Gusto adds a $35/mo base fee to Contractor Only — then discounts it to $0 for six months
Contractor Only launched in July 2022 with no base fee at all, billing purely $6/mo per contractor paid. By December 2022 the plan card showed a struck-through $35 against a promotional $0/mo for the first six months. The promotion has appeared on every archived pricing page since.
Contractor Only at $6/mo per person, no base fee (archived 8 November 2022).
Contractor Only at a struck-through $35 against $0/mo, plus $6/mo per contractor, with the note that the discounted base price of $0/mo runs for six months (archived 3 December 2022).
Gusto introduced Contractor Only alongside the Simple/Plus/Premium replatforming in July 2022, and it launched genuinely base-free: the archived card on 8 November 2022 shows only $6/mo per person, with no monthly platform fee.
By the 3 December 2022 snapshot the card carries a base fee of $35/mo, presented from its first appearance as a strikethrough against a promotional $0/mo for the first six months. The per-contractor charge is unchanged at $6/mo, and Gusto’s contractor counting rule still applies — you are billed only in months you actually pay a contractor.
The mechanic worth noting is that the discount arrived at the same moment as the price. Contractor Only never traded publicly at $35. Every buyer since December 2022 has seen the same struck-through number and the same six-month offer, which as of the 10 September 2026 capture puts the “limited time offer” in its 46th consecutive month.
For a business on the plan, the practical effect is a 100% increase in the fixed portion of the bill in month seven, from $0 to $35, on top of an unchanged per-contractor rate.
The 8 November 2022 snapshot shows Contractor Only at $6/mo per person with no base fee. By 3 December 2022 the card reads a struck-through $35 against $0/mo with the note that the discounted base price of $0/mo runs for 6 months, still plus $6/mo per contractor. The promotional $0 has appeared on every archived snapshot since.