Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
Compensation management software is essential to the modern human resources department. Compensation adds up to 70.3% of total employer costs in the private industry. Therefore, it’s important for HR teams to take extra care when planning how to pay employees.
Many other factors contribute to needing compensation management software as well. Not sure the monetary value of a specific skill? Having trouble tracking performance-based compensation across different teams? Trying to boost retention through transparent payment decisions?
To simplify your buying process, we handpicked the best compensation management solutions out of dozens in the market. Before you decide to buy, check out this guide to understand what’s out there, how much each product costs, what to ask on demos, and more.
We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business.
Here’s how we chose who makes the cut:
Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering.
User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.
Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line.
Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.
Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!
We track thousands of HR Tech solutions. Here are the best compensation management software as of 2023.
Why we love it
:
ChartHop promises to take you beyond manual spreadsheets with their compensation planning solution that automatically generates a compensation review plan to share with management based on any metrics you choose.
ChartHop
Review:
ChartHop’s compensation management solution is excellent at distributing salary data and creating personalized scenario planning.
Your team decides what information to share with managers, from compensation and performance data to demographic and benchmarking data. Once all that information is chosen, ChartHop automatically creates compensation scenarios and exports it to detailed “smart guides” for managers to see.
Managers can then add their proposed changes to a dashboard that forecasts how the compensation changes affect the company. After that, they can approve changes and move them up the chain of command. It’s a powerful, intuitive tool that streamlines the review process.
ChartHop
Customers:
Remy Cointreau, InVision, Sequoia, BetterCloud, and Postman
ChartHop
Pricing:
ChartHop’s compensation planning solution is a part of their suite of employee management products.
The pricing tiers that offer compensation planning are Grow, Scale, and Enterprise. They are $7 per employee per month, $10 per employee per month, and custom priced respectively.
Personalized support is provided in ChartHop’s enterprise pricing plan.
Charthop has 4 different pricing plans. When billed annually, here’s what they look like:
For an additional $2 per employee per month, billed annually, you also get access to their compensation planning tool. If you want to run your comp cycle on the same platform as your HRIS and performance management software, then this feature is beneficial.
Best For
Any company looking for an entire people planning suite with compensation built in.
Why we love it
:
beqom has a 99% customer retention rate for a reason. It’s a comprehensive solution to compensation management with powerful planning, budgeting, and forecasting functions that let you track headcount and compensation based on data from across your HR tech stack.
beqom
Review:
beqom’s compensation management software is a comprehensive suite with everything from performance, salary, and bonus management to budget planning and forecasting. Additional features allow you to measure compensation across gender, age, and race to uncover gaps, boosting transparency and equal pay in your organization.
You can also break down total compensation into smaller categories, such as executives and individuals, to get a granular understanding of how you’re paying different people.
beqom
Customers:
beqom
Pricing:
beqom‘s pricing model is an all-inclusive annual fee. For specifics, you must contact a representative to get a quote based on your needs.
beqom's pricing model is an all-inclusive annual fee. For specifics, you must contact a representative to get a quote based on your needs.
Best For
Large and enterprise companies.
Why we love it
:
Hibob’s compensation management software is built into its people platform, but it’s strong enough to stand on its own with powerful reporting and collaboration tools.
Bob
Review:
Hibob’s compensation management software is linked to its existing people platform, making it a great choice for companies looking for an all-encompassing HR suite. However, just because it’s a feature in bob’s larger platform, it doesn’t mean compensation management is an afterthought. It’s a powerful, efficient tool with yearly compensation reviews, equity and bonus allocation, detailed reporting and analytics, and so much more.
Bob
Customers:
Tufin, Yotpo Ltd., Fiverr, Happy Socks, Taptica
Bob
Pricing:
While Hibob doesn’t disclose pricing online, you can contact its sales team for a custom quote.
Bob offers custom pricing. They have flexible plans for growing companies and will work with you to offer the best possible cost.
Best For
Small to mid-sized companies looking for an HR suite with compensation management built in.
Why we love it
:
With access to over 40,000 employee records from 500+ companies, Pave has some of the strongest benchmarking data in the compensation management space.
Pave
Review:
Pave’s compensation management software stands out because of its three-pronged approach: Plan, Communicate, and Benchmark.
Your company can make smart, purposeful compensation decisions based on real-time salary data, analytics, and merit cycle workflows for administering bonuses and equity. Employees have access to a dashboard to view salary, equity, bonuses, and benefits as part of their total compensation. This same visualization is offered to top candidates as well to promote transparency in the hiring process.
Pave also provides real-time, up-to-date market salary data to bolster compensation decisions.
Pave
Customers:
Pave
Pricing:
Pave’s pricing is not available on their website. You must contact a sales representative by clicking the “Request Demo” button in the top right corner of its website.
Pave's pricing is not available on their website. You must contact a sales representative by clicking the "Request Demo" button in the top right corner of its website.
Best For
Companies looking to provide transparent compensation to employees and candidates.
Why we love it
:
PayScale is the trusted compensation platform for more than 7,500 customers, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies.
PayScale
Review:
PayScale recently merged with Payfactors to become one of the largest compensation software providers in North America. PayScale has a few different offerings under its umbrella, including Insight Lab, MarketPay, PayScaleTeam, Benchmark, and PayScale Data. With so much variety, customers can pick and choose which features they specifically need.
Certain product suites are geared towards company size as well. For example, MarketPay is designed with the enterprise customer in mind. Therefore, companies of all shapes and sizes can find a solution tailored to their needs. PayScale also offers numerous compensation resources on their website based on thorough research.
PayScale
Customers:
PayScale
Pricing:
Pricing is not available on PayScale’s website. However, it does offer a free job pricing if you make an account.
Pricing is not available on PayScale's website. However, it does offer a free job pricing if you make an account.
Best For
Companies of all sizes that need a tailored comp management solution.
Why we love it
:
CURO has saved their customers hundreds of thousands by driving efficiency, improving effectiveness, and providing a clear line of sight between achievement and compensation outcome.
CURO
Review:
CURO is an impressive solution that covers all aspects of compensation management. It really shines in its complex bonus management features. You can define eligibility criteria for bonuses and salary bumps, track performance, and manage short and long-term incentives as well as promotion scenarios.
All this has helped its customers save money by “slicing” bonuses. CURO will recognize if an employee switched roles halfway through the year. As a result, employers roll out their annual bonus based on both roles, instead of just the role at year’s end. At a big company with lots of in-house mobility, that can add up to hundreds of thousands in savings.
CURO
Customers:
CURO
Pricing:
CURO customers pay for a license which is based on your number of employees. There are additional professional service fees based on your implementation and service needs.
CURO customers pay for a license which is based on your number of employees. There are additional professional service fees based on your implementation and service needs.
Best For
Large and enterprise companies looking to drive efficiency and savings.
Why we love it
:
Salary.com’s CompAnalyst is the largest HR-reported source of market pricing, with 800 million market data points in 22 countries.
CompAnalyst
Review:
Salary.com’s CompAnalyst solution is a few different features under the same umbrella name. Its standard feature set includes labor cost forecasting, total compensation statements, survey management, reporting & analytics, and merit modeling.
Specifically, its Market Data tool is renowned for its massive database of market pricing. In addition, you’ll get instant access to over 50,000 named executives from public US companies, easily benchmarking your executive headhunting.
What makes CompAnalyst stand out, is its ability to grow alongside your organization. There is a standard feature set ideal for HR teams of one or two, which can expand as your company builds out a talent acquisition team and eventually a dedicated compensation team.
CompAnalyst
Customers:
CompAnalyst
Pricing:
CompAnalyst is made up of a few different solutions, which you pay for separately. You must get in contact with a sales rep for detailed pricing.
CompAnalyst is made up of a few different solutions, which you pay for separately. You must get in contact with a sales rep for detailed pricing.
Best For
Companies of all sizes will find CompAnalyst useful. As your company grows, you can expand your feature set from the base level.
Why we love it
:
COMPview is a flexible solution for companies of all sizes. It’s designed to adapt to any compensation plan, whether simple or complex.
COMPview
Review:
COMPview, the compensation management software offered by HRSoft, is a no frills compensation solution that can easily adapt to any compensation model.
Upon logging in, users are met with a detailed dashboard that provides birds eye details on the status of compensation. From there, different users can access different functionalities. Frontline managers can make recommendations for their team members, leaders have access to a workflow for reviewing and approving, and upper management will receive detailed reports and compensation statements.
COMPview’s value proposition is being agile to meet the different requirements of its variety of customers. As such, they provide a dedicated customer support team that will be with you from implementation all the way to customer success.
COMPview
Customers:
COMPview
Pricing:
COMPview is priced on a per employee per year model, plus a flat implementation fee.
COMPview is priced on a per employee per year model, plus a flat implementation fee.
Best For
Companies of any size looking for a flexible comp solution.
Why we love it
:
With a sleek and easy-to-navigate platform, Compete stand out for offering real-time data about benefits and compensation in the tech industry. HR leaders at hundreds of tech companies use their platform to stay competitive in their offerings and retain their people.
Compete
Review:
Compete’s co-founder and CEO, Amit Rapaport, comes from the world of HR. During her years in several roles, she realized that a major challenge for most HR people was tapping into real-time compensation data. Addressing this pain point is why Compete was founded. Each and every one of their customers provide data from their organization in an anonymous manner, which is fed into their ever-growing database.
On the user side, HR and hiring managers can search for any role, see how much it pays, and look at the benchmark for benefits and other forms of compensation. There’s hard data for salaries, dozens of benefits such as vacation days, maternity leave, healthcare, 401K, and of course benchmarking data about equity. Managers can then make their own conclusions vis a vis compensation and make an informed effort on how to retain their employees.
Compete
Customers:
Many of the leading unicorns and public companies in tech are Compete’s customers. Some of them are Fiverr, Monday.com, Rakuten Viber, HoneyBook, Taboola, Riskified, ironSource, and Melio. Compete also caters to tech companies of all sizes.
Many of the leading unicorns and public companies in tech are Compete's customers. Some of them are Fiverr, Monday.com, Rakuten Viber, HoneyBook, Taboola, Riskified, ironSource, and Melio. Compete also caters to tech companies of all sizes.
Compete
Pricing:
Compete is available at a single price and they’ve made sure it’s affordable for startups as well, even if you only hire one person. Regardless of your company size, they offer an unlimited amount of seats.
Compete is available at a single price and they've made sure it's affordable for startups as well, even if you only hire one person. Regardless of your company size, they offer an unlimited amount of seats.
Best For
HR leaders, CFOs, and Venture Capital Funds in tech.
Compensation management tools are incredibly useful across the employee lifecycle. Picture the beginning of the candidate journey. What’s the market pay for the role you’re hiring? How much do you bump their salary after 2 years, assuming they perform well?
These questions and more are answered with comp management. Here are a few more use cases.
When considering compensation management software, it’s important to avoid common pitfalls that may occur.
It’s much easier to gain buy-in with decision makers if you have a firm grasp of ROI. Compensation management software has many benefits that will provide measurable returns for your business. Here are a few that you can bring up to your superiors:
Compensation management software is priced either through a subscription or a license.
Companies such as ChartHop or Hibob, that offer comp management through their greater product suites, charge on a per user per month basis. Companies such as CURO charge for an annual license, which is based on how many employees you have. You will have to pay upfront for a license, whereas subscription you pay per month.
This will often come with implementation and service fees. If you sign a longer term contract, you may receive a discounted rate.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate a better price. For guidance, read our ebook on how to get the best pricing in HR tech.
Compensation management software is designed to streamline all of your comp operations. The features reflect that goal.
Before you get on the call, you need to think critically about your needs. Ask about key features, implementation timelines, customer success, and all the other variables that will help you make the right decision. It’s important to not be distracted by the bells and whistles.
Here are some suggestions for questions to ask:
Implementation of compensation management software differs from company to company. Generally, you should expect to spend a few weeks to a few months on the process.
The typical steps include set up, data integration, training, testing, going live, and post-going live review. If price is a concern, double check about implementation fees with your vendor of choice. Your first choice of vendor might have a lower annual cost, but charge big service and implementation fees that actually make it more expensive than your second choice.
Compensation management is the process of determining the wages, salary, bonuses, equity, and benefits employees and potential hires receive.
Compensation management software are solutions designed to streamline comp processes. They achieve this by automating processes that would typically be done manually or in spreadsheets.
Benefits of compensation management software include saved time and money, transparency and equal pay, ensured compliance, and heightened employee retention and satisfaction.
Compensation management software features include salary and performance management, benchmarking, reporting and analytics, planning, budgeting, and forecasting tools, and bonus and equity administration.
When choosing a compensation management software, think critically about your goals. Each of our featured vendors will provide you with streamlined comp management. Therefore, you must consider the extraneous factors that might make a certain vendor stand out.
Are you mainly looking for salary benchmarking? Choose a vendor with a huge database of salary information. Are you looking for an entire HR suite with compensation included? Choose a vendor that offers that feature set. Are you looking to spend as little money as possible? Take a look at each vendor and compare costs.
Regardless, you will end up with a useful solution. Just make sure you focus on the must-haves rather than the nice-to-haves.
Finally, compensation is necessarily linked to performance. If your team is having a hard time building out a detailed bonus plan, performance management software will make it much easier to track OKRs and annual reviews. Take a look at our performance management software landscape for more detail, including pricing, ROI, benefits, features, and more.
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