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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."
"The main advantage of SuccessFactors is its ability to add many types of integrations within the SAP Cloud platform, where many useful modules can be implemented alongside SuccessFactors as third-party integrations, and this capability to extend the system is a big plus."
"Considering the flexibility of the system and its ability to accommodate complex business processes, the product is ready to be used in multiple industries."
"The solution is very much stable."
"We have implemented this for our customers and the areas where they have realized the values are employee engagement and satisfaction, better ROI, better visibility and predictability, faster and accurate decision making and lower overall total cost of operation."
"SuccessFactors' best features are talent management and HR Analytics."
"We can design a quick and dirty solution or very complex services, we can manage small enterprise projects (in our experience 150 users) as the big organization (in our experience 40000 users), all with the same solution, and this is a big saving of time, costs, and team usage optimization."
"The best feature is that the solution has an open architecture and provides an open platform so it can coexist with other systems."
"We have approximately 40,000 to 60,000 users using this solution, it was installed by our corporation; one can conclude it is a scalable solution, they have done a good job."
 

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."
"I don't think SuccessFactors is quite fit for use as an employee database."
"There is room for improvement in licensing model."
"It is not that user-friendly. It can be made more user-friendly."
"There should be more connectivity with other systems."
"I don't feel we get any ROI from SuccessFactors."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"The single problem that needs to be solved is that once you submit a form it cannot be edited."
"In my experience with SuccessFactors' analytics capabilities influencing decision-making, workforce analytics is still challenging due to customizations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"I have raised change requests for some modules within SuccessFactors. For example, when you're using Recruiting Management, there's a feature called Interview Central you can use to reach the candidates you're interviewing. I wanted to add a writing assessment when I select the competency on that platform. It varies from consultant to consultant, depending on what module they use."
"The cost of SAP SuccessFactors is reasonable."
"It is not expensive because it is a complete suite with a module-based cost."
"For SAP, the product is pricey, both CAPEX and the OPEX. It's something that could be improved."
"The price of the solution is highly expensive."
"So now, SAP charges me 300 Euros for 14,000 employees. I still have to pay 2,000 euros because I'm using SAP on-prem."
"We have a yearly license. There are no additional costs."
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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.
920,939 professionals have used our research since 2012.