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Paylocity vs SAP SuccessFactors comparison

 

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
47th
Ranking in Cloud HCM
33rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Benefits Administration (34th)
SAP SuccessFactors
Ranking in Talent Management
2nd
Ranking in Cloud HCM
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
100
Ranking in other categories
Talent Acquisition (2nd), Global Payroll (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Paylocity is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP SuccessFactors is 9.0%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud HCM Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SAP SuccessFactors9.0%
Paylocity0.8%
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 product is stable, scalable, and addresses a lot of issues."
"The most valuable features of SAP SuccessFactors are onboarding, recruiting, marketing, and performance."
"We found SAP SuccessFactors to be more promising with reference to functionality and from an implementation perspective."
"Flexible with a lot of good features."
"The self-service part is most valuable. Employees and managers can do a lot of things on their own, and they are not dependent on the HR organization."
"The solution is stable."
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is the performance management workflow."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten...It is a stable solution."
 

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."
"There is not much scope for enhancements, personalization, or customization with the cloud-based variant of this solution, which could be improved."
"However, a couple of improvements can be carried out to offer more customization of the solution that is limited in the market."
"I think there is room for improvement in user friendliness. In my experience, users are sometimes confused about how to use the solution."
"The Onboarding module must be improved."
"I think there is room for improvement in user friendliness. In my experience, users are sometimes confused about how to use the solution."
"I don't think SuccessFactors is quite fit for use as an employee database."
"There is not much scope for enhancements, personalization, or customization with the cloud-based variant of this solution, which could be improved."
"he user interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is on the expensive side but is definitely worth the money."
"For SAP, the product is pricey, both CAPEX and the OPEX. It's something that could be improved."
"Due to the way in which we purchased SuccessFactors as a module along with other SAP modules, we were able to procure it at a slightly better price than usual. I would rate their pricing 5/5 stars."
"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."
"It is not cheap, but it is reasonable."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of modules that are being used, and the number of users."
"I think the pricing is a little better than most solutions out there. There are reasonable prices when it comes to some of the modules such as the Payroll module, and for the remaining modules I believe the pricing is fair in comparison to the rest of the market."
"If you go by best practices and do it right from the outset, the setup won't be a costly endeavor. In terms of setup, there is a lot of flexibility compared to three years ago."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
27%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
6%
University
5%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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, Oracle and others in Cloud HCM. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.