Alternatives
Best Gusto Alternatives for Hiring in 2026
Quick answer: If you like Gusto for payroll, keep it and add a dedicated ATS alongside — AvaHR at $99/mo or Breezy HR at $157/mo will do far more for hiring than Gusto's built-in tools. If you want one platform for both, BambooHR or Rippling replace Gusto entirely, but cost more per employee.
Gusto is a payroll company. Payroll and tax filing are what it does well, and hiring tools came later as an adjacent feature. If applicant tracking is what you need, you are asking a payroll product to be an ATS, and it will disappoint you.
That is not a criticism of Gusto. It is a category observation, and it points at two different fixes.
Fix one: keep Gusto, add an ATS
This is the right answer for most people. Gusto Simple is $49/mo + $6/person, Plus $80 + $12, Premium $180 + $22. None of those tiers is expensive for what payroll actually costs, and replacing your payroll provider to improve hiring is a large change for a small gain.
AvaHR at $99/mo alongside Gusto gives you 100+ job boards, unlimited candidates, a branded careers page and real pipeline management. Breezy HR at $157/mo does the same with unlimited users, and its free tier lets you test at no cost.
Total for a 20-person company: Gusto Simple at $169/mo plus AvaHR at $99 = $268/mo, with genuinely good payroll and genuinely good hiring.
What it costs, side by side
| Platform | Typical monthly cost | Billed as |
|---|---|---|
| Gusto | $49–$180/mo + per-person | Base fee + per employee |
| AvaHR | $99–$457/mo | Flat per plan |
| Breezy HR | $0–$439/mo | Flat per plan |
| BambooHR | $10–$25/employee/mo | Per employee on payroll |
| Workable | $299–$719/mo | Flat per plan, banded by headcount |
Pricing above was taken from each provider's own pricing page in August 2026. Always confirm the current numbers before buying — hiring software pricing changes often, and the three billing models in this category (flat per plan, per recruiter seat, and per employee on your payroll) make headline prices hard to compare without doing the arithmetic for your own headcount and number of open roles.
Fix two: replace Gusto with one platform
BambooHR at $10–$25 per employee per month covers HR, hiring and onboarding, with payroll as an add-on. Its applicant tracking is materially better than Gusto's. At 20 employees, Core is $200/mo — more than Gusto Simple, less than Gusto Plus.
Rippling is the most capable single platform — HR, payroll, IT and device management — and the one most often named first in HR software answers. More than most small businesses need.
Workable from $299/mo comes at it from the other direction: an ATS first with an HRIS, onboarding and time-off attached. Best if hiring is the priority and HR is secondary, which is the reverse of Gusto's design.
Doing the maths
The two models cross over at a headcount you can calculate:
- 10 employees: Gusto Simple $109/mo + AvaHR $99 = $208. BambooHR Core = $100 plus payroll add-on.
- 50 employees: Gusto Simple $349 + AvaHR $99 = $448. BambooHR Core = $500 plus payroll.
Per-employee pricing wins when small and loses as you grow, because the ATS half of the split model does not scale with headcount. Above roughly 30 people, keeping Gusto and bolting on a flat-priced ATS is usually cheaper.
What to do
- Do not replace payroll to fix hiring. Switching payroll mid-year creates tax filing complications for a problem an ATS solves for $99/mo.
- Check the integration. Most ATS products push a hired candidate into Gusto, so the handoff is not manual.
- Try Breezy free first to confirm an ATS is what you are missing before adding a subscription.
Pricing
| Platform | Plans | What that actually gets you |
|---|---|---|
| Gusto | Simple $49 + $6/person · Plus $80 + $12/person · Premium $180 + $22/person | Per month. Gusto is a payroll platform first — hiring and applicant tracking come along with it rather than being the product. A contractor-only plan runs $35/mo + $6/person. Sensible if you need payroll anyway, not if you only want an ATS. |
| AvaHR | Lite $99 · Plus $165 · Premium $332 · Max $457+ | Per month, billed monthly; annual billing saves up to 17%. Unlimited candidates on every plan. Lite covers 3 live jobs and 1 user; Plus 50 jobs and 5 users; Premium unlimited jobs and 25 users. 7-day free trial. |
| Breezy HR | Bootstrap $0 · Startup $157 · Growth $273 · Business $439 | Per month; annual billing includes 2 months free. Unlimited users on every plan, including the free Bootstrap tier — but Bootstrap allows only 1 active position at a time. SMS and Breezy Intelligence are paid add-ons on all tiers. 14-day trial. |
| BambooHR | Core $10 · Pro $17 · Elite $25 | Per employee per month — you pay for everyone on staff, not just the people doing the hiring, so the applicant tracking is effectively bundled into an HR suite. Payroll, benefits administration and time tracking are separate add-ons. Quoted rather than self-serve; volume and non-profit discounts apply. |
| Workable | Standard $299 · Premier $599 · Enterprise $719 | Per month at the 1–20 employee band, billed annually ($3,588/$7,188/$8,628 per year); the price rises with company headcount. Texting (+$89/mo), video interviews (+$109/mo) and assessments (+$59/mo) are add-ons on Standard. The AI agent runs on credits sold separately from $0.095–$0.12 each. 15-day trial. |
Pricing above was taken from each provider's own pricing page in August 2026. Always confirm the current numbers before buying — hiring software pricing changes often, and the three billing models in this category (flat per plan, per recruiter seat, and per employee on your payroll) make headline prices hard to compare without doing the arithmetic for your own headcount and number of open roles.
Frequently asked questions
What is an applicant tracking system?
An applicant tracking system (ATS) is software that collects job applications in one place, moves candidates through hiring stages, and handles the job postings, screening, and communication around that — instead of tracking applicants in an email inbox or a spreadsheet.
What is the best option for this use case?
Gusto is our top pick for this use case, based on setup time, pricing, and how well it fits the way these teams actually hire — though the right choice depends on headcount and budget, which the sections above cover.
Do I need a paid ATS, or is a free plan enough?
A free plan or a job board alone is usually enough if you hire once or twice a year. Once you're running multiple open roles at a time, or more than one person is reviewing applicants, a paid ATS starts paying for itself in time saved.