SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting vs Workday comparison

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 16, 2025

Workday and SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting are competitive talent acquisition solutions. SAP SuccessFactors might have an edge due to its comprehensive features, while Workday is favored for affordability and support. SAP's advanced functionalities are seen as worth the higher cost.

Features: Workday offers strong integration capabilities, data-driven analytics, and a user-friendly interface enabling efficient hiring workflows. SAP SuccessFactors provides advanced talent management features, personalized candidate experiences, and robust analytics for a holistic recruitment approach.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Workday provides a straightforward cloud-based deployment model with strong customer support for smooth implementation. SAP SuccessFactors also offers a comprehensive cloud-based deployment, though it may require more setup time due to its extensive features. Workday's customer service is responsive, while SAP SuccessFactors offers in-depth strategic guidance.

Pricing and ROI: Workday is recognized for competitive pricing and low initial setup costs, delivering quick value. SAP SuccessFactors requires a higher upfront investment but aims for significant long-term returns through its enhanced features, despite a longer payback period.

To learn more, read our detailed SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting vs. Workday Report (Updated: January 2026).

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting 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

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting

Ranking in Talent Acquisition

11th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

4.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Workday

Ranking in Talent Acquisition

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Benefits Administration (1st), Talent Management (2nd), Cloud HCM (3rd)

Featured Reviews

ManujGupta

Chief Executive Officer at Orane Consulting Pvt Ltd

AI recruiting workflows have accelerated hiring cycles and provide deeper analytics insights

There is no complexity in deploying SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting. Over a period of time, we understand the nuances and are comfortable with everything. Employee Central to SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting integration is still a weak area that needs improvement. We are now able to integrate with LLM models outside SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting. With AI, we can provide all those touchpoints as AI integrations in reports and dashboards. Vanilla reports and dashboards are not user-friendly and not beneficial. However, when we integrate with Employee Central and the outside world, integrating these data sets with AI, people are able to realize those values.

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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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting is valuable for recruitment; it is web-based, which is not amazing, but it does the work and is handling all our requirements."

"In terms of processes, we are able to provide ROI measurement showing that what used to take 30 days for an open position now takes 50% or 70% of that time with AI features and outside world social media integrations, video integrations, and other tools."

"There is a lot of scope for customization with this solution"

"The solution is extremely stable."

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

"In terms of customization, while it may not be fully customizable, you can configure the features based on the foundation that Workday offers. This allows you to take the basic features and tailor them to the specific needs of your company or business. It provides a lot of configuration flexibility."

"The user interface is good and very easy to use."

"It is fairly easy to set up"

"Since adopting Workday, we have reduced HR administrative processing time by 45%."

"It is quite user-friendly."

More Workday pros

Cons

"Employee Central to SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting integration is still a weak area that needs improvement."

"There are a lot of components that need to be configured, and it requires BTP to integrate to the ECC. SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting is quite complex. It is not straightforward to use."

"Workday does have a community site where people can go on and off for suggestions. They call them Brainstorms, and you can vote them up. That is something that they do well, but oftentimes, they seem to be racing to deliver something based on what a competitor is delivering. For example, if they hear SAP has this new functionality and learning that's going to be coming out, they prioritize there, which makes sense, but unfortunately, some of these Brainstorms may get neglected where the product might not be improved as quickly or as needed for the customers. You might be waiting for a year or two to get a feature that you'd like released. They should pay more attention to customer feedback and ensure that customer feedback is an essential part of their product roadmap."

"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."

"Workday could give us industry-specific or vertical-specific solutions."

"The solution needs to be updated with generative UI."

"My opinion is that this solution can improve the overall integrations and add more automation. I think anything that could be on a self-serve basis would work quite well."

"I would be happy if it was faster. Currently, when I try to navigate within the solution itself, it is a bit slow in terms of the page load time. When I click on something, it usually takes time to load. When you click on different icons or areas on the website, it is slow. Even when you navigate between different models, it is a bit slow. I would like to see a bit faster performance and a better user experience."

"For time management, it does not have a calendar generator. For example, if you want to have a shift calendar for an entire year, you need to push the entire year's calendar into the system instead of being able to generate it using a time management pattern."

"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. I'd like to log in on a cellphone and have the same features. I'm not sure if that is already available or if it's on the roadmap, but that would be a great feature."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"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."

"The solution is flexible in terms of pricing."

"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."

"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."

"It's very, very expensive."

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

More Workday pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

University

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting?

There is a setup cost.

What needs improvement with SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting?

There are other solutions we have, but they are not comparable and not really integrated with SAP. There are a lot of components that need to be configured, and it requires BTP to integrate to the ...

What is your primary use case for SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting?

We use a few SAP SuccessFactors Cloud solutions, including SuccessFactors and Analytic Cloud. We use a lot of SAP Cloud solutions. We primarily use SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting for HR and recruitm...

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...

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Comparisons

Compared 100% of the time

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Compared 25% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Talent Acquisition

Download SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting product report

Download Workday product report

Overview

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting empowers organizations to secure top talent using data-driven strategies, automation, and engaging candidate experiences. It is designed to streamline recruitment processes, aligning with global growth and transformational goals.

With its robust platform, SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting facilitates an end-to-end recruitment journey. Organizations benefit from its ability to attract both active and passive candidates, leveraging a cloud-based approach to manage everything from high-volume hiring to executive searches. Intelligent technologies and an embedded applicant tracking system enhance efficiency and precision in the recruitment lifecycle.

What are the key features of SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting?

Cloud-Based Tools: Manage recruitment processes efficiently from any location.
Applicant Tracking System: Integrated ATS for streamlined candidate management.
Engagement Strategies: Tools to proactively engage passive candidates.
Scalable Hiring Solutions: Supports all hiring needs from high-volume to executive.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Improved Talent Acquisition: Attracts top talent, aligning with growth objectives.
Enhanced Efficiency: Automation and intelligent systems reduce time-to-hire.
Scalability: Adapts to varied recruitment demands, optimizing resources.

In industries like technology, manufacturing, and healthcare, SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting aids in attracting specialists and executives essential for innovation and development. By leveraging its features, organizations can effectively fill critical roles, driving competitive advantage and industry leadership.

SAP

Workday is a cloud-based software solution that specializes in developing applications for capital and finance management applications. The system is built to work in global workforces and is adaptable. The global system ensures that users are up to date and can manage internal career-related information, and everyday business problems like timesheets, payrolls, and time off.

“A Pioneer in Software-as-a-Service”

Workday Human Capital Management tool is designed to simplify and streamline your work. It leverages machine learning to adapt capital management to a changing environment.

The Workday model is based on delivering a single system that uses a single source of data and a single security model to deliver a unique user experience. The system is user-friendly and ensures that employees and management can use it from any and all devices. Workday HCM integrates into a central system that includes financial management, payroll, recruiting, learning, and planning. Managers and employees can provide feedback to one another, too.

Workday’s features include:

Flexible framework that lets you organize your staff according to different criteria. You can group employees by function, hierarchy, or department.
Personalized career guidance: Knowledge management and career guidance that can be easily customized for each staff member and also done at scale.
Augmented reporting and analytics: Configure, change, update, and publish reports, scorecards, and dashboards. The system centralizes the transactional and analytical data so you can act on the data from anywhere.
Compensation tools: Compensatio, payroll, and time tracking are automated and simplified.
Workforce planning allows you to uncover and address talent gaps and get visibility of your staff.
Mobile-first ensign approach: Users can access all resources from any device, and they are always in sync.
Machine learning capabilities enable personalized enterprise experiences and faster business processes.

Workday smart platform consists of the following modules:

Human resource management
Business process management
Reporting and analytics
Benefits administration
Compensation management
Talent management
Survey framework
Employee and management self-service

Reviews from Real Users

Many organizations choose Workday because it provides an all-in-one modular solution for human capital and finance management. Our users say they like the ease of use for time-off requests, career and development segments, and overall HR management. The records and reporting capabilities are another popular feature.

"The solution was very good at reconfiguration and customization of their software. It helped us to meet federal regulations," said one user. Another said that the best feature is the optimization of the work day experience with a unified platform that can be applied across different business units. “You will never find a use case that cannot be covered," said a third.

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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!

SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting vs. Workday