Absorb vs. Paycom

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Absorb
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.N/A
Paycom
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Paycom is an automated HCM platform, built on a single database that eliminates redundant data entry through automation. A payroll and HR software solution, Paycom is used by organizations of all sizes to access employee data without navigating multiple systems.N/A
Pricing
AbsorbPaycom
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AbsorbPaycom
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AbsorbPaycom
Features
AbsorbPaycom
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
8.6
167 Ratings
4% above category average
Paycom
-
Ratings
Course authoring9.0131 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library9.3146 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal8.6150 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content8.5124 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly8.0120 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.4159 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments9.7137 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management9.5133 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration8.8163 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.5160 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning6.388 Ratings00 Ratings
Gamification6.185 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.7125 Ratings00 Ratings
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
8.1
561 Ratings
1% below category average
Employee demographic data00 Ratings8.9515 Ratings
Employment history00 Ratings8.1495 Ratings
Job profiles and administration00 Ratings8.1495 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.00 Ratings8.1496 Ratings
Organizational charting00 Ratings7.6400 Ratings
Organization and location management00 Ratings8.0439 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)00 Ratings8.1411 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
8.3
561 Ratings
1% above category average
Pay calculation00 Ratings8.8545 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors00 Ratings6.447 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment00 Ratings8.594 Ratings
Benefit plan administration00 Ratings8.4479 Ratings
Direct deposit files00 Ratings9.1542 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management00 Ratings8.4453 Ratings
Reimbursement management00 Ratings8.3315 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
8.5
492 Ratings
3% above category average
Approval workflow00 Ratings8.5466 Ratings
Balance details00 Ratings8.4467 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment00 Ratings8.5392 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
8.7
563 Ratings
5% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information00 Ratings9.0553 Ratings
Update personal information00 Ratings9.2559 Ratings
View company policy documentation00 Ratings8.7498 Ratings
Employee recognition00 Ratings8.0275 Ratings
View job history00 Ratings8.6460 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
4.9
26 Ratings
49% below category average
Tracking of all physical assets00 Ratings4.926 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
7.2
498 Ratings
5% below category average
Report builder00 Ratings7.9491 Ratings
Pre-built reports00 Ratings7.9486 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data00 Ratings5.855 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
8.4
491 Ratings
4% above category average
New hire portal00 Ratings8.5485 Ratings
Manager tracking tools00 Ratings8.3423 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
6.3
292 Ratings
25% below category average
Corporate goal setting00 Ratings4.236 Ratings
Individual goal setting00 Ratings8.0270 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility00 Ratings4.835 Ratings
Performance tracking00 Ratings8.0287 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
7.9
369 Ratings
1% below category average
Performance plans00 Ratings7.8341 Ratings
Performance improvement plans00 Ratings7.8324 Ratings
Review status tracking00 Ratings7.9329 Ratings
Review reminders00 Ratings8.0337 Ratings
Multiple review frequency00 Ratings7.8301 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
7.9
93 Ratings
0% above category average
Create succession plans/pools00 Ratings7.953 Ratings
Candidate ranking00 Ratings7.871 Ratings
Candidate search00 Ratings7.988 Ratings
Candidate development00 Ratings7.974 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Absorb
-
Ratings
Paycom
7.6
367 Ratings
4% below category average
Job Requisition Management00 Ratings7.8330 Ratings
Company Website Posting00 Ratings8.0325 Ratings
Publish to Social Media00 Ratings7.4257 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting00 Ratings7.8301 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention00 Ratings6.9280 Ratings
Applicant Tracking00 Ratings7.7337 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts00 Ratings7.9348 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AbsorbPaycom
Small Businesses
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.6 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
iSpring LMS
iSpring LMS
Score 9.6 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
AITalent LMS
AITalent LMS
Score 9.3 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AbsorbPaycom
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(170 ratings)
8.7
(733 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(10 ratings)
9.0
(31 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(74 ratings)
9.0
(124 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(6 ratings)
9.5
(4 ratings)
Performance
8.8
(6 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(156 ratings)
8.9
(59 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(4 ratings)
7.9
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.3
(5 ratings)
6.5
(9 ratings)
Configurability
7.9
(3 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.8
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.8
(3 ratings)
8.5
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.9
(6 ratings)
7.5
(4 ratings)
Professional Services
9.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.1
(5 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.7
(5 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
AbsorbPaycom
Likelihood to Recommend
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb is highly intuitive for end users. The resources feature allows for uploads of materials that are not marked as part of any training but rather available for users to review at their convenience. Scheduling reports so they are sent to users via email has been a pain. Reports are duplicated and there is also no start and end date, which causes the portal to continuously push the reports unless they are manually cancelled
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Paycom
As I mentioned, the onboarding process is incredibly easy. We have around 300 employees and are constantly hiring, so Paycom has been a huge help. In fact, the ATS functionality was a major factor in our decision to switch to Paycom.
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Pros
Absorb Software Inc.
  • Overall, Absorb LMS is pretty easy to use for learners and especially for admins. It's practical to create and manage course content - it provides the most crucial options and yet is lean enough not to overcomplicate the admin's life. The consistent and customizable "table-view" in most of the admin-areas is very helpful and easy to follow.
  • Using Enrollment Rules, Absorb LMS let you define who a course applies to and how they get enrolled. You can build rules based on learner attributes, such as department, location job role, group, to include or exclude specific audiences. The way Absorb LMS is using enrollment attributes, no other LMS actually can fulfill our requirements easier. Enrollment rules are mainly embedded in individual course options (you can also create scheduled enrollments outside of the courses).
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Paycom
  • I like the employee self-service feature. It's very straightforward and easy to use. I also like my representative, Mikey. He's been very helpful—every time I call him, I get the assistance I need. I also appreciate how quickly I can get someone on the phone and get help when needed.
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Cons
Absorb Software Inc.
  • The "And" and "Or" rules for self + automatic enrollment could be spelled out more to clarify who we're enrolling into courses
  • The thumbnail and poster "Upload photo" section is confusing. There should be a "Favorites" folder where we can easily find most commonly used posters and thumbnails
  • more education around Absorb analyze essentials
  • How the Featured courses section ranks courses is confusing on the back-end. I need to switch the primary one to second place to feature the new one first. But if the previous one now becomes second place, what happens to the old course that was in second place? I've noticed the order you select on the back-end for this isn't always reflected on user side
  • Same comment as Featured Courses but for appearance of billboards. Hard to position each in the right order
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Paycom
  • I am not a fan of the most recent update. I wasn't prepared for the change especially given it came right before payroll was processed. I'm told given time, I will get used to it and I'm always open to change for the better.
  • IWant™ feature isn't what I hoped it would be. I haven't used it much given the information I need in Paycom I can find quickly on my own. I have heard however that several employees utilize and appreciate the IWant™ feature.
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Likelihood to Renew
Absorb Software Inc.
We love the ability to have a user-friendly system that integrates well with our different HR interfaces (we have 3 systems that feed data/employees into the system). It makes it easy to track course completions and report out on metrics enterprise-wide. In addition, the ability to provide consistent education to staff who are geographically dispersed is a huge incentive for us, and Absorb LMS does this seamlessly.
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Paycom
we are having no problems with how the system works and our support system at paycom is the best - we are learning more and using the system in more ways all the time the only thing that could be better is pricing on some things
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Usability
Absorb Software Inc.
Our company has performed many software implementations over the last few years. Getting Absorb LMS up and running was one of the easiest and most pleasant by far. The process is fairly straightforward, but you are also given excellent support in instances when it is needed.
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Paycom
I'm probably going to have to go seven and three-quarter to eight, and that may be user error to me because I know Paycom has got it figured out, but there's times I just can't figure it out, even with some of the tutorials, the university, the show-mes, and calling Alex, our representative. He can hold my hand and walk me through that process, and it just may be I didn't get it, but that's why I gave that score. I'd give it a solid nine.
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Reliability and Availability
Absorb Software Inc.
We have never had any major issue with Absorb's availability. Any outages that have occurred have been planned an communicated. Any small issues that occur within the Absorb platform have been addressed efficiently and quickly by support and the development team
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Paycom
They are very dependable and I have never experience any outages
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Performance
Absorb Software Inc.
We have experienced infrequent issues with things like load times on reporting, or pages timing out, but for the large majority of our time within the system things have worked as they should
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Paycom
Yes load quickly
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Support Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
My client success manager had to reach out once for our company once. Although it was not an Absorb issue (it was an issue on the course vendor side), Absorb offered a resolution while the vendor was fixing the issue. We were very happy with the resolution and feel like Absorb went above and beyond for us.
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Paycom
In 6 years, we've never had a bad experience with client support. We implemented during COVID, and I was the only person in HR at the time. I was also having to homeschool our children, which meant bizarre work hours and limited time to focus on platform build at times. There were nights that I was literally on calls at 11 pm and the implementation team was unbelievably supportive. Recently, a Position Seat specialist came on site to help us set up for our 5 client codes - the experience was transformative for how we use the platform and an absolute game changer. I trust Paycom because I trust our representatives. They truly are strategic partners for us, and work to ensure we're maximizing the platform and that our needs are being met
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In-Person Training
Absorb Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
Paycom
Tadd and Ellie have been great! They have show us many aspects that implementation did not. They are very personable and action oriented as well. Anytime we need them they offer to swing in.
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Online Training
Absorb Software Inc.
The training was comprehensive - there were existing modules to learn functionality but working with Absorb staff, and receiving recordings of those walk-throughs, made a rapid understanding of the LMS achievable and covered the necessary material that was needed and allowed for specific questions to be addressed.
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Paycom
It was good, but hard to know what questions you need to ask until you actually get in there and start working with a live product. But Paycom is also very helpful every time I call and can't figure something out. Nathan has been very friendly and helpful no matter what I call him about. He is always eager to help out.
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Implementation Rating
Absorb Software Inc.
The implementation of Absorb went very seamlessly. We previously had the Oracle LMS and importing user data and getting the new system up to speed was painless. The smooth transition helped leaders and staff gain confidence early in the application/company and we have had a successful partnership with Absorb since.
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Paycom
Not at all satisfied it was a nightmare we spent over 8 months with the implementation team having issues after issues all related to the Puerto Rico regulations (half my employees are in Puerto Rico) and at the end we were moved over from the implementation team to the production team without all the issues being resolved
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Alternatives Considered
Absorb Software Inc.
Absorb offers a more flexible and robust experience for managing learning ecosystems. The user interface is more modern and provides a stronger user-centric learning experience. Absorb is at parity for social learning, which most learning platforms struggle with. The admin capabilities within Absorb are stronger than those of each of these providers. The notifications are strong, too.
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Paycom
I have not currently used any other products. I'm still kind of new to the HR industry. The only other thing that I really have to compare it to is Vonmar's system, which they created themselves, and it was not user-friendly.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Absorb Software Inc.
Clear and easy to understand. Of course, I would love to have seen these costs during my research of different LMSs, but I understand why they don't share this information.
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Paycom
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Absorb Software Inc.
We have already scaled our LMS from a couple hundred users to 1000 users and have plans to scale even larger. We use the LMS across multiple internal departments. countries and user types. Absorb has made it easy to integrate and scale and we will continue to scale in the near future.
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Paycom
They are not able to meet our current needs
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Professional Services
Absorb Software Inc.
We work directly with Kirsten Spak, who has continuously
provided timely and quality help for myself as the lead and our organization.
Kirsten has helped us ensure that we are going about things as efficiently and
is always willing to walk through things to demonstrate suggestions and
functions. As we look to expand our offerings further, Kirsten has helped
strategize for the best approach, which has helped our workflow and the
end-user experience. As we are still relatively new users, but using the LMS
every day, Kirsten has been very patient and provided clear instruction on
processes when we were unsure of what to do and has been able to troubleshoot,
with her team, functions that were desired but not availability at the time, to
provide us with solutions.
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Paycom
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Absorb Software Inc.
  • We used Absorb LMS to track Annual Safety Training to ensure compliance with inspectors and ensure our teammates understand the risks and how to mitigate them safely. We were never able to track this before and thus, we simply didn't have mandatory annual training.
  • A huge drawback prior to implementation of Absorb LMS was our inability to offer more than our 40 purchased e-courses to our employees. These were mostly safety and equipment based courses, so we didn't have any soft skill development happening. Now we have hundreds of courses available from the Absorb library that cover the safety aspects, but we also have dozens of leadership courses, communication and influence courses, etc. It has been a huge gamechanger for our employees and their development opportunities! When I look at our course library, there are 400 courses, which over 300 being available through Absorb library (the other 80+ were made using Absorb Create).
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Paycom
  • It's helped us save time. We've been able to automate a number of payroll and accounting functions. It's also enabled our employees to use the ask gear feature. So it's really saved time, and also we've not gotten hacked, which is always a plus.
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ScreenShots

Absorb Screenshots

Screenshot of Absorb's course details page, accessible from the course catalog dashboard, used to give learners an understanding of the course material.Screenshot of course creation with Create AI Beta.Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

Paycom Screenshots

Screenshot of A new study that reveals that for a composite organization representative of interviewed clients, unifying HR and payroll in a single-database software with automation and streamlined workflows achieved a three-year 362% ROI and resulted in: $1.4M net present value*; over 45% total time saved by HR; 80% time saved on compliance work.Screenshot of Full-Solution Automation and Auto-Decisioning Powered By a Single DatabaseScreenshot of Employee Self-Service