Gusto vs IBM Kenexa comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Gusto and IBM are both solutions in the Talent Management category. Gusto is ranked #12 with an average rating of 9.0, while IBM is ranked #15. Gusto holds a 1.0% mindshare in TM, compared to IBM’s 1.6% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of Gusto users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Gusto

Read 4 Gusto reviews

2,124 Views
1,508 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

IBM Kenexa

Read 30 IBM Kenexa reviews

4,901 Views
3,088 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Gusto

IBM Kenexa

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

IBM Kenexa and Gusto are competing products in the HR management and payroll space, each catering to different business needs. IBM Kenexa has the upper hand in talent management, while Gusto shines in payroll and benefits management.

Features: IBM Kenexa offers recruitment, job analysis, and performance management, providing advanced analytics tools that offer insights into workforce potential. Gusto specializes in payroll processing, benefits administration, and compliance management, streamlining these processes for small to medium-sized businesses.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Kenexa requires more professional setup assistance due to its extensive features. Gusto offers a simpler deployment process and is known for its responsive and accessible customer service, making it appealing to smaller businesses with fewer IT resources.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Kenexa involves higher setup costs but offers strong ROI for talent acquisition-focused businesses. Gusto provides a more affordable entry with lower monthly fees, delivering significant ROI for companies needing efficient payroll solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed Gusto vs. IBM Kenexa Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Gusto vs. IBM Kenexa

November 2026

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Helped 920,769 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Gusto

Ranking in Benefits Administration

9th

Ranking in Talent Management

12th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Kenexa

Ranking in Benefits Administration

13th

Ranking in Talent Management

15th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

5.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Applicant Tracking and Recruiting Software (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Talent Management category, the mindshare of Gusto is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Kenexa is 1.6%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Talent Management Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Gusto	1.0%
IBM Kenexa	1.6%
Other	97.4%

Talent Management

Featured Reviews

Phil Strazzulla

Founder at SelectSoftware Reviews

Provides time-saving solutions for small business payrolls

I would say, relative to another payroll solution, running payroll with Gusto probably costs half the price and saves us 5 to 10 hours a month. I would say Gusto is a really good payroll solution for small businesses. Running payroll with Gusto costs half the price and saves us 5 to 10 hours a month. My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. I was not offered a gift card or incentive for this review. I rated Gusto 9 out of 10 because of some customer support issues that kept it from being a 10.

Read full review

Karan Grover

Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Suitable for larger-scale companies aiming to streamline and automate their processes digitally

The deployment of the solution took between six to eight months. When we introduced BrassRing at my company, we encountered several challenges. First, moving data from our old system to BrassRing was tough because it needed reformatting. Second, connecting BrassRing with our HR data was tricky due to manual processes for roles and departments. Third, setting up the workflow in BrassRing was complex. Fourth, configuring user access and approval levels was a detailed task. We also had to manage the change process, including running both old and new systems in parallel, communicating changes, and training users. Lastly, monitoring and reporting were needed to ensure data accuracy and proper system usage once everything was in place. We had a team of six to eight people managing the project from our side during the BrassRing deployment. I'm not sure about the size of the BrassRing team, and we also had our own technical team, which had three to four members. The solution required maintenance, particularly from my side as the administrator. Maintenance responsibilities were divided into two parts: some tasks we, as end-users, could control, while others were the responsibility of the BrassRing team. Payment-related tasks were a regular part of our responsibilities. I wasn't the only person maintaining the solution. There were three power users from Infosys, each responsible for a specific geography. My counterpart managed it in the US, and I, along with my colleague in India, managed it for other geographies.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I like the payroll part. We also use documents and forms whenever we hire, such as a new hire form for each state, and we like that as well."

"I appreciated the templates that they offered for new hires and onboarding."

"We used QuickBooks before Gusto; we switched because Gusto is much easier, and it also is used for payroll as an HR IT solution with multiple uses."

"Gusto is a really good payroll solution for small businesses."

"I think the most value I have gotten from Gusto has been the interface, as it's very simple to use and it's very easy to understand."

"I would say the support that we get from the CSMs is the most valuable for me right now, because I'm still leaning on them pretty heavily to understand everything that I'm doing within the system."

"We acquired a pharmacy retailer three years ago, and Kenexa enabled us to actually standardize our employee engagement across both of those organizations, helping us understand at an enterprise level what was going on and, most importantly, how people were starting to feel about being acquired and joining the broader company space."

"Overall, from a recruiter's perspective, it is an excellent product and is probably one of the best recruitment products out there in terms of usability, ease of understanding, and management of large applicant pools."

"The most important features are that the instrument can be customized, that we can get important and relevant data about our employees, and the responsiveness of our client team from IBM has been phenomenal."

"It is extremely user friendly. It is very flexible in managing recruitment, especially when you have thousands of applicants as we did. We easily had over 20,000 applicants within a year for some of our positions, so it made it very easy to manage a large application pool. It was very easy to customize by recruiter preference. When you open up someone's profile to see their experience, education, or other things, you can customize that for yourself. It was flexible in that, and each recruiter could set up their preferences. It didn't have to be set up so that everyone had to have the same landing platform, which was very helpful. As someone who trained other HR people on how to use the system, it was very easy to pick up and learn."

"I like how we can copy a req as we have many duplicates, which saved a lot of time when opening reqs."

"I think one of the biggest benefits that Kenexa brings is the scalability."

"Of all the current talent analytics offerings on the market today, IBM Kenexa Talent Insights is the most comprehensive end-to-end, data-agnostic analytics tool."

More IBM Kenexa pros

Cons

"In the beginning, their support was top-notch. And then around the beginning of 2022, and end of 2021, their support tanked. We used to get responses in the beginning within one to two business days, and towards the end, we were getting responses in one to two business weeks."

"My experience with Gusto's customer support sometimes shows they're not responsive, and they have definitely made mistakes in the past."

"The integration is not so good."

"Their enrollment e-signature, enrollment forms, and other documents need a lot of work. Once we fill in the information, we cannot go back and change any of that. It's a time-taking process. If there is any mistake in the document and if we need to go and change a specific field in the form, it's not possible. We have to redo the entire form."

"Their enrollment e-signature, enrollment forms, and other documents need a lot of work."

"I would say that it could likely be made slightly easier to consume and work with - less scientific or engineering oriented - but IBM Kenexa Talent Insights is about the most powerful and useful tool I've seen."

"We're really looking forward to some of their enhancements to their onboarding portal, specifically for recruiters and hiring managers."

"The reporting feature currently is our biggest struggle point; getting the data we need and in the fashion that we need it is a current struggle point for us."

"The reporting tool is helpful, but it is not the easiest to train on or is not as understandable for other HR pros. Their Workbench site, which is the administrator site that you use to update your website, is not user-friendly. When updates are required, it is not that easy to manage because Workbench is not user friendly. It required more work from the admins. They have Workbench training, which actually was very unhelpful. It took eight hours to complete, and it was not very helpful. Their customer service when it comes specifically to their Workbench site is not helpful."

"The price can always be better. Right now, we can only do part of that, but not as much as I want to."

"There were functions we couldn't customize and needed to."

"If you happen to be an early adopter of enhancements, it can be a frustrating process, as it is hard to decipher together with their support whether an issue is a bug or working as intended (a change in the way something works)."

"I get a real sense of frustration when you see the kind of customer insight teams and what they can do and then you look at the colleague insights teams, which I'm leading on as well, and seeing there's a gap and we need to close that gap."

More IBM Kenexa cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Kenexa was fairly priced. However, in 2019, before I left my previous organization, they significantly increased their pricing. It can be affordable, but their pricing is going up. It is not just licensing; it is how many applicants you have in your system on the database side."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

15%

Construction Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Transportation Company

Manufacturing Company

15%

Outsourcing Company

14%

Construction Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	28

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Gusto?

I wish Gusto's customer support was better for improvements. My experience with Gusto's customer support sometimes shows they're not responsive, and they have definitely made mistakes in the past.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Gusto?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Gusto?

Our main use case for Gusto is for payroll, and we pay our US employees through it. Gusto helps with our payroll process because we use it for tax filings and benefits.

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Benefits Administration

October 2026

Download Gusto product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM Kenexa

October 2026

Download IBM Kenexa product report

Also Known As

ZenPayroll

IBM Smarter Workforce, Outstart

Overview

Gusto offers comprehensive payroll, benefits, and HR tools designed to simplify business operations for small to medium-sized enterprises. Known for its intuitive platform, Gusto facilitates the seamless management of crucial business functions.

Gusto provides a streamlined platform enabling employers to handle critical HR tasks effectively. It incorporates payroll processing, benefits management, and HR services into a unified interface, making it a valuable asset for businesses looking to optimize workforce administration. Its ease of use is frequently highlighted in reviews, with many users appreciating the reduction in administrative burden. Gusto supports businesses by automating intricate processes, reducing errors, and providing insights through smart reports. With a focus on efficiency and simplicity, Gusto addresses key business administration needs, aiding in maintaining compliance and boosting productivity.

What are Gusto's Most Important Features?

Payroll Processing: Automates pay runs, including taxes, filings, and reporting.
Benefits Management: Easy management of health, dental, and vision insurance plans.
HR Tools: Offers onboarding, time tracking, and organizational insights.
Gusto Wallet: Employee financial tools enhancing payroll experience.

What Benefits or ROI Should Users Look For?

Time Savings: Simplifies and accelerates payroll and benefits tasks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces overhead through automation and online tools.
Compliance Assurance: Provides updates and guidance on regulatory adherence.
Employee Satisfaction: Facilitates better benefits and payroll management leading to higher morale.

In industries such as tech startups and boutique firms, Gusto's implementation streamlines HR requirements, supporting agile business models. Many have found that it integrates seamlessly, allowing them to focus on core objectives without being bogged down by administrative complexities. Service-oriented and creative industries particularly benefit from its flexible and user-friendly approach, offering the needed adaptability in dynamic environments.

Gusto

IBM Kenexa offers comprehensive talent management solutions designed for businesses to streamline and enhance hiring processes.

It is a robust platform facilitating talent acquisition and workforce management. With powerful analytics and recruitment tools, IBM Kenexa aids organizations in matching skilled professionals to job roles efficiently, optimizing recruitment strategies, and improving employee engagement.

What are the prominent features of IBM Kenexa?

Recruitment: Simplifies the hiring process with customized workflows and efficient applicant tracking.
Talent Management: Enhances workforce performance through strategic talent development programs.
Analytics: Provides in-depth data insights for better decision-making in hiring and employee management.
Onboarding: Streamlines new hire integration with comprehensive orientation and training tools.

What benefits and ROI can IBM Kenexa users expect?

Improved Hiring Efficiency: Reduces time-to-fill by automating and redefining recruitment workflows.
Enhanced Employee Engagement: Increases retention rates through targeted engagement initiatives.
Data-Driven Decisions: Empowers companies with actionable insights for strategic planning.
Cost Savings: Minimizes hiring costs by optimizing human resources functions.

IBM Kenexa finds applications in healthcare, finance, retail, and tech industries where effective recruitment and engagement are crucial for success. Businesses gain a competitive advantage by leveraging its comprehensive tools for attracting and retaining top talent in these sectors.

IBM

Sample Customers

Farmgirl Flowers, Bevel, Pooch Pals, ALL MAVEN

Sweet Spot International (SSI), Leo Burnett Worldwide (LBW), Sika AG, Legacy Health, Apollo Group Inc., Regeneron, Transurban Group, National Health Service, New Zealand Police, Overland Footwear, Yealands, Johnson Controls, Allscripts, Kerry Foods, Masterpet, AMD, Balfour Beatty

Buyer's Guide

Gusto vs. IBM Kenexa

November 2026

Free Report: Gusto vs. IBM Kenexa

Find out what your peers are saying about Gusto vs. IBM Kenexa and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.

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