No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Dayforce HCM vs SAP SuccessFactors vs Workday comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 9.0%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 9.2%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Workday9.2%
SAP SuccessFactors9.0%
Dayforce HCM2.6%
Other79.2%
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.
Eslam Abo Elnaga - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior people and systems analyst at B_labs & Mylo
Has improved HR process efficiency through intuitive workflows and responsive support
There is something that could be improved in Workday, specifically in the time tracking module. While I am not working on Workday now, I was a regional HRIS working for Egypt, Malta, India, and China. I mention these countries to relate to high population countries and companies. In our company, we use assigned work schedules for our teams. Because we work with the time tracking module, we need to assign shifts. In the manufacturing industry, we might need to change shifts every day or week. Manufacturing teams are huge, approximately 50 to 200 people in one team. If this team has one leader, the leader needs to assign a work schedule for each person individually. While there is mass upload functionality where we can load shifts for all people or specific groups, we need to select multiple people and assign them to a schedule from the interface itself. I have requested this functionality many times. When extracting business processes awaiting actions report, I can select different processes in one box, hit okay, and the report comes up. However, the same functionality does not work for work schedule assigning. If implemented, it would help many people in companies with high populations and big teams.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Reporting I can pull anything out of Dayforce."
"It provides real-time information with great reports."
"Configuring your HR policies and rules is straightforward."
"The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined."
"We used the solution to do a lot of performance management during the review cycle and it helped us alleviate the administrative burden."
"We needed a comprehensive HR software solution, and we found it with Ceridian Dayforce."
"Ceridian Dayforce HCM is a stable product."
"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 most valuable feature is the onboarding module, which enables candidates to fill in their details online and smoothly transitions data from the recruitment module into the SAP database."
"The self-service part is most valuable. Employees and managers can do a lot of things on their own, and they are not dependent on the HR organization."
"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."
"SAP SuccessFactors is a stable solution."
"The overall functionality of the solution is very good."
"As for the product itself, I like its flexibility and configurability."
"Easy to use and user-friendly."
"In terms of user experience, it is quite good."
"Overall, this solution provides a good user experience and is very easy to use."
"It's actually a cloud-native solution and based on the community for development, with a very good open architecture that is able to interconnect with other systems, and it is very stable and very fast in terms of response."
"I would highly recommend it to anyone."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the usability, learning, and compliance tools."
"It's intuitive, a very usable tool and it's easy to find the data you're looking for."
"I found the analysis features to be very useful for our company. I also found the modules installed to be aligned with our company's KPIs. These were the two features that stood out."
"This is a reliable solution."
"We use this solution to manage financials, payroll and recruiting."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."
"I would like the solution to improve its customer service communication."
"Management and reporting of the GL costing 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."
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"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."
"Some of the screens aren't that user-friendly, older employees especially have a hard time with it."
"The product doesn't have a modernized look and is not very user-friendly like other products."
"Forms cannot be edited once submitted."
"The solution needs more localization, especially for the Middle East and Russia."
"The user experience could be simplified."
"There's room for improvement in SAP SuccessFactors, particularly in terms of innovation. I'd like more flexibility in its functionality and more customization."
"It is good that much of the development is based on community input but often that can lead to details being ignored and small, nagging issues are ignored."
"It's possible that the way things are integrated could be improved"
"It's possible that the way things are integrated could be improved but if you've used SAP then Workday is actually pretty good."
"In a future release we could like to have access to asset, supply and treasury management functionalities."
"The solution has to work a lot on financial integrations, material management and CRM modules."
"It does not integrate with some of the career management softwares, like LinkedIn."
"Workday could improve by adding other features, such as messaging to candidates and other recruiting capabilities that other new-age solutions have."
"They don't offer any backend database access. This is one limitation that I found in this product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Negotiate for everything you want."
"We found the setup costs and pricing to be very reasonable."
"Ceridian continually enhances Dayforce HCM. Some of these enhancements they charge for and some are just straight enhancements with no extra charge."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"SAP SuccessFactors requires an annual subscription."
"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."
"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."
"It's very, very expensive."
"Its price is pretty high. It is more expensive than what is offered by other competitors in the market."
"Workday is an expensive solution."
"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."
"By and large, Workday is expensive. It is based on the headcount. I'd probably rate it a three or four out of five in terms of pricing. It'd be like buying a Mercedes or a high-end car. It's expensive, but there's a specific value that you're getting with additional features and things of that nature. Using that metaphor, Workday probably tends to be more of a luxury. There are others like ADP that can do your payroll, your time off, and other things, but they don't do it as well."
"It has an annual subscription rate, but I'm not sure how it will work."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten."
"With a bigger budget, I would recommend SAP."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud HCM solutions are best for your needs.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
Healthcare 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
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise43
 

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 sea...
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 actuall...
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 customizatio...
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 expe...
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 o...
What do you like most about Workday?
I like its UI and UX. When we were using Oracle or SAP, the UI/UX wasn't very user-friendly for the employees.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Workday?
If you go with the launch implementation approach, the solution is generally not very expensive. If you want to add m...
What needs improvement with Workday?
Workday can be improved in terms of reporting and customization. Sometimes it is difficult to create custom reports a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Ceridian Dayforce HCM, Ascender Talent Management, Ceridian Ideal
SuccessFactors
No data available
 

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
AAA, Allied Global, Avago Technologies Limited, Aviva, Cardinal Health, CareFusion, Chiquita Brands International, Equifax, Flextronics, HP, Life Time Fitness, McKee Foods, MGM Resorts International, Sanofi, ServiceSource International, Symantec, TripAdvisor, Yahoo!
Find out what your peers are saying about Workday, SAP, Oracle and others in Cloud HCM. Updated: April 2026.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.