GoCo Review – Features, Pricing, Alternatives (2024)

What Is GoCo?

GoCo is an online, cloud-based platform that enables the managing of HR, employee benefits, and payroll. The GoCo features are well-organized, and the platform strives to be the best HR system online now. The platform has automated processes for data collection for the new hires and the enrollment of the new employees in the benefits plans.

Alongside the HR and benefits options, the payroll features are advantageous as well. These include auto-sync, new hire set up, changing employee info, automatic benefits deduction, and paycheck calculation. The platform also does the federal and state tax calculations, benefits compliance, ACA compliance, and PTO compliance to make matters simpler.

Among the GoCo features that stand out is the option for the users to select from many benefits plans. In addition, to help its customers, GoCo has an Employee Support Line where employee benefits experts can help you find solutions for possible employee benefits issues. The experts also help with maintaining compliance with the relevant agencies.

Suppose you don’t want to use the payroll service provided by GoCo but want to use the HR and benefits management options. In that case, you can integrate the GoCo platform with your existing payroll platform and sync all relevant information from within the GoCo dashboard.

On top of everything, GoCo has a MagicDocs feature. This option helps businesses go paperless, as it enables the streamlining of sending, e-signage, and secure storing of all types of employee documents. In addition, the MagicDocs helps transform a wide array of documents into fillable, signable, and reportable forms. There is also an auto-fill option, creating new documents from templates and reporting and tracking documents.

All in all, the GoCo platform provides a clear overview of all the vital employee-related insights. In addition to everything else, GoCo provides custom reports that are easy to understand and contain every bit of relevant employee info.

Pricing Plans

The GoCo platform does not have a preset pricing plan. Instead, they offer a fully customizable plan tailored to each user’s needs. The initial price is $5 per employee per month, which comes with hiring, onboarding, employee self-service, and MagicDocs.

The final price that users have to pay depends on the additional services they select. As the GoCo features are all customizable and the platform supports third-party integrations, the final price always differs. Any interested client can get a quote on the official GoCo website.

The add-ons that are available from GoCo include benefits administration, time tracking, payroll and payroll sync, PTO, On-demand HR support, HR Workflow, and white-glove implementations. To see if GoCo will suit your needs, you can take the Product Tour on the official website. Additionally, each user gets a 20% discount for paying annually.

I’ve prepared the following table outlining the base prices and base offerings for you to see how GoCo fares against its main competitors.

How GoCo Fares to Other HR Services

When I put GoCo against its main competitors, I noted some similarities and some differences. For the comparison, I’ve selected Gusto HR, Zoho People, and BambooHR. These HR platforms have balanced features and provide grounds for small to medium-sized businesses to expertly manage human resources.

GoCo is mainly aimed at healthcare, nonprofit and educational organizations, IT professional services, consumer services, and SaaS services. BambooHR, Gusto, and Zoho People all have scalable features to fit the needs of different-sized businesses. Still, all have primary services aimed at the needs of small businesses. In terms of pricing, all of these have different price points that depend on the selected features.

GoCo has automated hiring and onboarding workflows and streamlined HR workflow. The employee benefits covered in the GoCo platform include health, dental, vision, life, accident, disability, HAS, FSA, HRA benefits, 401(k), commuter benefits, and more. Its competitors also have similar health benefits management, although some not as extensive as GoCo’s.

You can see how the features of the HR services compare against each other in the comparison table below.

GoCo User Experience

The GoCo HR software is known for its stellar user experience. The dashboard is nicely designed and is very easy to navigate. It seems like the GoCo designers have had user experience in mind, as each feature is easily accessible and readily available.

The main GoCo dashboard is very user-friendly, as each essential feature is right where you’d expect. Some of the notes many GoCo users have provided relate to the ease of implementation and simplicity of the employee self-onboarding process.

The GoCo software facilitates the user experience by centralizing all vital employee information under one location that is easily accessible. This way, the responsible person can access all pertinent employee information, documents, and benefits about a particular employee with ease.

The GoCo onboarding process is straightforward, as each newly hired employee gets to fill out all the essential paperwork like W4 and I9 forms before they start working for the business. Also, the platform allows the creation of onboarding checklists, tasks, and assignments so that nothing will be missed.

The employee portal allows the employees to add notes, request meetings, and other requests. In addition, there is a team feedback feature where the employees can leave private and shared notes. Finally, via the shared employee portal, the managers can review the team’s performance and leave suggestions, praises, and notes.

The other features are all organized similarly, translating to a good user experience of the GoCo platform. Among the best features, GoCo offers seamless integration with other platforms. The GoCo platform makes sure that every change made within this platform is automatically synced with the other integrated applications like your payroll software or accounting software.

GoCo Customer Care

GoCo cares for its customers, and it is a feature that is referred to as positive in the GoCo online reviews. At this time, GoCo enjoys a 4.8-star review on the G2 review platform and has similarly high reviews on other online places.

The official GoCo website has a GoCoBot, a live chatbot that provides answers to most client inquiries. The website also has a blog and resources section where customers can find helpful tips, tricks, resources, and product updates. Among the HR blog posts, there are HR webinars and HR ebooks, and customer stories.

However, if you wish to talk to a customer support agent, you can do this via phone, email, and GoCo’s social media accounts. The customer account agents are available from Monday to Friday from 9 AM to 6 PM CST. Many of the GoCo users have noted that they like the platform’s features, and the customer service agents are knowledgeable, friendly, and flexible.

GoCo Safety And Security

Since GoCo is a cloud-based platform, the issue of online security is fundamental. The GoCo platform is built on Heroku, a modern infrastructure used for secure cloud-based applications, as it adds security controls on each layer. Heroku uses secure data centers managed by Amazon, and the data is protected under bank-level 256-bit SSL encryption.

To keep client data secure, GoCo has Two-Factor Authentication in place. It is a feature that adds a double layer of security to any user account, and in my opinion, it is a vital factor in helping data breaches.

All the HR data is secure. The software limits the access to the non-public personal information to employees who don’t have a legitimate business reason to know such information. On top of everything else, GoCo is HIPAA-compliant, and it protects personal employee information.

Conclusion

GoCo is an excellent option for HR, benefits, and payroll management. The platform has excellent features that are well-balanced and fit the needs of small to medium businesses. In addition, the user experience is almost effortless, as the employee portal allows self-onboarding, and GoCo supports the automation of many processes.

Many GoCo customers have commended the platform’s customer support service and have stated that their issues were always resolved effectively and timely. All the GoCo features are good. However, many of the options can be scalable, and the users can select what features to use. It is a feature that puts GoCo among the perfect option for an HR, benefits, and payroll management system for a small business.