ADP Workforce Now vs UKG vs Workday comparison

Read 125 UKG reviews

5,984 Views
3,590 Comparison Views

89% willing to recommend

Read 58 Workday reviews

9,682 Views
6,777 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

ADP Workforce Now

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ADP Workforce Now, UKG, and Workday based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Workday, Oracle and others in Cloud HCM.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud HCM Report (Updated: March 2026).

Cloud HCM

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Helped 885,376 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of ADP Workforce Now is 2.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of UKG is 4.9%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 10.5%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Workday	10.5%
UKG	4.9%
ADP Workforce Now	2.1%
Other	82.5%

Cloud HCM

Featured Reviews

Vineeth John

Director, People & Culture at a agriculture with 201-500 employees

Custom reporting tool with field grabber, easy modules for recruitment and provides numerous options for integration

The complexity is the key challenge with a tool like ADP because it has all the bells and whistles and all the key features you can possibly think of. If it isn't there, there's always a third-party vendor you can integrate that way. But the only issue is that because it's complex, there needs to be some sort of system, at least on the back end, for the admins to understand what leads to what. We expect AI to improve multiple things with HR processes. The most obvious and common one would be the self-service function for employees, like a chatbot to help with FAQs. We are also building an AI tool that can possibly help managers make better talent management decisions. This tool will pull from the performance management tool, the talent profile, and the reports that we generally have to score employees across all different dimensions.

Read full review

Harish_Mahanta

Works

Streamlined time tracking boosts operational efficiency across multiple regions

The time tracking feature is the most effective for employee management. UKG is used in Europe, the United States, Australia, and East Asian countries for HR activities like payroll. The application is like an ERP, providing comprehensive features for organizations, simplifying their processes, and reducing the need to use multiple software solutions.

Read full review

Eslam Abo Elnaga

Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo

Has improved HR process efficiency through intuitive workflows and responsive support

There is something that could be improved in Workday, specifically in the time tracking module. While I am not working on Workday now, I was a regional HRIS working for Egypt, Malta, India, and China. I mention these countries to relate to high population countries and companies. In our company, we use assigned work schedules for our teams. Because we work with the time tracking module, we need to assign shifts. In the manufacturing industry, we might need to change shifts every day or week. Manufacturing teams are huge, approximately 50 to 200 people in one team. If this team has one leader, the leader needs to assign a work schedule for each person individually. While there is mass upload functionality where we can load shifts for all people or specific groups, we need to select multiple people and assign them to a schedule from the interface itself. I have requested this functionality many times. When extracting business processes awaiting actions report, I can select different processes in one box, hit okay, and the report comes up. However, the same functionality does not work for work schedule assigning. If implemented, it would help many people in companies with high populations and big teams.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The most interesting feature for me on ADP is the custom reporting tool. It's got something called a field grabber, which makes it so much easier to generate your own custom reports simply by pulling tabs from any feature."

"I love the integration of HR, payroll, tax filing, benefits, time and attendance, GL, ACA, employee/manager self-service, reporting and analytics."

"In my day-to-day work, attendance tracking would be most important. That's because I have a really diverse group of employees, and I have a subset of younger folks who are struggling with their attendance. So, that's the thing that I'm most involved with currently."

"The most valuable features are the reporting and benefits piece."

"Payroll: It is very easy and user-friendly."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature to me is performance management because we just started using that."

"For small to mid-sized companies, Workforce Now is one of the better products on the market, clean with an easy interface that is simple to maneuver around, stable, and will continue to improve into the future."

More ADP Workforce Now pros

"We are contacted on a regular basis by other vendors and we always tell them that we are totally satisfied with our current solution."

"Now that we have cleaned up our data, the reports are much more accurate, and I find the reports to be great."

"Immediate data and reporting Reliable (based on parameters given)"

"We've definitely realized ROI on the module."

"It enables us to manage the system ourselves. We don't need an additional team to do a lot of maintenance and add the things that we want."

"We have been able to eliminate many paper forms and have streamlined some of our processes."

"Having an integrated HRIS system has saved time and increased efficiency."

"Customer service is excellent."

More UKG pros

"The business process framework is excellent."

"The solution has allowed leaders to self-serve, and we have fewer systems, less manual data entry, and less processing."

"The solution is stable."

"It's intuitive, a very usable tool and it's easy to find the data you're looking for."

"We use this solution to manage financials, payroll and recruiting."

"It is a one-stop solution for everything. You can look for information about other employees or you can track your information. There is a directory, so you can search for other employees. You can also see and track your personal details and salary details on the employee profile page."

"The user interface is good and very easy to use."

"It stores everything for the employee. It has also been able to store the information that we use for our payroll demand."

More Workday pros

Cons

"The report functionality is not as good as competitive products."

"The workflow is a bit weak."

"ADP provides a quarterly Error Notification Report that allows you to check for compliance errors based on payments made to employees that quarter. The report only shows employees by their file #; however, the recent ADP upgrade has an "Archive" feature that makes it impossible to search for employees by file number so currently, there is no way to identify the employees listed on the report without calling ADP."

"The ease of developing and creating reports could definitely use some improvement."

"Its benefits portal could be user-friendly."

"Their “new and improved” message center (where you get notifications and go to approve things like time off) is actually not as easy as it used to be."

"Support leaves a lot to be desired."

"I would like to see the payroll side improved and there are a few kinks that need to be worked out."

More ADP Workforce Now cons

"We have encountered deployment issues; communication was very poor."

"I would like the capability to use UKG as a single platform without the need to alternate between systems."

"We did have deployment issues. We had employees that were not assigned to the correct states and we are still doing W-2 corrections."

"I would like to see more functionality in the next release to be able to get hours and dollars per calendar month rather than just by payroll in the Business Intelligence reports."

"We encountered stability issues with UTM; still is not working properly."

"UKG could be a little more flexible in some areas."

"Technical support is 4/10."

"The platform's features need enhancement while being used as a recruiting tool."

More UKG cons

"The UI, UX (user experience) is very bad. It is not very interactive."

"This solution could be made easier to use by continuing to release new improvements."

"The solution has some features missing when you put them in the test studio or Confluence Studio. I would like the tool’s coding to be easier to understand and automated. Most of the coding these days is automated. Any query given can pull the answer directly which can make the solution easier to understand."

"The product must include payroll features."

"If you want to add more features to your subscription, Workday becomes expensive."

"We would like to see improvement in the mobile app variant of this solution. The time sheet entry and approval, and the geo-tagging features all need to have their functionality updated, in order to be comparable with other products on the market."

"Analytical tools have needed improvement. Workday has just released Prism Analytics, to replace the current analytical tools, so it’s in the early stages."

"They could improve the product areas such as enhancing the interview scheduling module to support more flexible online assessments within the platform."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."

"The solution is expensive and everyone complains about the price."

"The pricing is expensive and I would say it is below average for the value it provides based on the high cost."

"I know some of what we're currently paying. Most customers would say it's too high, but I don't have a comparison to know that."

"The solution is expensive."

"I give the pricing a seven out of ten."

"The platform is not affordable but also not the most expensive."

"UKG's pricing and licensing model involves ongoing expenses based on the number of employees paid. The initial implementation cost is low when UKG implements it directly. However, when partners handle the implementation, it becomes more expensive since partners don't receive the monthly recurring fees."

"If you're going for the full suite, it can be fairly pricey."

"I wasn't involved in the pricing part. I'm a user, and I believe it is based on the user count. One thing that is nice about Ultimate is that you can learn how to use the system without additional fees. The learning aspect is the life of a product, and the training was a huge reason why we went with Ultimate. We did have some integration costs. They were a part of the implementation because of the integrations to other systems that we included in our implementation."

"While I am unsure of the licensing cost itself, the total cost of implementation and licensing for a company with over 5000 employees would be around 6,00,000. So, there are additional costs beyond licensing."

"The pricing depends on the number of licenses we buy."

"The pricing is good from an HR perspective, although management gets upset after spending $500,000 a year, every year."

"You have the license fee per module, and then you have a kind of annual training fee, which is a kind of add-on. I wouldn't say it is exhaustive; it is minor. Licensing is pretty transparent for most of the part."

"Workday is moderately priced - I'd rate its pricing three out of five."

"By and large, Workday is expensive. It is based on the headcount. I'd probably rate it a three or four out of five in terms of pricing. It'd be like buying a Mercedes or a high-end car. It's expensive, but there's a specific value that you're getting with additional features and things of that nature. Using that metaphor, Workday probably tends to be more of a luxury. There are others like ADP that can do your payroll, your time off, and other things, but they don't do it as well."

"I rate the product’s pricing a ten out of ten."

"The solution is flexible in terms of pricing."

"It is on a yearly basis."

"It's very, very expensive."

More Workday pricing and cost advice

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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud HCM solutions are best for your needs.

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885,376 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Construction Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	48
Midsize Enterprise	43
Large Enterprise	48

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	42

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ADP Workforce Now?

The licensing is on the pricer side, given that there aren't a lot of other tools out there that are applicable, we j...

What needs improvement with ADP Workforce Now?

The complexity is the key challenge with a tool like ADP because it has all the bells and whistles and all the key fe...

What advice do you have for others considering ADP Workforce Now?

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. It's got a lot of features. The reason I'm not giving it a fu...

What needs improvement with UKG?

UKG needs more publicity. It is a productive ERP ( /categories/erp ) application, but many people in the IT market ar...

What is your primary use case for UKG?

I worked for a healthcare organization and a university. Most organizations use UKG ( /products/ukg-reviews ) to trac...

What advice do you have for others considering UKG?

Publicity is very important for any software. If people aren't aware of UKG, despite its productivity, they won't use...

What are the biggest differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud and SAP SuccessFactors?

Differences between Workday, Oracle Cloud,w and SAP SuccessFactors:w Oracle: "simple interface and deep customizatio...

What do you like most about Workday?

I like its UI and UX. When we were using Oracle or SAP, the UI/UX wasn't very user-friendly for the employees.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday?

If you go with the launch implementation approach, the solution is generally not very expensive. If you want to add m...

ADP GlobalView Payroll vs ADP Workforce Now

Comparisons

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Dayforce HCM vs UKG

Compared 6% of the time

SAP HCM vs UKG

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PeopleSoft vs UKG

Compared 3% of the time

BambooHR vs UKG

Compared 2% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Dayforce HCM vs Workday

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

ADP Workforce Now

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Download UKG product report

Download Workday product report

Also Known As

No data available

UKG Pro, UKG Dimensons, UKG Ready

No data available

Overview

ADP Workforce Now is a web-based, complete HR suite that integrates the essential payroll and human resource management procedures into a single database-driven platform. This safe and simple solution gives you everything you need to maximize your workforce and communicate with your staff.

ADP Workforce Now is designed specifically for your company's needs. As a result, the menus and menu selections you see will differ depending on your function and the services your firm uses. As a portal administrator, you customize the site and control what employees can view and do. You can design your site's theme, set approval and notification processes, and manage security groups.

ADP Workforce Now includes these useful capabilities:

Payroll computation and tax filing
Performance regulation
Compensation handling
Talent acquisition
Time and labor logistics
Benefits governance
Analytics
Total management of human resources

ADP Workforce Now Features

ADP Workforce Now has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Single dashboard, single database: Manage your whole workforce from a single dashboard, which is powered by a single database, ensuring that the relevant data is always available when you need it.
- Get a complete HR suite that includes payroll, time, HR, talent, and benefits all in one place.
- Enter data once and it will function across all workflows
- With proactive error detection and can't-miss alerts, you can cut down on mistakes.
- Protect your business with enterprise-grade data security privacy procedures and extensive compliance experience.

Powerful analytics and reporting: With a single database that connects your entire firm, you can access all of your data in one location.
- Create better reports in less time, without ever leaving the page you're on.
- Make use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to help you make confident decisions based on personalized information.

Robust management of HR: Spend less time on paperwork and more time on managing and improving your employees.
- Workflows can be customized, and documents can be stored online.
- Self-service functionalities enable employees and supervisors to be more productive and collaborative.
Customized service and implementation: ADP Workforce Now offers community and chat support and a dedicated implementation team.

In-house implementation by a team of professionals who understand how to optimize the solution for your industry.
For all your questions, ADP Workforce Now offers quick response support, training, and in-product resources.
Client-service specialists with years of experience offer deep knowledge and skills to assist, secure, and support your business.
Flexible service choices can assist your company in navigating strategic and tactical changes, as well as continual system optimization.

ADP

At UKG, our purpose is people — real people with real challenges, and a simple request. Help me keep my employees productive, connected, and happy. So that’s what we did.

We’ve created an unmatched suite of HR and workforce management solutions, backed by our people who care about yours. Our solutions deliver global workforce experiences that truly reflect the connection between life and work today. That means insights are deeper. Work is easier. And interactions are more meaningful.

The Workday Platform is an AI-powered platform that unifies HR, financial, and operational data, enabling seamless planning, execution, and analysis. It improves decision-making, streamlines cross-team processes, and leverages Workday Illuminate™ for advanced AI insights from vast HR and finance datasets. Workday empowers organizations of all sizes to innovate and optimize performance.