Market Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about Paylocity drawn from our latest market research, Ventana Research Buyers Guide: Payroll Management, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.  

We recently published three Ventana Research 2023 Payroll Management Buyers Guides, an assessment of technology vendors and products that provide individual and combined payroll management, domestic payroll and global payroll platform support.  

At Ventana Research, we continue to believe that, for most use-cases, there is a clear choice for payroll management platforms for any use in your organization. We developed three technology assessments and buyers guides to focus on overall payroll management requirements as well as specific domestic payroll and global payroll platform use-cases. 

In all of our Buyers Guides, we utilize a structured research methodology called the Value Index that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for payroll management. We evaluated Paylocity and seven other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the vendor (TCO/ROI and vendor validation).  

In the overall Payroll Management Buyers Guide, our analysis classified Paylocity as a vendor of Merit, receiving an overall grade of B with 64.5% performance. Paylocity’s best grouped results came in Product Experience at 65.8% performance and a B grade due in part to its B+ in Capability. In Customer Experience, Paylocity received a B- with a 58.1% performance due to its 62.0% performance in Validation. Paylocity did not participate in the RFI process. 

Paylocity’s B grade in Product Experience was impacted by its B- in Adaptability where it could increase the amount of preconfigured data locking options offered. Customer Experience was impacted by its C++ grade in TCO/ROI where it could provide customers with tools to calculate the potential costs and cost savings of the product.  

Paylocity performed best in Product Experience with a B grade, notably in Capability where it received a B+ due to the large number of countries the product is available to pay. Paylocity’s B grade in Usability was due to the integration and optimization of the web browser and mobile device experience. 

In the Domestic Payroll Buyers Guide, our analysis classified Paylocity as a vendor of Merit, receiving an overall grade of B- with a  61.8% performance. Paylocity’s best grouped results came in Product Experience at 62.6% performance and a B grade due in part to its B in Capability. In Customer Experience, Paylocity received a B- grade with a 58.1% performance due to its 54.3% performance in TCO/ROI. Paylocity did not participate in the RFI process. 

Paylocity’s B grade in Product Experience was impacted by its B- in Adaptability where it could offer better data-locking capabilities. Customer Experience was impacted by its C++ grade in TCO/ROI where it could offer more information to customers about the potential cost savings achievable by customers.  

Paylocity performed best in Product Experience with a B grade, notably in Capability, receiving a B due to the resources available to assist users in complying with government payroll regulations. In Usability, Paycor had a B grade for their mobile accessibility. Paylocity’s organizational structure for delivering quality customer experience led to its B- in Validation. 

In the Global Payroll Buyers Guide, our analysis classified Paylocity as a vendor of Merit, receiving an overall grade of B with a 63.8% performance. Paylocity’s best grouped results came in Product Experience at 64.9% performance and a B grade due in part to its B in Capability. In Customer Experience, Paylocity received a B- grade with a 58.4% performance due to its 54.3% performance in TCO/ROI. Paylocity did not participate in the RFI process. 

Paylocity’s B grade in Product Experience was impacted by its B- in Reliability where it could better articulate how their reliability capabilities set them apart from the competition through better documentation and other examples of performance and scalability. Customer Experience was impacted by its C++ grade in TCO/ROI where it could better showcase the tools available to customers and prospects for identifying and quantifying achievable benefits. 

Paylocity performed best in Product Experience with a B grade, notably in Capability where it received a B due to its strong global and core payroll capabilities. Paylocity received a B grade in Usability due to its good user experience and accessibility capabilities. 

This assessment was based on Paylocity Payroll and Paylocity Global Payroll, v. September, released September 2023.  

This research-based guide is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of human capital management software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Buyers Guide by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Click below to read the individual reports: 

Payroll Management Buyers Guide 

Domestic Payroll Buyers Guide  

Global Payroll Buyers Guide