You started with Gusto because it made sense at the time. You had a small team, and wanted simple payroll, but somewhere along the lines “simple” stopped feeling like a pro and started feeling like a con.
Before going further, this is not a payroll or accounting comparison. Gusto and most of the tools on this list handle tax filing and direct deposit reasonably well, and plenty of other articles already cover that aspect. What this compares is the HR layer that sits around payroll, and the day-to-day functionality that determines whether your team actually enjoys using the system. That means timesheets, leave management, approvals, employee management, team visibility, job management, events, and expense management.
Integrow is not a payroll tool with HR bolted on. It is a unified CRM and ERP platform where these HR functions live natively alongside your client and project data. So instead of comparing tax engines, we are comparing how well each platform actually runs your People Operations day-to-day.
Best Gusto Alternatives at a Glance
Integrow
Integrow is built differently from the rest of this list because none of its HR features exist in isolation. That’s why it is the first Gusto alternative. Timesheets, leave, approvals, and expenses all sit inside the same system as your jobs and client data, so the HR layer is not a separate module bolted onto payroll, it is part of the same operational picture as the rest of the business.
Timesheets:
Hours get logged against specific jobs and clients rather than a generic time bucket, so managers can control and add hours with full context attached. That context carries forward into job costing and billing automatically.
Leave Management:
Leave requests are tied to the same employee record that connects to job assignments and team structure. Managers see a leave request in the context of current workload, not as an isolated notification.
Approvals:
Timesheets, leave requests, and expense reports all route through one unified approval queue tied to the team hierarchy. A manager opens one place and sees everything waiting on a decision, rather than checking three separate modules.
Employee Management:
Employee records show more than personal details and compensation history. They show what jobs someone is assigned to and how their work connects to active client relationships.
My Team:
Managers get a dedicated view of direct reports, their active job assignments, pending approvals, and leave status in one screen, which removes most of the back and forth that comes from chasing status updates manually.
Job Management:
This is the clearest differentiator. Jobs sit at the center of the platform, connecting to clients, timesheets, and profitability tracking, so labor and revenue stay linked without manual reconciliation.
Events:
Company announcements, scheduled trainings, and team gatherings are tracked alongside everything else happening in the platform rather than living in a separate calendar tool.
Expense Management:
Expenses submitted against a specific job flow through approval and tie directly into that job’s cost picture, keeping the full financial view of a project in one place.
Best For
Agencies and services businesses wanting native project, CRM, and HR tracking in one platform.
Advantages
- Fully Unified: Timesheets, leave, and expenses tie directly to client and job records.
- Contextual Approvals: Review all requests alongside active live project workloads.
- Automated Job Costing: Labor data flows directly into real-time project profitability.
Rippling
The second Gusto alternative is Rippling. Rippling is the strongest competitor on this list when it comes to HR automation, particularly where IT and device management intersect with people operations.
Timesheets: Solid time tracking tied into the broader HR suite, with good integration if your team already uses Rippling for IT provisioning.
Leave Management: One of Rippling’s stronger features, with flexible policies and clear balance tracking across teams.
Approvals: Approval workflows work well within Rippling’s own ecosystem, especially for combined HR and IT requests like onboarding a new hire.
Employee Management: Strong here, especially around linking employee profiles to device and app access provisioning, which is Rippling’s core differentiator.
My Team: A reasonably capable team view exists through Rippling’s org chart tools, though it leans more administrative than operational.
Job Management: Not a real focus area. Rippling tracks employees and their roles, not jobs or projects tied to client work.
Events: Limited functionality, mostly through HR announcements and calendar tools rather than a dedicated events feature.
Expense Management: Genuinely capable, often cited as one of Rippling’s better modules, with corporate card integration built in.
Best For
Tech-forward businesses requiring automated employee onboarding and physical IT device provisioning.
Advantages
- IT Automation: Instantly triggers app access and hardware shipping at hire.
- Custom Workflows: Highly flexible trigger rules for approvals across teams.
- Corporate Cards: Premium, standalone expense module with direct hardware links.
Deel
Deel’s HR feature set is built almost entirely around global compliance and contractor management, so its depth outside that lane is limited.
Timesheets: Time tracking exists mainly to support contractor billing across different countries rather than detailed job costing.
Leave Management: Leave tracking is available but stays fairly basic compared to platforms built around full time, in house teams.
Approvals: Approval flows are built around contractor payments and compliance documentation rather than a unified internal workflow.
Employee Management: Employee management centers on global compliance documentation, which makes sense given Deel’s focus on hiring across borders.
My Team: Limited. Deel is not built around day to day team management so much as cross-border payroll and compliance administration.
Job Management: Not a feature. Deel has no concept of jobs or projects tied to client work.
Events: Limited, mostly centered on compliance deadlines rather than team events or announcements.
Expense Management: Supports expense management mainly for contractor reimbursements across multiple countries and currencies.
Best For
Scaling enterprises employing international, distributed teams and cross-border contractors.
Advantages
- Global Compliance: Localized contract generation covering hundreds of countries.
- Multi-Currency Engine: Seamless global contractor payments and cost reimbursement.
- Audit-Ready: Clean, centralized records for international tax documentation.
OnPay
OnPay keeps its HR feature set intentionally light, in line with its positioning as straightforward small business payroll software.
Timesheets: Functional but basic, enough for hourly payroll calculations without job level detail.
Leave Management: Leave tracking is available and covers the basics, request, approve, track balance, without much beyond that.
Approvals: Simple and functional, kept separate by category rather than unified across timesheets, leave, and expenses.
Employee Management: Clean, standard employee records covering the essentials without operational context layered in.
My Team: Not a developed feature. OnPay is built around HR administrators handling payroll, not managers tracking their own team’s day to day work.
Job Management: Not offered. There is no concept of jobs or projects within the platform.
Events: Not a category OnPay addresses.
Expense Management: Minimal, with no meaningful expense tracking beyond what payroll already requires.
Best For
Small U.S. businesses wanting low-cost, straightforward payroll without software bloat.
Advantages
- Flat Pricing: Predictable month-to-month pricing with no surprise feature tiers.
- Simple Interface: Intuitive dashboard optimized for quick administration.
- Core Documentation: Easy digital document storage for standard hiring records.
Justworks
Justworks operates as a PEO, which shapes its HR features around compliance and benefits administration rather than day to day operational tracking.
Timesheets: Functional and adequate for hourly payroll, without depth beyond basic time logging.
Leave Management: A genuine strength, with solid compliance support for leave policies across multiple states, useful for businesses operating in several jurisdictions.
Approvals: Simple and kept separate by category, without a unified queue spanning different request types.
Employee Management: Standard employee records, solid for compliance purposes but without much operational layering.
My Team: Lighter here, since Justworks is built around payroll and benefits administration rather than team level management.
Job Management: Not offered. There is no job or project tracking within the platform.
Events: Not a category Justworks addresses directly.
Expense Management: Basic reimbursement tracking only, offered as part of the broader PEO service rather than a dedicated module.
Best For
SMBs looking for PEO partnership to secure premium group health benefits.
Advantages
- Enterprise Benefits: Grants small teams access to competitive medical insurance rates.
- Co-Employment Rules: Mitigates corporate legal, tax, and multi-state compliance risks.
- Multi-State Leave: Expert management of conflicting jurisdictional leave laws.
The Bigger Picture
Looking across these eight feature areas, a pattern holds. OnPay and Justworks treat HR functionality as a support layer around payroll, useful but limited in scope. Rippling goes further, particularly in expense management and IT-linked employee profiles, making it a strong choice if your priority is internal operations and device management. Deel specializes narrowly in global contractor compliance and does not aim to compete on the broader HR feature set.
Integrow stands apart because these features are not separate modules sitting next to each other. Timesheets connect to jobs. Jobs connect to clients. Approvals span everything. Team visibility is not a report you pull; it is just how the system works day to day.
Making the Right Call
If IT provisioning and device management are central to your HR needs, Rippling is worth a serious look. If you are managing contractors across multiple countries, Deel’s compliance depth is hard to match. If you want clean, no-frills payroll without much HR complexity, OnPay or Justworks both do that well.
But if you want timesheets, leave, approvals, employee management, team visibility, job tracking, events, and expenses to function as one connected system rather than a set of separate modules bolted onto payroll, Integrow is built around that problem specifically.
Ready to see what that looks like in practice? Book a demo with Integrow and see how a unified platform changes the way your team manages its day-to-day work.
Farhan Ali
Farhan Ali is an SEO and Content Strategist at Integrow Inc, with over 6 years of experience specialized in the ERP and CRM services niche. He bridges the gap between complex enterprise technology and high-ranking search visibility, transforming technical software capabilities into authoritative, conversion-driven content.
