Yes. Payroll is often one of the largest expense for SMBs, which makes it a rich source of data you can leverage to provide users new insights about how to run their business.

We recommend partners sum gross wages (hours by employee, commissions, gratuities, etc…). Each payroll run returns total payroll costs, taxes withheld and filed, and more.

No. Gusto first offered a public API in 2013 for our integration partners. Today 200+ partners use the API and it serves 70m+ calls each month, serving tens of thousands of payroll customers.
Demand from these integrations partners for more deeply integrated, all-in-one products drove the launch of Gusto Embedded in 2021. We believe tailored, embedded payroll solutions can outperform the UX of legacy payroll providers which in turn drives retention and growth for your company.

Due to the regulatory environment surrounding payroll, there is a high bar in terms of the organizational and technical controls required to offer payroll services. Regulators like the US Reserve, FDIC, and commercial banks enforce operational and technical fraud controls (ex. KYC).

While SOC II or similar certifications are not a requirement, they offer a good proxy. Contact the team for more details but baseline requirements include: data encryption at rest and in-flight, strong passwords and 2FA for your customers, and regular penetration testing.

API releases are not just about the code itself—a reliable and secure process must be tested, iterated, and normed within an organization. Over 9+ years, Gusto has developed a rigorous process for testing new endpoints and features to probe and mitigate vulnerabilities. Since the API went live we have seen just 25 days with outages over that time period (avg. >99.9% uptime).

The Gusto API is versioned. When a breaking change is introduced to the Gusto API, we release a new API version to avoid complications for existing partner integrations (read more on our definition of breaking changes here).

We recommend using the latest version of the API for your initial build. For subsequent iterations, you may continue to use older API versions or upgrade your application to use the newest Gusto API version. We will communicate well in advance of any forced upgrades to a minimum supported API version.

Prototype: We recommend starting with a Flows-only prototype, which offers the fastest way to understand core payroll concepts and how to work with the API.

QA: To get production API keys, you will have to demo your payroll app end-to-end for the Gusto Embedded Technical Solutions team. This demo includes cross-functional touchpoints, particularly with CX or support team members, to identify likely user pitfalls before the Pilot begins.

Pilot: we recommend partners Pilot payroll via a limited beta with a focus on testing end-to-end run functionality with a few dozen customers. Typically we start with existing shared Gusto customers where possible.