Ashby vs Gusto

Ashby is an all-in-one recruiting platform from a San Francisco startup founded in 2018. It combines an applicant tracking system, a candidate CRM with sourcing, automated interview scheduling and a recruiting analytics engine in a single product. Fast-growing technology companies adopted it because it removed the need for separate tools for scheduling (such as GoodTime), sourcing outreach (such as Gem) and reporting.

Hiring teams get structured pipelines with scorecards, approvals for jobs and offers, email sequences to passive candidates, self-scheduling and panel coordination across interviewer calendars, and AI-assisted application review and interview notes. Analytics are the main differentiator: recruiting ops teams can build custom reports on funnel conversion, time to hire, source quality and interviewer load without exporting data. Pricing scales with company size: the Foundations plan for companies up to 100 employees starts at $400 a month, larger tiers are quoted, and advanced analytics, scheduling and CRM capabilities sit in higher tiers.

Ashby fits companies where hiring is continuous and a dedicated recruiting team exists. Configuration takes effort, and the price is hard to justify for a business hiring a handful of roles a year, where Workable, Homerun or Teamtailor are simpler. Against Greenhouse, Ashby offers stronger built-in analytics and scheduling, while Greenhouse has the larger integration marketplace and a longer enterprise track record. Lever is the other common comparison, with similar ATS plus CRM scope but slower recent innovation.

Gusto is payroll, benefits and HR software for small and mid-sized businesses in the United States. It was founded in 2011 in San Francisco as ZenPayroll, renamed Gusto in 2015, and has become one of the most common payroll choices for US startups, restaurants, agencies and accounting firms.

Full-service payroll calculates wages and deductions, files and pays federal, state and local taxes and produces W-2 and 1099 forms automatically. Around payroll, Gusto handles health insurance, 401(k) and workers' compensation through partner brokers, onboarding with offer letters and e-signature, time tracking, PTO policies, scheduling, compliance alerts and contractor payments in the US and more than 120 countries. Plans charge a monthly base fee plus a per-person fee: Simple for single-state payroll, Plus for multi-state teams with time tracking, Premium with HR support and compliance tools, and a Contractor Only plan.

Gusto fits US companies up to roughly 100 employees that want payroll to be easy and friendly, and accountants who manage many clients through its partner program. It only pays employees in the US; companies hiring abroad pair it with Deel or Remote for employer of record. Larger organizations that need IT, device management and a deeper HRIS move to Rippling, while ADP and Paychex suit those who want a traditional provider with more service options. Costs rise steadily with headcount.