SAP SuccessFactors is a robust human capital management system that helps midsize to large business and global companies manage their HR and payroll processes. Most of its modules require a minimum of 100 employees, although global payroll requires a 500-employee minimum. With SAP, you can onboard, pay, help track work goals, and even train employees. Global payroll and local compliance support are also available.
In our SAP SuccessFactors review, we’ll cover pricing and major HR and payroll features as well as consider security and user feedback. We rated it against the providers in our best HRIS/HRMS software guide, and it earned a 3.8 out of 5, taking hits for pricing and complexity of features that make it less suitable for small businesses.
SAP Success Factors Overview
SAP SuccessFactors Is Best For
- Businesses planning on hiring a global team: SAP can help companies expand their global workforce. It provides global payroll processing and localized legal, compliance, and employment support.
- Large companies with 1,000+ employees that are planning on hiring: SAP can provide the HR support needed by large companies—advanced recruiting, hiring, and onboarding tools that include time-saving automated processes. It is more expensive than your average software for small businesses, and large companies typically have the capital to cover the costs.
- Companies already using SAP solutions: If your company is already using SAP business tools, you can easily add additional integrated modules to create a complete HR solution customized for your business. The learning curve, which can be pretty high with this software, may also be easier to manage if you’re familiar with the way it works already.
SAP SuccessFactors Is Not Ideal For
- Small companies with few employees: Small companies don’t usually require the advanced HR services that SAP provides, which means the price tag isn’t worth it for them. If your company is small with basic operations and you only need a low-priced payroll system, check out our guide to the best free payroll software.
- Companies wanting to integrate SAP into other HR software: SAP is intended to work with other SAP solutions and thus operates as a complete all-in-one HRIS. Configuring integrations with other popular business software may require additional packages at further expense or customized support. For HR software options that may integrate more easily with outside software, check out our guide to the best HR software.
How SAP SuccessFactors Compares With Top Alternatives
Best For | Base starter monthly fee | Free Plan | Our Reviews | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Companies with 100+ employees; 500+ for global payroll | Quote-based (Our quote: $200,000 for annual licensing fees for its payroll solution (includes a one-time setup fee) | None, but offers a free demo | ||
Companies planning to scale internationally | $15 per employee for global payroll | None, but offers a free demo | ||
Businesses that want technical support and device management for international contractors | $8 per employee + 35 base fee (includes payroll & time tracking) for the US; $28 per employee for global payroll | None, but offers a free demo | ||
Startups working with foreign contractors or hiring refugees | Quote-based for employees, $29 per contractor, and free for refugees | None, but offers a free demo | ||
Looking for something different? Read our guide to the best HRIS/HRMS software for small businesses to find a solution that’s right for you.
SAP SuccessFactors pricing is based on the number of employees you have and the solutions you need. It has a modular system that allows you to select the features you want, such as time tracking, payroll, analytics, and talent management. Additional solutions like system implementation, software training, professional services, and support plans cost extra.
Based on the quote we received, annual licensing fees for its payroll product start at $200,000 (this includes a one-time setup fee). You have to pay add-on fees if you want other modules, like recruiting ($3 per employee monthly) and performance management ($4.17+ per employee monthly). In addition, we found pricing for its Integration Suite running from $11,000 to $15,000.
You also have to meet the minimum employee count if you want to purchase SAP SuccessFactors modules. For most of its solutions, you need to have at least 100 employees. However, its global payroll tool requires a minimum employee count of 500.
SAP has free trials of many of its modules. This way, you can try out tools before adding them to your platform.
Since Our Last Update: SAP has made several improvements to the software.
It’s easier to validate and correct errors in business configuration and non-effective-date entities, like personal information, work permits, or contact information. For example—it universally applies business key validation to work permit data. Also, you can apply old onboarding information to rehires.
SAP SuccessFactors provides comprehensive HRIS tools for companies with large and global operations. You’ll find all the usual tools that the best HR systems offer, such as benefits and plan enrollment management, employee profiles and organizational charting, HR reporting and insight tools, compliance support, and talent management. Its tools cover the employee cycle from recruiting to offboarding. You can access all features online and on mobile devices—provided an internet connection is available.
Hiring and Onboarding
SAP offers Recruiting services for active and passive recruiting and includes an applicant tracking system. You’ll have access to more than 4,000 sources in over 80 countries, including job boards, universities, and diversity channels—SAP continually adds to the list.
Onboarding is online and easy with a strong HR document management system, step-by-step wizards, intuitive dashboards, and built-in electronic forms. You can use the system for transfers and outboarding as well. SAP Qualtrics Employee Lifecycle automates onboarding and offboarding surveys, so you can collect insights into the process.
Benefits Management
You can get a full range of medical and other benefits including health, dental, vision, flexible spending accounts, and more. It also manages disability, 401(k), and other insurances. In addition, with SAP SuccessFactors, you can manage stock purchase plans and bonus administration, including customizing benefits to performance.
Compliance Management
Get industry-specific compliance management in over 100 locations. SAP SuccessFactors payroll tools include rules for ensuring you are compliant with the laws of your area, both domestically and internationally. In addition, its extensive analytics (see Reporting) can provide unique insights into diversity, EEO, and other HR compliance issues.
Talent Management
SAP goes well beyond the standard performance reports and LMS. It also has tools to connect employees with opportunities that fit their career goals, and succession management to help you develop future leaders within your company. These are all additional tools with their own prices but may save you money by retaining employees.
Business Technology Platform
In case SAP does not offer the business tool you need, its BTP lets you integrate with hundreds of applications and extensions. This is a separate module with a free trial and pay-as-you-go, subscription, or cloud credit plans.
HR Document Management
According to SAP, managers can spend as much as 50% of their time working with employee documents. It streamlines the process with centralized storage with flexible folder structures and search capabilities. Besides that, its document management tools can be configured to monitor updates and changes. Managers can even enable employee access to documents via the employee portal.
This HR software can automate the onboarding process, so new hires can review and e-sign HR and tax documents. It securely stores documents online, such as employee agreements and tax forms, using the highest security requirements.
Security
SAP keeps up with the latest security requirements and proudly posts its certifications, reports, and attestations on its website. Here are just a few:
- Five ISO certifications
- ISO 9001
- ISO/IEC 27001-Security Management systems
- ISO/IEC 27018-Code of Practice for Personally Identifiable information
- ISO 22301 – Business Continuity Management System
- ISO/IEC 27017 Code of Practice for Cloud service information security
- BS 10012 Personal Information Management System
- SOC 1 and SOC 2
- PCI DSS
- EU Cloud Code of Conduct (EU Cloud CoC)
- HIPAA
Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
---|---|
Automated processes | Cost prohibitive for small businesses |
Comprehensive suite of HR solutions | Interface not intuitive; has a slightly steep learning curve |
Easy-to-update employee profiles | Occasional software glitches |
Since Our Last Update: We found fewer complaints about its ability to integrate with other software.
Users who left SAP SuccessFactors reviews online said that its HR tools overall made their daily work life more manageable. They commented that its organized employee database, time and PTO reporting tools, automated training features, performance management, and recruiting features are more advanced than similar HR software.
In terms of user interface (UI), some reviewers found the UI simple to use but others said that navigating through all its features can be confusing, especially for new users, both HR managers and employees. A few complained about the price as well. Users gave SAP SuccessFactors customer service 4 or 5 stars.
At the time of publication, SAP SuccessFactors reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4 out of 5 based on 260+ reviews
- G2: 3.9 out of 5 based on around 640 reviews
- TrustRadius: 7.9 out of 10 based on nearly 30 reviews
SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics can give you a comprehensive view of your entire business from employee performance to financials. The analytics function uses over 2,000 predefined metrics for HR, talent, and other sources to let you identify workforce trends and uncover issues in diversity or turnover. You can integrate with third-party software for financial analysis.
Meanwhile, SAP Analytics Cloud offers predictive planning, what-if scenarios, and machine-generated insights to aid in short- and long-term decision-making.
Payroll Processing
SAP SuccessFactors helps you run accurate payroll using automated processes, integrated time tracking tools, efficient time off and holiday rules, and tax compliance. It supports hourly, salaried, and contract workers, although there is no contractor-specific payroll plan.
SAP payroll processing tools can also manage complex deduction scenarios such as retirement investments, garnishments, and benefits. Plus, with the time-tracking tool, you can also calculate payroll in real time.
SAP SuccessFactors’ payroll services may be more than you need for your small business. If so, check out our lists for the best payroll services and best payroll software. Not sure how to judge? Read our article on finding the right payroll solution first.
International Payroll
Since Our Last Update: You can now use additional pay types to enable a country/region-specific replication of an employee’s payment information to Employee Central Payroll to cover country/region-specific business requirements. (Available to registered early adopters only.)
SAP SuccessFactors is used to pay over 100 million people around the world each month. It handles payroll in 100 locations, 42 languages, and 172 currencies. SAP employs over 1,300 experts to keep payroll regulations current.
In addition to offering access to local experts who can provide support, SAP’s global payment services can help employers with local compliance, legal, and employment requirements to help avoid expensive non-compliance issues.
PTO and Time Tracking
Since Our Last Update: SAP allows more types of scheduled jobs for Employee Central in the Scheduled Job Manager admin tool.
Time tracking and time off management tools seamlessly integrate with payroll processing and other HR modules to compute paychecks, deductions, and tax calculations. It also tracks the use of PTO and vacation time. And, if you need employee scheduling, it has that feature too, albeit at an extra cost.
Managers can review employee time and PTO approvals using a mobile device. You can configure alerts and notifications to alert employees of tasks that may need to be taken care of, such as time-off requests.
Employee Portal
Employees can find everything they need, from employee chat and analytics to guided experiences for improving productivity and business processes. Mobile apps for employees are available, allowing them to perform various time-tracking functions. From the workplace or remote locations, employees can submit time worked, check time-off balances, raise PTO requests, access pay slips, and view other HR information.
SAP SuccessFactors is an excellent HR/HRIS for large businesses—and our expert review reflects that, with top scores for functionality and reporting. However, it lost some points because it offers way more than the average SMB needs in terms of HR tools, and this can overwhelm the user and make it more difficult to learn and navigate (users said they found it easy enough once they understood the software, however).
Naturally, its pricing is more than the average SMB would consider affordable, and there are other alternatives that are less expensive while doing a similar job.
- 24/7 year-round telephone, chat, email, and community support
- Numerous paid support plans available
- Embedded, dashboard, and online support
- Training and deployment consulting services
Since Our Last Update: Several new SAP SuccessFactors features have been added to improve user experience, especially for managers. Some improvements include easier access to data, additional rules for onboarding pages, and an easier cancellation of onboarding when needed.
SAP SuccessFactors has a big learning curve, especially if you’ve never used SAP software. In fact, it’s one of the few we’ve reviewed that offers in-depth courses with certifications just on its software.
Considering how complex this software is, especially if you need to integrate it with other solutions, it is recommended that new customers take advantage of professional services.
These can help you implement, customize, and deploy the solution, train employees to use the software, optimize the reporting tools, and more. However, many businesses find that the online and in-person training is enough for them to use SAP SuccessFactors for the day-to-day use of the software.
SAP SuccessFactors seamlessly connect with other SAP products. Its comprehensive suite of solutions includes CRM, accounting and finance, people and talent management, travel and expense tracking, data management, asset management, and analytics tools. Nonetheless, some products require the use of an integration package to set up APIs for custom integrations. There are also specific packages available for connecting its platform with third-party vendors, such as Kronos, IBM Kenexa, and WorkForce.
How We Evaluated SAP SuccessFactors
For this review, we used our review matrix for Best HRIS Software. That matrix considered price, types and functionality of HR features, reporting, and popularity. Then we added our very own expert score, which was based on the platform’s usefulness for small and medium businesses.
Click through for the full evaluation criteria:
20% of Overall Score
We rated the highest for plans under $5,000 a year for 15 employees, which is why SAP was not considered on this list and why it had such a low score. We also gave points for transparency and unlimited payroll.
20% of Overall Score
This score covered the basics of HRIS—online onboarding with forms, an employee database, benefits, and HR functions in general.
5% of Overall Score
HR runs on reports, both for sending to the government and for tracking the effectiveness of programs. We considered the number and customizability of reports.
5% of Overall Score
As much time as we spend on research, it cannot replace the experiences of real-world users. Here we considered the user feedback, customer service quality trends, and average scores from third-party review sites like Capterra and G2.
20% of Overall Score
This goes deeper into the features, looking at the depth of functionality for the most needed HR tools, from payroll to learning management.
15% of Overall Score
This score looks at the whole of the feature sets for HR, HRMS, software, and reporting and how appropriate they are for small businesses.
15% of Overall Score
We considered interface, customer support, online guides, and dedicated help when compiling this score.
SAP SuccessFactors Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
SAP SuccessFactors is a huge suite of HR and payroll products to streamline, manage, and analyze the employee experience from recruiting to offboarding.
It’s a cloud-based software-as-a-service, meaning you purchase subscriptions. It offers a huge number of independent modules that can work together, so it’s a versatile system. Managers and employees can access it online by desktop, tablet, or mobile with an internet connection.
SAP SuccessFactors is extremely secure. In addition to encryptions, password controls, and role-based access, it has a large number of industry and security certifications.
You’ll need professional implementation from SAP or a third-party vendor. Real-world users say it’s easy to use once you are accustomed to the software, but the options can be overwhelming. There is a learning curve.
Bottom Line
SAP SuccessFactors has a comprehensive HXM suite that efficiently handles the entire employee lifecycle—from hiring to retiring. Its advanced HR and payroll processing tools seamlessly integrate with other SAP solutions, such as finance and CRM tools, allowing you to manage key business processes with just one platform. Companies with offices and employees in countries outside the US can also benefit from SAP’s global HR and payroll expertise. This makes managing and paying global staff easy for employers.
Our SAP SuccessFactors review just scratches the surface of what it has to offer. SAP SuccessFactors pricing depends on the tools you need and the size of your company. Check out the demos and trials or contact SAP for a quote today.