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Paylocity vs SAP SuccessFactors comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Paylocity
Ranking in Talent Management
38th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
31st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (30th)
SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Management
1st
Ranking in Cloud HCM
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (2nd), Global Payroll (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Paylocity is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 8.9%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors8.9%
Paylocity0.9%
Other90.2%
Cloud HCM
 

Featured Reviews

RP
HR Specialist with 201-500 employees
Has a comprehensive and intuitive knowledge base, and time saving payroll administration features
Paylocity is not great at communicating customer support related issues such as account manager changes. They claim to provide concierge level of support, but it has not been great. Some of the Paylocity systems are limited. For example, I can't create custom offer letters. I can create generic offer letters with a logo, but I can't edit them or create sections. It does not read like a MS Word document and needs to be more robust. At present, I can't send attachments, add hyperlinks to videos, or embed questions in videos. Also, the number of notifications regarding benefits needs to be increased so that new employees get reminders more than once.
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

"My favorite feature is payroll administration, which has been awesome. You can import as many batches as you want to and run them synchronously or asynchronously. Since I work in a finance company with commissions, bonuses, and distribution, it's great to be able to do that. I can upload multiple things. Also, I can upload different sets of commission lists into the same payroll batch and upload the time card imports and overtime imports if I want to and separate them. I can create multiple batches around an individual or one one set of audit backing, and then I can approve them or leave them open. The way that Paylocity has set up their payroll system is really good and saves us a lot of time. It's very specific and helpful."
"SAP SuccessFactors is 100 percent reliable and one of the biggest in the market."
"The performance goals and learning management solutions are the product's most valuable features."
"I love SAP, and I like SuccessFactors...I think most users prefer SuccessFactors as they become more comfortable with it."
"All Learning Management Systems have their strengths and weaknesses, SAP SuccessFactors is a strong option, but organizations should choose based on their specific needs."
"The SuccessFactors learning applications within the SuccessFactors learning modules, as well as the performance management system, are highly beneficial for each and every employee in our organization. These tools eliminate the need for using Excel to manage data, allowing for direct input into the system. This streamlines the process, making it easier to view and analyze information. We can readily access our performance history, comparing our actions and achievements from the previous year. At present, we are consistently monitoring our day-to-day performance."
"The role-based permissions functionality is beyond great (in my opinion) and is honestly more robust and flexible than any other security setup/process that we have with other business software that we use (and have the ability to maintain security roles with)."
"The interface is really useful and it's very easy to combine different information, for example, we can easily get reports that we need and it's very easy to create reports."
"The interface is user-friendly. It is very simple and intuitive, so it's good."
 

Cons

"Some of the Paylocity systems are limited. For example, I can't create custom offer letters. I can create generic offer letters with a logo, but I can't edit them or create sections. It does not read like a MS Word document and needs to be more robust."
"The tool is not very nimble or customizable."
"Technical support has been an issue since day one."
"We lack information regarding how to build a network."
"We would like to see improvement in the initial launch of the product, as it is currently quite slow."
"We encountered stability issues in integration of SuccessFactors with SAP ECC HCM via Dell Boomi middleware; still more standard integrations are expected from customers."
"The back end for the administration and the front end is too overtly complex and it's not aligned with our operations and learning needs."
"Integration between Employee Central and Compensation in SAP SuccessFactors is one area of the solution that has room for improvement."
"SAP SuccessFactors functionality doesn't meet the expectation of our end users. There are other solutions that have better functionality, such as Workday, which is one of the top applications. Additionally, the solution could be easier to use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of the solution depends on too many factors to provide an estimate. However, the price of SAP SuccessFactors is competitive."
"For SAP, the product is pricey, both CAPEX and the OPEX. It's something that could be improved."
"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."
"We are on an annual subscription to use SAP SuccessFactors. The pricing model is something that they could restructure a bit better. If it was based differently on the type of usage it would help."
"The solution is on the expensive side but is definitely worth the money."
"It could be cheaper."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is highly expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Outsourcing Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
SuccessFactors
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

POLYWOOD, University Clinical Healthcare, New England Authentic Eats, Revere Plastics, Stonewall Kitchen, Circuit Transit, Powerhouse Retail, Mountainside Fitness, Crafton Tull, Noble House Hotels & Resorts, Gurley Leep Automotive, Taco Johns
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 Workday, SAP, Deel and others in Cloud HCM. Updated: October 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.