{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "gusto",
 "name": "Gusto",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "gusto.com",
 "category": "Financial Operations",
 "task": "Payroll & team benefits",
 "summary": "Payroll, benefits and HR in one friendly platform. Automated tax filings, employee onboarding and time tracking — run payroll for your whole team in just a few clicks.",
 "best_for": "US small businesses that want genuinely easy full-service payroll, benefits and tax compliance in one place",
 "skip_if": "you want one vendor for staff outside the US — since 1 May 2026 Gusto refers new international hires to Remote's employer-of-record service (from about $599 per employee a month, a separate contract) — or you need enterprise, multi-entity HR",
 "honest_knock": "The base-plus-per-employee model is transparent but adds up, and Gusto is US-only — excellent for straightforward US payroll and benefits, but not the pick for international teams or complex multi-entity HR.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$49",
  "entry_price_terms": "a month plus $6 per person (single-state payroll)",
  "from_price_usd_month": 49.0,
  "plans": null,
  "plans_source": null,
  "notes": "Read in a browser on gusto.com/product/pricing on 16 October 2026; the page blocks plain fetches. On the 'Pay My Team' tab, Simple is $49 a month plus $6 per person for single-state payroll, Plus $80 plus $12 per person with multi-state payroll, next-day pay and time tracking, and Premium $180 plus $22 per person with premium account support and HR guidance. The Contractor Only card ($35 a month plus $6 per contractor, base fee waived in a promotion, on our 5 September 2026 reading) is no longer on the page; the 'Pay Myself' tab now shows Solo, for solopreneurs, at $49 a month plus $6 per person. US contractors are billed at the plan's per-person rate only in months you pay them. No contracts, free setup, month-to-month.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-16",
  "source_url": "https://gusto.com/pricing"
 },
 "free_plan": false,
 "free_plan_evidence": null,
 "cost_traps": [
  {
   "id": "per_seat",
   "label": "Per-seat pricing",
   "evidence": "The base-plus-per-employee model is transparent but adds up, and Gusto is US-only — excellent for straightforward US payroll and benefits, but not the pick for international teams or complex multi-entity HR.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-16",
   "source_url": "https://gusto.com/pricing"
  }
 ],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "Rippling or QuickBooks Payroll",
  "why": "other payroll platforms"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/gusto.json",
  "review": "https://officesoftwaremarketplace.com/gusto-review.html",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/gusto/",
  "vendor_site": "https://gusto.com"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://get.gusto.com/bz0jei7y1zzh",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Plan-by-plan prices are not structured in this record yet; pricing.notes has the full text.",
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product.",
  "Not tested hands-on by us: what the product does comes from the vendor's pages and our reading of them."
 ],
 "task_evidence": null,
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "gusto:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "gusto:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "gusto:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "gusto:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": {
   "what": "Read-only access to payroll and people data; you choose which categories of data the model is allowed to see.",
   "plan": "Not stated in their own documentation.",
   "status": "Live (read-only)",
   "source": "https://docs.gusto.com/app-integrations/docs/mcp",
   "checked": "2026-07-28",
   "note": "The vendor's own MCP server, from our MCP research; it works with your own account at the vendor."
  },
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_checked",
   "detail": "We could not read the vendor's pages as plain HTML.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}