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Dayforce HCM vs SAP SuccessFactors comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Dayforce HCM
Ranking in Talent Management
18th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Intelligence (2nd)
SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Management
1st
Ranking in Cloud HCM
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (1st), Global Payroll (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 8.5%, down from 20.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors8.5%
Dayforce HCM2.5%
Other89.0%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

TracyBritan - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Learning & Development at Ampersand
Frustrating support and difficult customization prevent optimal use of learning system
Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users. The search functionality is poor as there's no way for administrators to tag keywords to training courses, making it hard for people to find content. Additionally, there is no way to send a direct link to training if someone asks about it. The reporting is subpar; you can only report by course and not by person unless you go into specific Dayforce reports, which do not match the fields in the learning module. The support is also terrible, with slow response times and a lack of useful knowledge-based articles.
SS
Assistant Manager at Kashiv Biosciences
HR has gained clear analytics for attrition, goals, and appraisals and manages talent efficiently
SAP SuccessFactors has a low error rate. We had many ad hoc reports that we needed to generate, and it was very easy to do so in SAP SuccessFactors. We also created many in-house reports according to our specific requirements with the help of this tool, which was a really big game changer for us. We did not depend on advanced Excel in those cases. We generated a lot of detailed reports whenever we needed them during emergency cases or board meetings. A lot of usefulness and time were saved in those cases. I will also mention that we conducted a comparative study for some recruitment cases. We had a recruitment model where we were looking for a very niche profile. Since the job profile was really different and rare, we had to depend on analytics to understand and shortlist from a large pool of candidates that we already had in our database. Analytics was really helpful in this situation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The time capture from time cards to charging to projects has greatly improved because it is now all automated and flows into the GL very easily."
"Employees like being able to see what entitlements/balances that they have for their time away."
"Configuring your HR policies and rules is straightforward."
"Ceridian Dayforce HCM is a stable product."
"Our employee benefits enrollment is managed through Ceridian Dayforce, which makes for a limited manual process."
"The implementation was through a team assigned to us by Ceridian. They were extremely knowledgeable and it made the implementation go very smoothly."
"We like being able to hire from the Dayforce recruiting module straight into Dayforce and having the file feeds go to our benefits vendor."
"The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined."
"The performance goals and learning management solutions are the product's most valuable features."
"Talent Acquisition and Learning features are best in class."
"There are a lot of features in SuccessFactors that HR can actually explore. We recently implemented a learning platform that employs the individual staff to actually manage their own learning."
"We can design a quick and dirty solution or very complex services, we can manage small enterprise projects (in our experience 150 users) as the big organization (in our experience 40000 users), all with the same solution, and this is a big saving of time, costs, and team usage optimization."
"It is the best cloud product in the market, with strong support from SAP, which is a market leader in the world."
"SAP SuccessFactors integrated solution, allows us to start the process from a recruitment marketing perspective and have our career site and candidate profile pull through into each other."
"SAP SuccessFactors is one of the most robust platforms in the world today. For a unique global company, they need a platform that is compliant, such as GDP compliant in Europe. The solution delivers high quality in their core HR IS system which is called Employee Central. The system is one of the strongest and sturdiest modules that are in existence in the world."
"SuccessFactors' best features are talent management and HR Analytics."
 

Cons

"Our current software program offers a home page with important company documents and a place for company announcements. Unfortunately, Ceridian Dayfoce does not offer this."
"Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users."
"Management and reporting of the GL costing could be improved."
"One area to be improved is the solution's reporting function, which can be cumbersome."
"I would like to continue to see improvements in the Recruiting module. I would like to see this module interact with Calendars, such as Outlook, etc."
"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."
"I would also like to see some improvement in standard reports. A standard report should be available to pull the required information for Affirmative Action Plans. I do not think I should have to build or create one."
"It would be nice if retro pay calculations were made automatically for salaried payroll, so a calculation and manual entry do not have to be done."
"In my experience with SuccessFactors' analytics capabilities influencing decision-making, workforce analytics is still challenging due to customizations."
"One of the most essential features that needs improvement right now is the reporting functionality."
"The single problem that needs to be solved is that once you submit a form it cannot be edited."
"SuccessFactors could be improved by making it usable on mobile and making its features less rigid."
"SuccessFactors was down completely for one day. All the companies which were using the Amsterdam datacenter were down from 8:00 in the morning to 18:00 in the evening."
"The data management part can be improved in terms of how you can manage data from the HR admin's or HR team's perspective. It has some limitations in the reporting part in terms of how you can update the data and fetch the data. SAP HCM comparatively has a lot of capabilities in terms of backup loads, data management, data changes, etc. You can do these things easily, which is not the case with SAP SuccessFactors. Data management should be simplified in SAP SuccessFactors in terms of accessing the data, reporting, and then manipulating the data."
"I don't think SuccessFactors is quite fit for use as an employee database."
"It is not that user-friendly. It can be made more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Earlier, the price of the product was reasonable. Under present circumstances, the price or cost of the product has been increased."
"The XOXO program associated with Dayforce allows you to earn credits towards registration and accommodations at their annual Insight Conferences, which can be a real savings to the company when sending employees to the conference."
"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."
"We paid for the implementation costs in the first year with the money that we saved by switching to Dayforce HCM."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven on a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive."
"Negotiate for everything you want."
"Ceridian continually enhances Dayforce HCM. Some of these enhancements they charge for and some are just straight enhancements with no extra charge."
"In terms of pricing, the product is expensive. However, it is crucial to take into account the manner in which the solution will be utilized and the availability of other alternatives."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
"The solution is on the expensive side but is definitely worth the money."
"Our costs for the solution are subsidized by our parent company, I am not aware of the exact cost because of this. However, we pay $50,000 annually. If we move to another solution it will be more expensive."
"I think the pricing is a little better than most solutions out there. There are reasonable prices when it comes to some of the modules such as the Payroll module, and for the remaining modules I believe the pricing is fair in comparison to the rest of the market."
"We have a yearly license. There are no additional costs."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of modules that are being used, and the number of users."
"We don't utilize even half of the licenses because not everyone uses them. With SAP SuccessFactors, though, we're now conducting all our performance evaluations within the system, so I suppose we're making better use of those licenses. As for SAP for employee services and internal benefits processing, we do have licenses for those but don't utilize them."
"We are on an annual subscription to use SAP SuccessFactors. The pricing model is something that they could restructure a bit better. If it was based differently on the type of usage it would help."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ceridian Dayforce HCM?
Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users. The search functionality is poor as there's no way for administrators to tag keywords t...
What is your primary use case for Ceridian Dayforce HCM?
We have used Dayforce HCM for our HR functionalities and for the learning module over the last five years. We actually just migrated to a new learning management system.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Ceridian Dayforce HCM?
The Learning Module add-on to Dayforce HCM was relatively inexpensive per user compared to other LMS’s.
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...
What is better, SAP HCM or SAP SuccessFactors?
When it comes to user experience, SuccessFactors is unquestionably superior, as it provides end users with a new experience and an advanced user interface. Additionally, the entire concept of SF is...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Ceridian Dayforce HCM, Ascender Talent Management, Ceridian Ideal
SuccessFactors
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ACCO Brands
City of Cape Town, ADAMA Agricultural Solutions Ltd., TransAlta Corporation, Keolis, PT XL Axiata Tbk, National Football League (NFL), Plan International, Yoh, A Day & Zimmermann Company, China Talent Group (CTG TMO), Umicore S.A., Butterfield Bank, Skril
Find out what your peers are saying about Dayforce HCM vs. SAP SuccessFactors and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.