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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
14th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
9th
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 January 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.5%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 11.3%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP SuccessFactors11.3%
Dayforce HCM2.5%
Other86.2%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

Thomas Noorkah - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Enterprise Financial Systems at City of Columbus
Greatly improved our efficiency with its integrated time and attendance module
Dayforce has given us near to real-time access to time sheets and clockings since it has an integrated time and attendance module. Within six minutes of someone clocking in, we can see them on the timesheets. Dayforce has enabled us to smooth out our payroll system so not everything is happening at the end of the payroll cycle. We can see the impacts during the week and make it a lot more manageable. It's also been helpful for benefits administration with employees being able to file life and work events online. They can access their pay stubs, request leave, change their address, update their direct deposit details, and other things. We've become much more efficient, and much less paper driven.
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 integrated time clock has provided efficiencies in payroll, as we no longer have to decipher handwritten time sheets and input them into the system."
"Statutory holiday pay is calculated automatically."
"The product has a pretty clean look."
"The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined."
"Employees like being able to see what entitlements/balances that they have for their time away."
"It has created efficiencies in HR and Payroll by eliminating double entry into two systems, implementing a time clock feature for hourly employees, and by having a downloadable general ledger (G/L) constructing journal entering for payroll."
"Our employee benefits enrollment is managed through Ceridian Dayforce, which makes for a limited manual process."
"I have not encountered many bugs, and in the rare instances where problems occurred, Ceridian Dayforce HCM promptly fixed them. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"The functionality and user friendliness are constantly improving."
"The cloud security and the correct features for payroll calculations, once issues are resolved, are valuable aspects of this product."
"What I appreciate most about SAP SuccessFactors is that it has all the modules in one platform. SAP SuccessFactors is the best option in the market for HR use cases. I also find the solution user-friendly."
"In terms of user experience, it is quite good."
"This solution provides up with an easy way to on/off-board staff, as well as actioning internal transfers."
"This solution has automatic linking and reporting features. Upgrades are hassle-free because you don't need to change everything from scratch, when compared to Meta4."
"The main advantage of SuccessFactors is its ability to add many types of integrations within the SAP Cloud platform. Many useful modules can be implemented alongside SuccessFactors as third-party integrations, and this capability to extend the system is a big plus."
"What I like the most is the KPI management formula."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Management and reporting of the GL costing could be improved."
"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."
"The reporting could be improved."
"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."
"The solution has a lot of glitches."
"An area for improvement could be a little more testing before implementing hotfixes to make sure they do not interfere with any active customized products."
"We have many interruptions and disconnection points into processes, which is why we are looking to another solution. We are not so happy with the system. We believe we have in the market better solution, so we are looking for alternatives but so far the system has been used a lot."
"There are some limiting aspects to this product."
"SAP SuccessFactors could improve the integration. It is not simple to integrate and it needs to be made easier."
"Everything, including the provisioning dependency, should be moved to the instance, and coding should be kept to a minimum. Wherever possible, coding should be minimized, and everything should be a drag-and-drop."
"The product doesn't have a modernized look and is not very user-friendly like other products."
"The price could be lower."
"SuccessFactors should consider building their best practices around critical industries to help companies become more differentiated in the markets they operate in."
"The price of the solution could improve, it is too high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Negotiate for everything you want."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven on a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive."
"We paid for the implementation costs in the first year with the money that we saved by switching to Dayforce HCM."
"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."
"Ceridian continually enhances Dayforce HCM. Some of these enhancements they charge for and some are just straight enhancements with no extra charge."
"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."
"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."
"SAP SuccessFactors requires an annual subscription."
"The pricing for SuccessFactors is ridiculously high, and there are costs in addition to the license fee for some features."
"Probably, it is one of the priciest products, and is very costly to put up and maintain but because it is a good solution end to end, people take it."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable."
"So now, SAP charges me 300 Euros for 14,000 employees. I still have to pay 2,000 euros because I'm using SAP on-prem."
"Due to the way in which we purchased SuccessFactors as a module along with other SAP modules, we were able to procure it at a slightly better price than usual. I would rate their pricing 5/5 stars."
"I have raised change requests for some modules within SuccessFactors. For example, when you're using Recruiting Management, there's a feature called Interview Central you can use to reach the candidates you're interviewing. I wanted to add a writing assessment when I select the competency on that platform. It varies from consultant to consultant, depending on what module they use."
"For SAP, the product is pricey, both CAPEX and the OPEX. It's something that could be improved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Non Profit
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Ceridian Dayforce HCM?
The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined.
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 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...
What do you like most about SAP SuccessFactors?
The tool is easy to use for performance management. We haven't experienced any issues with SAP SuccessFactors for performance management, which is great. However, since we're still learning to use ...
 

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: January 2026.
880,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.