Vendor Reviews
8 min read

How Much Does Workday Cost?

Updated on
July 4, 2023
Author
Brett Ungashick
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Workday

How Much Does Workday Cost?

Workday HCM charges companies on an quarterly or annual subscription basis. Workday HCM is often the most expensive HRIS option on the market. Workday's software fees can cost as much as $45-62 PEPM for companies at scale and there is typically a minimum annual cost of ~$275K which prevents many smaller customers from pursuing this option.

In addition to the software fees, implementing Workday HCM will require a one-time implementation fee. Workday HCM, or more commonly, their implementation partners, will charge ~125-150% of the annual software fees for their implementation fees (i.e., $625-750K implementation fee on a $500K annual purchase).

Most Workday HCM customers also have multiple full-time HRIS managers or continue to pay their implementation partner to help manage the system, so this is another cost to consider with Workday.

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What Modules Are Included with Workday?

Workday HCM offers every module from hire-to-retire and even provides robust financial & accounting tools too. Companies can, and often do, use Workday HCM as their single system for all HR needs. However, some companies will leverage a best-in-class payroll tool (like ADP) or a best-in-class ATS (like Greenhouse).

Some of the Core HR functionality that Workday offers includes:

  • Payroll Management & Tax Filing
  • Benefits Admin
  • HR Administration / Employee Files
  • Time Tracking & Attendance
  • Onboarding & Offboarding
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Additionally, Workday has some of the most robust talent management functionality in the marketplace, including:

  • Recruiting & Applicant Tracking System
  • Performance Management
  • Compensation Management
  • Workforce Planning & Succession planning
  • Engagement
  • Learning
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Who is Workday?

Workday HCM was founded by ex-PeopleSoft executives who saw an opportunity to bring the HCM model to the cloud. Workday is a Silicon Valley success story that has turned into one of the leading enterprise software companies in the world. Workday software is targeted at enterprise companies and Workday customers make up a significant portion of the Fortune 500. The system is defined by a single database architecture, strong integration capabilities and endless permissions, controls and configurations. Despite being a robust, full-featured system, Workday is still user friendly and does a great job of encouraging employee self service

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What Sized Companies Fit Workday Best?

Workday HCM is considered an Enterprise HRIS, which means the system works best for companies with more than 2,000 employees. Enterprise solutions are designed to be all-in-one HRIS's for companies with high degrees of complexity in their operations. Companies that operate in many states and countries, and companies with numerous entities and sub-divisions find a lot of value in working with Enterprise HR Systems.

Enterprise solutions typically take about 6-10 months to implement and often require external consultants to successfully implement and manage the solutions. Enterprise solutions have powerful rules engines and unmatched custom workflow tools, that enable them to meet any company's requirements. Enterprise solutions also offer robust talent management tools to improve recruiting processes.

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Considerations to keep In Mind with Workday HCM

Although there are many great things about Workday, it is not a fit for every business. Some things to keep in mind when deciding if Workday is best for your business include:

  • Does Workday have robust enough time tracking and workforce management features for our use case?
  • Is Workday's recruitment solution going to improve our hiring process enough or will we need a 3rd party to replace their ATS?
  • Can we afford the total cost of Workday including the initial implementation, the renewal cost and the service provider work that we'll use on an ad hoc basis?
  • Will we use Workday as a one stop shop for all of our HR software needs or will we also need to set-up third party integrations?