Gusto Pricing 2026: Plans, Fees and Hiring Costs

Key takeaway: $49 a month plus $6 per person is Gusto's entry price in 2026, on the Simple plan (gusto.com/product/pricing, read 25 September 2026). Gusto's hiring tools (job postings, the applicant tracking system, custom offer letters and onboarding checklists) start one tier up, on Plus at $80 a month plus $12 per person. For a 10-person company that is $109 a month on Simple versus $200 on Plus (our arithmetic on the published list prices), so the step up to Gusto's ATS costs $91 a month, or $1,092 a year, at that size.

Gusto is one of the few HR and payroll vendors that publishes a full rate card, and "gusto pricing" and "gusto cost" each draw 4,400 US searches a month (DataForSEO, September 2026). This page reads that rate card as a hiring buyer would: which plan unlocks which hiring and onboarding tools, what the add-ons cost, what the bill looks like at common team sizes, and what changed since January 2025. Every price is quoted from Gusto's own pages as rendered on 25 September 2026.

How much does Gusto cost in 2026?

Gusto prices every plan as a monthly base fee plus a monthly fee per person. These are the four plans on Gusto's pricing page on the check date:

On the check date the Contractor Only card showed the $35 base struck through to $0, under a "limited time offer" that Gusto's footnote describes as "a discounted base price of $0/mo for the first 6 months." The per-contractor fee is unchanged by that offer.

Three billing rules on the same page shape the real number:

• Month to month. "No contracts. Free account setup. Switch or cancel anytime," and in the FAQ: "Gusto is month-to-month. Cancel anytime."
• Active people only. "You're only charged for active employees," and for contractors Gusto says "we only bill you for contractors in months when you've paid them." US contractors are billed at the per-person rate of whichever plan you choose.
• Plan changes. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades "go into effect at the beginning of the next billing period (the first of the month)."

Gusto also states that "every Gusto plan comes with unlimited payroll runs," so the number of pay cycles does not change the bill.

What does Gusto cost for a 10, 25 or 50 person team?

Because the per-person fee is the larger lever, the gap between plans widens fast as headcount grows. The table applies the published list prices (base fee plus per-person fee times headcount), before taxes, add-ons or promotions. The arithmetic is ours; the inputs are Gusto's.

Two patterns fall out of the table:

• Effective cost per person falls with size, but the tier matters more. At 10 people Simple works out to $10.90 per person per month, Plus $20.00 and Premium $40.00. At 50 people those become $6.98, $13.60 and $25.60.
• Plus roughly doubles the bill. At 10 people Plus costs 1.83 times Simple ($200 / $109), and the monthly gap grows from $61 at 5 people to $331 at 50. Premium at 10 people costs 3.67 times Simple ($400 / $109).

For context on how this compares with other published and unpublished HR platform prices, see our recruiting software pricing index, Rippling pricing and BambooHR pricing.

Which Gusto plan includes hiring and onboarding tools?

This is the question the headline price hides. We expanded the feature comparison table on Gusto's pricing page and read its HR and talent rows. Gusto's own ATS page confirms the key line: "ATS is included in our Plus and Premium plans."

So Simple handles the paperwork of a hire you have already made, while Plus is the cheapest plan that helps you find and pick the hire. Gusto describes the ATS as a way to "post job listings to multiple sites, manage and evaluate your applicants," and says it "works with your favorite job boards like LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and more." That is inbound hiring: candidates reach you by applying to a posting.

Background checks run through Checkr, which Gusto says "can complete a background check in 3-5 business days" (Gusto background checks). The background-check page did not show a dollar figure on the check date, so we do not quote one.

What do Gusto's add-ons cost?

The pricing page lists add-ons with their own fees. The ones most relevant to a growing team, as published on 25 September 2026:

Gusto adds that "one $200 annual service charge covers all four account types" for its tax-advantaged accounts, and it lists Gusto Money Plus at $19/mo. On Simple, a 10-person team that adds Time & Attendance Plus and Priority Support pays $109 + $60 + $60 = $229 a month (our arithmetic), which is more than the $200 Plus list price for the same team, though Plus does not include Priority Support.

How has Gusto's pricing changed since 2025?

We read the Internet Archive's capture of the same pricing URL from 13 January 2025 and compared it with the live page:

The Simple base fee rose from $40 to $49, a 22.5% increase, while the per-person fee stayed at $6. Plus and Premium list prices are the same in both captures; the January 2025 page ran a first-months discount ("Save 25% for the first 3 months" on Plus, for accounts created by 31 January 2025). The 2025 page described the tiers as "basic hiring and onboarding tools" on Simple and "advanced hiring and onboarding tools" on Plus, the same split the 2026 comparison table spells out row by row.

Does Gusto integrate with dedicated recruiting software?

Yes. Gusto's hiring integrations directory listed 13 entries on the check date: ApplicantPro, Ashby, AvaHR, Background Checks, BreezyHR, Gusto Recruiting, JazzHR, Jobcase, Lever, Sapling, Teamtailor, Tellent Recruitee and WizeHire. Gusto's pitch is to "sync data from your hiring system into Gusto," so a new hire moves from the recruiting tool into payroll without re-keying. Several listings carried partner offers on the check date, including "20% off your first year" for Ashby and "20% off Plus or Pro plans through Gusto" for JazzHR.

That matters for the pricing decision. A team that already runs a dedicated ATS such as JazzHR, Breezy HR, Ashby or Lever does not need Gusto's built-in ATS, which removes the main hiring reason to move from Simple to Plus. Our guide to employee onboarding software covers the onboarding side in more depth.

Where does outbound sourcing fit next to Gusto?

Gusto's hiring tools, at every tier, work on people who apply: post a job, collect applicants, send an offer, onboard. None of the plans finds candidates who have not applied. For small teams hiring for hard-to-fill roles, that is usually the gap, and it is a different product category.

Noon covers that outbound step. Noon's AI Sourcer searches across the web for candidates who fit the role, evaluates them against your criteria, and AI Outreach contacts them with personalized email and SMS sequences and handles scheduling. Candidates sync into the ATS you already use through Noon's ATS integrations, and from there into payroll through whatever connector you run with Gusto. Two structural differences from Gusto's rate card:

• No per-person meter. Noon's pricing is a single plan with unlimited sourcing, unlimited contacts, unlimited agents and unlimited seats. Adding recruiters or hiring managers does not add a fee.
• No public dollar price. Unlike Gusto, Noon quotes per team rather than publishing a rate card, so the comparison here is about structure, not a side-by-side dollar figure.

For more on assembling a small-company hiring stack, see the best recruiting software for small businesses.

Sources and methodology

Every figure on this page was collected on 25 September 2026 by reading the rendered page in a browser (Playwright over the Chrome DevTools Protocol, with accordions and toggles expanded). Each quote is recorded with its URL and fetch timestamp in the article's sources.json in the noon.ai repository (seo/research/stats/gusto-pricing-2026/sources.json).

• Vendor pages (primary): Gusto pricing, Gusto applicant tracking system, Gusto hiring and onboarding (gusto.com/product/hr/hiring-onboarding), Gusto background checks, Gusto hiring integrations. All returned HTTP 200.
• Historical comparison: the Internet Archive capture of gusto.com/product/pricing dated 13 January 2025.
• Demand check: DataForSEO Google Ads volume, US, 25 September 2026: "gusto pricing" 4,400 searches a month, "gusto cost" 4,400, "gusto payroll pricing" 1,300, "gusto plans" 480, "how much does gusto cost" 260. No noon.ai page had a dedicated Gusto pricing article before this one.
• Rule applied: a price is called "published" only when it appears on the vendor's own pricing page on the check date. Every dollar figure in this article meets that rule, except the January 2025 figures, which are labelled as an archived capture. All team-size totals, ratios, per-person averages and the 22.5% change are our arithmetic on the published figures.

Limitations

Published list prices are not always what a customer pays: Gusto runs promotions (the Contractor Only $0 base on the check date, a 25% Plus discount in January 2025) and may offer other terms we did not see. The team-size totals exclude taxes, add-ons, benefits premiums and state-specific fees. The feature table reflects Gusto's comparison table as rendered on one date and simplifies some rows; Gusto can change plan contents at any time. Gusto's hiring and onboarding product page still refers to a "Complete plan," a plan name that does not appear on the current pricing page, so we relied on the pricing page and the ATS page for which tier includes which tool. The background-check page showed no price, so background-check cost is not covered. We compared only two dates, so we cannot say when between January 2025 and September 2026 the Simple base fee changed. Noon is a recruiting software vendor and does not publish a dollar price; the Noon section describes structure, not cost.

FAQ

How much does Gusto cost per month in 2026?

Gusto's published plans on 25 September 2026 are Simple at $49/mo plus $6/mo per person, Plus at $80/mo plus $12/mo per person, Premium at $180/mo plus $22/mo per person, and Contractor Only at $35/mo plus $6/mo per contractor. A 10-person team pays $109, $200 or $400 a month on the three employee plans.

Does Gusto's Simple plan include an applicant tracking system?

No. Gusto states that "ATS is included in our Plus and Premium plans." Simple includes onboarding paperwork such as digital I-9s and W-4s, employee self-onboarding and offer letter templates, but not job postings or applicant tracking.

Does Gusto charge setup fees or require a contract?

Gusto's pricing page says "No contracts. Free account setup. Switch or cancel anytime," and describes billing as month to month.

Does Gusto charge for contractors every month?

No. Gusto says it only bills for contractors "in months when you've paid them," at the per-person rate of the plan you are on.

Did Gusto raise its prices?

The Simple base fee was $40/mo in the 13 January 2025 archived capture and $49/mo on 25 September 2026, a 22.5% increase, with the $6 per-person fee unchanged. Plus and Premium list prices were the same on both dates.

How does Noon's pricing differ from Gusto's?

Gusto publishes a base fee plus a per-person fee. Noon is one plan with unlimited sourcing, unlimited contacts, unlimited agents and unlimited seats, quoted per team rather than published. Noon also does a different job: it finds and contacts candidates who have not applied, while Gusto manages applicants, payroll and HR. See Noon's pricing to get a quote.