Finance AI Index

Index › Vendors › Gusto · September 2026 Edition

1 category · Ranked

Gusto

107Judge labels

29First choices

13Negative labels

12 of 12Models named it

1Category

September 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table vv2026-09.2, every buyer segment counted.

Best standing

59% in Contractor payments for small business buyers

Rank 7 of 83 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger

1 of 12 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 11% of its 37 labels there were negative.

By buyer segmentA small-business product: leader at small business, not named at enterprise.

Small business1 of 73

criticized challenger

In contractor payments · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named Gusto for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Contractor payments	Spend and procurement	5%	7 of 83	11%	37	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Gusto yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Gusto across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	5	0	0	5
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	2	0	1	3
Perplexity Sonar	0	1	1	0	2
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	5	0	0	6
Mistral Small	0	1	1	0	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	2	0	1	3
Llama 4 Maverick	0	1	1	0	2
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	1	1	1	3
Kimi K2	1	3	0	0	4
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	3	1	1	5
MiniMax M2.5	0	2	0	0	2

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct22 labels11

Paraphrase15 labels9

Comparative23 labels9not counted in share

Budget-constrained23 labels4

Scale-constrained11 labels5

Negative13 labels3not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative107 labels in all, every segment counted; 29 of the 41 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Request demos from Gusto (mixed W-2/1099), Rippling (HR-integrated), Remote/Deel (global), OnPay (simple payroll).” Grok 4.1 Fast · Contractor payments · scale prompt · first choice

“Bill.com or Gusto are the leading choices” Kimi K2 · Contractor payments · direct prompt · first choice

“Choose Gusto if you operate in the U.S. and simply need an easy, affordable way to pay a mix of local 1099 contractors” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Contractor payments · comparative prompt · alternative

“platforms like Gusto, Deel, Remote, Rippling, and ADP RUN appear near the top of recent category lists” GPT-5.4 mini · Contractor payments · negative prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Gusto/QuickBooks are fine for small businesses but get strained at mid-market contractor scale.” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Contractor payments · direct prompt · soft negative

“They lack the sophisticated bulk processing and deep ERP integration found in Tipalti or Routable.” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Contractor payments · direct prompt · soft negative

“Gusto is widely considered the best user experience, but it costs more.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Contractor payments · budget prompt · soft negative

“small-business tools (like basic Gusto or QuickBooks) cannot handle” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Contractor payments · direct prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Gusto, over the 107 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Gusto was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Deel80 of 10718Not in the top three

Remote47 of 1076Not in the top three

Rippling40 of 1074Not in the top three

Wise Business40 of 1072Not in the top three

Tipalti38 of 1072Not in the top three

Papaya Global26 of 1076Not in the top three

Square Payroll24 of 1079Not in the top three

Worksuite24 of 1074Not in the top three

BILL22 of 1070Not in the top three

Wingspan20 of 1072Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Gusto. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 93 of the 107 answers that named Gusto and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

worksuite.com62

learn.g2.com57

remote.com52

contractor-of-record.com51

wingspan.app43

gusto.comYour site41

guideflow.com31

g2.com30

deel.com28

wise.com26

380 of the 421 domain citations in answers naming Gusto came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

worksuite.com/resources/insights/best-contractor-payment-software60

learn.g2.com/best-contractor-payment-software55

contractor-of-record.com/software/contractor-payouts50

remote.com/blog/payroll/best-contractor-payment-tools50

wingspan.app/articles/best-contractor-payroll-services39

guideflow.com/blog/contractor-payment-software25

relayfi.com/blog/best-1099-software-small-businesses-guide22

gusto.com/resources/guides/best-contractor-payroll-software19

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Gusto

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Gusto; a claim can dispute any of them.

Gusto Contractor 1Gusto Contractor Only 1Gusto Contractor Plan 1Gusto Contractor-Only 1Gusto’s Contractor Only plan 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Gusto's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Gusto, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at gusto.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.