With Gusto
“Can Gusto become the full financial and people-management OS for US small businesses by bundling payroll, benefits, bill pay, lending, retirement, and embedded finance APIs into one platform?”
Founded in 2011 as ZenPayroll, Gusto built a cloud-native payroll engine for US SMBs underserved by legacy providers like ADP. After rebranding to Gusto in 2015, the company expanded into benefits administration, HR tools, and compliance, becoming a full people-management platform. Starting around 2021, Gusto launched an embedded payroll API product, turning its own payroll engine into infrastructure for third-party platforms. By 2025–2026, Gusto added bill pay (via Melio), global contractor payments, 401(k) (via Guideline and Vestwell), and spend management features, positioning itself as the financial and HR operating system for US small businesses.