Gusto vs Paychex pricing: Paychex Flex publishes no price; the one Paychex-owned figure, SurePayroll at $29 + $7, is below Gusto's $49 + $6 up to 19 employees and meets it at 20
Last updated: 2026-10-03
Short version
- Paychex Flex comes in three packages, Select, Pro and Enterprise, and the pricing page carries no dollar figure for any of them. What it carries is "Get Your Free Quote," "Request Pricing" and "Contact Sales" (read 2026-08-20; the absence of a figure re-confirmed 2026-10-03).
- Gusto publishes three tiers: Simple $49 + $6, Plus $80 + $12, Premium $180 + $22 per employee per month (as read 2026-09-27; the page could not be re-read 2026-10-03).
- The only Paychex-group product with a published price is SurePayroll, at $29 + $7 (checked 2026-10-03). It is the one number that can stand on the Paychex side of a table.
- Gusto Simple against SurePayroll: $55 vs $36 at 1 employee, $109 vs $99 at 10, $169 and $169 at 20, and Gusto lower from 21 ($199 vs $204 at 25).
- On this site's count of published items, Paychex publishes 0 of 6, Gusto 4, SurePayroll 3.
What is actually on Paychex's pricing page
The Paychex Flex page (paychex.com/payroll) shows three package names, Select, Pro and Enterprise, and buttons for asking for a quote. No base fee, no per-employee rate, no setup fee, no contract minimum, no trial length. We read it on 2026-08-20, recorded Paychex as quote-only in the dataset, and read it again on 2026-10-03 to confirm nothing with a dollar sign had appeared.
So Paychex Flex is not in this site's calculator and not in any price-ordered table. That is not because Paychex is expensive; it is because there is no published figure to compute from. Not publishing and being expensive are two different things, and the page that sorts vendors into publish or quote covers the distinction. On the index of published price items, Paychex publishes 0 of the 6 items counted, in the same row as ADP RUN, Paycor, Paylocity, Rippling and TriNet.
Where SurePayroll's $29 + $7 meets Gusto's $49 + $6
The Paychex-group product that does publish is SurePayroll: Small Business Payroll at $29 a month plus $7 per employee (checked 2026-10-03). Gusto's lowest tier is Simple at $49 plus $6 (as read 2026-09-27). SurePayroll's base is $20 lower and Gusto's per-employee rate is $1 lower, so the gap narrows by a dollar per hire and closes exactly at 20 employees.
| Employees | Gusto Simple (per employee) | SurePayroll Small Business (per employee) | Difference per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $55 ($55.00) | $36 ($36.00) | SurePayroll $19 lower | $228 |
| 5 | $79 ($15.80) | $64 ($12.80) | SurePayroll $15 lower | $180 |
| 10 | $109 ($10.90) | $99 ($9.90) | SurePayroll $10 lower | $120 |
| 20 | $169 ($8.45) | $169 ($8.45) | Equal | $0 |
| 25 | $199 ($7.96) | $204 ($8.16) | Gusto $5 lower | $60 |
| 50 | $349 ($6.98) | $379 ($7.58) | Gusto $30 lower | $360 |
| 100 | $649 ($6.49) | $729 ($7.29) | Gusto $80 lower | $960 |
List prices, base plus per-employee times headcount, no promotions. For your own headcount, the calculator runs the same formula. This crossover is also in the crossover library, and article-38, which is only about Gusto and SurePayroll, prices the add-ons in as well.
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How multi-state and year-end forms move the table
The table above is base plus per-employee only. Both pricing pages carry two items that sit outside it.
Multi-state. SurePayroll includes the first state and charges $9.99 a month for multi-state payroll, flat, however many states. Gusto Simple does not include multi-state; Plus ($80 + $12) does. Paying 10 employees in two states is therefore $99 + $9.99 = $108.99 at SurePayroll against $200 on Gusto Plus. At 25 employees it is $213.99 against $380. In one state, the table stands as it is.
Year-end forms. SurePayroll bills W-2 and 1099-NEC forms once a year at a $50 base fee plus $5 per form: $100 a year for 10 forms, $175 for 25. Gusto's pricing page does not say how year-end forms are handled, and the dataset records "not stated." That is not "included" and it is not "extra"; it is a blank.
For Paychex Flex, both items are blank too, along with everything else. They go on the list of things to have written into the quote.
Why the promo months stay out of the table
SurePayroll's page says "Get your FREE months when you start today" and describes every alternating month as free, terms apply (checked 2026-10-03). Gusto Simple showed no promotion as of 2026-09-27 (the $0 base shown for Contractor Only is a different product). Paychex Flex publishes no promotion at all.
Every table on this site is built from list prices, with promotions kept to a note. The list price is what you pay once the free months end, and it is the number the comparison has to rest on. For year-one arithmetic, the page on what free payroll costs after the first months uses the same approach.
Putting a Paychex quote next to this table
When the quote arrives, ask for it in the same two columns as the table: the monthly base fee and the monthly rate per employee. Then the two items SurePayroll's page prices separately: the charge for additional states and the charge for year-end forms. With those four, a Paychex Flex row can be added to the table and read against Gusto and SurePayroll at your headcount. The full set of line items to ask any of the quote-only vendors for is in article-55, seven of them.
Who this is not for
This page compares prices and nothing else. What Paychex Flex Select, Pro and Enterprise include, and how they line up against Gusto's tiers on features, is not something this site reads off pricing pages, and it is not here. Every figure is a list price, not a quote. The scope is US payroll in US dollars. We have not used either product.
Sources
- https://gusto.com/pricing (as read 2026-09-27; the page could not be re-read 2026-10-03)
- https://www.paychex.com/payroll (checked 2026-08-20; no figure re-confirmed 2026-10-03)
- https://www.surepayroll.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-03)
- https://seatbill.com/payroll-pricing/research/transparency-index (this site's count of what each vendor publishes)
- https://seatbill.com/payroll-pricing/research/crossover-library (this site's crossover headcounts)
Related on this site
- Gusto pricing and cost per employee
- Paychex pricing page, as recorded here
- SurePayroll pricing and cost per employee
- Gusto vs SurePayroll, with the add-ons priced in
- Square Payroll vs SurePayroll
- Which vendors publish a price and which require a quote
- Seven line items to ask a quote-only vendor for
Written by Kaz (pen name). Figures are copied from vendors' published pricing pages on the dates shown. We have not used these products.
Written by Kaz, independent publisher. No commercial relationship with the companies named unless it is listed on the disclosure page.
Published September 27, 2026. The figures above come from the government and vendor pages listed under Sources.
I have not used these products. Nothing here is a personal test result.
Corrections: contact form.