Paylocity Challenges Gusto's Expansion

The fight is shifting from who runs payroll to who owns all the money moving around payroll. Gusto has been using payroll as the entry point to sell higher value financial products like bill pay, invoicing, earned wage access, business cash tools, and now retirement through Guideline. Paylocity moving into spend management with Airbase means another payroll incumbent is now trying to control both payroll spend and non payroll spend inside the same system, which makes Gusto’s financial services expansion more contested.

• Gusto already has proof that these adjacent products matter. Its 401(k) business grew about 50% year over year in 2024, Gusto Money grew more than 140% year over year, and the product now includes Payroll Bridge, bill pay, invoicing, and instant pay alongside payroll.
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• Paylocity is not adding a small feature. After acquiring Airbase in October 2024, it launched Paylocity for Finance in July 2025, bringing accounts payable automation, expense management, corporate cards, and procurement into its HCM platform so customers can manage payroll and non payroll spend together.
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• This follows the broader direction of the category. Rippling already monetizes HR, IT, and finance from one employee record, including cards, expense management, bill pay, and travel. Across payroll software, the winning pattern is to turn payroll data into a distribution channel for more software and more financial products.
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From here, payroll platforms will keep pushing outward into CFO workflows because that is where more transaction volume and more attach revenue live. The companies that win will be the ones that make payroll, benefits, spend controls, retirement, and cash movement feel like one continuous workflow instead of separate tools stitched together.