Dayforce HCM vs Workday comparison

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Dayforce HCM

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Workday and Dayforce compete in the human capital management (HCM) software category, with Workday having an edge due to its strong integration tools and comprehensive data management.

Features: Workday offers a consolidated system, making navigation seamless and integrating various processes efficiently. Key features include automation, a robust business process framework, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. On the other hand, Dayforce HCM excels in timekeeping and payroll efficiencies, providing real-time earnings review and robust employee engagement modules.

Room for Improvement: Workday faces challenges with global payroll integrations and a complex configuration process. Users also note limitations in customization and reliance on external support for report creation. Dayforce could improve by enhancing user-friendliness and simplifying reporting. Its dashboards need refinement, and geofencing capabilities require improvement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Workday facilitates deployments across various cloud environments such as public, private, and hybrid, though it might require technical support for custom configurations. A strong community support network allows for troubleshooting. Dayforce operates mainly in public and on-premises environments, with a highly responsive support team recognized for quick response times.

Pricing and ROI: Workday is considered a high-cost solution but offers justification through its rich modules and integration capabilities, providing ROI via streamlined processes. Pricing is based on headcount and licensed modules, often positioning it as a premium option. Dayforce provides a more affordable alternative with lower implementation and ownership costs. Subscription fees and additional charges might be excessive for smaller companies, although the solution balances these costs with functional benefits.

To learn more, read our detailed Dayforce HCM vs. Workday Report (Updated: April 2026).

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Dayforce HCM vs. Workday

April 2026

Helped 886,174 peers since 2012

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

17th

Ranking in Cloud HCM

10th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Talent Intelligence (4th)

Workday

Ranking in Talent Management

2nd

Ranking in Cloud HCM

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Benefits Administration (1st), Talent Acquisition (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Dayforce HCM is 2.6%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 9.3%, down from 18.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Workday	9.3%
Dayforce HCM	2.6%
Other	88.1%

Cloud HCM

Featured Reviews

TracyBritan

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.

Read full review

Eslam Abo Elnaga

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Configuring your HR policies and rules is straightforward."

"We have been able to automate many of our manual processes."

"The implementation was through a team assigned to us by Ceridian. They were extremely knowledgeable and it made the implementation go very smoothly."

"The tool has improved a lot in the area of its mobile application, especially considering its added security features, like single sign-on capabilities."

"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."

"Statutory holiday pay is calculated automatically."

"The product has a pretty clean look."

More Dayforce HCM pros

"Workday's best features are planning and finance."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the usability, learning, and compliance tools."

"The most helpful Workday features for our HR processes were in HCM, particularly in areas like talent, compensation, benefits, and learning."

"It's really stable, we use it globally and have 100,000 employees, and I know that there are no big issues with the stability of the tool."

"It is quite user-friendly, and we can store all the employee data information on it."

"First time users, understanding accessibility and consolidated data is fairly easy. The solution improves productivity for users and reduces the need to switch between different tools."

"It is fairly easy to set up"

"Workday is a holistic HR solution."

More Workday pros

Cons

"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."

"Dayforce has its gaps like every HR system, but nothing comes to mind at the moment."

"Management and reporting of the GL costing could be improved."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Dayforce HCM cons

"The dashboard is fine, but the dashboarding and other aspects could be improved."

"It does not integrate with some of the career management softwares, like LinkedIn."

"One area that could be improved with Workday is the analytics side."

"Reporting systems should be improved. If you want to report it on paper, if you want something more BI oriented, more high level predictive or more data-driven, it should be improved."

"It has missing functionalities. Specific countries, like Germany, didn't have the option to do payroll."

"The security console should be made less complex."

"There were a lot of issues. There were consistency or accuracy issues with the data we had, and every time we had to pull reports in Workday, it was difficult."

"In addition to the lost data, the solution is slow to pull up information and I am not sure if this is due to the botched implementation or if it is the solution itself."

More Workday cons

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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 would rate the solution’s pricing a six out of ten."

"I rate the product’s pricing a ten out of ten."

"It has an annual subscription rate, but I'm not sure how it will work."

"The pricing for this solution is fairly high. It is not affordable for small and mid-sized companies."

"Workday is moderately priced - I'd rate its pricing three out of five."

"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."

"With a bigger budget, I would recommend SAP."

"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."

More Workday pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud HCM solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	42

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ceridian Dayforce HCM?

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...

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 of 2025 putting out fires and cleaning up the business processes that came with l...

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.

SAP SuccessFactors vs Dayforce HCM

Comparisons

UKG vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 14% of the time

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle HCM Cloud vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 7% of the time

ADP Workforce Now vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 5% of the time

PeopleSoft vs Dayforce HCM

Compared 4% of the time

More Dayforce HCM Competitors

SAP SuccessFactors vs Workday

Compared 21% of the time

UKG vs Workday

Compared 8% of the time

Oracle HCM Cloud vs Workday

Compared 8% of the time

SAP HCM vs Workday

Compared 7% of the time

BambooHR vs Workday

Compared 3% of the time

More Workday Competitors

Product Reports

Download Dayforce HCM product report

Dayforce HCM

April 2026

Download Workday product report

March 2026

Also Known As

Ceridian Dayforce HCM, Ascender Talent Management, Ceridian Ideal

No data available

Overview

Dayforce HCM is a global, cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software platform for managing the complete employee lifecycle. This solution was designed to improve the employee experience by bringing together data from across the employment cycle to help managers make better decisions at all levels.

Dayforce HCM is an HR, payroll, benefits, workforce management, and talent management platform. The scalable software uses a single, flexible rules engine, as well as real-time updates and calculations, to help you meet complicated regulatory requirements.

Dayforce reduces the burden of disconnected applications by delivering a single application for all of your human capital management needs. All transactions made anywhere within the application flow seamlessly across all functional areas in real time, eliminating the need for repeated data entry, manual workarounds, and batch operations. This is thanks to a single employee record and a single rule engine. Organizations can achieve shorter training time, faster user adoption, and a faster return on investment.

With Dayforce HCM, users can view all HR data in real time in one place.

Here are some key tasks companies can do with the solution:

Hire the right people
Design work/life balance plans
Manage employee development
Handle payments
Administer benefits
Track compliance throughout the employee lifecycle

Dayforce HCM Features

Dayforce HCM has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Continuous payroll for staff: Dayforce HCM aids in paying staff accurately and on schedule. Give your payroll staff the ability to access and audit data at any time during the pay cycle.

Personnel management: Empower and engage your frontline employees while keeping labor expenses and compliance under control. Make proactive, data-driven decisions that can help you run your business more efficiently.

Optimized staff benefits: Assist employees in selecting the best benefit plans while streamlining administrative tasks. With the help of analytics, you can maximize the value of your benefits investments and gain a better understanding of your costs.

Streamlined human resources: With a single consolidated, real-time solution, you can eliminate HR information silos. Improve HR productivity by streamlining administrative tasks and gaining access to key HR analytics.

Dayforce HCM Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Dayforce HCM. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Dayforce HCM aids in planning, hiring, retaining, and building your team, whether they be full-time employees or hourly workers. Insights based on data can help you see around corners and predict the future.

Dayforce HCM helps you keep track of compliance everywhere in order to reduce risk. Simplify compliance in a global workplace. Keep up with complicated payroll and tax requirements from different regions and countries, as well as internal policies and processes. Dayforce can help you reduce the risk – and the cost – of noncompliance.

Dayforce HCM empowers your workforce by improving your employee experience with always-on technologies like Dayforce Wallet. Transform pay, enable self-service, and assist your employees in developing future skills, no matter where they are or what device they are using.

Dayforce

The Workday Platform is an AI-powered platform that unifies HR, financial, and operational data, enabling seamless planning, execution, and analysis. It improves decision-making, streamlines cross-team processes, and leverages Workday Illuminate™ for advanced AI insights from vast HR and finance datasets. Workday empowers organizations of all sizes to innovate and optimize performance.

Sample Customers

ACCO Brands

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!