Key takeaways
- Gusto shows no data size, so count rows: the Employee summary for everyone on file (dismissed people included) and the Payroll journal or Payroll template over all dates for payroll runs.
- Only the Primary admin or an admin with reporting permissions sees Reports, and each admin sees only the fields their permissions cover.
- A full history is a set of files: the employee report, one payroll file per year (the Payroll data export is an Excel workbook), and time or contractor reports. Payroll from before Gusto is there only if it was imported.
- You don't need to export anything to apply, and a payroll file holds Social Security numbers and bank details, so keep it secured; the data vendor anonymizes the records before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is Gusto data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
Gusto data is the payroll and workforce record of a company that pays its people through Gusto, an online payroll, benefits and HR service: who was hired and when, what job and department each person holds, every payroll run with its earnings, taxes and deductions, and time and time-off records. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) buy a copy because payroll shows how a small business staffs and pays for its work, period after period.
What a Gusto account records
Gusto is a payroll provider: a company enters its employees and contractors, runs payroll through Gusto, and Gusto pays them, withholds taxes and files the paperwork. Each payroll run adds records to the account. For every person paid, a run records the earnings, the taxes withheld, the deductions and the net pay, all dated by the check date, the day the payment is issued.
Around the payroll sit the people records: hire and termination dates, job titles, departments, pay type and managers. Depending on the plan, the account also holds time tracking, time off, benefits and labor cost allocation, which assigns a worker's pay to a department or project.
Why payroll records teach an AI model something
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. Gusto history supplies examples of how a small business actually runs its staff: when it hires, how roles are arranged, how long people stay, how hours rise and fall across the seasons, and how headcount follows the work. Those patterns hold value without any one person's name or pay.
AI labs now want to train AI agents, software that carries out a job step by step, and running payroll is a job with strict rules and a clear right answer. A data vendor can turn anonymized payroll runs into worked examples that an agent studies like an answer key, or into a practice copy of a payroll administrator's workflow in which the agent is scored on each attempt. AI training data: why AI companies want your company's data explains the mechanism in full.
How Gusto fits into a dataset
Gusto is usually one app among several in a company's dataset, alongside email, documents and accounting records. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to. The price covers the whole dataset, not each app on its own, and what your data is worth explains what moves it.
02
Where does Gusto show how much data you have?
The short answer
Gusto shows no data size figure. You count rows in reports instead: one report for every employee ever on file, and one for payroll runs across all dates. The Primary admin, or an admin whose permissions include reporting, can run both from Reports in the left menu.
How to count your records
Because the count comes from report rows, each number below is a row count of a downloaded file. The steps need no pay amounts, so you can count without opening any wage column.
- Sign in as the Primary admin, or as an admin who has been given reporting permissions. When Reports does not appear in the left menu, the Primary admin can add reporting to your permissions.
- Open Reports and run the employee report, which Gusto calls the Employee summary. Gusto describes it as the full employee directory export. To count people who have left, run it again with the employment status filter set to Dismissed, and add the two counts.
- Run the payroll report across all dates: the Payroll journal, or its replacement the Payroll template in the custom report builder, with the time period set back to your first payroll in Gusto. Count the payrolls listed.
- If you track hours in Gusto, run the Time-tracking hours report over the same range to count time entries.
A custom report is a report you assemble yourself in Gusto's report builder by choosing columns, a grouping and a time period. Gusto's reports article notes that the builder opens on the last 30 days, so change the time period to cover all time before you count.
What plan and role you need
The role decides what you see, and the plan decides which time reports exist. Gusto's article says you only see the fields your admin permissions cover, and full-access admins see every field.
| Figure | Where it lives | Who can see it |
|---|---|---|
| Employees ever on file | Reports, Employee summary, including dismissed people | Primary admin, or an admin with reporting permissions |
| Payroll runs | Reports, Payroll journal or Payroll template, all dates | An admin with Run payroll or View payroll reports and tax filings, or full access |
| Time entries | Reports, Time-tracking hours | Plus or Premium plan using Gusto Time Tracking |
Why the row count can fall short of the full history
Payroll from a provider you used before Gusto appears only if someone imported it. Gusto keeps those earlier payrolls in a separate Payrolls prior to Gusto report, which cannot be downloaded as CSV. Otherwise your Gusto history starts at your first Gusto payroll.
Field permissions can also hide columns, so a report run by a limited admin may be missing data the Primary admin would see. Gusto adds that the payroll journal and year-to-date reports may fail for companies with more than 500 employees and contractors, counting both active and dismissed people.
03
What should you know about your Gusto data before you apply?
The short answer
Have four facts ready: employees ever on file as the record count, the date of your first Gusto payroll, the number of payroll runs and time entries, and the number of people on your current payroll. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which apps hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. You don't need to run an export to find them, and applying through micro1 shares no data.
The record count
The unit for Gusto is records, and the number to give is employees ever on file, including people who have left. Put payroll runs and time entries in your notes beside it so the buyer sees what the history contains.
The years of history and the seats
Years in use start at your first payroll date in Gusto, which the payroll report shows once you widen its date range. For seats, tally the employees and contractors who are active on your current payroll. Neither number needs a wage amount.
What you don't need to do first
You don't need to export anything to apply, and you don't need to clean or scrub an export. The data vendor anonymizes the records before anyone else sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application, the intro call and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export your full Gusto history?
The short answer
Gusto cannot export the whole account in one step, so the full history is assembled from report files. An admin with reporting permissions downloads the employee report with former employees included, then downloads payroll history for each calendar year, as CSV or Excel. The Payroll data export report, an Excel workbook per year, is Gusto's most complete view of payroll history.
Who can export
The Primary admin, or an admin whose permissions include reporting. The files hold only the fields that admin's permissions cover. Payroll fields such as check amount, bonus and commission need the Run payroll or View payroll reports and tax filings permission, and personal-information fields such as date of birth need View and edit personal info or Dismiss people.
The export steps
- In Reports, run the employee report (the Employee summary, or a custom report grouped by employee with an employment status column), include dismissed employees, and download it as CSV or Excel.
- Pull payroll history one calendar year at a time, for every year the company has been on Gusto. The Payroll data export gives an Excel workbook of raw data for every payroll in a year, with separate tabs for employee information, work locations, payroll information, earnings, taxes and deductions. The Payroll journal also downloads as CSV or Excel.
- For hours worked, run the Time-tracking hours report (Plus or Premium plan). For contractors, run the Contractor payments report, the contractor version of the payroll journal.
- On any report you built, select Save as template. Saved templates reappear under Reports > Custom reports, so you can rerun them with the same columns and filters, and each download is also kept in Report history.
Formats and limits
Most Gusto reports download as PDF, CSV or Excel (.xlsx), and you can add or remove fields, group the data and set filters, a time period and a layout before downloading. Gusto's developer documentation also describes generating a payroll journal through its API, which is meant for companies building on Gusto's embedded payroll product rather than for a one-off export. A few reports have their own limits, which Gusto's reports article lists.
| Report | Limit |
|---|---|
| Payroll journal, Year-to-date | May not work above 500 employees and contractors, active or dismissed |
| Expenses | Date range limited to 90 days; PDF or CSV |
| Bank transactions, Payrolls prior to Gusto | Cannot download as CSV |
| Custom report | Opens on the last 30 days until you change the time period |
What to settle before payroll files leave your control
Gusto states no legal prerequisite, but the Employee summary alone lists items such as Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses and payment details. Treat every downloaded file as highly sensitive and store it where only the people who need it can open it. The company's lawyer should decide the scope before anything is shared, and is it legal to sell company data covers the questions to ask. Gusto gives no time estimate for downloads.
Sources: the Gusto Help Center article on viewing, downloading and customizing reports for admins, and the Gusto developer page on generating custom reports. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when Gusto data is licensed?
The short answer
The company decides which reports are in scope, and the data vendor replaces employee names and other identifying details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. Records too sensitive to clean safely are deleted. The company keeps ownership of its Gusto records, and the license covers defined material for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
Payroll is the most sensitive app a company can license, so scope matters most here. A company can offer headcount, hiring and hours patterns and keep individual pay amounts, Social Security numbers and bank details out of the files altogether. You can also count your records without opening a single pay column.
What anonymization removes and what it keeps
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears, and removing or blurring details that identify someone in combination, such as swapping a full birth date for a birth year. A payroll file would lose names, Social Security numbers, home addresses and bank account numbers, while the job titles, departments, hours and pay patterns that show how the business is staffed stay in place.
The data vendor keeps a private list matching each stand-in to the real person while it works, so in privacy-law terms the result is pseudonymized rather than fully anonymous. The anonymization guide explains that distinction. The diagram below shows one employee record before and after.
The method, including what is deleted outright and how you review samples, is in how company data is anonymized for AI training.
Ownership and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Does a Gusto report include former employees?
It can, if you ask for them. Gusto lets you filter by employment status, including Dismissed, so include dismissed people and the rows add up to everyone ever on file.
Why can't I see Reports in Gusto?
The Reports menu shows only for admins who have reporting permissions. Your Primary admin can add them, though you will still see just the fields those permissions cover.
Is there one button that exports everything from Gusto?
No. A full history is a set of report files: an employee file, payroll data for each year, and time or contractor files if you use them. The Payroll data export is the most complete payroll report, giving an Excel workbook per year.
Do I need to share pay amounts to report my Gusto size?
No. The size is a row count, such as employees ever on file, payroll runs and time entries, and you can count rows without opening any pay column.
Why does my Gusto report only show the last 30 days?
The custom report builder opens on the last 30 days. Open Time Period and choose all time, or a range that begins at your first payroll, before you download or count.
Is payroll from our old provider in Gusto?
Only if it was imported. Gusto lists imported earlier payrolls in its Payrolls prior to Gusto report. Anything that was never imported has to come from the old provider.
Do we need to export Gusto before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need employees ever on file, your first payroll date and your current headcount for the intro call. The export is needed later, when the records are transferred after you sign the license.
What is Gusto data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Gusto records are priced as part of a whole dataset rather than on their own. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in Gusto, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.