Did you know that businesses in the U.S. spend an average of 120 hours a year managing payroll, bookkeeping, and expense tracking? For small to medium-sized businesses, that’s a significant loss of time and productivity. This time could be spent on growth, innovation, and customer relationships. Yet, the right financial software can drastically cut these inefficiencies and optimize processes.

In this comparison, we explore three industry-leading tools: Gusto, QuickBooks, and Ramp. Each platform is tailored to solve specific business pain points, including payroll compliance, HR management, accounting, modern spend management, and automation.

But how do you choose the one that fits your unique needs?

This Gusto vs QuickBooks vs Ramp comparison guide provides an in-depth look at how these platforms compare by focusing on their unique features, advantages, and potential drawbacks. By understanding the capabilities and use cases of these software, you’ll be better equipped to choose a solution that optimizes your financial operations.

Key Insights

Gusto: A complete HR solution that simplifies payroll, benefits, and hiring. Built with small businesses in mind, it provides affordable, intuitive tools that save time and optimize employee management.
QuickBooks: With a range of features like invoicing, tax preparation, and bookkeeping, it’s perfect for businesses that need to keep their finances in check.
Ramp: Known for its automation and cost-control features, Ramp, an all-in-one expense management platform, empowers businesses to track, approve, and optimize spending in real-time.

Gusto Vs QuickBooks Vs Ramp: At A Glance

Feature	Gusto	QuickBooks	Ramp
Payroll Management	Payroll processing, tax filings, benefits management, employee self-service portal	Payroll processing, automatic tax calculations, direct deposit, pay stub generation	Payroll integration, tax compliance, employee payment automation
Accounting And Bookkeeping	Basic accounting, expense tracking, reporting, and insights	Double-entry accounting, expense tracking, financial reports	Integrates with accounting software, real-time expense tracking, profit and loss reporting
Tax Filing And Compliance	Federal and state tax filing, automated tax calculation	Self-employed tax filing, payroll tax management	Tax compliance assistance, sales tax reporting
Time Tracking	Time tracking integrated with payroll	Timesheets, mobile time tracking, and Time Kiosk to track on-site attendance	No direct time tracking, but integrates with tools
Expense Management	Track, remove, and report expenses	Expense reporting and approvals, integrates with expense management tools	Corporate card expense tracking, real-time expense tracking, and reporting
Bank Integration	Bank account syncing	Syncs bank transactions and credit cards	Direct bank and card connection, US bank integration
Pricing	Starts at $40/month plus $6/month/person	Starting at $35/month	Starting at $0/month/user

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Gusto: The All-In-One HR And Payroll Solution

Gusto HR software is a cloud-based payroll and human resource (HR) software designed to simplify workforce management for small to mid-sized businesses. Since its inception in 2012, Gusto has become a trusted partner for more than 300,000 businesses, which offers streamlined tools to manage payroll, employee benefits, and tax compliance.

While best known for its advanced payroll services, Gusto serves as a comprehensive platform for small businesses by integrating a suite of essential HR functionalities. These include employee onboarding, comprehensive benefits administration, and integrated time tracking. This makes it an ideal solution for businesses seeking a unified and scalable approach to managing their workforce.

Unique Features Of Gusto

Gusto Global: Gusto Global enables businesses to hire, pay, and manage international teams in one platform by streamlining payroll, ensuring compliance, and unifying U.S. and global operations for workforce management.
Insights And Reporting: The feature empowers businesses with customizable reports, anonymous team surveys, and automatic compliance alerts, providing clear, actionable data to drive smarter decisions and business growth.
Workers’ Comp: Gusto’s workers’ comp feature ensures your team is protected with fast enrollment, helping you stay compliant with state laws while preparing for workplace injuries or illnesses.

Gusto Pros And Cons Of Gusto

“Gusto does have a better UX and ease of use than many platforms. My team likes it as it's easy for them to download 1099's etc., and they get a reminder at tax time. The nice UX makes younger team members feel good.” -

Source: Reddit

Another user highlighted:

“I love the fast electronic payments to my independent contractors. That is what drew me to Gusto.” -

Source: Reddit

However, while Gusto has significantly improved its platform over the years by introducing several valuable features, some users have expressed concerns about its customer support.

One user noted:

“Have been using Gusto for four years. In my personal opinion, they have greatly improved the platform to include a lot of great features, but the customer service has become horrible. They often don’t answer support emails, and when they do, they usually don’t understand the issue or provide a complete answer.” -

Source: Reddit

Gusto As Compared To Alternatives

While QuickBooks provides a broad financial suite for bookkeeping, invoicing, and detailed financial reporting, Gusto is laser-focused on simplifying HR tasks. It excels at payroll automation, employee benefits management, and tax compliance, making HR processes effortless for businesses.

Unlike Ramp, which specializes in financial spend management and corporate card tracking, Gusto is built to optimize payroll, employee benefits, and tax filings. Ramp is great for managing expenses and cash flow, but when it comes to automating payroll and managing employee-related tasks, Gusto takes the lead.

QuickBooks: Best For Comprehensive Accounting

QuickBooks, developed by Intuit, is a comprehensive accounting software that provides solutions for managing finances, payroll, and business operations. Known for its smooth integration with various financial tools, QuickBooks offers multiple features, including bookkeeping, invoicing, detailed financial reporting, and tax preparation.

For businesses looking for a complete financial ecosystem, it stands out as an advanced tool that simplifies accounting processes while ensuring accuracy in financial reporting. It is particularly useful for small- to medium-sized businesses that need a scalable, user-friendly platform to handle expense tracking and generate profit and loss statements.

QuickBooks also integrates well with third-party applications, which makes it ideal for businesses seeking to consolidate multiple functions into one platform.

Unique Features Of QuickBooks

Tax Penalty Protection: QuickBooks ensures that taxes are calculated and filed correctly, with the bonus of a Tax Penalty Protection Guarantee.
Same-Day Direct Deposit: The software allows you to pay your employees quickly. Simply enter hours and any additional information, and paychecks will be automatically deposited on the same day, with a cutoff time of 7 AM (PT).
QuickBooks Time: With QuickBooks Time, the platform enables businesses to track employee hours accurately. Employees can clock in and out using the mobile app or desktop and track paid time off (PTO), sick leave, and overtime automatically.

Quickbooks Pros And Cons

QuickBooks Online (QBO) is often praised for its advanced audit log and its status as the industry standard in small business accounting software. Many users appreciate how easy it is to pull individual transaction audits without sifting through unnecessary data, which is a major improvement over the desktop version.

One user mentioned:

“QBO has a MUCH better audit log. You can pull the audit log on an individual transaction without digging through a ton of noise like Desktop.” -

Source: Reddit

Additionally, QuickBooks has earned its place as a leader in the market, with a significant share of the small business accounting software space. Users frequently highlight its comprehensive features and reliability, which contribute to its widespread use.

As one user shared:

“QuickBooks is the industry standard, and it is a very good product. They have a huge percentage of the small business accounting software market.” -

Source: Reddit

However, there are a few limitations to consider. Some users have pointed out that QuickBooks performance can be heavily impacted by internet connectivity, as there is no offline capability at this time.

One user noted:

“QBO will be slow if your internet is slow. If you have no internet, you have no QBO. There is no offline ability at this time.” -

Source: Reddit

QuickBooks As Compared To Alternatives

QuickBooks provides a comprehensive accounting suite that covers everything, including bookkeeping, invoicing, financial reporting, and tax filing. However, it lacks the advancements in employee-centric features found in Gusto, such as automated payroll, benefits management, and HR tools like employee onboarding.

Compared to Ramp, QuickBooks is more focused on financial management and accounting, while Ramp specializes in corporate card management, expense tracking, and spending analysis. Ramp’s strength lies in managing company expenses and cash flow, whereas QuickBooks offers a broader financial toolkit, ideal for businesses that need full accounting solutions alongside payroll processing.

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Ramp: Best For Expense Optimization

Ramp is a spend management platform designed to optimize corporate expense management, provide real-time financial insights, and help businesses automate their finance operations. Unlike payroll-specific solutions, Ramp’s primary focus is on optimizing expense tracking, spending control, and cost reduction.

As a corporate card platform, it offers businesses unparalleled tools to enforce expense policies and save time and money through automation. Founded in 2019, Ramp has quickly gained traction among startups, mid-sized businesses, and enterprises.

It is known for innovative features like real-time expense tracking, unlimited virtual cards, automated receipt matching, and powerful reporting tools.

Unique Features Of Ramp

Corporate Cards: Ramp offers both physical and virtual corporate cards for businesses to manage spending. Its virtual cards are particularly useful for remote teams or one-time vendor payments.
Savings Insights and Cost Optimization: It provides businesses with actionable insights to identify cost-saving opportunities. It highlights duplicate subscriptions or underutilized SaaS tools.
Automated Receipt Matching: The software automatically matches receipts to transactions, eliminating manual entry, and sends automated reminders to employees for missing receipts.

Ramp Pros And Cons

Ramp has garnered significant praise for its innovative approach to expense management, particularly with its physical and virtual cards. Users highlight the flexibility and creative control offered by the virtual cards, which makes spend deployment much easier than traditional card providers.

One user shared:

“We moved to Ramp; literal game changer and I couldn’t go back. Not just their physical cards, but their virtual cards allow creative controls and segmentation that has made deploying spend easier than it would have been had we stayed with physical, traditional card providers.” -

Source: Reddit

Additionally, Ramp’s automation features have impressed users, especially with its AI-powered receipt reconciliation and seamless workflow for expense reports.

One user mentioned:

“Switched to Ramp with 70 employees and we have 0 issues with people completing expense reports. Everything is automated. Requires minimal user input and AI reconciles receipts to the proper transactions. Excellent workflow features and alerts.” -

Source: Reddit

However, some users have expressed concerns about Ramp’s HR team's response times. For example, one user shared:

“HR team is really slow, I am sorry to say this but it’s been 2 weeks since I have given an OA but haven’t heard back nor a reject or further in the process.” -

Source: Reddit

Ramp As Compared To Alternatives

Ramp excels in spending management by offering features like corporate card management, expense tracking, and spend optimization. However, it lacks the comprehensive payroll and HR tools that platforms like Gusto provide, such as payroll automation, employee benefits management, and tax filings.

Compared to QuickBooks, Ramp is more focused on financial transactions and expense management rather than the full spectrum of accounting and financial reporting. QuickBooks, with its strong accounting features, handles everything from bookkeeping to tax filings and reporting. Ramp, on the other hand, specializes in helping businesses manage corporate spending, streamline expenses, and improve financial visibility.

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Gusto Vs QuickBooks Vs Ramp: Finding The Ideal Solution For Your Business

In conclusion, choosing between Gusto vs QuickBooks vs Ramp ultimately depends on your specific business needs and priorities. Each of these platforms brings unique strengths to the table, whether you're looking for a comprehensive HR solution, smooth accounting integration, or advanced expense management features.

Gusto stands out for its all-in-one HR capabilities; QuickBooks, on the other hand, is ideal for those focused on simplified tax compliance and payroll management. Meanwhile, Ramp offers a modern, expense-management-focused solution with a strong emphasis on financial control and insights.

Each platform excels in its domain, so carefully consider your company's requirements and long-term growth plans to ensure you select the payroll solution that aligns best with your needs.

Gusto Vs QuickBooks Vs Ramp: The Ultimate Guide To Financial Tools For Your Business