, along with a link where they can fill out paperwork, digital sign and accept the offer.

Depending on which plan and modules you choose, other features from GoA include:

• Benefits administration
• Payroll
• PTO tracking
• Reporting
• Self-serve employee portal
• Onboarding and offboarding
• Org chart
• Employee directory
• Engagement surveys
• Document management

Additional Features

Though GoCo meets many of an HR department’s needs, it lacks the additional features that would make it a better all-in-one solution. There are few learning management tools and recruiting features. That said, GoCo offers a bunch of tools and enough integrations that it could work for your specific needs.

GoGo integrates with project management software such as Trello, Smartsheet and Jira. It also integrates with financial software, including QuickBooks Online and Expensify. You can add on an ATS such as Workable or JazzHR and communication tools such as Zoom, Slack, Google apps and Microsoft Outlook.

Support

GoCo support is available by phone or email. There is a live chat option on the website, but it’s a chatbot that attempts to direct you to more information on its site. If you choose support, you’re asked for your account holder’s email address and then directed to send in an email as a ticket.

For more support, GoCo offers a paid add-on service that connects you with an HR expert whenever you need extra help. These experts can answer questions about compliance, offer advice and consult on a variety of HR-related topics.

Reputation

GoCo gets high marks overall from reviewers and users alike; however, there are some basic features users noted are missing. For example, it’s easy to run a report but difficult to filter out data you don’t need. Occasionally there are bugs that aren’t easy to overcome, such as the digital time clock/kiosk crashing, which makes it difficult for employees to clock in or out in a timely manner. Despite these complaints, GoCo tends to get positive feedback for streamlining HR processes and having an easy-to-use interface.

Pricing

If you’re just starting out with your company and you have payroll handled elsewhere, the Premium HR plan from GoCo is an affordable choice. Pricing starts at $5 per user per month, but this only includes basic HR tools. If you need compliance, payroll, benefits administration, direct deposit and tax functionality, you’ll have to get a custom quote for one of the more comprehensive plans.

Who Should Use It?

GoCo is a time-saving HRMS that offers an inexpensive starting plan, but to get the most value out of GoCo, you’ll need to piece together an à la carte solution for your small to midsize business.

For multiple decades, isolved has been helping businesses navigate the HR field, starting with COBRA benefits. It branched off into HR software to help teams manage all the functions that come with HR, including hiring, succession, planning and payroll. The system is easy enough to use and you can add modules as you need them, making isolved a good choice for new businesses that only need HR and payroll to start.

Vit Koval, co-founder of Globy, a talent acquisition company, agrees that isolved’s payroll options are helpful for business owners: “What attracts me most to isolved is its integrated payroll services. isolved is the best solution for any small or medium business organization; this is because it has the ability to streamline most of the complicated processes related to HR management, including benefits administration and compliance with the laws of employment.”

General Features

Just like many HR systems today, isolved offers several modules you can pick and choose to add to your platform. Most of the core functionality needed to manage HR are available through isolved. Some of the modules can work as standalone tools, so if you want to choose just HR and payroll, you can do that.

We like the split screen for document management that shows you a list of documents at the top and opens at the bottom, all while keeping your navigation menu showing on the left side. Running payroll is easy enough and you can create data-rich reports of taxes, your budget and other payroll factors at any time.

There’s something about isolved that makes it feel as though it’s geared toward the HR team that’s handled most of its processes with pen and paper or Excel spreadsheets and wants to move to software. The interface, though easy to navigate and clean, is a bit outdated. Plus, doing anything in isolved’s HRMS feels manual.

These are the modules available through isolved:

• Employee profiles
• Payroll
• Benefits administration
• Time and attendance
• Onboarding
• Performance management
• Document management
• Learning system
• ATS

Additional Features

In an odd move, isolved discontinued its support for the mobile app. Admins and employees can still access their accounts from any device, but only through a browser. While this works just fine, it is uncommon among most HRMS that typically provide a mobile app.

There are some recruiting features offered for isolved users, but it’s mostly related to applicant tracking. Actual recruitment tools aren’t present, so you have to use a third party. The good news is we counted more than 175 integrations with tools you may already use or may need to implement to make isolved a more complete HRMS.

Support

There are seven offices around the U.S. for isolved and all of them offer phone support from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in local time zones (PST, CST and EST), Monday through Friday. Otherwise, support can be reached via email.

Reputation

Feedback about isolved is mixed. Many long-time users praise the customer support team for being prompt to respond and helpful with resolving issues. However, there are also many other users that say support is slow to get back to them and don’t have the knowledge necessary to solve problems. Review ratings seem to hover around 3.5 to 4 on a five-star rating scale.

Pricing

Costs for isolved are not published publicly, so it’s difficult to say whether this would be a good solution for your business. With that said, we have research that shows isolved’s platform costs about $30 per user per month, which puts it about average for the industry.

Who Should Use It?

New businesses that aren’t ready for a full suite of tools that normally come in HRMS packages can start with isolved’s HR and payroll modules and then add on as needed.

Paylocity offers an integrated payroll processing and HR software for small businesses. In doing so, its HR features work together with payroll to offer a seamless employee experience. For example, employees can use their mobile apps to track their time. That data is automatically synced to payroll for accuracy come payday. In addition, its rewards and recognition program comes with budgeting tools to help you pay employees competitively when they go above and beyond while remaining within your company’s budget.

General Features

Paylocity offers a bundled payroll and HR solution. Some of its stand-out features include its HR toolset, employee experience platform and payroll processing solution. Here is an overview of each of them.

Human Resources

Paylocity offers many features that help you streamline your HR processes while ensuring employee satisfaction with them. Some of its HR software features include:

• An employee self-service portal:  This portal is a mobile app available to your team members 24/7 for completing tasks like accessing pay stubs and tax forms, requesting time off, adding personal data and conversing with other team members as needed.
• Compliance tools: The Paylocity HR tool also offers compliance tools, including a compliance-reporting dashboard, interactive compliance training, work authorizations, certification opportunities and updated FLSA data.
• Analytics and reporting: Paylocity offers HR reports, analytics and dashboards with real-time data on HR issues that impact your decision-making, such as diverse workforce, predictive staffing, turnover, time, cost savings, employee engagement and performance metrics reports.
• Workflows and document management: This toolset streamlines the gathering and management of employee information, such as confirming their contact information, collecting certification proof and completing employee onboarding processes.

Employee Experience

Paylocity offers self-service tools so employees can take control of their work experience and strive for the best. For example, they can tap into their mobile app features to converse with employees as needed and wanted, forging mutually beneficial connections. They can also engage in surveys through Paylocity’s Employee Voice to provide feedback employers can use to improve their satisfaction and retain top talent.

In turn, employers can use Paylocity’s employee experience tools to continually improve their team’s satisfaction and outlook on their work experience. Its rewards and recognition tools, for example, enable employers to create customized employee recognition programs, then manage rewards and budgets around them and even track their impact with real-time metrics.

We found the Paylocity mobile app to be intuitive to use. The layout was clean and the menu options helped us to easily find the features we wanted in seconds. For example, companies can create a list of roles people can clock in and out of. Then, employees can view a list of roles and simply select their role and click the clock in or clock out button. A confirmation popup let us know we successfully accomplished our chosen task (such as clocking in or clocking out). All in all, it was an intuitive experience that required no learning curve.

Lisa Lindsey, PHR, SHRM-CP, our advisory board member, added her thoughts on Paylocity’s employee feature: “Paylocity emphasizes its self-service features for employees, which puts the control in the hands of employees to update their personal information, reducing the stress of data entry on small HR teams.”

Payroll Processing

Paylocity offers payroll processes and aggregated payroll data to pay a global team across over 100 countries. The system automates most payroll processes, including the calculation of prorated and retro pay. Hours, dollar and labor allocations seamlessly flow into the system from Paylocity’s Time and Labor tools. You can pay your employees via direct deposit early to help retain top talent and in their country’s currencies.

It also serves as a Registered Reporting Agent in all 50 U.S. states, giving all of its customers dedicated payroll tax support and compliance management around the globe. Its representatives remit and file your taxes for you and assume all liabilities for errors they may have made. They also resolve tax notices on your behalf.

Our testing revealed that running payroll in Paylocity was an intuitive, familiar experience. Paylocity offers a spreadsheet-like experience for managing payroll data. Running payroll only required us to approve employee time cards. We could easily view a spreadsheet of employee hours and click on cells to change data as needed. We could also switch between hourly and salary employees to ensure the payroll run covered the correct date range. Using filters at the top of the screen, we also filtered by employee groups (like our direct reports) to only check their payroll data. For more information, we clicked on individual employee names to verify they’d recorded all their hours. We could update erroneous or missing data by clicking on the corresponding cell to update the data. Once we had verified all data, we simply checked the box next to each person we’d approved for a payroll run and clicked “save.”

Additional Features

Paylocity offers a Time and Labor Management toolset with automation tools that help companies schedule and manage employee work hours. Its automated time tracking system offers notifications and reporting so you can always ensure accuracy. In doing so, you avoid manual entry and ensure error-free payroll runs.

Its Time and Labor tools also give you templates you can use to schedule by role, location and qualifications. To ensure labor gaps get resolved quickly, you can use Paylocity’s mobile app to offer shifts to available employees and allow employees to swap shifts as they need to. Real-time chat encourages collaboration to ensure shifts are filled with willing participants. Employees can even work anywhere using mobile and web-based clock-in and clock-out functionalities. Or, they can clock in at work sites using kiosks or time clocks.

Support

Paylocity offers support Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. CST. You can call or email for support. It also offers a knowledge base with step-by-step guides and product training. Further, its training courses offer on-demand learning modules.

Reputation

Paylocity earns a 4.4-star rating on G2 with nearly 2,530 user reviews and a 4.3-star rating on Capterra with 830 reviews. Users love Paylocity’s mobile tools and its user-friendly interface. They also love the efficiencies they gain from using Paylocity’s automation and syncing features among their HR and payroll tools. They wish the platform offered more 401(k) vendor integrations and they say the implementation process can be tedious and time-consuming.

Pricing

Paylocity does not offer pricing transparency. You must request a custom quote to learn its per-person rate for your company. However, in working with the company to request a custom quote, you can choose from a selection of modules, including the following module choices:

• Payroll software
• Human resources software
• Workforce management software
• Talent management software
• Benefits management software
• An employee experience platform
• An advanced HRIS software

Who Should Use It?

Companies that do not already have a payroll software and are looking to bundle their payroll and HR functionalities for greater efficiencies should consider Paylocity.

Learn more: Read our full Paylocity review.

TriNet is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) with a partnership with an Employer of Record (EOR) service provider. These two solutions work together seamlessly, allowing companies to outsource their HR and payroll functions to attract, hire, pay, develop and retain top talent wherever they may reside. The platform allows companies to hire both employees and contractors on a global scale while complying with local labor, payroll and tax laws and regulations.

Vit Koval, co-founder of Globy, a talent acquisition company, also likes TriNet’s offerings: “TriNet may be considered most useful for small businesses requiring an integrated way of HR management. It helps to deal with a huge variety of HR tasks under its PEO model, starting from payroll and moving along to risk management. Therefore, it can be a game-changer for businesses that do not have an HR department.”

General Features

TriNet is a robust platform with solutions ranging from HR and payroll to workforce management and industry-focused solutions. Some of its most notable features are its professional employer organization (PEO) servicesand tools, its workforce management tools and its mobile app. Here is a closer look at these standout features.

Professional Employer Organization (PEO)

A PEO is a full HR and payroll service that allows you to outsource these functions to, in this case, TriNet. Specific services it offers include:

• Payroll administration: You can allow TriNet to process payroll and all the end-of-year tasks required to stay in compliance with payroll tax law.
• HR technology: These tools help you create efficiencies and streamline your HR processes.
• Time and attendance: This technology toolset integrates with your payroll function to automatically track employee time and attendance.
• Recruiting and onboarding: This solution offers your company assistance with recruiting, hiring and onboarding new employees.
• Compliance support: TriNet’s PEO helps your business comply with federal, state and local employment laws.
• Workers’ compensation: TriNet manages the insurance processes associated with employee workers’ compensation by implementing policies and handling worker claims.
• Risk management: TriNet offers guidance on how your company can prevent claims against it.
• Healthcare administration: TriNet offers your employees a choice of premium medical, dental and vision carriers and plans.
• Benefits administration: TriNet manages your employees’ journeys from open enrollment benefits selection to payroll deductions.

Workforce Management

TriNet’s workforce management solutions help companies attract and onboard top talent. For example, it helps companies collect new employee tax information, confirm their eligibility as an employee with background checks, collect digital signatures, create and send offer letters, communicate with potential and new hires and set them up with self-service tools. Through the hiring process, it also helps employers manage key employee documents, such as:

• I-9 forms
• W-4 forms
• The development of employee handbooks and policies

After supporting the recruiting and hiring of new talent, TriNet offers reporting and people management tools to help you retain your talent. For example, its analytics tools help you pinpoint and manage employee trends, understand turnover rates and workforce diversity and optimize employee performance. Further, its administration tools help you to manage employee perks such as time off policies and requests and automate workflows for a more efficient and less frustrating employee experience.

Mobile App

TriNet’s mobile app offers tools for admins and employees. For example, employees can access the following self-serve features using the app:

• View paycheck and benefits data
• Access W-2 and W-4 forms
• Email their pay stubs
• View their flexible spending accounts
• Request, schedule and track their time off
• Access discounts on products, groceries and fitness services
• Request support and ask questions through the chat tool
• Complete onboarding tasks
• Clock in and clock out of work
• Submit receipts for reimbursement
• Manage a to-do list

In turn, with the proper permission settings in place, employers can use the app to:

• View employee data
• View reporting such as last payroll, headcounts, hires or terminations
• Receive time off requests, then review and approve them
• Search the knowledge center
• Open and manage support cases
• Access live chat support
• Manage a to-do list

Additional Features

Unlike some competitors on this list, TriNet offers global workforce management tools, including the ability to hire and develop foreign-based employees and contractors. In doing so, it supports you in sourcing talent from wherever they are, not just the local talent pool.

For example, it partners with G-P, a global employer of record (EOR). This partner can recruit, hire, pay and manage global talent while ensuring compliance with global payroll and labor laws. To make the partnership seamless, it offers Single Sign-On (SSO) from the TriNet platform.

In addition, its Contractor Payment solution further helps you develop the team you want from where you can source them. It offers self-service onboarding tools for contractors and tools to manage and pay them, such as:

• A dashboard to easily add or remove contract workers
• Multiple pay options
• Independent contractor documents
• A single sign-on from your TriNet account
• Form 1099 auto-generations
• Mobile access

Support

TriNet offers support via live chat 24/7. It also offers phone support Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m. ET. You can also email the company or access its help center, which offers a plethora of training videos.

Reputation

TriNet has a 3.8-star rating on Capterra with 41 user reviews and a 4-star rating on G2 with 622 user reviews. Users say the solution is easy to use and appreciate TriNet’s 24/7 live chat feature, which they say offers responsive and knowledgeable customer support. However, they say the price tag is a bit expensive compared to other small business HR software. Many would love to be able to track contractors’ time automatically, a feature that the platform currently lacks.

Pricing

TriNet offers three small business plans ranging from $10 to $33 per user per month when billed monthly. If you opt for the annual plans, that price range drops to $8 and $27 per user per month, a 20% savings. Here is a look at each of TriNet’s small business plans, including their features and pricing details.

Essentials

The Essentials plan is the cheapest plan at $10 per month when billed monthly. It purports to be a basic HR platform and offers the following features:

• Automated onboarding tools, including background checks, offer letters, employee self-onboarding and digital docs and signatures
• Employee management tools, including an employee system of record, a company directory, an organizational chart, document management tools, reporting and automated HR workflows
• Time-off tracking, including PTO policies, time-off request approval and management tools, blackout dates and auto payroll syncing
• Scheduling, including the ability to create and edit shifts, clock in and clock out of work shifts, automated scheduling notifications and auto payroll syncing
• Integrations such as Slack, G Suite, Salesforce, 401(k) providers and Box
• TriNet’s mobile app with tools to manage medical benefits, clocking in and out of shifts, time off requesting and an employee directory
• An analytics dashboard with predefined visual analytics

Growth

The Growth plan is an HR platform that comes with data and analytics tools. It is $20 per month per employee when billed monthly. Its features include:

• All features in the Essentials plan
• Customizable people analytics, offering predictive analytics and workforce trends
• Compensation management with real-time comparison salary data, organizational chart data, workforce salary benchmarking and custom benchmarking reports
• Performance management with goal setting and tracking, one-on-one meeting management tools and customizable review forms and questions

Zen

The Zen plan is $33 per user per month when billed monthly. It is a complete HR platform with payroll and employee engagement features. It offers the following features:

• Everything in the Growth plan
• Employee engagement surveys, including tools to customize surveys, pre-built templates, question-by-question data visibility, employee demographic filtering, feedback gathering and anonymity tools and a centralized engagement platform
• People Hub offers a company feed for posting announcements, tools to like an comment on posts, a task manager for creating and managing tasks and employee permissions around posting and which departments or locations can view posts
• Payroll processing, a tool suite that normally costs $6 per user per month as an add-on

Optional Add-Ons

You can also choose from a selection of add-ons, including:

• Payroll processing for $6 per employee per month
• Benefits administration for $5 per employee per month (free when administering benefits with a TriNet broker partner).
• Recruiting powered by JazzHR at $35 per user per month
• HR and payroll processing advisory services for $8 per employee per month

Who Should Use It?

Companies that wish to outsource their HR management, including their payroll, benefits administration, workforce management and compliance management functions should consider TriNet for its PEO and EOR features.

Learn more:  Read our full TriNet Review.

Gusto offers a robust HR platform with tools that cover the entire employee experience, from recruiting to development. Overall, its platform features cover:

• Recruiting and hiring
• Employee development
• Payroll processing
• Time and attendance
• Benefits administration
• Tax administration
• Workforce and financial reporting

In doing so, it also offers automations that lend to efficiencies and added customer satisfaction, including automated job postings, payroll syncing across other features, payroll on AutoPilot, talent management and financial report generations and tax filing features. This automation extends across over 191 possible integrations.

Finally, it specializes in companies that hire contractors with its Contractor-only plan and contractor talent management features in over 120 countries. It also offers international contractor onboarding features, allowing you to hire, manage and pay them from one platform. And, you only pay for the contractors you pay on a monthly basis, meaning if you don’t pay a contractor for one month, you don’t have to pay for their usage of the Gusto software.

Dylan Cleppe, co-founder and CEO of OneStop Northwest LLC, finds a few benefits to Gusto for his business: “The software integrates benefits management seamlessly, which is incredibly valuable for startups looking to offer competitive packages. Another standout feature is the proactive compliance checks that ensure our operations are always in line with current laws.”

General Features

Gusto offers full HR software in one platform. Its features span hiring and recruiting, payroll processing and talent management. It also offers a self-serve portal for employees to make managing and paying them more efficient. Here is a look at Gusto’s standout features.

Recruiting and Hiring

Gusto offers a robust toolset for helping companies source and recruit top talent, even globally. It offers custom job posts that syndicate to popular job boards. Then, you can track your applicants using its centralized applicant tracking system. Once you’ve chosen a prospective candidate, you can send a custom offer letter using one of Gusto’s offer letter templates. Finally, once you’ve hired a candidate, you can manage their onboarding using custom onboarding checklists, document storage, e-signatures, background checks and new hire digital welcome packages.

Payroll Processing

Gusto’s payroll processing solution offers unlimited payroll runs in all plans. You can pay employees using direct deposit and even pay international employees and contractors in over 120 countries. And, for easier payroll processing, it offers its AutoPilot feature that allows you to run payroll through automations.

It also helps you manage all your payroll tax obligations, with state registration in all 50 U.S. states; local, state and federal tax filing and automatic tax calculations. It even offers document management tools to store employee I-9, W2 and 1099 forms. The system automatically keeps track of changing tax laws and applies them to your tax auto-calculations to ensure continual compliance. Finally, the system automatically searches for tax credits you can claim, such as employee retention tax credits.

When we tested Gusto’s payroll features, we found them intuitive to use, as Gusto walked us through each step. However, there was a large requirement for entering manual data, which made the process a bit tedious at times.

Talent Management

Once you’ve hired a new employee, retaining them often involves helping them to learn their roles, ensuring their satisfaction and giving them opportunities to advance. Gusto offers a full-featured talent management solution that includes learning and development tools, performance review templates, development tracking tools, automated feedback requests and personalized employee communications to help employees know where they excel and where they can improve.

Mobile Wallet

Gusto Wallet is Gusto’s mobile app. It serves as a self-serve portal for employees and includes tools to help them manage their finances, receive their pay up to two days faster and track their work time. Here is a look at its features:

• Financial tools: Its financial tools offer employees the ability to receive their pay, split it among different accounts, view their debit card transaction records and budget for their personal expenses.
• Debit Card: The Gusto Wallet spending account offers employees a credit card with free withdrawals in over 37,000 ATMs throughout the U.S. They can also add their debit card to Apple Pay and Google Pay for easy spending.
• Time tracking: Employees can use Gusto Wallet to clock in and out of their work shifts, automatically tracking their time for accurate payroll processing.
• Tax management: Employees can view documents such as their tax deductions, W2s, pay stubs and other tax documents to aid them in easy tax filing.

Additional Features

Gusto works with companies to offer the best benefits they can afford for their employees. As an add-on feature, Gusto offers the opportunity to work with licensed health insurance brokers to choose the right medical benefits for your team, even within a small business budget. In addition, you can purchase life and disability insurance for your team through Gusto. You can also integrate your existing broker and health insurance plans for an added fee of $6 per eligible employee.

Support

Gusto offers email, chat and phone support to all customers from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. MST Monday through Friday. Its Premium plans offer a direct line to phone and email support with priority access and extended hours. This priority support is also offered as an add-on in its Plus plan. In addition, in its Premium plan, you get direct access to a dedicated customer success manager who learns and consults on all of your business needs. Finally, all plans come with 24/7 help center access with step-by-step guides on Gusto features.

Reputation

Gusto earns a 4.7-star rating on Capterra with 3,868 reviews and a 4.5-star rating on G2 with over 1,930 user reviews. Users say the software is easy to use and offers comprehensive features for small businesses. They also like that Gusto constantly offers new features and improvements based on customer feedback. Though many say they have received superior customer support, some say their customer support experience was tedious and offered delayed problem resolution.

Pricing

Gusto offers three plans with prices ranging from $40 per month, plus $6 per person to $80 per month, plus $12 per person. Its highest-tier Premium plan requires a custom quote. Here is an overview of the pricing details and features in each plan.

Simple

The Simple plan is $40 per month, plus $6 per person. It is designed to offer automatic payroll features and benefits integrations. Its features include:

• Single-state payroll
• W-2s and 1099s
• Phone, email or chat support
• Employee self-service
• Basic hiring and onboarding tools
• Gusto-brokered health insurance and administration
• Payroll reports
• Time-off reports
• Integrations

Plus

The Plus plan is normally $80 per month, plus $9 per user, but it is currently running a promotion for $60 per month, plus $9 per person. It is a comprehensive payroll, benefits and HR solution offering:

• All Simple plan features
• Multi-state payroll
• Next-day direct deposit
• Advanced hiring and onboarding tools
• PTO management and policies
• Time tracking tools
• Project tracking tools
• A time kiosk
• Workforce costing and reporting
• Team management tools
• Performance reviews
• Employee engagement and feedback-gathering tools
• The option to add on priority support for $8 per person per month

Premium

This plan requires an extra quote for businesses to find out how much they will have to pay. It is designed to help companies scale up and offers advanced and dedicated customer support. Here are its features:

• Everything in the Plus plan
• A dedicated customer success manager
• An HR resource center
• Compliance alerts
• Consultations with certified HR experts
• Payroll migration and account setup
• Health insurance broker integration
• R&D tax credits
• Priority support

Who Should Use It?

Companies that hire primarily contractors across the globe would do well to consider Gusto for its contractor-specific features.

Learn more: Read our full Gusto review.