Gusto Reviews 2,413

DO NOT SIGN UP, DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT INFORMATION,

I wrote a review previously - Horrible Company, their customer service lies to you to get you off the phone. They are still billing my business account for the subscription 2 months after I cancelled the account because of Gusto's lies about their mistakes, and it puts companies in a tax fraud situation. The stories of the worst companies to try to cancel business used to be gym memberships. Gusto is 1000x worse than trying to cancel a gym membership subscription.

Do not use Gusto, please believe me.

Your cancellation process is criminally difficult. It's pressure tactics from your staff and the button to cancel is impossible to press on a phone. Your food is good but your ethics are terrible.

Avoid at all costs this payroll service. They utilize AI support and offshore call centers. You'll be dealing with people that need to follow a script that are unwilling to let you just talk to someone to resolve an issue we had two payrolls that were processed that the employee never received. But they took the money. We have the deductions from the corporate accounts showing that they took the money.. we also have video and audio of the office manager processing the time cards manually into their website on time and correctly. But they've thrown up roadblock saying that our corporate representative was not verifiable. And we're unwilling to talk to us they've taken money that they have never dispense to the employee the company will have to absorb the cost of this and pay the employees. And then pursue Gusto through the courts now through some legal investigation part of how they're getting away with this is there an offshore company so getting them into a US court system is going to be difficult. Will continue investigate this as a fraudulent crime

Gusto does not know a thing about customer support. WHENEVER you call them, they ask you a series of questions before you are allowed to talk to them. They actually ask, what is the speed your bank deposits checks, REALLY? WTF. Who knows the spped of their deposits.
When you do get ahold of them, they NEVER call you back.

I am in a nightmare scenario with Gusto. They have messed up two W2-C corrections attempts. Refuse to take responsibilities or even provide call backs. They just keep kicking down the road to the next person each time. Takes weeks to get support on this matter which still isn't resolved. I finally had to hire a local tax firm to look at all the mess and havoc they have caused my employees, my business, and to my mental/physical health dealing with stress, anxiety, and lack of sleep. Because they are not providing high level support.

Every time I call, it is a different person each time and sometimes their English is lacking. Their high level support team can only be contacted through an email case. Which can take weeks for them to replay.

Now that they messed up payroll, their accounting system is automatically charging me another $5,428.40 and an additional $9K in form 940/941 according to my local accountant. And now they have blocked my access to issue payroll because of their own errors.

This is such a horrible nightmare and it doesn't seem to end because of Gusto's poor level of service and lack of experienced support agents in actual accounting.

Mixed feelings running a simple payroll is quick and fairly easy. About 1/2 my customer service chats have been helpful, but the other 1/2, not so much. Some of them can be a little snarky and condescending. BUT onboarding a new employee is a nightmare. Even though we have them complete I9, W4 etc their system requires them to "e-sign" everything again. There is a way to upload the EE's documents, but the system still doesn't recognize it has being completed. Same with harassment prevention training, there's no way to override the system w/o having to call or "chat" with customer service. Start dates... the "system" knows your payroll is a certain period of days, however you have to have an employees start date be the 1st day of the pay period not the ACTUAL day they started or the employee doesn't show up in payroll. Dumb dumb dumb. Their "AI" isn't so "I"

HORRIBLE!! They have our W-2s so messed up. The accounting firm we use uses Gusto for payroll and it’s a mess! It’s been almost 2 months and they can’t straighten out our W-2s. I do NOT recommend them at all!

Out of no where, I got an email saying the admin of my Gusto account changed to a random company that I did not recognize. I log in and see the change reflect my account with emails of people I don't know showing as "Admin". Clearly, my account got hacked. I immediately contacted Gusto, and after 3 separate emails and WEEKS of trying to get a hold of them, I have still not heard back from them. Their support is absolutely horrible, incredibly hard to reach, and it seems their account is not even secure.

Very simple and easy to use. Keeps payroll at a reasonable price, and I was able to eliminate paying an accountant.

I cancelled Gusto on Feb 2 but was still charged the full February fee on March 4. The invoice shows February service even though the account was cancelled at the start of the month. Billing was not prorated and the charge matched previous full months. This was not clearly communicated during cancellation.

Everything they write, respond with and say is incorrect. They screwed up my taxes for my company of just 1 employee, me! They overcharged me to give me more work than if I had just done it all myself. Do not use them!

Gusto was great when we first started using them several years ago, but they've gone downhill significantly, to the point that we will be changing providers as soon as they can manage to respond to the lates issue we're having. Their customer support just kept me on a chat with them for an hour and a half, while they, tried clicking on things to, "see if the system would allow it". The end result was that nothing was remedied and they sent an email to a specialist. I would have been much more understanding of this, if this hadn't already happened months ago, regarding the same issue.

Avoid Gusto – One of the Worst Vendor Experiences We’ve Had

We switched to Gusto from Paychex in January 2024 because we were dissatisfied with Paychex’s customer service. In hindsight, that decision was a huge mistake. Our experience with Gusto has been one of the most frustrating vendor relationships we have ever dealt with.

Here are the facts of our experience:

1. Customer service is essentially nonexistent
Gusto does not assign account representatives. Instead, whenever you need help, the first available support person calls you back. While the response time is often quick, the representatives who call generally lack the knowledge or authority to resolve the issue. The result is endless conversations with different people who do not understand your account and cannot fix the problem. Issues drag on for weeks or months with no accountability.

2. Strong-arm tactics regarding benefits brokerage
We initially wanted to move our FSA from Paychex to Gusto. After our first payroll, we were told that Gusto would only process our FSA if we made Gusto the broker for our medical insurance. Their representative claimed they legally could not process the FSA unless they were the broker. Whether true or not, it felt like a clear attempt to force us into moving our insurance brokerage relationship to them.

3. Benefits administration was shockingly incompetent
Switching our insurance broker to Gusto turned out to be an enormous mistake. If the payroll support is weak, the benefits support is even worse.

Their representatives were consistently unhelpful and frequently provided incorrect information. At one point, Gusto placed someone on our Oxford insurance account who was not even an employee of our company. It took 10 months to fix this mistake, and the only reason it was eventually resolved was because our previous broker stepped in and worked directly with Oxford to correct the situation. Gusto itself was unable to resolve the issue.

4. Mishandling of broker changes created additional problems
At the end of the year we submitted a change of broker record to move away from Gusto. Instead of processing the request correctly, Gusto told Oxford that our entire account had been cancelled, which caused unnecessary confusion and administrative problems.

5. Continued billing even after we stopped using them
In 2026 we stopped running payroll through Gusto. Despite that, they continued charging us. When we raised the issue, we were told we had not followed their precise cancellation procedure and therefore were still responsible for their fees. In other words, even if you stop using them, they may continue billing you.

6. The difference after moving to ADP has been night and day
We have since moved to ADP and the difference has been dramatic. ADP assigned us a dedicated representative who actually understands our account and works with us to solve problems. The transition away from Gusto was handled more professionally by ADP than anything we experienced while we were a Gusto customer.

Summary
Gusto’s automated payroll system itself works reasonably well. However, when anything goes wrong—and eventually it will—the company appears completely incapable of resolving problems in a timely or competent manner.

Based on our experience, we strongly recommend avoiding Gusto for benefits administration entirely. It was one of the most frustrating vendor experiences we have encountered.

Awful. Gusto advertises itself as simple, easy, and user-friendly, but you'd better hope nothing ever goes wrong or there aren't any complications like tax notices from state or federal authorities. If you ever need support, they give vague advice (which reads like it's AI-generated), and then start ghosting you if you ask follow-up questions. One time I had a Gusto tax advisor agree to speak with me over the phone to help resolve a tax issue I was experiencing, but she never called me at the agreed time and then ghosted me when I wrote to her twice to follow up. Another time they wrote to me after I submitted a tax notice and purported to have taken care of the issue, but the explanation made no sense. When I followed up to clarify, they ignored me and disappeared. And if you ever try to call them to speak with someone over the phone, they will charge a premium monthly fee just for the ability to actually talk to a human. A truly horrible service.

Because the issues with Gusto and Guideline involve tax reporting and retirement distribution compliance, I am documenting the timeline in case it is needed for IRS clarification regarding the resulting penalty exposure. What concerns me most is that these delays involved routine compliance tasks — an RMD distribution and a W-2 correction — which raises serious concerns about how time-sensitive tax obligations are being handled for other customers.

In November I requested a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from Guideline. Despite repeated calls and assurances that it was being processed, the distribution did not arrive until January 5, 2026, missing the 2025 deadline and exposing me to a potential IRS penalty. Guideline’s explanation was that they were “busy with the merger with Gusto and had limited bandwidth.” When I asked them to cover the penalty caused by the delay, they refused.

Separately, I have been trying for four weeks to obtain a W-2C from Gusto. I supplied all required information immediately. Since then I have had nine support calls, each lasting over an hour, repeatedly placed on hold while representatives “check with the appropriate team.” I was promised delivery within 24 hours on four separate occasions, but it still has not been provided.
Customer support representatives are polite but appear to have no authority or visibility into the actual issue, and requests to speak with a supervisor were never fulfilled.

Based on my experience, both companies have serious operational and escalation problems, particularly when time-sensitive compliance issues arise.

This company does nothing to ensure compliance and when they made a mistake, they told me I had to figure it out. They responded weeks after I submitted the tax notice and now I will be paying penalties and interest. When I told them that, they told me to call the IRS and try to get it knocked down.

They failed to do almost everything they were hired to do. They did not submit my state taxes although they had the correct taxid. They did not generate my w-2 even though they charged the full fee for the month it should have been processed. They should have refunded the entirety of my fees since they never processed the state taxes. Multiple calls ended with customer service repeatedly promising to fix the problems and lied saying that they would not stop until it was resolved. They still kept the fees for the months they didn't process taxes and I think they actually took out the money and kept it in a holding account and aren't releasing it. Each customer service call started the whole process from the beginning despite their promises. Extremely displeased. I would give a minus 5 if I could. At least for my business they were a robbery and a scam.

--Updated based on their reply below
It was their technician that took control of my screen and selected the options and their recorded call should show that I asked repeatedly to keep the tax documents and w-2. I made no such request. The even billed me for the month they should have done the w-2. They continue to ignore the questions about what happened with my state tax funds that weren't sent to the state. Their customer service has lied to me at least 7 times saying they were going to resolve the issue and review the call and complete the w-2. They cannot be trusted and their customer support is poorly trained and inept. How can they justify keeping the fees when they didn't do their job and never submitted the state taxes or completed the w-2 as requested. Even if their customer service person selected an incorrrect option, there is no excuse since they recorded the call. They are avoiding the responsibilities that they were paid to fulfill and just making excuses for not doing it without acknowledging they took my monthly fee as said they would fulfill their obligations to complete the state taxes and the w-2. There is no excuse for such poor business practices. And even here they try to explain away their inept and unacceptable practices that actually violate laws. The short answer is don't use a company that doesn't take responsibility for their words or actions.

I wanted to like Gusto, but my experience with customer support was a deal-breaker. A major issue escalated while I was using their service, and I couldn’t get a straightforward explanation or a concrete plan to fix it. Support repeatedly said things like “no action required” or that they’d “forwarded” my request, but nothing actually moved forward. They also pushed me to handle it by phone rather than providing clear responses in writing. If you’re a business owner and need reliable, accountable support when something goes wrong, this wasn’t it.

I've had such a poor experience with their support team it is truly unbelievable they are still in business. Their system failed to verify my identity and I have been BATTLING support for the past week and a half, communication has been horrible, been hung up on my face by a rep who got pissed off by my impatience to hold during work hours. their support phone lines sound like they are underwater and break every 2 seconds, refused to escalate my ticket and now my payroll is blocked and I am failing to meet compliance requirements in CA. nice dashboard but nothing solid behind it, they didn't bother to help and their system error had no guidance to why this error is even there. If you are considering I would advise not to just POOR customer service one of the worst I've ever seen. Wasted maybe 10 hours of my life with these amateurs, calling again they don't even recognize there's an open ticket just complete mess incredibly incompetent team.