RUN Powered by ADP® vs. BambooHR®

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
RUN Powered by ADP®
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
The RUN Powered by ADP® cloud-based solution is used to pay employees. It also includes HR and hiring tools, as well as benefits, helping small businesses grow and manage their teams.N/A
BambooHR®
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an cloud-based human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Considered Both Products
RUN Powered by ADP®
Chose RUN Powered by ADP®
We switched from RUN Powered by ADP® to Paylocity as we think it is more feature rich with document management, automatic onboarding with a work flow that we design and meets our needs and automatic I-9 reporting.
BambooHR®
Chose BambooHR®
When reviewing which HRIS to go with, BambooHR came out on top for a few reasons. One was the cost compared to others and what you get for that cost. It saved the company money versus what we had, including Lever, ADP, Calamari, etc., and condensed it into one system. Next, the …
Chose BambooHR®
Although there are many products in the marketplace, there is no perfect system. BambooHR is the most economical HRIS for a small business, start-up, or business that has never had HR software. BambooHR was selected for its affordable functionality. However, if they continue …
Features
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
8.3
370 Ratings
0% above category average
BambooHR®
7.6
172 Ratings
7% below category average
Pay calculation9.5358 Ratings8.3125 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.6107 Ratings6.892 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment9.1264 Ratings7.493 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.7166 Ratings7.0131 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.6348 Ratings8.4128 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.8275 Ratings8.0140 Ratings
Reimbursement management5.138 Ratings7.582 Ratings
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
7.8
256 Ratings
4% below category average
Employee demographic data00 Ratings8.3228 Ratings
Employment history00 Ratings8.1233 Ratings
Job profiles and administration00 Ratings8.0229 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.00 Ratings7.7215 Ratings
Organizational charting00 Ratings7.5235 Ratings
Organization and location management00 Ratings8.1226 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)00 Ratings7.2131 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
8.7
221 Ratings
6% above category average
Approval workflow00 Ratings8.5215 Ratings
Balance details00 Ratings8.3206 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment00 Ratings9.2129 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
8.5
249 Ratings
4% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information00 Ratings8.6167 Ratings
Update personal information00 Ratings8.9244 Ratings
View company policy documentation00 Ratings8.3217 Ratings
Employee recognition00 Ratings7.9156 Ratings
View job history00 Ratings8.8234 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
9.0
74 Ratings
11% above category average
Tracking of all physical assets00 Ratings9.074 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
7.1
209 Ratings
6% below category average
Report builder00 Ratings7.2202 Ratings
Pre-built reports00 Ratings7.4200 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data00 Ratings6.6144 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
8.1
213 Ratings
2% above category average
New hire portal00 Ratings8.4203 Ratings
Manager tracking tools00 Ratings7.8189 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
7.9
142 Ratings
2% below category average
Corporate goal setting00 Ratings7.0103 Ratings
Individual goal setting00 Ratings7.9136 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility00 Ratings9.169 Ratings
Performance tracking00 Ratings7.5130 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
7.8
160 Ratings
1% below category average
Performance plans00 Ratings7.3145 Ratings
Performance improvement plans00 Ratings7.2122 Ratings
Review status tracking00 Ratings8.697 Ratings
Review reminders00 Ratings8.0101 Ratings
Multiple review frequency00 Ratings7.8139 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
8.9
81 Ratings
13% above category average
Create succession plans/pools00 Ratings8.746 Ratings
Candidate ranking00 Ratings9.067 Ratings
Candidate search00 Ratings8.968 Ratings
Candidate development00 Ratings9.259 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
RUN Powered by ADP®
-
Ratings
BambooHR®
8.0
181 Ratings
3% above category average
Job Requisition Management00 Ratings7.8137 Ratings
Company Website Posting00 Ratings7.7148 Ratings
Publish to Social Media00 Ratings9.291 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting00 Ratings7.4144 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention00 Ratings7.588 Ratings
Applicant Tracking00 Ratings8.1164 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts00 Ratings8.1172 Ratings
Best Alternatives
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.1 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(388 ratings)
8.2
(245 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(35 ratings)
9.8
(17 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(24 ratings)
8.6
(173 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(12 ratings)
9.3
(5 ratings)
Performance
9.7
(12 ratings)
8.7
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(36 ratings)
8.0
(137 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.7
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.3
(5 ratings)
9.2
(4 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(20 ratings)
8.6
(6 ratings)
Configurability
7.4
(9 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(3 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(4 ratings)
9.6
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.5
(13 ratings)
8.9
(5 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.8
(8 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.7
(9 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
RUN Powered by ADP®BambooHR®
Likelihood to Recommend
ADP
Anyone running a service or mobile business would love the ease of clocking in and out with GPS services. Small and medium sized businesses looking to offload some of their accounting and HR functionality would all appreciate it. I helped my brother-in-laws housecleaning business get set up with RUN Powered by ADP®, as well as a friend's dry cleaning company.
Read full review
BambooHR
Performance management - the prompt questions are really helpful in distilling thoughts! Though it would still be great to have an optional box for additional feedback that might not be directly related to the prompt questions. The clean interface and user friendliness is a definite plus! But some specific features, eg. on TOIL application - it would be helpful to ensure it is intuitive to use, rather than confusing with the input process.
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Pros
ADP
  • Payroll runs are consistent, timely, and error‑free, even when handling multiple pay rates, deductions, or changes. Direct deposits process smoothly and predictably.
  • RUN Powered by ADP® manages federal, state, and local tax withholding, filings, and payments without requiring manual oversight. This significantly reduces compliance risk and administrative workload.
  • Common actions—running payroll, adding new employees, updating pay rates—are straightforward and guided, which helps prevent mistakes.
Read full review
BambooHR
  • Recruiting- communications are easy for both the internal team and candidates
  • Onboarding- the onboarding tasks are great. I love being able to attach documents as well as delay sending out tasks
  • Communication- the employee community is a great tool to keep our communications clean and organized. I love that we now have insight as to who has viewed the comms
Read full review
Cons
ADP
  • I do wish there were additional custom deductions available rather than a limited amount.
  • Sometimes employees have trouble accessing their account after the initial invite has been sent.
  • Sometimes employee accounts get locked due to a reused email if their profile is deleted before they've signed up. Only a call to support can correct it.
Read full review
BambooHR
  • The biggest issue is on performance assessments. We are not able to customize the reminder dates so the automated reminder dates shown to people and on the email reminders is often misaligned with our actual internal deadlines. This causes a lot of confusion each review cycle.
  • Also on performance management, there is no way to push feedback to a supervisor for their direct report. The only way is if the manager requests the feedback from you. This limits the opportunity for people to give real time feedback throughout the half.
  • I wish we had a way to track notes from employee 1:1s in BambooHR® so when we do our performance reviews we can track. That may be a module we didn't purchase but it would facilitate more continuous and comprehensive evaluation of people at review time.
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Likelihood to Renew
ADP
It is much better than the payroll system I used previously. The integrations that RUN has for on-boarding new hires are very convenient when they work properly. It saves a tremendous amount of time being able to email a link to new employees that allows them to enter much of their own demographic information. Payroll feature alerts me when someone's pay is significantly less or more than usual.
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BambooHR
There's nothing wrong with this platform. I would recommend it to any business starting with more than 10 employees. I will continue to use the program for as long as I need to, hoping they continue being tremendous and finding other ways to incorporate more technology.
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Usability
ADP
I have been using this system for years and they have actually made it easier and easier. The system is always making great upgrades that don't necessarily require any additional information or training. I love when I log in and see a new feature or button that I get to use to make my life easier!
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BambooHR
Just because there's a little complex with everything that's rolling out and so I have had to walk some people through functionality because there's just so much to click at this point. Another thing is the review process doesn't allow for ratings with a number scale, and I know we're kind of getting away from that as an industry, but with our previous system we have been rating people for their merit percent increase on their wages at the end of the year and it doesn't have the functionality to do that.
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Reliability and Availability
ADP
We've had very little issue with RUN availability, only a couple times there were outages when least expected which occurred on our actual payroll due date
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BambooHR
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
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Performance
ADP
ADP Run loads a bit slowly at times, once I put in my credentials. However, that said, I think my perception of the time it takes is impacted by our "instant gratification" expectation of being able to get into everything quickly.
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BambooHR
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
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Support Rating
ADP
I appreciated having that issue finally take care of. it was extremely disheartening to see the issue had not been resolved. I also had my employees looking to me and thinking I was not trying to resolve the issue so it reflected poorly on my character. I do not know if i was because of a miscommunication, but nonetheless I was happy it was taken care of
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BambooHR
I use the chat feature most often and the wait times can be long, but often I do get right in. When they promise to follow up, they always do. It seems the "support hero's" are very well training and knowledgeable. There are lots of resources in the form of print or video, too.
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In-Person Training
ADP
they helped up with the 1st payroll after that we were fine - it is very user friendly- they wanted to be sure everything had imported correctly.
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BambooHR
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
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Online Training
ADP
very easy to learn i think it took maybe one payroll to have it down and we were up and running
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BambooHR
Overall this training was great and our implementation specialist was wonderful and very helpful. We felt really prepared once our training was completed, But we could get additional help immediately even when we were live. The continuation Support heros after implementation are wonderful and you can always get a LIVE person each time you call into their office.
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Implementation Rating
ADP
Make sure there's plenty of time between payrolls for the implementation and be sure to test all the manually inputted fields.
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BambooHR
We implemented bambooHR in Fall, 2023 then implemented Payroll 1/1/24. A vital piece of information was not known or missed in that we are exempt from State Unemployment Tax and have a Reimbursement Set-up, so bambooHR did not send Payroll Reports to the State. Those reports need to be sent regardless if we are exempt or not.
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Alternatives Considered
ADP
Based on our experience, RUN Powered by ADP® was selected by our small business because our owner was seeking a robust, all-in-one payroll and HR solution that scales with our growth. It allowed us to move away from manual spreadsheets and our less sophisticated payroll systems to ensure accurate tax compliance.
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BambooHR
Lattice is much more oriented towards performance management. It includes many more advanced performance management features from building actual assessments to also performance development planning. BambooHR® for us was a place to centralize our data and build from within as well as connect to external integrations. PerformYard is what we used prior to BambooHR® for onboarding workflows and performance reviews, but BambooHR® is far superior.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
ADP
No answers on this topic
BambooHR
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
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Scalability
ADP
Every summer, we hire three new college interns who have to be entered into the system. They can enter their information themselves, which takes a load off me. The onboarding is quite straightforward, and today's college kids are techy enough to be able to understand it.
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BambooHR
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
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Professional Services
ADP
No answers on this topic
BambooHR
VERY professional!
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Return on Investment
ADP
  • Time savings: Automated payroll and tax filing reduced manual processing by 40%, freeing staff for growth initiatives
  • Cost efficiency: Lowered compliance errors and penalties, saving an estimated $5,000 annually
  • Scalability: Supported onboarding across multiple states, enabling expansion without adding HR headcount
  • Accuracy & trust: Improved employee satisfaction with timely pay and reliable W‑2/1099 delivery
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BambooHR
  • Time Savings: Automating onboarding, payroll, and employee record management has cut HR admin time by up to 30%, allowing teams to focus on strategic initiatives instead of paperwork.
  • Improved Onboarding: Streamlined workflows have cut onboarding time by nearly 50%, ensuring new hires are productive faster, reducing turnover risk in the critical first months.
  • - Enhanced Informational Clarity: Centralized employee data means fewer errors and faster access to essential information, reducing compliance risks and increasing accuracy in reporting.
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ScreenShots

RUN Powered by ADP® Screenshots

Screenshot of the RUN Dashboard with the business' key info front-and-centerScreenshot of the payroll interfaceScreenshot of access to payroll reports and liability amountsScreenshot of the RUN Powered by ADP mobile app, used to process payroll on the goScreenshot of the ADP mobile app, where employees can access their historical payroll statements and year-end tax documents

BambooHR® Screenshots

Screenshot of the Job Info tabScreenshot of Onboarding TasksScreenshot of a New Hire PacketScreenshot of an Employee Performance ReportScreenshot of Employee Satisfaction (eNPS®)Screenshot of Open Enrollment