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ADP Workforce Now vs Workday HCM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 21, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

ADP Workforce Now
Ranking in Benefits Administration
10th
Ranking in Talent Management
23rd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
HR Analytics Software (5th)
Workday HCM
Ranking in Benefits Administration
1st
Ranking in Talent Management
2nd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of ADP Workforce Now is 2.1%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday HCM is 9.8%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Workday HCM9.8%
ADP Workforce Now2.1%
Other88.1%
Cloud HCM
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user477510 - PeerSpot reviewer
VP, Chief Information Officer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jul 12, 2016
 

Featured Reviews

Vineeth John - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Amit_Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Software Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Automation has transformed hire to retire processes and delivers powerful HR analytics
In Workday Human Capital Management, I feel that the security part needs to be improved. Workday gives complete control to the implementers regarding security and who is going to see what data. There are sometimes loopholes that are not identified unless fully tested. If Workday had a security alert system, even a small alert would help the security architect secure all information better, especially sensitive data such as payroll. Additionally, customization is another area of improvement, as Workday provides a default blue and yellow theme, which may not align with a company's branding. If Workday provided the option to customize themes based on a company's preferences, it would enhance the user experience.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature to me is performance management because we just started using that."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Payroll: It is very easy and user-friendly."
"The platform is on a private cloud that is fully secure with no way for hacker penetration."
"The way that ADP helped us improve our organization is by making the payroll process clean and efficient because if you make a mistake there, you're in big trouble."
"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 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."
"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."
"Overall, this solution provides a good user experience and is very easy to use."
"It's a fully consolidated system. All the transactions and configuration are co-located in one fully in-memory system, so there is no need to go to different data sources (multiple DBs) to pull data; it’s all in one place."
"It's actually a cloud-native solution and based on the community for development, with a very good open architecture that is able to interconnect with other systems, and it is very stable and very fast in terms of response."
"Overall, it delivers a really seamless solution that allows for operational efficiencies and operational excellence."
"The most valuable feature of Workday is the ease of use which is overall user-friendly."
"Workday beats them all; in my opinion, they are leaps and bounds above the competition, and part of the reason is that it is built with modern technology and has no legacy coding in it at all."
"In the process of obtaining representative sites in NaviNet, it assists us in facilitating decision-making and taking action."
"The solution is easy to use and provides great flexibility and security."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"When I'm not working with the implementation team and I'm just talking to customer service or something, they're just not a lot of help. They don't understand how it works. They'll tell you to do something that I know would affect something else. So, it's less about the software and more about just training their folks to a higher level."
"I would like to see the payroll side improved and there are a few kinks that need to be worked out."
"Its benefits portal could be user-friendly."
"Support leaves a lot to be desired."
"The Call Centre: The extension number takes too many digits to get through and the wait time is too long."
"The complexity is the key challenge with a tool like ADP ."
"I'm not sure they have added this feature yet, but there should be a cellphone version, so we do not need to do it on a laptop. I'd like to log in on a cellphone and have the same features. I'm not sure if that is already available or if it's on the roadmap, but that would be a great feature."
"The navigation of Workday is good but could be better."
"The dashboard is fine, but the dashboarding and other aspects could be improved."
"In Workday Human Capital Management, I feel that the security part needs to be improved."
"We have had issues with respect to incidents."
"They don't offer any backend database access. This is one limitation that I found in this product."
"Errors are not very clear in some cases. I've been experiencing some issues within the application that the error messages or what I needed to do were not very easily clear to me."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive and everyone complains about the price."
"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."
"The pricing is expensive and I would say it is below average for the value it provides based on the high cost."
"I give the pricing a seven out of ten."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is good from an HR perspective, although management gets upset after spending $500,000 a year, every year."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten."
"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."
"Its price is pretty high. It is more expensive than what is offered by other competitors in the market."
"It has an annual subscription rate, but I'm not sure how it will work."
"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."
"It is on a yearly basis."
"The solution’s pricing is better than SAP SuccessFactors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise50
 

Questions from the Community

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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 customization to suit the purpose." SAP: Multiple functionalities that increase process effi...
How easy is to maintain Workday, Oracle Cloud, and SuccessFactors?
I implemented Workday in 2024 and without having previous Workday experience, it was very challenging. I spent most of 2025 putting out fires and cleaning up the business processes that came with l...
What needs improvement with Workday?
Workday can be improved in terms of reporting and customization. Sometimes it is difficult to create custom reports and requires extra effort or support. The user interface can also be confusing in...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Workday Human Capital Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lawrence and Schiller, The Children's Center, The Kansas City Royals
AAA, Allied Global, Avago Technologies Limited, Aviva, Cardinal Health, CareFusion, Chiquita Brands International, Equifax, Flextronics, HP, Life Time Fitness, McKee Foods, MGM Resorts International, Sanofi, ServiceSource International, Symantec, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!
Find out what your peers are saying about ADP Workforce Now vs. Workday HCM and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.