Gusto

I never had an issue with Gusto until…

I never had an issue with Gusto until my employees W-2 came back incorrect and they handled so unprofessionally. I consulted an IRS agent as well as a tax professional that determined that Gusto support was incorrect and giving me the wrong information. The Gusto support “specialist” (I use that term VERY LOOSLEY) continued to argue with me with the same copied and pasted script that did not align with IRS facts after requesting escalation nearly 5 times. Instead of Krisnah (“specialist”) responding to my request, she completely ignored it and did nothing. I called and sat on the phone for over an hour with another “specialist” that promised a supervisor would contact me because they were “too busy” at the time, I received no follow up and no phone call back, just complete an utter dismissal and negligence from them. I plan to cancel my payroll with Gusto ASAP and from the looks of reviews from other outlets further validates why.

Hidden W‑2 Handling Caused Serious…

Hidden W‑2 Handling Caused Serious Issues Gusto markets itself as a payroll platform built for small businesses, but my experience says otherwise. When canceling Gusto mid‑year, W‑2 processing is not defaulted—and this crucial detail is buried deep in the cancellation flow. Missing it caused real problems for former employees and created unnecessary last‑minute stress. While I understand that businesses ultimately hold responsibility, this is exactly the kind of scenario a payroll provider should safeguard against. Small business owners are juggling countless priorities every day. A basic compliance function like W‑2 issuance should not hinge on an easily missed checkbox during account cancellation. If Gusto were truly customer‑oriented, continuing required tax filings such as W‑2s would be the default, or at minimum, made impossible to overlook. Instead, the burden is shifted back onto the customer after the damage is already done. Because of this experience, I have removed all of my clients from Gusto’s platform and will not be returning. Trust is critical in payroll services, and I no longer trust Gusto to handle essential responsibilities reliably.

Steal from you then block your account

Recently Gusto attempted to run multiple payrolls within a couple of days. These transactions declined as we have them run from our secondary bank account which we keep low for this reason. After their recovery team reached out demanding we pay them back, we brought to their attention that they processed $2504.29 extra and that was never given back to us. 20 minutes later we received a notification our account was closed due to some clause in their contract, they started to blame us for stealing from them. Our account was locked. Now no one resonds to me and because its an ACH transfer you can not dispute the transaction. This company is a joke ran by idiots who cant do basic math and then try to block people once they realise they messed up so they dont have to give people their money back. This is not going to go away, already filing for a law suit in the state of california. Contact the Attorney General as well as several other places to bring this to light. Don't use these people for anything, its a waste of time.

Gusto has zero support

Gusto has zero support, they are not available thru the phone, even if you found their support number, they do NOT answer. They would send you fancy email, but resolves nothing. They do NOT care about their customers. They do NOT care if your team members are paid on time. They do NOT deliver what they said. Absolute the worst HR software company. Update: Gusto replied in hours to my previous negative review. The reply was just full of beautiful words with no meaning. No intention to fix or improve anything. Neither there is any action.

Stay away

Josh, the CEO, should be pourd of Hannah's performance for being ignorant, unprofessinal, and deceptive who misreprests Gusto, and lost a potentional $500K transfer to Gusto. Job well done... Josh replied to me in kind. So I took her last name off. But she did hang up on me and sent deceptive email to me. Any other removal request, I'll post the emails.

So simple!

I have recommended you to other small business owners we know. The staff are always so helpful when I call with a question and go above and beyond to help me resolve my issues. I never thought I could do payroll for our small business myself.. but Gusto has made it so simple!

Total Fraud Company and Horrendous Customer Service

I really wish I would’ve looked at reviews online for Gusto as well. and I really wish I could leave them a worse review than one star. For my review, I’m just going to paste an email that I just sent to their support team after they have continued to harass me to try to take money out of my account. Send this to whomever is appropriate, I have no desire to pay you. I have worked with my bank to block your ability to pull funds from my account. Your organization is fraudulent, and I am very pissed off regarding the lack of professionalism I was shown yesterday when I tried to address the matter. Here are my current grievances: In January you pulled funds from my account, despite me firing your company and parting ways for not running payroll for November of December. This is not okay. You cannot charge someone for completing a service you never completed. I refuse to pay for that. All attempts I made to get the issue addressed went unanswered. I left your company because you did not do your job as advertised and made no efforts towards communicating with me as to why you were not doing your job. Then I receive an invoice yesterday stating I have to pay almost $400 because I asked your company to file tax forms on my behalf. The lady I spoke to on the phone told me that management informed her I have to pay because I said I would via a document in early Dec. 2025. This was before your agency demonstrated to either be fraudulent or incompetent at doing their job. I left the company and closed my account. You chose to work with a third party and complete the form regardless. This again seems to be either a fraudulent attempt to get my money or ongoing incompetence your team would complete a service for an account that no longer exists. I am very angry regarding the lack of professionalism I was shown yesterday. I called in with a grievance and after 90 minutes of my time being wasted I was told that my grievance was invalid, that the manager was not on site to talk to me, despite them giving guidance and direction to the person I was on the phone with, and that other leadership members could not be bothered to address my issues. You will not be getting a dime from me. If you email me again, I will report you for harassment, and any and all correspondences will be given to my legal counsel and the Better Business Bureau. Dakotah Cole

Negative 5 Stars - Terrible Customer Service

I would rate then a negative 5 stars if possible. The platform is actually easy to use, but the support is absolutly terrible. I sold my business and have tried to close my account for 7 months. Continued to get the run around from support and still paying for something that I haven't used in 7 months with no possible way to cancel services except to cancel my bank account.

Just awful

Just awful! I've been with Gusto for 6 years. They were great. I've spent hours trying to resolve a simple issue. Passed around to several people, no one knows what they're doing.

DO NOT SIGN UP

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.

Horrible Customer service Only use AI

Gusto’s customer service has been extremely disappointing. Response times are slow, and when you do get a reply, it often lacks clarity or fails to fully address the issue. For a platform that handles critical payroll functions, the level of support does not meet expectations. It feels difficult to get timely, accurate assistance when it matters most.

Impossible to cancel

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 company

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

Stuck in a Nightmare with Gusto

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.

WORST customer service imaginable

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.

Mixed feelings Onboarding is a nightmare

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!

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!

Fantastic company to work with!

Account hacked - Gusto offered no support

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

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