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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
20th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Talent Intelligence (5th)
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 (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 10.4%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors10.4%
Dayforce HCM2.6%
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

"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."
"The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined."
"The product has a pretty clean look."
"Great time and attendance payroll and benefits administration which has improved our efficiency."
"It provides real-time information with great reports."
"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."
"Statutory holiday pay is calculated automatically."
"The implementation was through a team assigned to us by Ceridian. They were extremely knowledgeable and it made the implementation go very smoothly."
"This solution offers good flexibility and configurability. It can handle different types of performance management."
"They have succeeded in sustaining a powerful system supporting their philosophy."
"Provides an open architecture and an open platform so it can coexist with other systems."
"SAP SuccessFactors is a stable solution."
"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."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten...It is a stable solution."
"The feature I like the most is the notification bar where we can see upcoming courses that the organization requires from time to time. It's easy to track any pending courses. I also like the search feature in SuccessFactors. We can search for newly available courses that are updated in the system for completion."
"I think it's perfect that every requirement has flexibility in how it is handled, and that there are several workarounds for any problem we are looking to solve. Each problem has multiple solutions, so it gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of processes."
 

Cons

"The solution's dashboards and geofencing could be improved."
"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."
"The solution has a lot of glitches."
"The solution's initial setup was difficult. Also, the solution's initial deployment took around six months."
"I would like the solution to improve its customer service communication."
"One area to be improved is the solution's reporting function, which can be cumbersome."
"Management and reporting of the GL costing could be improved."
"The reporting could be improved."
"One area of improvement is the time taken to configure changes, such as taxation rules, which can take several months."
"The reporting and cloud integration could be done better in this solution."
"The reporting tool is not as good as IBM Cognos which is very, very powerful."
"The Reporting/Analytics and User Interface need improvement."
"There is an area of improvement in integrating SuccessFactors with different platforms."
"The analytics capabilities are not very in-depth. While you can get reports, there are limitations when retrieving specific data such as questions from SCORM 1.2 or 2004; the system can only retrieve answers but not questions."
"The process for long modules needs to be improved, because compared to how it's done with a competitor (Meta4), the competitor's process was simpler."
"The integration between the recruitment module and employee central is a big problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Negotiate for everything you want."
"I don't want to comment on the license cost, to be honest. It could be about $1,000 approximately per customer. However, it's very flexible in terms of the licensing costs depending on the volume and depending on the deal of installation."
"This is a more costly solution than comparable products, and training is not available in the open-market, so this has to be purchased separately from the vendor."
"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."
"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."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors 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."
"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."
"The product is expensive. The product is worth the money you pay for it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Non Profit
7%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
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 ...
 

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: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.