Gusto repackages all plans for 1 October 2026: Contractor Only retired, three add-ons restructured, no price change
Gusto rebundles every plan on 1 October 2026 at unchanged rates: Contractor Only closes to new customers and Business Compliance becomes an $85/mo per-state add-on.
Five priced plans: Simple $49/mo + $6/mo per person, Plus $80/mo + $12/mo per person, Premium $180/mo + $22/mo per person, Solo $49/mo + $6/mo per person, and Contractor Only at a standing $35/mo base (promoted at $0/mo for 6 months) + $6/mo per person. Broker integration included on Premium. HR Resources and Performance sold as add-ons on Simple and Plus. Business Compliance not sold below Premium.
Same five rate cards, unchanged. Contractor Only closed to new sign-ups. Broker integration becomes a $6 per employee, per month add-on for new Premium customers. Gusto Business Compliance becomes a new $85 per month, per state add-on on Simple and Plus, on an annual contract. HR Resources add-on withdrawn and made Premium-exclusive. Performance add-on withdrawn and folded into Plus.
Proof of change
Gusto's pricing pages, as we captured them on two dates.
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Showing the whole page as captured — scroll either panel, or open it at full size.
Showing the whole page as captured — scroll either panel, or open it at full size.
- 5 pages had no counterpart in the earlier capture and are not shown.
Both images are our own captures, taken on the dates shown. The pixels are unmodified — nothing is retouched, and where a region is highlighted the marker is drawn over the image, not into it. Open either capture to see it at full resolution.
Gusto published a help-centre notice, “What’s new with Gusto plans, starting October”, setting out a repackaging that takes effect on 1 October 2026. The notice is unusually explicit that this is not a repricing: “No price change. What you pay today is what you’ll pay after October 1”, and “No plan name change. Simple, Plus, and Premium stay the same.”
What moves is entitlement, not rate. Five changes matter to a buyer pricing Gusto today:
- Contractor Only is being retired for new customers. Gusto’s wording: “The Contractor-only plan is no longer available. Contractor management isn’t going away — it’s becoming a more integrated part of the Gusto platform rather than a standalone plan.” The plan’s promotional $0/mo base against a standing $35/mo has run on every archived pricing page since December 2022; it disappears for anyone signing up from 1 October.
- Broker integration leaves Premium’s included set. For customers signing up on or after 1 October 2026 it becomes “a paid add-on for $6 per employee, per month”. Anyone already on Premium as of that date keeps it included at no extra cost.
- Gusto Business Compliance becomes purchasable below Premium — “Available as a new paid add-on for $85 per month, per state, on an annual contract” on Simple and Plus, and “Included at no extra cost” on Premium, where the notice lists it among that plan’s new inclusions. It appears on no pricing-page capture, before or after the announcement. This is the first Gusto meter that charges per US state and requires an annual commitment, against a book of business that is otherwise month-to-month.
- HR Resources and Performance stop being add-ons. HR Resources “is no longer offered” to new Simple or Plus customers and becomes Premium-exclusive, with Gusto migrating off third-party partner Mineral to a built-in suite. Performance is withdrawn as an add-on because it is now included in Plus. Existing add-on holders on any plan keep what they bought.
- New accounts get feature caps the old ones do not. From 31 August 2026 a new Simple account is limited to 1 custom earning type and standard admin roles only; a new Plus account to 1 custom admin role. Gusto states existing customers “will not be impacted by these new limits and will continue to benefit from their legacy plan capabilities.”
Every plan also gains features at no charge — expenses and reimbursements, time off and New Hire Check-ins on Simple and Solo; time-off policy customization and contractor invoice upload on Plus; HR Resources, Business Compliance, Labor Cost Allocation and no-cost same-day and instant pay on Premium.
The net effect is a widening gap between what a legacy Gusto customer holds and what a new one can buy at the same price. Grandfathering is applied consistently on every line, which is customer-friendly in the short run, but it means the published rate card increasingly under-describes the installed base.
A new help-centre notice, What's new with Gusto plans, starting October, announces a 1 October 2026 repackaging with no price change. Simple, Plus and Premium keep their rates. The Contractor-only plan is withdrawn from new customers; Broker integration moves out of Premium's included features to a $6 per employee, per month add-on for new Premium customers; Gusto Business Compliance appears as a new $85 per month, per state add-on on Simple and Plus, on an annual contract; the HR Resources add-on is withdrawn from new Simple and Plus customers and becomes Premium-exclusive; and the Performance add-on is withdrawn from new customers because Performance is now included in Plus. Separately, from 31 August 2026 new Simple accounts are capped at 1 custom earning type with no custom admin roles, and new Plus accounts at 1 custom admin role.