Gusto vs Remote.com
These two are not competing for the same budget line, which is why the comparison keeps going wrong.
Gusto runs your US payroll. Remote legally employs your people abroad. Since 1 May 2026 Gusto has stopped selling an EOR of its own and refers new customers hiring international employees to Remote, so for many buyers the question is no longer which one, but how the two split the work.
What you are deciding is where the employment risk sits and whose name goes on the contract. We compare price, entity ownership, coverage, compliance and support, and our Gusto pricing guide has the US payroll numbers in full.
One figure moved while we were checking. Remote's $599 annual EOR rate is no longer displayed on its pricing page, so every number below uses the $699 Remote actually publishes.
Should You Buy Gusto, Remote.com, or Both?
Choose Gusto if US payroll is the job you are solving and your international headcount is a handful of contractors. Choose Remote if you are employing people abroad and want Remote itself on the employment contract. Buy both if your US team is the majority and you still need employees in three or more countries.
| Compared |
GGusto
|
RRemote
|
|---|---|---|
| Score (WhichPayroll disclosure index, /10) | 3.5recomputed 3 August 2026; the coverage rule scores a provider's own published EOR country count, and Gusto publishes none | 8.0 |
| Price from | $49per month base + $6 / employee for US payroll; international employees are referred to Remote, which prices and employs them | $699per employee per month, the only EOR rate Remote now displays; contractor $29/mo; no setup or platform fees, no deposit |
| EOR country coverage | Referred to RemoteGusto publishes no EOR country list of its own; the reach you get is Remote's | 90+ countriesRemote says it owns every entity; we verified 19 named subsidiaries |
| Best for | US-based businesses where domestic payroll is the primary need plus fewer than 5 international hires, valuing integrated US benefits brokerage and contractor-only pricing for occasional international freelancers. | Companies where international hiring is the primary need, scaling towards 20 or more employees across Remote's 90+ countries. Also R&D teams that need IP Guard's country-specific assignment clauses, and equity-issuing startups that want Carta wired into the employment contract. |
| Deal breaker | Gusto no longer sells an EOR of its own. Since 1 May 2026 new customers hiring international employees are referred to Remote to sign up directly, and Remote handles the contract, payroll and support from there. Gusto has no equity admin and no global payroll for companies running their own entities. | Remote's US payroll is a newer product than Gusto's, so most US-headquartered teams end up running two vendors. At $699 it also sits level with Oyster at the top of the published-price group, and $100 above Deel's published $599. |
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The verdict
Gusto wins on
The depth of its US payroll and the fact that its benefits brokerage costs you nothing extra.
Remote wins on
Being the legal employer itself, in its own name, in the country where your hire actually lives.
Price from
Gusto
$49/month base plus $6 per employee per month on Simple, covering US payroll, benefits brokerage and 401(k) sync. The contractor-only plan is currently $0 base on promotion, regularly $35/month, plus $6 per contractor per month.
Remote
$699 per employee per month for EOR, plus $29 per contractor, $29 per employee for payroll on your own entities and equity admin from $39. No setup fee, no platform fee and no security deposit.
What we would do
Gusto
Run it for the US and keep it there. If you are shortlisting Gusto against another domestic platform rather than a global one, our Gusto vs Rippling comparison is the closer fight.
Remote
Ask for the registered name and company number of the entity that will employ each hire, country by country. Legal will ask you for that document, and it is not on the website.
How evaluated · our comparison brief dated 2026-04-08, provider data for Gusto and Remote, and the published Gusto and Remote pricing pages, re-checked 6 August 2026.
WhichPayroll evaluates comparison pages quarterly. No paid placement.
What Are You Actually Choosing Between with Gusto and Remote.com?
The choice is which company legally employs each person you pay. Gusto processes a payroll your own company already owns. Remote becomes the employing company itself, in a country where you have none.
That is why the headline numbers do not line up, and we take the two rate cards apart properly in the pricing section below.
The faster route to an answer is your hiring plan. Thirty US staff and two contractors abroad lands on Gusto and stays there. Twenty-five engineers in Berlin, Lisbon and Buenos Aires lands on Remote whatever the US side costs.
Most readers who land here are somewhere in between, and for them this page is not a shootout. It is a question of which vendor takes the larger half and what the smaller half then costs to bolt on.
How Do Gusto and Remote.com Compare Feature by Feature?
| Dimension | GGusto |
RRemote |
|---|---|---|
| Primary product | US payroll, benefits, HR | Global EOR and payroll |
| EOR country coverage | None of its own; refers to Remote | 90+ countries; Remote says it owns every entity |
| Contractor payments | 120+ countries | 200+ countries and jurisdictions |
| US payroll | All 50 states, federal/state/local tax filing | Available, newer product |
| Benefits brokerage | Health, dental, vision, FSA, HSA, 401(k) via Guideline | Country-specific statutory plus optional supplemental |
| Base pricing (US payroll) | $49 to $180/month base + $6 to $22/employee | Built into EOR or separate US payroll quote |
| EOR pricing | Set by Remote (referral) | $699/employee/month published |
| Contractor pricing | $35/mo base (often $0 promo) + $6/contractor (US domestic) | $29/contractor/month; Plus at $99 |
| IP protection | Standard contractor IP clauses | IP Guard with country-specific assignment |
| Equity admin | Not native | Carta partnership, from $39/month |
| HRIS | Bundled HR tools | Included with EOR; no standalone price published |
| Contract terms | Month to month, no contract | Standard 30-day notice |
| Sweet-spot buyer | US business, 5 to 50 employees | Series A to D, 50 to 500 employees, distributed |
| Weakness | Limited global capability | US payroll less mature than Gusto |
Read that table as two columns of one workflow. Where Gusto is strong Remote barely competes, and the reverse holds just as cleanly.
One row deserves your attention before the rest. Remote states on its pricing page that it directly owns all of its legal entities, which is the whole basis of its compliance pitch.
We checked the registers and confirmed subsidiaries in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and fifteen other primary markets. That is nineteen of the ninety-odd countries claimed.
The claim may well hold across the remainder. We cannot show you that from public filings, so treat the entity model as verified where you can name the employing company and vendor-attested everywhere else.
What Are the Key Differences Between Gusto and Remote.com?
Gusto Domestic Depth vs Remote.com Global Breadth
Gusto runs the deepest US small-business payroll we have looked at. Multi-state unemployment insurance, local tax for NYC and Philadelphia, wage garnishments and 1099 filing all sit inside one workflow, with benefits brokerage alongside them.
Remote runs EOR across 90+ countries and pays contractors in 200+. Your engineer in Berlin is employed by Remote Germany GmbH, a company you can look up, rather than by a local reseller whose name nobody at your end ever learns.
That distinction is not academic. When a termination goes wrong, the question your lawyer asks is who signed the contract, and a partner-network answer means the provider you pay is not the party on the hook.
Gusto Benefits Brokerage vs Remote.com IP and Equity Tooling
Gusto is a licensed health insurance broker in all 50 states plus DC. That licence is the part that saves you money, not just admin. Brokerage arrives with the payroll at no separate admin fee, where an independent broker is a $200 to $400 monthly line item you have to defend at budget.
Remote counters with IP Guard and Carta-backed equity. IP Guard supplies assignment clauses written for the specific country: German employment IP, French moral rights, Indian work-for-hire. A generic template signed in Delaware does not reliably transfer any of those.
If your engineers write the product, that is the clause your general counsel will want to read before you sign anything.
Gusto and Remote.com Pricing Logic
Gusto charges per employee per month with no contract and no minimum, so you can leave in a month. Remote charges a fixed rate per EOR seat covering the employment contract, statutory filing, IP assignment and platform access, and asks for no security deposit, which is the first thing your Finance lead will check.
Which means you price the dominant half first. If 80% of your headcount is in the US, get the Gusto tier right and take Remote's referral rate as a given. If 80% is abroad, negotiate the $699 seat and let the US group sit on Remote's own payroll module at $29 a head.
What Is Gusto and Where Does Gusto Fit?
Gusto fits you if your people are in the United States and payroll is the thing eating your week. It is a US payroll and HR platform serving over 500,000 businesses, and its sweet spot is 5 to 50 US employees.
That means early-stage startups, accounting firms, and any team that wants benefits handled without hiring a separate broker to handle them.
- US Payroll across all 50 states with federal, state, and local tax filing.
- Benefits Administration: health, dental, vision, life, FSA, HSA, 401(k) via Guideline.
- HR Tools: onboarding, time tracking, PTO, basic ATS, compliance alerts.
- International Contractor Payments in 120+ countries.
- International employees referred to Remote, which employs and supports them. Remote offers Gusto customers $100 off the monthly EOR rate for the first year.
What Gusto does not carry is worth knowing before you commit. There is no equity administration, no global payroll for companies running their own entities, and no EOR since 1 May 2026. Each of those is a separate purchase later.
The bigger limit is international. Gusto hands an overseas employee to Remote, so onboarding, payroll and every support ticket after it belong to Remote. Budget for that as a second vendor relationship, because that is what it is, whatever the referral looks like on the way in.
What Is Remote.com and Where Does Remote.com Fit?
Remote fits you if you are about to employ someone in a country where you have no company, and you want a name you can look up on the register when that goes wrong.
The typical buyer is a Series A to D startup or a 50 to 500-person mid-market firm making its first international hires. What you are buying from Remote is the employing company itself, which is the thing your legal team will ask you to name.
- EOR in 90+ countries, which Remote states run on its own entities throughout.
- Global Payroll in 100+ countries at $29 per employee per month for companies with their own entities.
- Contractor Management across 200+ countries and jurisdictions at $29 per contractor per month, or $99 on the Plus tier.
- HRIS, which Remote does not price separately on its pricing page.
- Equity Administration via Carta from $39 per month.
- IP Guard: country-specific IP assignment clauses.
- US PEO from $99 per employee per month.
At $699 the EOR seat sits at the top of the published-price group, level with Oyster and $100 above Deel. Remote does not discount below 25 seats.
Worth knowing before you budget. We recorded a $599 annual rate in June 2026. It was gone when we first re-checked on 2 August, with no annual billing option offered at all, and still gone on our final check of 6 August.
The figure still sits in the data behind that page, so it has been switched off rather than deleted. If a salesperson offers you $599, it is evidently still reachable, and you want it in writing.
The weaker half of Remote is its US payroll, which launched years after Gusto's. Our feature comparison puts multi-state unemployment insurance, local tax filing and benefits brokerage below Gusto on all three.
How Do Gusto and Remote.com Compare on Pricing?
Gusto runs $49 to $180 a month plus $6 to $22 per employee. Remote runs $699 per employee per month for an EOR seat, before employer contributions. Both are published rate cards, and neither vendor asks for a security deposit.
The tier you land on is what decides the Gusto bill. What sits on top of the seat is what decides the Remote one. Both are below, on a real headcount.
Gusto Pricing
Simple at $49 base plus $6 per employee covers single-state payroll. Plus at $80 base plus $12 per employee adds multi-state, time tracking and next-day deposit. Premium runs $180 base plus $22 per employee with dedicated support.
The contractor-only plan is $6 per US contractor per month on a $35 monthly base, currently running at a $0 promotional base. International contractors are billed differently, with no monthly per-contractor fee at all, and we cover that in the compliance section.
There is no contract, no minimum and no setup fee, so the plan tier is the only thing that can quietly cost you more.
Watch that tier. Hiring your second state is what moves you from Simple to Plus, and that is a jump from $6 to $12 a head across everyone, not just the new hire.
Remote.com Pricing
EOR is $699 per seat per month, covering the employment contract, statutory benefits, payroll filing, IP assignment and platform access. Employer social contributions sit on top of that and are not Remote's to waive.
That last point is where budgets break. In Germany employer social contributions add 21.3% on top of gross salary, or 22.6% once statutory accident insurance (DGUV) is included, which is the wider figure most quotes use.
Put that on an $80,000 salary and the contributions are about $18,100 a year. The $699 seat is $8,388 a year. The seat fee is the smaller of the two lines, and the only one Remote can move.
Around the EOR seat, contractor management is $29 per contractor, Contractor Management Plus $99, Contractor of Record from $325, payroll on your own entities $29 per employee, US PEO from $99 and equity admin from $39.
How to Run the Math on Gusto vs Remote.com
For 25 US employees plus three contractors, Gusto Plus runs about $380 a month plus $18 in contractor fees. Nothing Remote quotes comes close, because Remote is not selling that job.
For 5 US employees and 12 EOR seats, Remote is $8,388 a month in seats before you add US payroll. At $699 that is no longer automatically cheaper than pairing Gusto with a rival EOR: twelve Deel seats at $599 is $7,188, and Gusto Simple for five people is $79.
Deel narrows that gap again on cash. It publishes a security deposit of 1 to 1.5 times fully loaded monthly cost, held for the life of the contract. Remote publishes none, so the $1,200 a month Deel saves you comes with five figures locked up on day one.
The gap between $599 and $699 a seat is $14,400 a year on twelve people. Both figures are published rates, so treat the $100 as real money and get whichever one you are quoted written into the order form.
How Do Gusto and Remote.com Compare on Compliance?
The short answer is that they cover different jurisdictions, so whichever one you skip is where your exposure sits.
Gusto handles all 50 states including the awkward ones. Pennsylvania local taxes, NYC and Yonkers withholdings, Ohio's school district levies and multi-state unemployment insurance are all in scope, and registering in a new state is a guided flow.
Its broker licence also simplifies ACA reporting and ERISA compliance for employers under 100 people. Outside the US, though, deciding whether someone is genuinely a contractor is your problem, not Gusto's.
That matters more than it sounds. Misclassification is a ruling that a person you paid as a contractor was legally your employee all along, and the bill is back taxes, unpaid contributions and usually penalties, charged to whoever engaged them.
Gusto does pay international contractors in 120+ countries, and prices them unlike its US ones: no $6 monthly fee per head, a per-payment service charge and an FX margin on the conversion instead. Ask for both rates before you model it.
It runs no UK domestic payroll of its own and is not HMRC-recognised, so UK employment is a Remote job.
Remote's answer is the owned-entity model. The contract sits between Remote Germany GmbH and your employee under German law, with no partner handoff in the middle, and IP Guard covers the country-specific assignment clauses.
Remote's UK payroll is HMRC-recognised, handling PAYE, RTI and pension auto-enrolment with The Pensions Regulator. Because an EOR hire is an employment rather than a contract through an intermediary, IR35 does not apply to it at all.
Onboarding is slower than the sales conversation suggests. Our data puts contractors at 24 to 48 hours, employees in Remote's own-entity countries at 5 to 7 business days, and employees in partner countries at 10 to 15. Those clocks start once the business verification check clears, not when you sign.
So the compliance question reduces to where the employment risk lives. In the US, that is Gusto. In Germany, Brazil, India or the UK, it is Remote, and no amount of US payroll depth changes it.
How Do Gusto and Remote.com Compare on Country Coverage?
On employees there is only one country list here, and it is Remote's. Gusto publishes no EOR country count of its own, so whatever reach you get for international employees is whatever Remote covers on the day you hire.
Gusto's own footprint is US payroll across all 50 states plus contractor payments in 120+ countries. That is a payments network, not a coverage claim: it moves money to a freelancer, it does not employ anybody.
Remote runs EOR in 90+ countries, covering most of Western and Northern Europe, North America, the main Latin American markets and the larger APAC economies. Remote does not publish the full country list on its pricing page, so anything outside that group has to be confirmed with sales.
There is a wrinkle worth knowing. Remote's pricing page says 90+ countries while the landing page it built for Gusto customers says 80+.
That is the provider disagreeing with itself, and the disagreement is the finding. Ask which number applies to your markets before it becomes your problem.
So take your 12-month hiring plan, list every country on it, and ask Remote for the registered company name and number that will employ each one. We could confirm 19 of those subsidiaries on public registers; the rest you have to be told.
A partner-covered market still works. It puts a different counterparty on the contract, and Legal will want that split written down before you sign. It is not on the website.
How Do Gusto and Remote.com Compare on Support?
Ask yourself where your hardest question will come from, because that is the only part of support that matters. A payroll query answered in a day is worth nothing if your problem is a German termination.
Gusto runs email and phone across three tiers, with phone on US business hours Pacific time. Our G2 and Capterra trawl from January to April 2026 shows same-day medians on standard payroll queries and one to two business days on benefits and compliance.
The same reviews show wait times lengthening above 100 employees. Premium adds a dedicated support team, which is Gusto charging you to restore something you thought you had.
Remote assigns a customer success manager per EOR account and routes country employment law to local teams across San Francisco, Lisbon, Porto, Singapore and Sydney. In the same review sample, routine questions come back the same day and country-law questions inside one to two days.
The complaints cluster in one place. Reviewers describe first-line agents escalating rather than answering on multi-jurisdiction compliance, which is exactly the query you are paying $699 a seat to have answered.
Test that during evaluation. Send both providers a real compliance question from a country you actually intend to hire in, and time the reply.
Neither provider publishes a response-time guarantee you could enforce. Whatever a deck quotes you is a target. Get it written into the order form, or price the account as though it is untested.
Which Should You Choose: Gusto or Remote.com?
Choose Gusto Alone
- US business, 5 to 50 employees, fewer than five international contractors, no plan to hire international employees. Gusto Simple or Plus, $49 to $80 base plus $6 to $12 per employee, no contract.
Choose Remote.com Alone
- Headcount is 60% or more international and you would rather deal with Remote directly than arrive through a Gusto referral.
- Your US group is small enough to sit on Remote's own payroll module at $29 per employee. Remote EOR at $699 per seat plus that, on one bill.
Choose Both Gusto and Remote.com
- The pairing both vendors have built for: since 1 May 2026 Gusto refers international employees to Remote, and Remote takes $100 off the monthly EOR rate for Gusto customers in year one. Your US team is 60% or more of headcount but you need EOR in three to eight countries.
- Accept up front that your HRIS lives on whichever side holds more people, and that somebody reconciles two systems every month. Name that person before you sign, because the job is real and it lands on People Ops.
Don’t Choose Gusto or Remote.com
UK or EU-headquartered with no US payroll need and only EOR requirements. Gusto is irrelevant and Remote competes against Deel and Oyster. See our Deel vs Remote comparison instead.
What Are the Best Alternatives to Gusto and Remote.com?
If Gusto Is Too US-Focused
Deel is the switch when you want one platform doing everything. It states EOR in 130+ countries at $599 per employee per month, alongside contractor management and US payroll, and you pay for that breadth in a heavier interface.
Rippling bundles US payroll, IT and EOR in 80+ countries. Per-module pricing climbs quickly once you pass 100 employees, which is the point at which the bundle stops being the cheap answer.
If Remote.com Is Too Expensive at the Seat Level
Look past Oyster first. Oyster matches Remote on contractor pricing at $29, but its published EOR rate is also $699, so a switch there saves you nothing on the seat.
Multiplier publishes $459 and aims squarely at APAC-heavy buyers. That is $240 a seat against Remote, and the only genuine saving in this group.
If You Want US PEO Plus Global EOR
Justworks runs a US PEO, where it co-employs your staff to buy benefits at a bigger company's rates, and sells EOR at $599 per employee per month alongside it. It sits closer to Gusto's domestic depth than Remote's global breadth.
One caution before it reaches your shortlist. Justworks does not publish which countries its EOR covers, and gives no entity register, while claiming it owns the employing company in every market it serves. Get that list in writing or the comparison cannot be made at all.
Our page on how much Justworks costs breaks the bands down by employee count, and our Justworks alternatives rundown lists pure-play EORs that do publish a country list.
None of these four replaces both halves of the job. Deel and Rippling close Gusto's global gap. Multiplier at $459 is the only one that cuts Remote's seat price, and Justworks closes neither gap until it publishes a country list.
Check current pricing and plans
Open each provider to compare current pricing, plans, and setup details.
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Gusto vs Remote.com: Frequently Asked Questions
Can Gusto run my international payroll directly?
Contractors, yes. Gusto pays them directly in 120+ countries.
Employees, no. Gusto no longer sells an EOR of its own, and from 1 May 2026 new customers are referred to Remote to sign up directly, with Remote as the legal employer handling onboarding, payroll and support. If you were on the older integrated setup before that date, you can stay on it.
Does Remote handle US payroll well enough to replace Gusto?
Remote’s US payroll handles federal and state filing across all 50 states, but multi-state SUI, local taxes, and benefits brokerage are shallower than Gusto’s. Gusto’s in-house benefits brokerage across all 50 states plus DC is a real advantage for US small businesses. If US headcount is the majority, Gusto’s depth wins.
Can I run Gusto and Remote together?
Yes, and both vendors expect you to: Gusto refers international employees to Remote, and Remote discounts the first year for Gusto customers by $100 a month.
What neither of them will decide for you is which platform is your system of record. Make that call before you sign. Changing your mind a year in means re-keying every employee, because there is no native integration to migrate them through.
Our Editorial View on Gusto and Remote.com
The uncomfortable part of this comparison is that we scored Gusto 3.5 on our disclosure index while calling it the better product for most of the readers who land here. Both are true, and you deserve to know why.
The index scores what a provider publishes about employing people globally. Gusto publishes no EOR country count, so it scores near zero on coverage. That is a fair measure of a job Gusto has stopped doing, not a verdict on its payroll.
Our advice, if your scenario is not covered above: run a 30-day parallel pilot on the international provider while keeping your US incumbent live. It costs you one month of double-paying and it beats a forced consolidation that breaks a payroll run.
And ask the question nobody asks at demo stage. If Gusto's international answer is Remote, you are buying Remote either way, so negotiate with Remote directly and see whether the referral discount survives contact with a real quote.
How We Compared Gusto and Remote.com (Methodology)
WhichPayroll is an independent comparison site for global payroll, EOR and contractor management platforms. We do not sell these services and never accept payment for editorial placement. We may earn a commission if you book a demo through a link on this page, and neither provider reviewed or approved this comparison before publication.
Data Sources
- Provider pricing pages for both brands (re-checked 6 August 2026)
- G2 and Capterra reviews for both brands (Jan–Apr 2026)
- Provider help centre documentation and country guides
- WhichPayroll provider score composite data (see sources & data)
Research Approach
- Pricing model and total employment cost
- Entity model and compliance infrastructure
- Country coverage depth and quality
- Platform usability and onboarding experience
- Customer support model and response standards
- Verified user feedback from G2 and Capterra
We assessed both providers across the same six dimensions listed above, and priced each from its own published rate card.
Where a figure has moved since our last review we say so in the body and date it. That is why the $699 Remote rate is discussed on this page at all. Neither provider was engaged for a paid pilot as part of this work.
WhichPayroll Research used in this comparison
- EOR Cost Benchmark: published EOR fee ranges and pricing model disclosure across providers
- EOR vs Entity Break-Even Benchmark: 40-country cost crossover analysis: when EOR becomes more expensive than entity setup