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Home › Categories › Payroll & HR

Payroll & HR Software, Compared: Verified 2026 Pricing

Bill BelcaminoBy Bill Belcamino · Last updated September 17, 2026 · Our methodologyResearched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team

Side-by-side pricing for Gusto and Rippling: entry price, free plan, how each vendor bills for AI, and the date we last checked each figure against the vendor’s own pricing page.

Payroll & HR Software, ComparedVerified Sep 17, 2026

Quick answer

  • Lowest published entry price: Gusto — From $49/mo + $6/person.
  • Free plans: none of the 2 tools we track here offers a permanent free plan.
  • Quote-only: Rippling does not publish list prices.

Payroll & HR pricing at a glance

Every row links to the comparison where the figure was verified and to the vendor’s pricing page.

ToolEntry priceFree planAI billingG2 ratingVerifiedSource
GustoFrom $49/mo + $6/personNo — free account setup, no contracts——September 17, 2026in Gusto vs RipplingVendor pricing ↗
RipplingCustom quote onlyNo——September 17, 2026in Gusto vs RipplingVendor pricing ↗

Head-to-head comparisons

Gusto vs RipplingUpdated September 17, 2026

Switching guides

Gusto to RipplingSwitching guideRippling to GustoSwitching guide

Frequently asked questions

Which payroll tool is cheapest?

Of the 2 payroll tools HelpCompare tracks, the lowest published entry price belongs to Gusto (From $49/mo + $6/person, verified September 17, 2026). Entry prices are the cheapest paid tier each vendor publishes; the right answer at your team size depends on seat minimums and add-ons, which each head-to-head comparison breaks down.

Which payroll tools have a free plan?

None of the payroll tools we track offers a permanent free plan; check each vendor for trials.

Where does this pricing data come from?

Every figure was recorded from the vendor's own pricing page during research for a HelpCompare comparison, and is dated. The most recent check in this category was September 17, 2026. Nothing is estimated: where a vendor publishes no price, we say so. The full dataset is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 at helpcompare.com/data/.

Sources

Figures come from each vendor’s pricing page, recorded on the date shown. Download the full dataset from Open Data (JSON and CSV, CC BY 4.0).

Bill Belcamino, founder of HelpCompare
About the author

Bill Belcamino

Founder and author, HelpCompare

Bill has worked in software and digital marketing for more than 20 years. He spent nine years as an engineer at HP, served as COO scaling a platform past 200,000 users, and ran Google’s $70M/year search syndication partnership at Alot.com. He has bought, trialled, integrated and cancelled more SaaS tools than he can count, and started HelpCompare because the real cost of switching tools is the part nobody covers.

“I’ve sat on both sides of the table: the agency recommending the tool and the client paying for it.”

Researched and fact-checked by the HelpCompare team. Pricing on this page was last verified on September 17, 2026. No paid sponsorships, no affiliate commissions.

Read Bill’s story How we verify pricingSpot an error? Tell Bill