The Best HRIS Vendor for Every Sized Company

Discover the ideal HRIS vendor for your company's size. Tailored solutions for every business scale. Streamline HR processes efficiently with our comprehensive HRIS services.

Brett Ungashick
OutSail HRIS Advisor
July 4, 2023
user comparing HRIS systems

One of the most underappreciated factors when selecting a new HRIS is understanding Size Match. Every software platform is designed for a particular market segment.

Oftentimes, when buyers are having challenges with their current HRIS vendor, it is because the system the bought is not a good fit for companies like them.

If you're starting a shopping process, feel free to reach out to OutSail to get a free vendor report detailing the pros/cons of each platform

Small Businesses (<50 employees)

Justworks

Justworks is a modern leader in the PEO space and their technology is much more user-friendly than their older peers. Justworks has become the preferred platform of many high-growth start-ups due to their easy-to-use platform, quality support and modern benefit offerings.

TriNet

TriNet is great for smaller companies that are looking for a system that can facilitate all employee functions from hire to retire (recruiting, onboarding, payroll, benefits, performance, etc.), and also want to offer top tier benefits at a competitive rate.

Rippling

Rippling offers some of the most advanced technology in the HRIS space, by offering a platform that can meet all of HR and IT's needs at the same time. Rippling can integrate with just about any of your existing HR tools, while drastically simplifying your employee's onboarding, payroll and ben admin experience

Zenefits

Zenefits offers a sleek, easy-to-use HRIS platform that is used by many growing, modern companies. Zenefits' platform can cover all Core HR needs including payroll, HRIS, onboarding, time and performance. And the only modules they don’t make in-house are an ATS and LMS, where they partner with market leaders instead.

BambooHR

BambooHR has been a market leader for the past decade in creating easy-to-use HR tools for small to mid-sized companies. The platform can cover a wide breadth of functionality, is offered at a competitive price, is easy to deploy and utilize and is supported by proactive account support.

Gusto

Gusto is a modern leader in the small businesses space, delivering a user-friendly payroll and HR experience to modern companies. Gusto's platform can meet the payroll, benefits and HR needs of most small businesses, and they back their product with high quality customer support.

GoCo

GoCo is a wraparound HRIS that allows companies to stick with their existing payroll provider while providing a modern, easy-to-use HRIS on the front-end. Their platform is great for employee self-service while also creating automated syncs between payroll and benefits carriers to make an admins life easier too.

Hibob

For companies that are highly focused on developing, engaging and retaining their workforce, Bob can be a great HRIS. The platform puts employees at the center of the experience, by creating a one-stop-shop for employees to request time, view pay stubs, do performance reviews and give recognition.

Mid-Market Companies (50-350 employees)

ADP

ADP rarely needs an introduction. They are the largest payroll provider in the US, with 1 in every 6 Americans being paid by ADP. Their WorkforceNow platform offers buyers every module from hire-to-retire and ADP also provides a host of outsourced services for companies that want to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Paylocity

Paylocity has a large market share in the mid-sized HRIS space thanks to a robust hire-to-retire offering, efficient implementations and competitive price. The Paylocity team has built out quite a few integrations over the years to accommodate a best-of-breed approach as well.

Paycor

Paycor offers a strong suite of HR tools that can help manage the entire employee lifecycle from hire to retire. Like many HRIS companies, Paycor delivers a strong payroll module, but unlike many of their peers, they also have strong capabilities in performance management and recruiting too

Paycom

Paycom is a true single database solution, which isn’t very common in the HRIS space; this architecture can be a huge benefit to administrators who find the system to be fast, efficient and accurate. Paycom's platform is modern and intuitive for end-users, while also being robust enough to support most HR needs on the back end.

Ascentis

Ascentis is a smaller player in the mid-market HRIS space, but they do a few things that customers love: they prioritize customer support, they are transparent with their billing / costs and they allow buyers to take a modular approach. Ascentis also fares well for companies with large hourly workforces.

iSolved

iSolved may not be a household name yet, but they’ve filled a big market need by providing a modern end-to-end platform that works for small-to-mid-sized companies. iSolved’s core competencies are around payroll, time and HR, but they’ve recently invested quite a bit in their employee engagement tools too.

Mid-Enterprise Companies (350-2,500 employees)

UKG Pro

Ultimate Software has a long track record of delivering smart automations to complex, global companies. They offer a robust, highly capable and reliable HRIS platform that can scale with any organization's growth. Despite being a full featured system, UKG Pro's user interface is still accessible and intuitive for admins and employees alike.

Ceridian

Ceridian’s platform offers arguably the most powerful Core HR engine on the market. Their technology has been built on a single database, and the close integration of payroll, time and benefits delivers some of the most real-time data insights and accuracy in the industry.

SyncHR

SyncHR is an up-and-coming name in the mid-enterprise space. SyncHR identified three big challenges with traditional HCM platforms: integrations, support and deployment. In response, they’ve built a full-featured HRIS that can be deployed in less than 90 days, is supported by a responsive customer team and can help unify even the most messy technology ecosystems.

SagePeople

SagePeople was originally called Fairsail and was a market leading HRIS in the UK. Their platform is designed for mid-sized, global companies and Sage supports their product with a proactive, dedicated account support team. The SagePeople software is built upon the Salesforce platform, which allows every field to be customizable and makes reports easy to build.

UKG Ready

UKG Ready used to be Kronos' flagship HRIS. Kronos is famous for their workforce management software (time collection, scheduling, workforce forecasting). They have used this expertise to build a powerful HRIS platform that is highly effective for companies with large hourly workforces. The Ready platform is often competitively priced an their support teams are broken out by industry, so the support you receive can be knowledgeable to your business.

Enterprise Companies (2,500+ employees)

Workday

Workday offers a single database solution that is configurable to any organization’s needs and user friendly for employees. When they do acquire companies, they translate the new code into the existing code base to keep the back-end databases and front-end user experiences uniform. Workday also spends a huge sum on R&D and is on the leading edge with AI and 3rd party integrations

SAP SuccessFactors

The SuccessFactors platform has evolved through a variety of acquisitions of best-in-class point solutions. This approach allows SAP to offer cutting edge solutions around the employee experience, conversational AI and workforce analytics. Rather than being an all-in-one solution, they will readily bring in partners to fill potential gaps,

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Meet the Author

Brett Ungashick
OutSail HRIS Advisor
Brett Ungashick, the friendly face behind OutSail, started his career at LinkedIn, selling HR software. This experience sparked an idea, leading him to create OutSail in 2018. Based in Denver, OutSail simplifies the HR software selection process, and Brett's hands-on approach has already helped over 1,000 companies, including SalesLoft, Hudl and DoorDash. He's a go-to guy for all things HR Tech, supporting companies in every industry and across 20+ countries. When he's not demystifying HR tech, you'll find Brett enjoying a round of golf or skiing down Colorado's slopes, always happy to chat about work or play.

FAQ

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What is OutSail?
OutSail is the first-ever broker of HR Software. We offer market insights, evaluation tools & advisory services to help organizations research, evaluate and select the right HR software. And best of all - OutSail is free!
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OutSail is free due to our one-of-a-kind software broker model. When a company makes a purchase through OutSail, the winning vendor owes us a small fee for making the introduction.

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