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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
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

"Employees like being able to see what entitlements/balances that they have for their time away."
"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."
"The implementation was through a team assigned to us by Ceridian. They were extremely knowledgeable and it made the implementation go very smoothly."
"Ceridian Dayforce HCM is a stable product."
"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."
"It provides real-time information with great reports."
"We used the solution to do a lot of performance management during the review cycle and it helped us alleviate the administrative burden."
"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."
"There were no major technical issues or downtimes reported with SAP SuccessFactors."
"The interface is really useful and it's very easy to combine different information. For example, we can easily get reports that we need. It's very easy to create reports."
"It is a very stable solution."
"It covers all the everyday functions of the employee life cycle."
"The tool has a unique talent management platform."
"This solution has always been stable for me."
"The most important feature is the ability to follow up on the yearly performance of the team. It's very good for management to understand how people are performing."
"The most valuable features of the solution are GUI and OData API."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."
"The solution's initial setup was difficult. Also, the solution's initial deployment took around six months."
"I would like to see more built-in forms. This would save a lot of time during the year-end process."
"I would like the solution to improve its customer service communication."
"There should be more connectivity with other systems."
"The solution needs more localization, especially for the Middle East and Russia."
"One area for improvement is making SuccessFactors more compatible with other countries, especially in terms of payroll and other functionalities."
"I don't think SuccessFactors is quite fit for use as an employee database."
"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."
"They should work on a faster way of locating a proper documentation."
"The GUI needs to be enhanced to be in line with the latest and complete version of the solution."
"There are a few features that are missing. There are specific features on the HTM, such as telecom safety, that just isn't there. It's not a very detailed solution in that sense. However, it is maybe not expected to have those kinds of features on the surface level of the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Earlier, the price of the product was reasonable. Under present circumstances, the price or cost of the product has been increased."
"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."
"Negotiate for everything you want."
"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."
"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."
"SAP SuccessFactors requires an annual subscription."
"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."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
"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."
"If you go by best practices and do it right from the outset, the setup won't be a costly endeavor. In terms of setup, there is a lot of flexibility compared to three years ago."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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 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...
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.
882,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.