Gusto vs Rippling pricing: Rippling withdrew its $8 starting price on 2026-09-06; Gusto's three tiers are published, from $55 at 1 employee to $2,380 at 100
Last updated: 2026-10-03
Short version
- Until 2026-09-06, Rippling's pricing page read "starts at $8 a month, per user." On that day's reading the line was gone, replaced by an offer to send a custom quote once you say which services you need. On 2026-10-03 there was still no figure.
- Gusto publishes Simple $49 + $6, Plus $80 + $12 and Premium $180 + $22 (as read 2026-09-27; the page could not be re-read 2026-10-03).
- At 10 employees Gusto is $109, $200 or $400 a month. At 25 it is $199, $380 or $730. Rippling's row is blank.
- Rippling publishes 0 of the 6 items this site counts; Gusto publishes 4. To put a Rippling quote beside Gusto, the quote has to arrive in the shape Gusto's page already prints.
What left Rippling's page on 2026-09-06
This site's change log holds three Rippling entries with the same date. The price status moved from "a starting price only" to "quote on request." The per-employee fee on the Rippling Unity Platform went from $8 to no published figure. And the plan's name lost its "(starting price)" suffix. The page itself now reads "Tell us what services you need, and we'll send you a custom quote."
The $8 was only ever a starting price. No base fee, no statement of what $8 bought, no headcount condition was ever published with it, which is why Rippling was never in this site's price-ordered tables even while the $8 stood. After the withdrawal, not even the floor is left. On the index of what each vendor publishes Rippling scores 0 of 6, and the Rippling page here carries "not stated (checked 2026-09-06)" against base fee, setup fee, trial, contract minimum and minimum headcount alike.
What Gusto's three tiers cost at each headcount
With nothing on the Rippling side to compute, the arithmetic on this page is all Gusto. All three tiers, base plus per-employee times headcount, list price, no promotion.
| Employees | Simple $49 + $6 | Plus $80 + $12 | Premium $180 + $22 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $55 | $92 | $202 |
| 5 | $79 | $140 | $290 |
| 10 | $109 ($10.90 each) | $200 ($20.00 each) | $400 ($40.00 each) |
| 25 | $199 ($7.96 each) | $380 ($15.20 each) | $730 ($29.20 each) |
| 50 | $349 ($6.98 each) | $680 ($13.60 each) | $1,280 ($25.60 each) |
| 100 | $649 | $1,280 | $2,380 |
What the pricing page says separates the tiers: Simple does not include multi-state payroll, Plus and Premium do. All three are month-to-month, cancel anytime. Setup fee and free trial are not stated for any of them. The cost calculator gives your own headcount.
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A short checklist for setting a Rippling quote beside the table
The items to have written into a Rippling quote are the ones Gusto's page already prints.
- The monthly base fee. If it is zero, written as zero.
- The monthly rate per employee, and which line of today's quote the old "starts at $8" corresponds to.
- The headcount the quote was priced for, and whether the rate moves when headcount changes.
- Multi-state. If it is included, the comparison column on the Gusto side is Plus or Premium, not Simple.
- Setup fee and contract minimum. Gusto states neither, so Rippling's answer gets compared with a blank.
- Payroll priced apart from the HR and IT modules. Rippling's page quotes on the services you pick, and without a payroll-only line there is nothing to set against any of Gusto's three tiers.
With those six, a Rippling row can be added to the table and read against the Gusto tiers. At several hundred employees, price is not the first thing being compared anyway, and article-21 covers what is. The same questions, for all five quote-only payroll vendors, are in article-55.
How not to read this
This page cannot tell you what Rippling costs. The site holds no Rippling quote, and the withdrawn $8 is not today's price. The Gusto table is list prices, not a feature comparison. The scope is US payroll in US dollars, and we have used neither product.
Sources
- https://gusto.com/pricing (as read 2026-09-27; the page could not be re-read 2026-10-03)
- https://www.rippling.com/pricing (checked 2026-09-06; no figure re-confirmed 2026-10-03)
- https://seatbill.com/payroll-pricing/changes (this site's change log, Rippling entries dated 2026-09-06)
- https://seatbill.com/payroll-pricing/research/transparency-index (this site's count of what each vendor publishes)
Related on this site
- What changed, month by month
- Rippling pricing as recorded on this site
- Gusto: the three published tiers
- Comparing payroll software at hundreds of employees
- The seven line items a quote should carry
- Published price or quote: which vendors do which
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.