Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
8th
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 February 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 10.5%, down from 22.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SAP SuccessFactors10.5%
Dayforce HCM2.5%
Other87.0%
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

"Our employee benefits enrollment is managed through Ceridian Dayforce, which makes for a limited manual process."
"Great time and attendance payroll and benefits administration which has improved our efficiency."
"The product has a pretty clean look."
"Configuring your HR policies and rules is straightforward."
"The fact that the time and attendance system is built into the HRIS is very valuable because, in the past, we had to use two different systems."
"The implementation was through a team assigned to us by Ceridian. They were extremely knowledgeable and it made the implementation go very smoothly."
"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 is a very stable solution."
"The most valuable feature of SAP SuccessFactors is analytics."
"Considering the flexibility of the system and its ability to accommodate complex business processes, the product is ready to be used in multiple industries."
"It has improved my organization by enabling us to efficiently manage our personnel."
"The most valuable features of SAP SuccessFactors are onboarding, recruiting, marketing, and performance."
"It's a uniform user interface."
"We have found objects like Foundation and MDF most valuable."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The solution has a lot of glitches."
"Many things are presented as though they will be included with the system but then require costly upgrades."
"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."
"The solution's initial setup was difficult. Also, the solution's initial deployment took around six months."
"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."
"One area to be improved is the solution's reporting function, which can be cumbersome."
"Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users."
"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."
"Also, it would be helpful if they could improve its ability to localize the product to Nigeria."
"SAP SuccessFactors is working on making beneficial changes but they are not fast enough. They can improve by making the improvements or updates quicker. Additionally, the user interface could improve, it is not something you want to return to when compared to a solution similar to Instagram."
"Some of the screens aren't that user-friendly, older employees especially have a hard time with it. They have some problems with it."
"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."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Language settings in the solution need to be improved."
"The SAP SuccessFactors updates need to be more industry-specific because every industry has specific modules. What I want to be added to SAP SuccessFactors is a chat box where SAP staff can give support to users."
"Overall, the documentation could be improved, and I think the learning management module needs to include more capabilities when it comes to matching an organization's particular learning approach."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I rate the solution's pricing a seven on a scale where one is the lowest and ten is the most expensive."
"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."
"Earlier, the price of the product was reasonable. Under present circumstances, the price or cost of the product has been increased."
"We paid for the implementation costs in the first year with the money that we saved by switching to Dayforce HCM."
"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 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."
"It could be cheaper."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
"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."
"The pricing for SuccessFactors is ridiculously high, and there are costs in addition to the license fee for some features."
"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."
"We have a yearly license. There are no additional costs."
"The price of the solution depends on too many factors to provide an estimate. However, the price of SAP SuccessFactors is competitive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud HCM solutions are best for your needs.
882,103 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

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

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: January 2026.
882,103 professionals have used our research since 2012.