BambooHR® vs. Paychex

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Paychex
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Paychex Flex, of Paychex' Online Payroll Services, is a cloud-based human resource management and payroll platform. Paychex offers core and specialized services, and scales to meet the needs of small businesses, SMBs, and large enterprises.N/A
Pricing
BambooHR®Paychex
Editions & Modules
Core
$10
per month per user
Pro
Contact Sales
per month
Elite
Contact Sales
per month
Paychex Flex Pro
Custom Pricing
per month/+$4 per employee
HR Pro
Custom Pricing
HR PEO
Custom Pricing
Paychex Flex Select
Custom Pricing
Paychex Flex Enterprise
Custom Pricing
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHR®Paychex
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalRequired
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHR®Paychex
Considered Both Products
BambooHR®
Chose BambooHR®
To be honest I didn'r selected BambooHR as I am employee our organisation used it so we have to use it But I can say is I am having very good experience in using it due to its good easy to use UI and great features like goals and training tracking
Chose BambooHR®
I use them for different use cases so I can't really compare
Chose BambooHR®
Workday Assistant, Workday Benefits, Workday Learning, EmployeeConnect, Kronos Workforce Dimensions / UKG Dimensions (discontinued) and UKG Ready
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR® is the one and only HRIS I've used. I am familiar with ADP and Payworks for payroll in Canada which has HRIS abilities, however, never used those products that way.
Chose BambooHR®
Cost and easier to use
don't need a lot of manpower to set up
great for startups
Chose BambooHR®
I chose BambooHR because it works best for our company size. Its easy to navigate the system and easy to explain or show others how to use it and that is what I like about it. Rippling is similar in that everything is connected, but I like the affordability of BambooHR and how …
Chose BambooHR®
Cornerstone was the worst thing I ever used. It did performance evaluations and hiring but it was clunky and very hard to use as admins. I had to learn some HTML to use parts of it and worst experience of my life. Bamboo I would recommend anytime over that.
Chose BambooHR®
Bamboo is clear of SageHR
Less clunky, more efficient, easier to use
Chose BambooHR®
Very similar but easier to navigate. Pay chex also had our 401k benefits so that was really nice to see. Now, I have to navigate to a different website to view which makes it confusing. Overall though, I prefer BambooHR® over Pay Chex. As mentioned, what I use it for makes it …
Chose BambooHR®
I have never used any other BambooHR products that I am aware of at this time.
Chose BambooHR®
we haven't used any other products before
Chose BambooHR®
We've been using BambooHR for many years now, so I don't really remember what PeopleForce was like. But what I know for sure is that BambooHR is a much more refined product and provides more capabilities than PF overall.
Chose BambooHR®
I've used a few different tools for payroll and benefits. I used Rippling a while ago. I remember it was also pretty easy to use. Paylocity was also pretty easy to use, as far as I remember. Since I'm not the HR rep evaluating the tools for the benefits side, I don't have much …
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR was selected for being user friendly. This is critical as our workforce is not the most tech savvy. It needs to be easy to use.
Chose BambooHR®
It's better in some ways, but it lacks information on pay and retirement. Two different platforms, though.
Chose BambooHR®
These are the three that come to mind, and we use each program for different things. We stick to HR driven areas for Bamboo, as we haven't shifted to it for payroll or project management. I do find Bamboo to be the most user-friendly, with the smallest learning curve of all …
Chose BambooHR®
Bamboo is much nicer with its UI and much simpler to follow
Chose BambooHR®
As a company we are consolidating and streamling infrastrucure. Bamboo has been with us since the beginning and appears to growing with us.
Chose BambooHR®
BambooHR felt like the better fit for our small to medium size company (100 employees around the world)
Chose BambooHR®
I liked using Paychex Flex. I think my company chose BambooHR for its competitive pricing.
Paychex
Chose Paychex
Paychex is much more user friendly than ADP Run or ADP Total Source. However, I do like that ADP has an option to upload documents related to payroll such as notices from the state (DOR, UI, etc) and creates a case where notes from their rep are added and a case # is provided. …
Chose Paychex
NA - Am not using other Paychex services
Chose Paychex
I used Bangor Payroll prior to Paychex and they were better than Paychex. I didn't select Paychex, it was already at the organization when I joined it.
Chose Paychex
I think the Paychex reporting menus are easier to use and navigate than ADP.
Chose Paychex
They were alright, some of the same issues. Lots of turnover with payroll consultants.
Chose Paychex
Both ADP and Paychex are very good at informing businesses of the latest changes regarding payroll. Not sure which one is better, but very much get the most out of each. Both are informative and always looking at additional topics in a world that is constantly changing. …
Chose Paychex
Paychex has been around for a long time and have used it at other organizations. The payroll functionality is the best out of the other systems I have used. They all are great with handling the HR needs of our organization but Paychex is the most streamlined.
Chose Paychex
We use BambooHR in tandem with Paychex. BambooHR is our timesheet service, and Paychex issues the checks/payments to our employees. Ideally we would use one service instead of two to achieve our payment and timesheet needs.
Chose Paychex
More accessible and cost effective for our small business.
Chose Paychex
I far prefer Rippling to Paychex Flex, with its easy to navigate interface and user friendly model. I also appreciate the payday emails from Rippling and the paystub breakdown. It is also very easy and simple to request and view PTO in Rippling. I really dread having to use …
Chose Paychex
Paychex Flex has some room for improvement, I would choose ADP out of the different HRIS's I have used in the past
Chose Paychex
More user friendly works better for self service
Chose Paychex
I'm unable to give you a comparison because Paychex is the only payroll service I've used since I started my business over ten years ago. I've had no reason to explore other payroll services or make a change. I trust it will remain that way for as long as I'm in business.
Chose Paychex
In addition to the ones listed above, we also used BenePay, a local payroll company. We found Paychex Flex priced in the middle, with ADP the most expensive and too complicated, with many features that were unnecessary for us. We found that Paychex Flex's features and reporting …
Chose Paychex
I did not select Paychex. It was at 2 companies I started with and ended up having them switch out
Chose Paychex
Looking to switch over to ADP.
I think they are much less expensive
Chose Paychex
Based on what I've noticed, Paychex is comparable to DayForce, which has similar timekeeping functions. I think DayForce has a few easier-to-navigate tools from an Employee Self Service standpoint. iSolved is much better all around from my personal usage. If my company had more …
Chose Paychex
Gusto is more intuitive than Paychex and easier for smaller companies. Paychex has better customer support than Paylocity. Paychex is easier to navigate than Paycom.
Chose Paychex
Paychex offers much more than just tracking employee attendance and managing employee records. It offers Payroll services, Human Resource Services, Retirement Services, On-Boarding Services, Employee-Self Services, Employee Benefits Management, Employee Handbook Services, …
Chose Paychex
The could not match the price we pay for the same service.
Chose Paychex
I have not used any flex pay options only for payroll and tax situations.
Features
BambooHR®Paychex
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
Ratings
3% below category average
Paychex
7.0
Ratings
15% below category average
Employee demographic data8.30 Ratings7.70 Ratings
Employment history8.10 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.10 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.70 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Organizational charting7.80 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.40 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.6
Ratings
6% below category average
Paychex
7.4
Ratings
9% below category average
Pay calculation8.10 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors7.00 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment7.40 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.10 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.20 Ratings8.30 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.90 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.50 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.8
Ratings
8% above category average
Paychex
7.2
Ratings
12% below category average
Approval workflow8.70 Ratings7.30 Ratings
Balance details8.50 Ratings7.40 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment9.20 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.5
Ratings
4% above category average
Paychex
6.1
Ratings
29% below category average
View and generate pay and benefit information8.50 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Update personal information8.90 Ratings7.30 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.40 Ratings7.10 Ratings
Employee recognition7.90 Ratings1.00 Ratings
View job history8.80 Ratings7.20 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
Ratings
13% above category average
Paychex
4.8
Ratings
50% below category average
Tracking of all physical assets9.10 Ratings4.80 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.2
Ratings
4% below category average
Paychex
5.7
Ratings
27% below category average
Report builder7.40 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.50 Ratings6.50 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.90 Ratings4.50 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
8.2
Ratings
3% above category average
Paychex
6.6
Ratings
19% below category average
New hire portal8.40 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.90 Ratings6.40 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
Ratings
2% below category average
Paychex
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.8
Ratings
1% below category average
Paychex
-
Ratings
Performance plans7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
9.1
Ratings
15% above category average
Paychex
7.0
Ratings
11% below category average
Create succession plans/pools8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search9.00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Candidate development9.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR®
7.9
Ratings
1% above category average
Paychex
5.3
Ratings
38% below category average
Job Requisition Management7.70 Ratings5.10 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.60 Ratings5.20 Ratings
Publish to Social Media9.20 Ratings5.60 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.40 Ratings5.90 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.50 Ratings4.60 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.00 Ratings4.70 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.10 Ratings6.10 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHR®Paychex
Small Businesses
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.2 out of 10
Dayforce Powerpay
Dayforce Powerpay
Score 9.2 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
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
PeopleStrong
PeopleStrong
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BambooHR®Paychex
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(0 ratings)
6.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(0 ratings)
7.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(0 ratings)
5.3
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(0 ratings)
6.2
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(0 ratings)
5.2
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.4
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(0 ratings)
5.6
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(0 ratings)
6.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHR®Paychex
Likelihood to Recommend
For companies with a "complex" PTO policy, it's one of the easier solutions to use I have seen. By complexity, I mean having different reasons for your time off and different amounts of time you can request on that end. If you need simple file sharing, it will work as well. For people who require more robust training material, it might not be the best fit.
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Overall we have had a good experience. The unfortunate part of being with them for over 10 years is the change-over in support specialists and sometimes the lack of transparency when that occurs or the lack of personalized communication. However, the ease of use and streamlined services for reporting and recording payroll and onboarding employees is definitely a benefit to the service. Being able to pull reports and review past employees information can be invaluable at times. Knowing I have peace of mind when it comes to tax documentation because someone else is ensuring it is handled and handled correctly is very important
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Pros
  • Ease of use for established staff and admins, all the way down to brand new hires.
  • Integrations, especially for posting and managing jobs during the hiring process.
  • Making regularly occurring things like meetings and assessments easy to customize and to action easily.
  • Being able to assign out tasks for onboarding and offboarding.
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  • It provides a well account of Retirement Plan Account Information.
  • Alerts are sent to email when there is new information to access.
  • Employee access both online and thru app.
  • Paperless options.
  • Easy and quick access to paystubs and tax forms.
  • Easy employee retirement management.
Read full review
Cons
  • 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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  • When it comes to audit reports, Paychex Flex could improve on helping clients locate the correct reports for audit purposes more easily
  • When a client receives a discount, it would be helpful if the discount were automatically provided each year, or if the Paychex rep proactively reached out to the client first, versus the client having to call and request that the discount continue.
  • It would be helpful if the invoice was emailed to the client versus the client logging in to access invoices.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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there are a lot of competitors on the market such as BambooHR and Insperity. Paychex need to make significant improvement on their offline customer service in order to compete with the other guys. Everything is online now and timely response to customer's questions is vital. Customers won't enjoy being put on hold for 45 mins every time they have a question regarding their HSA problems
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Usability
It is pretty intuitive and easy to use for most functions! This is helped by the clean and simple interface. The drop down filters and prompts are definitely strong points, and could be easily enhanced with more AI/automation features built in in future to make it even more efficient. I also like the playful icons, making it less dull as a HR tool :)
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Employee usability is very good and user-friendly. For the most part, the employer usability is good, but for complicated rules and policies, it requires technical assistance, which in our case, was clunky and slow in implementation. Once is place, everything works as it should
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Reliability and Availability
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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We have not experienced any difficulties with unplanned outages. Notifications are always made for outages, and they do not effect normal business operations.
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Performance
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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Unless there is lag time within the internet, the Paychex Flex website loads exceptional fast, pages load quickly and reports that I need to print or download load quickly. If I need to create a specialized report, once I complete it I receive an e-mail telling me my report is ready to be downloaded. Changing between web pages is fast as well.
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Support Rating
Support has always been excellent. I was skeptical about not having a dedicated account manager at first, but my concerns were quickly eased. I love the different options for communication. Being able to chat, send emails or call a representative are great so that my workflow isn't disrupted by having to complete a call. I have never had an issue reaching anyone and the email follow up is great!
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Chat has been helpful but the person I chat with isn't always able to help me with my questions. Phone support is ok, depending on your payroll specialist. We have a great one currently, but the few before that were never available and did not return calls.
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In-Person Training
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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We did online training only
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Online Training
As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
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It was easy to understand and follow along. I do like the informational videos that we can utilize before we opt to call in for customer service support. It has made a difference since sometimes that resolves the issue I may have had and saved myself a phone call to Paychex support.
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Implementation Rating
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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Implementation was very smooth. The most cumbersome task was entering the current employees into the system during initial set up, but Paychex staff handled most of that and verified against prior system reports as well as internal reports provided to ensure 100% accuracy.
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Alternatives Considered
These are the three that come to mind, and we use each program for different things. We stick to HR driven areas for Bamboo, as we haven't shifted to it for payroll or project management. I do find Bamboo to be the most user-friendly, with the smallest learning curve of all the other programs, though.
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Paychex is much more user friendly than ADP Run or ADP Total Source. However, I do like that ADP has an option to upload documents related to payroll such as notices from the state (DOR, UI, etc) and creates a case where notes from their rep are added and a case # is provided. This helps create a good way to track a notice and be sure it is resolved. I have sent requests to close different states when a company no longer has an employee there or have been told an item has been filed/completed, only to receive a notice later from Paychex notification or the the state claiming the issue is unresolved. When you have as many clients as we do, this can feel messy.
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Scalability
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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Employees can log in at home and get up to date information on their FSA balance and any medical bill reimbursements they may have uploaded. At renewal time they have the ability to make changes to their FSA or for new employees star the enrollment.
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Return on Investment
  • We were able to cancel our ATS monthly subscription with another provider to use the Hiring module with BambooHR®. We save on average $600 a month!
  • We cancelled another monthly subscription that we were using for time off tracking saving hundreds a month.
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  • This software has provided visibility to shift managers and department leads that they never had before in managing their subordinates. They now have an easy-to-use go-to source for seeing who has PTO, how much they have available, and what the work calendar looks like, allowing them to make better-informed decisions.
  • With this software to manage open enrollment, we can now get through that process with a tool we use regularly, rather than jumping into enrollment management software only once a year and having to relearn it each year.
  • Literally thousands of steps are saved each week by not needing to traverse the entire shop floor or track people down to clear up questions with time cards. With everything digital, so much can be observed and addressed in real-time through the app.
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ScreenShots

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

Paychex Screenshots

Screenshot of Paychex Payroll DashboardScreenshot of Employee Background ChecksScreenshot of Paychex HR DashboardScreenshot of Paychex Flex Perks