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: March 2026).

Dayforce HCM vs. Workday

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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

Ranking in other categories

Talent Intelligence (5th)

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 (2nd)

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 Workday is 10.5%, down from 18.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Workday	10.5%
Dayforce HCM	2.6%
Other	86.9%

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.

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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

"The solution's payroll portion is very streamlined."

"Our employee benefits enrollment is managed through Ceridian Dayforce, which makes for a limited manual process."

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

"Configuring your HR policies and rules is straightforward."

"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."

"Dayforce has transformed how we operate by saving us time, paper, accuracy, money, and the employee/supervisor experience."

"Employees like being able to see what entitlements/balances that they have for their time away."

"Ceridian Dayforce HCM is a stable product."

More Dayforce HCM pros

"We use this solution to manage financials, payroll and recruiting."

"It's actually a cloud-native solution and based on the community for development. It is a very good open architecture and able to interconnect with other systems. And it is very stable and very fast in terms of response."

"In the process of obtaining representative sites in NaviNet, it assists us in facilitating decision-making and taking action."

"It's easy to set up."

"The business process framework is excellent."

"It is fairly easy to set up"

"The reporting capability is perfectly adequate in 90% of cases, given the requisite training."

"We have fewer systems, less manual data entry, and less processing."

More Workday pros

Cons

"Many things are presented as though they will be included with the system but then require costly upgrades."

"Customizing the home screen was difficult; I could not remove certain tabs that were irrelevant to our users."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"I would like to see more built-in forms. This would save a lot of time during the year-end process."

More Dayforce HCM cons

"The solution has to work a lot on financial integrations, material management and CRM modules."

"The solution has some features missing when you put them in the test studio or Confluence Studio. I would like the tool’s coding to be easier to understand and automated. Most of the coding these days is automated. Any query given can pull the answer directly which can make the solution easier to understand."

"The finance module of this solution is not great and needs improvement."

"I'm not sure they have added this feature yet, but there should be a cellphone version, so we do not need to do it on a laptop."

"It has missing functionalities. Specific countries, like Germany, didn't have the option to do payroll. Now we need to look for another product for HR."

"Errors are not very clear in some cases. I've been experiencing some issues within the application that the error messages or what I needed to do were not very easily clear to me."

"The expenses and reimbursements module could be improved. Creating expense reports is time-consuming and inefficient compared to other expense solutions."

"The price could be lower."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"The pricing is good from an HR perspective, although management gets upset after spending $500,000 a year, every year."

"It is on a yearly basis."

"You have the license fee per module, and then you have a kind of annual training fee, which is a kind of add-on. I wouldn't say it is exhaustive; it is minor. Licensing is pretty transparent for most of the part."

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

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

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

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

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%

Financial Services Firm

Non Profit

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...

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 more features to your subscription, Workday becomes expensive. The solution is fl...

SAP SuccessFactors vs Dayforce HCM

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 22% 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

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Product Reports

Dayforce HCM

Download Dayforce HCM product report

Download Workday product report

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!

Dayforce HCM vs. Workday