Dayforce vs. Paylocity

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dayforce
Score 7.9 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
Dayforce HCM is a cloud-based platform encompassing HR, payroll, benefits, and talent and workforce management. It provides companies with a scalable framework and real-time data, such as continual pay calculations, to enable efficient decision-making.N/A
Paylocity
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Paylocity provides 24/7 access to your online payroll and human resource data management. Paylocity offers highly customizable payroll functionality, as well as HR, benefits administration, and time and talent management programs.N/A
Pricing
DayforcePaylocity
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DayforcePaylocity
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DayforcePaylocity
Considered Both Products
Dayforce
Chose Dayforce
We migrated from ADP Workforce Now; the data was messy and not linked. All their modules were independent, so utilizing their talent modules was cumbersome and ultimately the performance module we had activated in the system was not utilized. I was a admin of Paylocity prior to …
Chose Dayforce
It has made the timekeeping so much easier. Employee paychecks are accurate due to the data that is in Ceridian Dayforce.
Chose Dayforce
Less setting up users in multiple systems with multiple logins. Happier employees!
Chose Dayforce
In past systems, including ones that Ceridian offered themselves, I always hated exporting data from a timesheet system to import into a payroll system and then exporting again from that payroll system to a payment system to commit. You have scattered reports in each system …
Chose Dayforce
While again, the user experience isn't perfect, the fact that employees and HR can manage all HR-related tasks in one spot, not having to switch between applications, is huge. It keeps our operations streamlined and ensures that no one is confused when it comes to payroll, PTO, …
Chose Dayforce
The only difference that I have seen is that I no longer have to import the timesheets, although we do still import from a third party for one particular specialized group.
Chose Dayforce
End users not adopting the product. Time is money in our industry and our employee base knows it. It is extremely important to reduce the effort and time required.
Chose Dayforce
Having all payroll and benefits in one system has eliminated errors and made employee usage more efficient.
Chose Dayforce
If they worked well, the product would be great, however they don't. Too many bugs.
Chose Dayforce
It's great having everything in one place, but we do have to have excellent coordination to avoid stepping on each other's toes. For example, backdating changes on the HR side has real-time consequences on the payroll side. It's wonderful - just be careful that all users are …
Chose Dayforce
Increased HR operational efficiency. A simplified experience for managers and employees as well, since they can learn one system and get used to it for several different purposes.
Chose Dayforce
The one platform has been instrumental in decreasing the time it takes for us to process our payroll on a biweekly basis. Less errors and typos have occurred, issues such as integration "glitches" are a thing of the past. We would not want to leave a single platform product …
Chose Dayforce
Oh my - I LOVE having the single application for payroll. No more batch processing, no more mainframes, no duplicate deductions from benefits or incorrect loading of timesheet information. It's great for accuracy and timeliness and my sanity!
Chose Dayforce
We've experienced a significant impact in Payroll in regards to being able to pay employees in real-time rather than having to wait for the end of the pay period to import data from a different system. We can process, audit and correct payroll at any time during the pay period …
Paylocity
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity is easier to navigate than Ceridian, but some things are not available to the user. It is reliable for payroll processing and accuracy. PeopleSoft is much easier to make adjustments to wages and taxes, but that is also an area where errors and/or fraud could be an …
Chose Paylocity
Ceridian Dayforce is impossibly difficult, and overkill for any employer of less than 500. Support is not always in the US. Assistance with troubleshooting is 3-48 hours, which is useless when you have a payroll deadline. Training and education of the product is months of …
Chose Paylocity
ADP WFN has a week talent suite and TERRIBLE service. Paychex Flex is clunky and 2x the cost for similar modules. Ceridian Dayforce is built completely different, but requires an HRIS analyst with SQL experience for a successful experience. CD does not provide comprehensive, …
Chose Paylocity
Selected Paylocity based on pricing and the belief that their product was as good if not better than the other offerings. Having used UKG, Workday and Ceridian in the past personally, I can safely say we were wrong in that assumption.
Chose Paylocity
There is good and bad in both. Time and labor in Ceridian Dayforce are amazing and the easiest I have used. On the other hand, recruiting in Dayforce was challenging and Paylocity has made their module very easy to use. Performance in both is similar. Compensation management in …
Chose Paylocity
I find Dayforce to be superior to Paylocity in many ways. More customization and configuration over all. Power users can truly get deep into the system and leverage it without having to pay as much additional money to the vendor for advanced customization/configuration. …
Chose Paylocity
Those are the companies I've used in the past. I wasn't working at CNOB when Paylocity was chosen. But Paylocity is 1000 times superior to the two programs I used in the past! There are no secret codes for deductions or earnings; payroll registers are easy to read, and it's …
Chose Paylocity
In my opinion, Paylocity appears modern and sleek and easy to use. In time and in my experience, their customer support has become almost entirely useless
Chose Paylocity
Easier to use for our unique business structure. Paylocity also has the best customer service of those two products.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity is similar in structure to other HRIS that I have used. The difference is the ease of use of the platform and its help feature for 'how to' lookups. It is really easy to use the system and train others.
Chose Paylocity
more user friendly. i love the system overall. just minor improvements
Chose Paylocity
We like the ease of use of the modules and how it connects with our Finance ERP. Paylocity is less expensive than some of the other options out there and the ROI has been invaluable. The implementation was the easiest I have been through and I have been through at least six …
Chose Paylocity
We were somewhat familiar with Paylocity before choosing them. Compared to the others, it was easier to use and either cost less or was equivalent in price.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity had a far superior implementation process. Our experience with Dayforce implementation was subpar. And I feel that Paylocity is much easier and logical to use. We used Dayforce for about 2 years and switched to Paylocity. The help/ticketing system in Dayforce was …
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity was selected as our payroll vendor due to the tight-knit integration with our benefits admin tools and our HRIS/onboarding system. When compared to other ADPs, it is more modern and user-friendly. When compared to Dayforce and UKG it lags behind in power.
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity has a much better reporting system and LMS. LMS was practically non-existent in the other platform. Community is also a great feature, especially when managing multiple EIN’s in one platform. Online forms, text recruiting, online onboarding and the self-service portal …
Chose Paylocity
Paylocity is stronger than ADP in reporting and customer service. Paylocity is better than Dayforce in effective-dated entries and reporting. SuccessFactors is stronger than Paylocity in Recruiting and On-Boarding.

Chose Paylocity
Paylocity was chosen for us by executives who do not use the actual product. For a company our size a different product would be better.
Chose Paylocity
Because of my lack of training for this system and how my other staff has not been trained on the modules we have purchased. It is hard to make a true assessment at this time.
Chose Paylocity
Hands down, Paylocity has many features and the ease of using them is better than the other platforms I have used. Also, the customer service is responsive! I like that when I have a question, I am not lost in the wind. I receive acknowledgment shortly after submission. Just …
Chose Paylocity
Our experience with Paylocity was quite a bit more positive than Ceridian. When we were with Ceridian, we had many tax filing issues and billing issues. We have not had any billing issues with Paylocity, nor have we had any major tax tiling issues. We had one tax filing …
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Features
DayforcePaylocity
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.8
581 Ratings
0% below category average
Paylocity
7.8
814 Ratings
0% below category average
Employee demographic data8.1504 Ratings8.6766 Ratings
Employment history8.4539 Ratings8.2748 Ratings
Job profiles and administration7.9529 Ratings7.8685 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.7.8531 Ratings7.6697 Ratings
Organizational charting7.4482 Ratings7.1640 Ratings
Organization and location management7.7527 Ratings7.8622 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)7.5351 Ratings7.5535 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
8.4
581 Ratings
4% above category average
Paylocity
8.1
802 Ratings
1% above category average
Pay calculation9.0567 Ratings8.6778 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors7.5283 Ratings7.3356 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment8.9131 Ratings8.5554 Ratings
Benefit plan administration8.0456 Ratings7.3534 Ratings
Direct deposit files9.0552 Ratings9.0779 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.5436 Ratings8.2617 Ratings
Reimbursement management8.1294 Ratings7.9380 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
8.0
527 Ratings
1% below category average
Paylocity
7.6
670 Ratings
6% below category average
Approval workflow8.3495 Ratings8.0593 Ratings
Balance details7.7509 Ratings7.5642 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment7.9416 Ratings7.4496 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
8.1
593 Ratings
0% below category average
Paylocity
8.4
814 Ratings
4% above category average
View and generate pay and benefit information8.5564 Ratings8.5794 Ratings
Update personal information8.7577 Ratings8.6805 Ratings
View company policy documentation8.0397 Ratings8.0637 Ratings
Employee recognition7.1206 Ratings8.3555 Ratings
View job history8.0473 Ratings8.3670 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.5
97 Ratings
3% below category average
Paylocity
7.5
227 Ratings
3% below category average
Tracking of all physical assets7.597 Ratings7.5227 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.2
580 Ratings
5% below category average
Paylocity
7.0
742 Ratings
8% below category average
Report builder7.6571 Ratings7.0710 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.7571 Ratings7.4723 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data6.3399 Ratings6.5427 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.8
373 Ratings
3% below category average
Paylocity
8.2
691 Ratings
2% above category average
New hire portal7.8363 Ratings8.3687 Ratings
Manager tracking tools7.8319 Ratings8.0534 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.7
240 Ratings
6% below category average
Paylocity
7.4
359 Ratings
10% below category average
Corporate goal setting7.4201 Ratings7.5270 Ratings
Individual goal setting7.8220 Ratings7.4331 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility7.6188 Ratings7.4233 Ratings
Performance tracking7.9225 Ratings7.4333 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.8
264 Ratings
2% below category average
Paylocity
7.4
461 Ratings
7% below category average
Performance plans7.5245 Ratings7.2412 Ratings
Performance improvement plans7.6210 Ratings7.2339 Ratings
Review status tracking7.9247 Ratings7.5423 Ratings
Review reminders7.8243 Ratings7.5426 Ratings
Multiple review frequency8.0219 Ratings7.6348 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
6.9
119 Ratings
13% below category average
Paylocity
7.2
212 Ratings
9% below category average
Create succession plans/pools7.194 Ratings6.8141 Ratings
Candidate ranking6.8102 Ratings7.2174 Ratings
Candidate search6.6107 Ratings7.4193 Ratings
Candidate development7.094 Ratings7.4157 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
Dayforce
7.3
286 Ratings
6% below category average
Paylocity
7.8
436 Ratings
1% above category average
Job Requisition Management7.5270 Ratings7.8360 Ratings
Company Website Posting7.5264 Ratings8.1381 Ratings
Publish to Social Media7.5221 Ratings7.7295 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting7.5253 Ratings7.7359 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention6.6216 Ratings7.0299 Ratings
Applicant Tracking7.4263 Ratings8.1402 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts7.2257 Ratings7.9400 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DayforcePaylocity
Small Businesses
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DayforcePaylocity
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(621 ratings)
7.7
(848 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(85 ratings)
8.9
(80 ratings)
Usability
6.3
(60 ratings)
8.5
(56 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(12 ratings)
8.6
(8 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(13 ratings)
9.3
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
7.7
(65 ratings)
7.3
(77 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.0
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.4
(18 ratings)
7.8
(8 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.6
(43 ratings)
8.2
(33 ratings)
Configurability
8.8
(13 ratings)
7.9
(6 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(4 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.0
(8 ratings)
6.1
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.9
(14 ratings)
8.6
(7 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(18 ratings)
7.4
(6 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.9
(12 ratings)
8.8
(5 ratings)
User Testimonials
DayforcePaylocity
Likelihood to Recommend
Dayforce
Ceridian is well suited for transferring time data between systems to ensure employees are accurately compensated based on their time. Ceridian is not ideal when an employee has transferred to a different country. (As previously mentioned, we are required to create a new user record which with our setup requires the existing employee to be hired in the new location).
Read full review
Paylocity
As mentioned, Paylocity is great as a payroll service for getting employees paid and also for them to get information using their self-service. Definitely could be improvements in the ATS/recruiting piece of the plaform. Paylocity is a payroll first platform and recruiting is an add-on, so the functionality is not as good as it is with stand-along ATS.
Read full review
Pros
Dayforce
  • Reporting. It has an extensive report builder with stock reports, ad-hoc reports, and the ability to build your own custom reports.
  • Payroll. The continuous payroll engine makes processing complex payrolls much easier and faster.
  • Forms. The stock forms are a great jumping off point to start creating custom forms that work better for your processes and organization.
  • Documentation. Every module is well documented, and you're always bound to learn something if you read through them properly!
Read full review
Paylocity
  • Payroll Processing - Including all Tax Handling and Processing
  • Talent Acquisition Suite - Allows for the digital handling of candidate to onboarding. Fully integrated background, E-verify, drug screening
  • Established APIs with external vendors for Benefits and 401K
  • Survey Management - Customized surveys for Employee Engagement and Customer Satisfaction
  • Communities - Allows for online employee collaboration as well as site for employees to pull company documents such as policies and procedures.
Read full review
Cons
Dayforce
  • In payroll, there are sometimes issues with calculating pay when people’s rates change mid-pay period
  • Would love to see an option to assist with building SQL or XML statements in the future (maybe co-pilot AI?)
  • Would love an easy way to store pre-hire documents with candidates that syncs over to their HR profile when hired
Read full review
Paylocity
  • As a super admin in Paylocity, I would like the ability to not just archive items, but delete them completely. We would like to clean-up the space and get rid of some of the default items we do not use.
  • Not necessarily an issue, but for those people who have ever created an event packet in the on-boarding module know my struggle. It is not completely user friendly. I would like to see a preview of what the employee would see before launching the packets to new hires.
  • Benefits. When I change a new hire in the system before they have elected their benefits, it takes at least 24 hours to show up and doesn't always allow them to launch their open enrollment.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Dayforce
We are highly invested in Ceridian's Dayforce product. It give us the flexibility and scaling that our growing company needs. Its potential reaches beyond the basic HR functions to the decision making that our Management Team needs. Ceridian is always innovating the employee and employee experiences to offer cutting edge options.
Read full review
Paylocity
We have had many issues with the way our platform was set up at implementation that still continue to plague us. In addition, our benefits, in particular our FSA, have been mis-managed causing a balance due from an employee (and also a lot of work for our accounting and HR team, as well as stress for the employee). Our service rep continues to answer incorrectly on many fronts (original response is usually check out this paylocity article, vs. helping) and recently our COBRA management was mishandled (not adding Dental to a person on Cobra who had requested it). So- all in all...we are not particularly happy w/ Paylocity
Read full review
Usability
Dayforce
I think it's very usable for the employee. I don't think it is as easy for the HR/PR admins - especially if there is an issue. There are so many setup screens that need to be looked at to try to figure out why payroll isn't calculating properly, hours aren't feeding over correctly, or benefits are not calculating properly. For the most part, they can't do their own troubleshooting. The same is true for the managers. Our managers find it cumbersome to go into make any schedule changes after the schedules have been generated.
Read full review
Paylocity
Overall, in my experience, Paylocity has been easy to use for both staff and administrators. First, the staff has an application and inputting Paid Time Off is easy to do. I then get an alert on my app and I am able to approve it on the spot from my app that gives me access as an employee and an administrator without having to use multiple apps or logins. As an administrator I think the portal is easy to use, Paylocity did a great job showing me tools and rolling out training classes before rollout.
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Reliability and Availability
Dayforce
We have never experienced a total/unplanned outages that effected our ability to process payroll. However, there are times when the application's speed is significantly effected - and processing a payroll may take up to twice as long as normal.
Read full review
Paylocity
there are frequent issues with the recruiting module not fully working and there is no rush from paylocity to fix it
Read full review
Performance
Dayforce
We haven't noticed any slow-down due to the integration of Dayforce WFM with our Ceridian HPL products (HRIS and Payroll). The new HTML view of the timesheets don't load as quickly as the old Silverlight view - however, we have gotten used to the change.
Read full review
Paylocity
pages load in an acceptable amount of time, reports come back quickly, but integration is very complicated and hasn't been possible
Read full review
Support Rating
Dayforce
Most of the time the support is great; it's not always super efficient but I always get the help I need. Occasionally it takes a lot longer than we had hoped or get conflicting responses. We had one ticket recently where we were told we would have to pay the service team to support us on the project and then another person called the next day with the solution to our query and was able to find a solution easily. Generally, though, the response is great and they either walk me though how to do something via a Zoom Meeting or they email step-by-step instructions on how to do it and say if I have questions we can set up a meeting to discuss further.
Read full review
Paylocity
Everyone wants immediate assistance. Awaiting a response from an email only to ask 2-3 more questions is time consuming. Within the first six months of setup, I would rather respond back to the instructors who provided me the training in each category of my contract.
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In-Person Training
Dayforce
Because the training we reviewed at Insights has changed how we use the system everyday. This is a key factor in our training.
Read full review
Paylocity
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Dayforce
The online training is very good, there is a wide variety of topics offered and several dates and times. The instructors are very knowledgeable about the subjects they are teaching. There are so many ways to program Dayforce that just the basics seem to be covered in the class.
Read full review
Paylocity
The training was live online, but was with a group of other companies. We did not receive any personalized training with our team. Whenever we would ask for training, we would be sent a peak article link or a video. It felt like the reps we dealt with didn't know the answer to the questions.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Dayforce
Have a strong internal team. Communicate with your implementation team - they are there to make it work for you. Take the time to really think about how you want the system to work for you - in some cases, you may need to rethink your own business practices to see if you are working harder when the system could do it for you
Read full review
Paylocity
I had gone through an implementation process of another HR platform (Paycom) in my previous job and was traumatized, it was painful. I was surprised how easy and fast it was with Paylocity, the team was very helpful and set us up for success
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Dayforce
All of the info for Payroll, HR updates, employee updates, Time worked and PTO are in a single application, with a single login, updated in every screen or module in real time. There is no lag in data from screen to screen or from user to user, its almost instant.
Read full review
Paylocity
The reason we went with Paylocity over Paycom was we received better reviews on their customer support. I have used Paycom with other companies and found that it is decent software. Of course, any HRIS software is going to beat out QBs. QBs do not do well with groups of employees over 250.
Read full review
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Dayforce
No answers on this topic
Paylocity
Include more services in the packages they offer.
Read full review
Scalability
Dayforce
Overall, we are extremely happy with the Dayforce WFM module. Our biggest pain point is concerning the twice annual software upgrades - which is the only reason I haven't rated them as a '10'. Because every customer is configured differently, the upgrades can sometimes have adverse effects on our current configured policies/rules. And although they roll-out the upgraded version in a test environment several weeks before go-live, not all testing is accurate in that environment. Some issues do not present themselves until you are working with live punches.
Read full review
Paylocity
You have an account manager assigned to you on a daily basis but that person is barely available to you
Read full review
Professional Services
Dayforce
No answers on this topic
Paylocity
Support is quick and proffessional
Read full review
Return on Investment
Dayforce
  • Performance Reviews/Comp used to be handled via paper and tracking/reporting was a nightmare - having all of that in the system is so much more efficient and provides huge ROI
  • Our organization used to have big problems with hiring managers going rogue and hiring positions that aren't approved by Finance - we built an approval workflow in the system that triggers before any req is approved which has completely solved this problem
  • Dayforce Wallet has been a huge perk for our employees - it's heavily used and our crew love it
Read full review
Paylocity
  • Onboarding has reduced the paperwork that managers had previously had to take care of and payroll had to manually enter. This has significantly reduced hours of work and reduced errors.
  • Data insights creates reports that are very easy to view and give quick insights. This again reduces hours of work on management.
  • The ease of use for uploading payroll is minutes instead of hours at other companies. Overall, a huge time saver.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Dayforce Screenshots

Screenshot of Dayforce Home ScreenScreenshot of Scheduling DashboardScreenshot of Compensation DashboardScreenshot of Succession Planning - Talent MatrixScreenshot of Payroll DashboardScreenshot of Dayforce Mobile - Recruiting