Gusto company profile: valuation, funding & revenue

This Gusto company profile covers the company's valuation, revenue, funding rounds, investors and history. Gusto works in HR technology, with a focus on payroll, benefits and HR for small businesses. It was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States. Its latest valuation on record is US$9.3 billion (employee tender offer) (June 2025). Every figure links to a public source, and anything the company hasn't disclosed is marked as such.

Revenue

More than US$1 billion over the previous 12 months — Trailing twelve-month revenue (actual revenue, not ARR), as reported, as of May 2026. Source: TechCrunch.

Funding history

Gusto timeline

Key dates from the sources on this page, oldest first. Metric snapshots are listed after the funding events.

• 2011 — Gusto is founded in San Francisco by Josh Reeves (CEO), Edward Kim and Tomer London.
• Jun 2025 — Employee tender offer: About US$200M, valuing the company at US$9.3B.
• May 2026 — Cash flow: Cash flow positive for several years.
• 2025 — Acquisition: Guideline (retirement plans for small businesses), about US$600 million.

Investors

Overview

Gusto provides payroll, benefits and HR software for small and medium-sized businesses in the United States. A restaurant, dental practice or small agency can use it to pay employees and contractors, file payroll taxes, offer health insurance and retirement plans, track time off and handle hiring paperwork in one place. Gusto also works closely with accountants and bookkeepers, who often manage payroll for several client businesses through its platform.

Josh Reeves, Edward Kim and Tomer London founded the company in 2011 as ZenPayroll, renaming it Gusto in 2015 as it expanded beyond payroll. Reeves is the CEO. The company is based in San Francisco and serves businesses across all US states. Unlike many fast-growing software companies, Gusto has been cash flow positive for several years.

How Gusto makes money

Gusto charges businesses a monthly subscription, typically a base fee plus a fee for each employee or contractor, with higher-priced plans that add HR tools, more support and advanced features. On top of subscriptions, it earns money from:

• Benefits: commissions from health insurance and other benefits sold through its licensed brokerage.
• Retirement plans: fees from 401(k) plans, a business it expanded by acquiring Guideline.
• Payments: income linked to the money it moves for payroll, including interest earned on funds it holds briefly before paying them out.
• Add-ons: time tracking, compliance help and other services.

Because payroll is used every pay cycle and is painful to switch, customers tend to stay for years, and revenue per customer grows as businesses hire more people.

Revenue: past US$1 billion

In May 2026, TechCrunch reported that Gusto had passed US$1 billion in revenue. Importantly, this was actual revenue earned over the previous twelve months, not an annualized run rate. CEO Josh Reeves said revenue growth had accelerated in each of the last five quarters. Reaching a billion dollars in trailing revenue while being cash flow positive puts Gusto in a strong position for a future IPO, by the usual standards of software investors.

Valuation and tender offer

Gusto was last valued at US$9.3 billion in June 2025, when it launched a US$200 million employee tender offer, according to Fortune. That was roughly the same level as its valuation in early 2022, so on paper the company's value stood still for three years while its revenue grew substantially. That pattern was common after the 2021 boom: companies grew into valuations set at the peak. Tender offers like this let early employees sell some shares without waiting for an IPO.

The Guideline acquisition

In 2025 Gusto acquired Guideline, a provider of 401(k) retirement plans for small and medium-sized businesses, for about US$600 million. Guideline had long been one of the main retirement plan providers integrated with Gusto. Owning it lets Gusto offer retirement plans directly, earn more per customer and make payroll and retirement contributions work together more smoothly.

Competitive landscape

Gusto competes with long-established payroll providers such as ADP and Paychex, with accounting software companies that offer payroll, and with newer platforms such as Rippling and Deel. Rippling and Deel have each said they reached US$1 billion in annual recurring revenue and were valued at around US$17 billion in their latest rounds, considerably more than Gusto, despite similar revenue. The difference partly reflects their faster growth and international focus; Gusto concentrates on small US businesses. Gusto has stayed out of the high-profile legal dispute between Rippling and Deel.

AI at Gusto

Gusto has said that AI now generates about half of its new code and handles a similar share of customer support cases. In December 2025, Anthropic's chief technology officer, Rahul Patil, joined Gusto's board. For a company that serves hundreds of thousands of small businesses, automating support while keeping quality high can make a meaningful difference to profitability.

The IPO question

Gusto has been an IPO candidate for years. Reeves has said he spends little time thinking about an IPO and prefers to focus on customers, and a spokesperson told TechCrunch there was nothing to share on timing. With strong revenue, positive cash flow and a long operating history, Gusto would be a fairly conventional IPO candidate whenever market conditions suit.

What to watch next

Watch revenue growth and whether the recent acceleration continues, the integration of Guideline, AI-driven efficiency, any new tender offer or funding round that updates the valuation, and an IPO filing.

Key facts at a glance

Gusto is a San Francisco payroll and HR software company founded in 2011 by Josh Reeves, Edward Kim and Tomer London. It passed US$1 billion in trailing twelve-month revenue in 2026, has been cash flow positive for several years, and was valued at US$9.3 billion in a June 2025 employee tender offer. It bought retirement plan provider Guideline for about US$600 million in 2025.

Why small-business payroll is a good business

Payroll looks like a dull, competitive market, but it has attractive economics. Every business with employees has to run it, and the consequences of getting it wrong, such as missed tax filings or late pay, are severe, so businesses value reliability over saving a few dollars. Once a business has set up payroll, tax accounts and benefits with a provider, switching is disruptive. And as customers grow and hire, they pay more without any extra sales effort. That combination of high retention and built-in growth is why payroll and HR companies often show strong net revenue retention.

The challenge is that small businesses also close at a higher rate than large ones, so providers have to keep winning new customers just to replace those that shut down. Gusto's partnerships with accountants help here, because one accounting firm can bring many client businesses.

Comparing Gusto with Rippling and Deel

All three companies sell payroll and HR software, but they focus on different customers. Gusto is built for small US businesses that want something simple and complete. Rippling targets growing companies that want HR, IT and finance tools in one system. Deel focuses on companies hiring across many countries, including contractors. Investors value faster growth highly, which helps explain the valuation gap. Comparing them on growth and profitability together, for example using the Rule of 40, gives a fairer picture than comparing revenue alone.

What this means if you're…

A small business owner: compare payroll providers on total cost per employee, tax filing coverage in your states, benefits options and the quality of support.

An accountant or bookkeeper: partner programmes can simplify managing payroll for many clients; check what tools and pricing each provider offers firms.

An investor: Gusto is a useful example of a company whose revenue caught up with a peak-era valuation while staying cash flow positive.

Latest developments (October 2026)

Gusto passed US$1 billion in trailing twelve-month revenue in 2026, according to reports summarised by Curved Trading. Its most recent valuation reference is a June 2025 employee tender offer at about US$9.3 billion, according to Sacra. Gusto has made no IPO announcement, and its chief executive has said he does not spend much time thinking about a listing. It acquired retirement plan provider Guideline in 2025.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from the public sources below. Where sources disagreed, we used the company's own announcement or a primary news report. Private-company data changes; check the date beside each figure.

1. TechCrunch