Gusto vs Workday comparison

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Gusto

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Workday and Gusto are competing in HR and payroll solutions. Gusto's user-friendly design is preferred for smaller organizations, while Workday's integration capabilities favor larger enterprises.

Features: Workday offers robust analytics, extensive integration options, and advanced reporting tools. Gusto provides payroll management, benefits administration, and a seamless interface tailored for ease of use.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Gusto is known for straightforward implementation and responsive customer service, easing onboarding for smaller organizations. Workday, with its complex features, requires detailed deployment, benefiting those needing custom configurations.

Pricing and ROI: Gusto attracts small businesses with lower initial costs and transparent pricing, offering quick ROI via affordable monthly fees. Workday's tiered pricing model and higher upfront costs align with its comprehensive capabilities, yielding potential higher ROI for companies with complex needs.

To learn more, read our detailed Gusto vs. Workday Report (Updated: February 2026).

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Gusto vs. Workday

February 2026

Helped 881,707 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

10th

Ranking in Talent Management

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Workday

Ranking in Benefits Administration

1st

Ranking in Talent Management

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud HCM (2nd), Talent Acquisition (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Benefits Administration category, the mindshare of Gusto is 1.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 12.1%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Benefits Administration Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Workday	12.1%
Gusto	1.8%
Other	86.1%

Benefits Administration

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.

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Eslam Abo Elnaga

Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo

Has improved HR process efficiency through intuitive workflows and responsive support

There is something that could be improved in Workday, specifically in the time tracking module. While I am not working on Workday now, I was a regional HRIS working for Egypt, Malta, India, and China. I mention these countries to relate to high population countries and companies. In our company, we use assigned work schedules for our teams. Because we work with the time tracking module, we need to assign shifts. In the manufacturing industry, we might need to change shifts every day or week. Manufacturing teams are huge, approximately 50 to 200 people in one team. If this team has one leader, the leader needs to assign a work schedule for each person individually. While there is mass upload functionality where we can load shifts for all people or specific groups, we need to select multiple people and assign them to a schedule from the interface itself. I have requested this functionality many times. When extracting business processes awaiting actions report, I can select different processes in one box, hit okay, and the report comes up. However, the same functionality does not work for work schedule assigning. If implemented, it would help many people in companies with high populations and big teams.

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

"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."

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

"I like its UI and UX. When we were using Oracle or SAP, the UI/UX wasn't very user-friendly for the employees."

"We use Workday for all our employee-related information. It is a central hub where we can access pay slips, tax-related information, tax automation, and tax rules. Additionally, it manages employee hiring processes and other HR functions. It's a one-stop solution where employees can find everything about their profile, work experience, and associated technologies."

"Workday is a holistic HR solution."

"It helps the users to enroll for the benefits automatically and update their life events without the involvement of HR individuals or back-office staff. It enables a person to take action on their own. It reduces the administrative burden on HR and puts the ownership on the person that is going through the life event, whether it is having a child, taking a leave of absence, or something else. There are easy ways to integrate Workday with your common benefits. At least in the USA, it can be integrated with common benefits providers such as Fidelity, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, etc. It has got a connector that is able to connect with the vendor or the third party to which you are trying to send the eligibility file. It basically allows us to automate or set up the tool, and the integration with the provider is a lot quicker than competing tools. When it comes to reporting on just eligibility and SLSA, it is a lot more user-intuitive. Depending on the purpose of what you are doing, you can grant security rights or roles, for example, you can control whether someone is a benefits administrator doing an independent audit. Workday makes it very easy to do that. It significantly simplifies the reporting process."

"I found the analysis features to be very useful for our company. I also found the modules installed to be aligned with our company's KPIs. These were the two features that stood out."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the usability, learning, and compliance tools."

"It is quite user-friendly."

"It's actually a cloud-native solution and based on the community for development. It is a very good open architecture and able to interconnect with other systems. And it is very stable and very fast in terms of response."

More Workday pros

Cons

"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."

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

"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."

"We would like to see improvement in the mobile app variant of this solution. The time sheet entry and approval, and the geo-tagging features all need to have their functionality updated, in order to be comparable with other products on the market."

"I would be happy if it was faster. Currently, when I try to navigate within the solution itself, it is a bit slow in terms of the page load time. When I click on something, it usually takes time to load. When you click on different icons or areas on the website, it is slow. Even when you navigate between different models, it is a bit slow. I would like to see a bit faster performance and a better user experience."

"My opinion is that this solution can improve the overall integrations and add more automation. I think anything that could be on a self-serve basis would work quite well."

"I'm not sure they have added this feature yet, but there should be a cellphone version, so we do not need to do it on a laptop. I'd like to log in on a cellphone and have the same features. I'm not sure if that is already available or if it's on the roadmap, but that would be a great feature."

"My only suggestion might be to include a brief description of any new fields we introduce, making it easier for people to use them. Perhaps this is something they can consider implementing."

"There could be a web-based application for making payments to the employees."

"One potential feature that could be added is the ability to streamline business processes through quick tips and guided tours. This would allow for a smoother and more guided experience for colleagues as they navigate through different processes and steps. It would be similar to a guidance system or a step-by-step tutorial that could be added after the business process to guide users through it."

"They could improve the product areas such as enhancing the interview scheduling module to support more flexible online assessments within the platform."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is on a yearly basis."

"The pricing for this solution is fairly high. It is not affordable for small and mid-sized companies."

"You have the license fee per module, and then you have a kind of annual training fee, which is a kind of add-on. I wouldn't say it is exhaustive; it is minor. Licensing is pretty transparent for most of the part."

"The pricing is good from an HR perspective, although management gets upset after spending $500,000 a year, every year."

"The solution is flexible in terms of pricing."

"Workday is moderately priced - I'd rate its pricing three out of five."

"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten."

"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."

More Workday pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Benefits Administration solutions are best for your needs.

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881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	42

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.

What advice do you have for others considering Gusto?

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.

What are the biggest differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors?

Differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud,w and SAP SuccessFactors:w Oracle: "simple interface and deep customization to suit the purpose." SAP: Multiple functionalities that increase process effi...

What do you like most about Workday?

I like its UI and UX. When we were using Oracle or SAP, the UI/UX wasn't very user-friendly for the employees.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday?

If you go with the launch implementation approach, the solution is generally not very expensive. If you want to add more features to your subscription, Workday becomes expensive. The solution is fl...

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Product Reports

Download Gusto product report

Benefits Administration

January 2026

Download Workday product report

January 2026

Also Known As

ZenPayroll

No data available

Overview

Gusto provides payroll, benefits and HR to modern companies, by handling payments to employees and contractors and also electronically handling the paperwork necessary to help companies comply with tax, labor, and immigration laws.

Gusto

Workday is a cloud-based software solution that specializes in developing applications for capital and finance management applications. The system is built to work in global workforces and is adaptable. The global system ensures that users are up to date and can manage internal career-related information, and everyday business problems like timesheets, payrolls, and time off.

“A Pioneer in Software-as-a-Service”

Workday Human Capital Management tool is designed to simplify and streamline your work. It leverages machine learning to adapt capital management to a changing environment.

The Workday model is based on delivering a single system that uses a single source of data and a single security model to deliver a unique user experience. The system is user-friendly and ensures that employees and management can use it from any and all devices. Workday HCM integrates into a central system that includes financial management, payroll, recruiting, learning, and planning. Managers and employees can provide feedback to one another, too.

Workday’s features include:

Flexible framework that lets you organize your staff according to different criteria. You can group employees by function, hierarchy, or department.
Personalized career guidance: Knowledge management and career guidance that can be easily customized for each staff member and also done at scale.
Augmented reporting and analytics: Configure, change, update, and publish reports, scorecards, and dashboards. The system centralizes the transactional and analytical data so you can act on the data from anywhere.
Compensation tools: Compensatio, payroll, and time tracking are automated and simplified.
Workforce planning allows you to uncover and address talent gaps and get visibility of your staff.
Mobile-first ensign approach: Users can access all resources from any device, and they are always in sync.
Machine learning capabilities enable personalized enterprise experiences and faster business processes.

Workday smart platform consists of the following modules:

Human resource management
Business process management
Reporting and analytics
Benefits administration
Compensation management
Talent management
Survey framework
Employee and management self-service

Reviews from Real Users

Many organizations choose Workday because it provides an all-in-one modular solution for human capital and finance management. Our users say they like the ease of use for time-off requests, career and development segments, and overall HR management. The records and reporting capabilities are another popular feature.

"The solution was very good at reconfiguration and customization of their software. It helped us to meet federal regulations," said one user. Another said that the best feature is the optimization of the work day experience with a unified platform that can be applied across different business units. “You will never find a use case that cannot be covered," said a third.

Sample Customers

Farmgirl Flowers, Bevel, Pooch Pals, ALL MAVEN

AAA, Allied Global, Avago Technologies Limited, Aviva, Cardinal Health, CareFusion, Chiquita Brands International, Equifax, Flextronics, HP, Life Time Fitness, McKee Foods, MGM Resorts International, Sanofi, ServiceSource International, Symantec, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!