Small business▼−15Since September 2026: 59% → 43%, −15 points. Past the 10-point floor: movement. Read over the models both editions asked.
43%from 59% in September 2026
Cleared the floor by 5 pointsRank 1 of 78, unchanged
1 category · RankedGusto
129Judge labels
29First choices
17Negative labels
14 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.7, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
42% in Contractor payments for small business buyers
Rank 4 of 98 in the mid-market standingaccepted challenger
1 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 12% of its 42 labels there were negative.
What the models named instead of Gusto →By buyer segmentA small-business product: leader at small business, not named at enterprise.
Small business1 of 81
42%65 labels
endorsed leader
Mid-market4 of 98
8%42 labels
accepted challenger
Enterprise66 of 75
0%21 labels
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 | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor payments | Spend and procurement | 8% | 4 of 98 | 12% | 42 | accepted challenger | ▲+5Since September 2026: 5% → 9%, +5 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, Gusto held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 10 points.
Best category · Contractor payments · by segment
Mid-market▲+5Since September 2026: 5% → 9%, +5 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
9%from 5% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 5 pointsRank 7 → 4 of 85
Enterprise=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 10 pointsRank 75 → 60 of 70
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor payments | 5% | 9% | ▲+5Since September 2026: 5% → 9%, +5 points. Inside the 10-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 7 → 4 of 98 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 10 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated Gusto across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated Gusto across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 |
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
Direct31 labels11
Paraphrase11 labels6
Comparative23 labels13not counted in share
Budget-constrained32 labels6
Scale-constrained16 labels6
Negative16 labels4not counted in share
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative129 labels in all, every segment counted; 29 of the 46 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.
“It's the most straightforward pick for a domestic small business; it's not the strongest choice for managing a large, varied international workforce.” GPT-6 Luna · Contractor payments · comparative prompt · first choice
“Gusto’s contractor-only plan, depending on whether you want the cheapest standalone tool or a more polished payroll experience” GPT-5.4 mini · Contractor payments · budget prompt · first choice
“Gusto - offers a solution tailored for small to medium-sized businesses that require efficient contractor management” Llama 4 Maverick · Contractor payments · direct prompt · first choice
“I'd recommend Gusto because: - Lowest entry point ($35/month for contractors)” MiniMax M2.5 · Contractor payments · budget prompt · first choice
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.
“Avoid platforms with: Chronic poor customer support (Gusto, Deel Payroll, Remote)” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Contractor payments · negative prompt · hard negative
“Worth considering if you may add employee payroll later, but likely not the cheapest for contractor-only use.” GPT-6 Luna · Contractor payments · budget prompt · soft negative
“simple and well regarded, but typically better if you can spend a bit more than the absolute minimum” Perplexity Sonar · Contractor payments · budget prompt · soft negative
“Primarily a payroll platform, not designed specifically for contractors — Poor customer support” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Contractor payments · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Gusto, over the 129 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.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Gusto, over the 129 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.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. 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, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 124 of the 129 answers that named Gusto and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
learn.g2.com68
worksuite.com61
wingspan.app58
gusto.comYour site55
guideflow.com48
remote.com48
deel.com45
wise.com41
g2.com35
peoplemanagingpeople.com34
438 of the 493 domain citations in answers naming Gusto came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
gusto.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Gusto takes 8% of first choices and Tipalti takes 22%.ShowHide
Search and answers
gusto.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Gusto takes 8% of first choices and Tipalti takes 22%.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimatesPosition for “contractor payment platforms”
–
not in the top ten
Position for “contractor payments and 1099 platform”
–
not in the top ten
- Searches for its name, Google
- 673,000 a month (“gusto”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 10,560 a month
- Organic visits to its site
- about 1,629,483 a month
- Searches its site ranks for
- 94,560 · 5,645 in the top three
- Sites linking to it
- 22,465
- Paid Google search
- No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
8%
rank 4 of 98 in contractor payments
Segment leader
22%
Tipalti
- First choices
- 29 across its categories
- Named in
- 129 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 124 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
What it publishes
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHideAddresses on gusto.com
2,120
subdomains included
Content
28
counted in the table below
Documentation
2,076
Product · Integration
0 · 0
| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-10 to 2026-09 | Latest | Categories named |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glossary or explainer | 12 | undated | |||
| Comparison | 10 | undated | |||
| Template or tool | 4 | undated | |||
| Webinar or virtual event | 1 | undated | |||
| Report or ebook | 1 | undated |
How it is countedHide how it is counted
Every page gusto.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. An event counts as online when its address or title says so (webinar, on demand, virtual or online summit); a conference, summit, trade show, expo or roadshow that does not say so is counted as a conference or event, which on a vendor's site is mostly in person. Read September 29, 2026.
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 Plan) 1Gusto (Contractor-Only Plan) 1Gusto Contractor Only 1Gusto Contractor-Only Plan 1
Follow Gusto
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
Gusto is its own company.ShowHide
The company
Gusto is its own company.
ShowHideIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- Online HR services: payroll, benefits and everything else.
- For
- small businesses
- Price stated
- You’ll pay nothing ‘til you’re ready to run payroll. gusto.com
- Free plan or trial
- Create free account gusto.com
- Certifications
- SOC 1SOC 2HIPAA guidelines
- Hosting
- AWS region US-West-2 (Oregon)AWS region US-East-1 (Virginia)
- Customers named
- Magnolia CaféMason’s CreameryForge FireBig Monocle
- Not stated on the pages read
- Starting price, integrations
What Gusto's own pages state, read September 28, 2026: gusto.com, trust.gusto.com. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Gusto by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Gusto is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name Gusto, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.