Paylocity vs Workday comparison

Paylocity and Workday are both solutions in the Cloud HCM category. Paylocity is ranked #35, while Workday is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3. Paylocity holds a 0.6% mindshare in CHCM, compared to Workday’s 10.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Paylocity users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Workday users who would recommend it.

Paylocity

Read 1 Paylocity review

486 Views
292 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Workday

Read 58 Workday reviews

8,714 Views
6,100 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Paylocity

Workday

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Paylocity and Workday based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Workday, Oracle and others in Cloud HCM.

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud HCM Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud HCM

January 2026

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Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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 Benefits Administration

29th

Ranking in Talent Management

53rd

Ranking in Cloud HCM

35th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Workday

Ranking in Benefits Administration

1st

Ranking in Talent Management

2nd

Ranking in Cloud HCM

3rd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Talent Acquisition (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud HCM category, the mindshare of Paylocity is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workday is 10.8%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud HCM Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Workday	10.8%
Paylocity	0.6%
Other	88.6%

Cloud HCM

Featured Reviews

Rae Passo

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.

Read full review

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

"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 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."

"I'm happy with the features Workday offers. But in particular, Core HCM is the best."

"It helps the users to enroll for the benefits automatically and update their life events without the involvement of HR individuals or back-office staff. It enables a person to take action on their own. It reduces the administrative burden on HR and puts the ownership on the person that is going through the life event, whether it is having a child, taking a leave of absence, or something else. There are easy ways to integrate Workday with your common benefits. At least in the USA, it can be integrated with common benefits providers such as Fidelity, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, etc. It has got a connector that is able to connect with the vendor or the third party to which you are trying to send the eligibility file. It basically allows us to automate or set up the tool, and the integration with the provider is a lot quicker than competing tools. When it comes to reporting on just eligibility and SLSA, it is a lot more user-intuitive. Depending on the purpose of what you are doing, you can grant security rights or roles, for example, you can control whether someone is a benefits administrator doing an independent audit. Workday makes it very easy to do that. It significantly simplifies the reporting process."

"We use Workday for all our employee-related information. It is a central hub where we can access pay slips, tax-related information, tax automation, and tax rules. Additionally, it manages employee hiring processes and other HR functions. It's a one-stop solution where employees can find everything about their profile, work experience, and associated technologies."

"It was more efficient for the agents for their performance reviews, but when it came to HR and the recruitment team, it sometimes worked, and sometimes, it didn't work."

"Performance and good usability are the two most valuable features of this solution."

"The solution is stable."

More Workday pros

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."

"This solution could be improved by providing user-level access to customization capabilities. Users currently rely on more technical teams to customize reports, for example."

"The user interface could be better. Everything else was fine."

"The solution can be improved by speeding up the load time when pulling up information."

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

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

"One potential feature that could be added is the ability to streamline business processes through quick tips and guided tours. This would allow for a smoother and more guided experience for colleagues as they navigate through different processes and steps. It would be similar to a guidance system or a step-by-step tutorial that could be added after the business process to guide users through it."

"The solution should be more user-friendly."

"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."

More Workday cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"It's very, very expensive."

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

"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."

"The pricing for this solution is fairly high. It is not affordable for small and mid-sized companies."

"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."

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

"I need to pay for a license. It is expensive."

More Workday pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Construction Company

11%

Real Estate/Law Firm

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

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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...

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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.

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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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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

Buyer's Guide

Cloud HCM

January 2026

Download Paylocity product report

Buyer's Guide

Workday

January 2026

Download Workday product report

Overview

Our all-in-one software platform gives HR pros a way to easily manage daily tasks in payroll, benefits, talent, and workforce management. But what makes us different is that our technology is backed by a culture that truly cares about our clients’ success.

Providers will merely sell you a product. But a partner actually cares about you and your business. A partner takes the time to get to know you and understand your needs. We work with you to identify the best solutions that will benefit your business today, while paving the way to a better tomorrow. And tomorrow is all about your team.

Everything we do is designed to support you in reaching your goals. Together, we tackle your day-to-day work so you can spend more time building the culture you and your employees crave.

For professionals who crave true partnership, Paylocity is the HR & Payroll company that frees you from the tasks of today, so together, we can spend more time focused on the promise of tomorrow.

Let's go forward together.

Paylocity

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.

Workday

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

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!

Find out what your peers are saying about SAP, Workday, Oracle and others in Cloud HCM. Updated: January 2026.

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