Paycor vs. Small Improvements

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Paycor
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Paycor provides core HR functions scaled towards small and mid-sized businesses. Paycor offers an integrated benefits platform for interfacing directly with insurance carriers and an adaptable time management platform.N/A
Small Improvements
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Performance Reviews & 360s Provide employees with structured opportunities for reflection and assessment through performance reviews and peer feedback. Customize the questions, define who participates, establish a cadence that suits an organization’s schedule, and run reviews for different departments at the same time. Ongoing Feedback Praise coworkers for a job well done and request feedback at any time from anyone. Prepare for…
$2
per user, per month
Pricing
PaycorSmall Improvements
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Engagement and Retention Add-on
$2
per user, per month
Performance Starter Pack
$5
per user, per month
Feedback and Performance Suite
$7
per user, per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
PaycorSmall Improvements
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPaycor's pricing for small, mid, and enterprise companies varies based on product bundle and company size. Because Paycor HR software is built to help businesses scale and grow, plans are based on the mix of HR products needed, and company size. Payroll is at the core of Paycor's offering, and their products are sold as a part of their payroll and HR platform.We also offer volume discounts if you have over 200 employees! Please see the calculator on our pricing page to calculate your exact price.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
PaycorSmall Improvements
Features
PaycorSmall Improvements
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Paycor
8.0
411 Ratings
3% below category average
Small Improvements
-
Ratings
Pay calculation8.5399 Ratings00 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.25 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment8.0192 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration7.8286 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.8393 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management7.8327 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management7.3112 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
Paycor
-
Ratings
Small Improvements
8.3
9 Ratings
9% above category average
Corporate goal setting00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Subordinate goal setting00 Ratings7.53 Ratings
Individual goal setting00 Ratings10.09 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility00 Ratings7.83 Ratings
Performance tracking00 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
Paycor
-
Ratings
Small Improvements
9.3
9 Ratings
11% above category average
Performance plans00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Plan weighting00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Manager note taking00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Performance improvement plans00 Ratings8.33 Ratings
Review status tracking00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Rater nomination workflow00 Ratings10.07 Ratings
Review reminders00 Ratings10.08 Ratings
Workflow restrictions00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Multiple review frequency00 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Reporting00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
User Ratings
PaycorSmall Improvements
Likelihood to Recommend
7.3
(435 ratings)
9.0
(11 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.6
(23 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(404 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
7.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
3.6
(60 ratings)
7.1
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
4.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
5.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.3
(21 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
4.4
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
3.4
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
3.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
PaycorSmall Improvements
Likelihood to Recommend
Paycor Inc
Paycor is well suited for an organization with a strong implementation team or who has the budget to hire a consultant to implement Paycor. Once the system is implemented, Paycor is great. If you are a smaller organization, we suggest starting with just 1-2 modules and working your way up from there as setting up everything takes time and resources
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Small Improvements
I'm honestly not sure why my company chose to use Small Improvements. We used Lattice before for the all the same use cases I mentioned here. The employee performance review feature might be a bit better in Small Improvements, but the goal-setting tool and the 1:1 tool are very weak. I may not have benefitted yet from all the features that Small Improvements have to offer, but so far it looks like a pretty basic HR tool with much better alternatives out there. If it's cheaper than the competition, that might be the only argument to go with it.
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Pros
Paycor Inc
  • Open enrollment-their software is user friendly and has good features for end users and administrators
  • Onboarding-entering new hires is easy
  • Mass Template Upload-you can easily upload mass changes, the system is easy to use.
  • Reporting-their reporting tool is improving and AI is incorporated into it.
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Small Improvements
  • Goal Tracking: Enables users to chart goals, track progress, and provide details about what they want/expect to achieve.
  • Praise Wall: A public place to post positive and encouraging comments about other employees.
  • 360 Reviews: Users can request and gain 1:1 feedback; this can be anonymous if desired.
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Cons
Paycor Inc
  • The reporting capabilities of Paycor Recruiting are lacking. While there are some great features I would like to see more options for customization. The options to build my own report from SCRATCH with whatever fields I want/need would be a huge improvement. At this time, I have to finagle the reports to try and get what I need and often times I have to pull multiple reports and then do extra work outside of the system to end up with metrics close to what I’m looking for in the data.
  • The candidates search feature could use some improvement. In theory, the tagging system is a great idea but it leaves room for inconsistency and trying to search for a previous candidate who interviewed well isn’t always easy. This makes it harder to re-engage with people who could be a strong match for a new job opening.
  • Although the platform is very user friendly as far as ease of use and intuitiveness it can be VERY slow at times. There are days where the system moves at a snails pace and when there are multiple clicks to have to get to a specific spot in the system this can be very frustrating. This is especially try for navigating through job postings and candidate details.
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Small Improvements
  • Being able to edit projects more easily (and have a documented edit history) would be beneficial.
  • Possibly integrations with popular platforms (such as JIRA) to give expanded detail of project tracking.
  • Gantt charts would be a nice to have for a top level management view.
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Likelihood to Renew
Paycor Inc
Price point is the biggest driving factor. Paycor has made some strides in the customer service area and we've seen enough improvements that renewing our contract has become more a reality than a pipe dream. The system functions well and our employees are familiar with how it works, so to make a change would be a huge lift for our team
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Usability
Paycor Inc
Glitches. So many glitches. The customer service number provides basic troubleshooting, which doesn’t help; some issues take weeks to resolve, with no apparent reason why they occur. The system does not work on Safari. We have dealt with Payroll not working, which has caused a manual payroll to be run. Paycor representatives do not provide any assistance.
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Paycor Inc
I feel like Paycor is always up and running! If they are planning downtime, they communicate it clearly. Every once in a while, I get something that says the system isn't working but it is usually back up within the hour. I typically find by the time that the employees complain about it, that it is resolved within the system.
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Performance
Paycor Inc
For the most part, everything moves super fast. There are a few sections (Expense Management) that sometimes take a bit to load correctly. Or if they are interesting, it takes a minute to talk to each other! But reports are quickly downloaded and available! Even data heavy reports run fairly fast!
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Paycor Inc
I feel like support will transfer you back and forth between departments and put you on hold forever. I believe it is very difficult to see the status of an open ticket. During my experience, it feels like the client has to push all communication and request updates from support regularly.
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Small Improvements
The customer support is quick and thorough, they have access to our account to answers are tailored to our needs. They also have a good knowledge base and self-help site with some video tutorials and FAQs which saved us time as opposed to just calling or emailing support. For the times that we did reach out, it only took one response to get our issue resolved.
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In-Person Training
Paycor Inc
The training was helpful and covered the basic functionality of the system, but it did not stand out as exceptional. The presenter was knowledgeable and answered questions appropriately, but much of the content felt focused on standard product features rather than our specific business processes and use cases. I would have liked to see more hands-on exercises, deeper workflow examples, and practical demonstrations tied to real-world scenarios. Overall, the training was good and provided value, but there is opportunity to make it more engaging, more customized to our organization, and more impactful for long-term user adoption.
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Paycor Inc
The online training was adequate and covered the core functionality of the platform, but it felt similar to many standard software training libraries available today. The content was easy to access and generally well organized, but it lacked the depth, interactivity, and real-world application needed to make it particularly memorable or impactful. I would have liked to see more role-based learning paths, practical business scenarios, hands-on exercises, and guidance tailored to different user groups. Overall, the training met basic expectations and provided useful information, but it did not differentiate itself from typical web-based training programs offered by most HCM providers.
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Paycor Inc
Implementation of any new software is going to be challenging, especially if you are maintaining an existing program concurrently. When it is time for dual-processing (both old and new software) prior to going live, be prepared to be stressed. But trust the process and it will be over soon.
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Paycor Inc
They seemed similar but Paycor was cheaper at the time. However, Paycor has so many fees they tack onto every invoice that may not be the case anymore. The support services supposedly were better at ADP but that was an unknown
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Small Improvements
Lattice was able to link in with core OKRs whereas from my memory, Small Improvements didn't support this goal setting and tracking framework. While it was good for sentiment and management frameworks, it was unable to connect with the greater company vision as well as Lattice - that was the reason that we moved.
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Scalability
Paycor Inc
I gave it a 10 because we only use it across one organization. However, it has allowed us to break it into multiple departments and layers of management. It is also easy for us to utilize across different locations but still under one master company. They have always provided us support when we decide to change something on an organizational level
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Small Improvements
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Paycor Inc
  • We can process Payroll in a 25% of the time that we previously could.
  • Scheduling takes 2 or 3 times as much effort as it did before.
  • Onboarding allows employees to do self-service but comes with a lot of questions from team members so it is net the same amount of time at the end of the day.
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Small Improvements
  • Before we had Small Improvements, personal goal setting was completely disorganized. Some managers made sure it was done, likewise many did not.
  • Having past goals collected in one repository has been a blessing. I couldn't imagine not having Small Improvements or something comparable.
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ScreenShots

Paycor Screenshots

Screenshot of the real-time data insights that support critical business decisions.Screenshot of Paycor's expense reportingScreenshot of the recruiting processes streamlined in PaycorScreenshot of workforce scheduling in PaycorScreenshot of Paycor's mobile app, that allows employees to punch in and out from their phonesScreenshot of the Paycor Home Screen

Small Improvements Screenshots

Screenshot of Provide employees with structured opportunities for reflection and assessment through Performance ReviewsScreenshot of Decide whether or not you want manager to approve nominations for 360 FeedbackScreenshot of Share agenda items, meeting notes, and follow-up discussions with 1:1 MeetingsScreenshot of Create templated 1:1 meeting agendas for your managersScreenshot of Identify goals, set success measures, and track the results with ObjectivesScreenshot of Give public kudos to your colleagues with Praise