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Best Compensation Management Software

9 Best Compensation Management Software Tools (2024)

The best compensation management software tested and reviewed by HR tech experts. See feature comparisons, pricing data, benefits, drawbacks, and more below.

Chris Hatler
Written by
Chris Hatler
HR tech researcher, writer and editor
We are a reader supported site with strict editorial standards, clicks may earn a fee which supports our testing. Learn More
Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024
TOP
Compensation and sales performance management suite
beqom
4.5
Popularity Score
4.3
User Score
4.5
Product  Score
Visit Website
TOP
Compensation and sales performance management suite
beqom
4.5
Popularity Score
4.3
User Score
4.5
Product  Score
Learn More
TOP
HR software with compensation management capabilities
Bob
4.1
Popularity Score
4.4
User Score
4.3
Product  Score
Visit Website
TOP
HR software with compensation management capabilities
Bob
4.1
Popularity Score
4.4
User Score
4.3
Product  Score
Learn More
TOP
Compensation management solution with strong benchmarking
Pave
4.1
Popularity Score
4.0
User Score
4.2
Product  Score
Visit Website
TOP
Compensation management solution with strong benchmarking
Pave
4.1
Popularity Score
4.0
User Score
4.2
Product  Score
Learn More
Over 3 million HR leaders trust our advice

Introduction to Compensation Management Software

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.

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Best Compensation Management Software

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beqom

: Compensation and sales performance management suite

Bob

: HR software with compensation management capabilities

Pave

: Compensation management solution with strong benchmarking

PayScale

: Compensation management solution for businesses of all sizes

CURO

: Compensation management and pay equity solution

CompAnalyst

: Compensation management solution with a massive database

COMPview

: Scalable compensation management solution

Compete

: Best for compensation benchmarking in tech

ChartHop

: People planning suite with compensation management capabilities

Our Criteria: Here's How We Chose The Best Compensation Management Software

To identify the top-tier Compensation Management Software, we evaluated dozens of tools across multiple criteria taking into account user feedback, demos, interviews with each company’s product team, and our own experts’ insight. We placed significant emphasis on three pivotal aspects: compensation management features, market analysis & benchmarking capabilities, and integration with HR systems.

  • Core Compensation Management Features: The selected solutwions facilitate salary planning, performance assessment, bonus distribution, and equity administration. These features empower businesses to make informed compensation decisions, align employee rewards with performance, and optimize the overall compensation management process.
  • Market Analysis and Benchmarking: Effective compensation management requires insights into prevailing market trends and competitive benchmarks. We focused on software solutions that enable businesses to compare their compensation practices with industry peers, access real-time market data, and make data-driven decisions to ensure competitive and fair compensation packages.
  • Integration with HR Systems: To make the cut, the compensation management tools we picked had to offer compatibility with HRIS, HCM, and other essential HR platforms, ensuring seamless data exchange and minimizing manual data entry.
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Compare the Best Compensation Management Software

Popularity Score
Best for
Key Differentiator
Pricing
Free Trial
Customers
Users Score
Product Score

beqom

Most Popular
4.5
4.3
4.5

Bob

Most Popular
4.1
Custom Pricing
No
3,000 customers
4.4
4.3

PayScale

Most Popular
4.1
3.2
3.8

CompAnalyst

Most Popular
4.0
4.4
4.3

COMPview

Most Popular
4.0
4.5
4.3

Compete

Most Popular
4.0
4.5
4.2

ChartHop

Most Popular
4.6
Free for first 150 employees
Yes
N/A
4.3
4.6
Phil Strazzulla
HR Tech Expert, Harvard MBA, Software Enthusiast

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Detailed Reviews of the Best Compensation Management Software

beqom

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beqom
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Popularity Score
4.5 / 5
User Score
4.3 / 5
Product Score
4.5 / 5

Why we picked beqom

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.

PROS

CONS

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

  • Lowe’s
  • the Adecco Group
  • BNP Paribas
  • PepsiCo

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.

Best For

Large and enterprise companies.

beqom in action
No items found.

Bob

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Bob
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Popularity Score
4.1 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.3 / 5

Why we picked Bob

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.

PROS

  • They have tons of modules, which makes them a real one-stop shop. Beyond Core HR, they have modules for most things People Ops-related.  
  • Bob is a fast-growing company and their product looks the part, as it has one of the sleekest-looking platforms in the HRMS space right now. 
  • Their payroll hub allows you to connect all your payroll systems, which works great if you want to pay people in multiple locations without switching providers.

CONS

  • Customer support is only offered via a chatbot and email. 
  • As to implementation, several users commented that they felt there could be more attention via personal walkthroughs provided at the beginning. Many had to resort to reading documentation and watching videos or just figuring things out by themselves. 
  • Pricing is only custom and available upon request, so you can’t just sign up, pay, and start using the tool.

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

  • SmartRecruiters
  • Fiverr
  • DraftKings

Bob Pricing

While Hibob doesn’t disclose pricing online, you can contact its sales team for a custom quote.

Best For

Small to mid-sized companies looking for an HR suite with compensation management built in.

Bob in action
Reviewer's Rating
9/10

I use Bob for storing and using employee data, and it is primarily used for onboarding and offboarding employees. I also use it for generating a monthly dashboard for the SLT which includes number of new starters, number of leavers, turnover, percentage of days worked and time to hire. One of the main features I use is the 360 performance review workflow, which allows me to roll out a seamless and simple process which encapsulates reviews from every angle (individual, manager, direct reports and peers). It binds everything including career history, goals and achievements into one place, so there's no need to search for previous conversations or documents in long-forgotten folders. The Your Voice tool is also a powerful tool which generates rich feedback in a safe, anonymous environment. The feedback received from this anonymous tool is then fed into the monthly and annual people strategy.

What do you like about this tool?

Unlike other HRIS's Bob allows the user to personalise, analyse and manipulate data to suit the business, rather than using a packaged up system that doesn't fully align to the business. The user experience on both the employee and employer's side is intuitive and engaging, meaning that even reminder emails are never ignored. Bob's built-in templates enable the business to measure Employee Net Promoter Score, along with other survey questions, which can then be accessed in a simple, easy to use dashboard with visual heatmaps to analyse findings instantly.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

As our business grew, from 70 people to over 200, we wanted something that was able to organise personal data, generate detailed reports for analysis and run automated processes such as annual performance reviews. I would say that one of Bob's key benefits is its user experience for both the employer and the employee. Bob's self-service function is really easy to use, employees are able to input annual leave and sickness within a few clicks. From an employer perspective, it is simple to pull together reports based on personal data - for example, number of sick days taken in a year, or the average turnover of a segment of employees. Bob attempts to make the system somewhat "fun" at the onboarding stage by asking new starters what their hobbies are, and displaying that on their profile for other employees to view.

What do you dislike about this tool?

Whilst Bob's ability to use data to generate specific reports is great, workflows can be complex to set up, with many drop-down lists and options to select, so if it's quick data driven results that you're looking for, this could take a while to set-up. Another con is that Bob does not have a customer support team that is accessible by phone call, it is always an email or live chat system and sometimes it's just easier to chat to a real human and solve the problem. Like any robust system, it can take a while to initially set-up and get it working to what the business needs and not every business has that time to dedicate to rolling it out and there is little upfront training to support with this.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

Bob is way ahead of the curve in terms of HRIS's on the market. Throughout my career I've always said that there's not a one-system-to-rule-them-all in the HR world, but Bob certainly comes close. For example, CharlieHR is great from an employee data-entry perspective and basic data storage, but there is very little it can do in the way of generating reports for analysis. Very few HRIS's on the market are able to link workflows and processes in the way that Bob can, for example, I can conduct a full recruitment process, hiring process and onboarding all within the same flow, seamlessness, whereas with other systems this can be really clunky.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

Firstly, it's important that it covers core needs such as storing employee records, tracking annual and sick leave entitlements, communicating with payroll systems and software as well as benefits admin. Simple and visual data analysis is also essential for this type of tool - important metrics should be only a few clicks away. HRIS tools should be able to assist with recruitment processes and ideally offer an ATS which integrates with a solid employee onboarding process. The ability to run performance reviews and engagement surveys is also key to consider.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

Bob is continually being updated, for example, Your Voice has been a new addition that we have added to our package which has proven to be an excellent way of gaining anonymous feedback, especially for a business of our size.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Bob is very good for organisations with 50+ employees, and ideally, someone within the HR department would have specific responsibility for this tool to get its full benefit.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Businesses smaller than 50, without a dedicated HR resource would probably not benefit from all of Bob's features.

Pave

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Pave
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Popularity Score
4.1 / 5
User Score
4 / 5
Product Score
4.2 / 5

Why we picked Pave

With access to over 40,000 employee records from 500+ companies, Pave has some of the strongest benchmarking data in the compensation management space.

PROS

CONS

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

  • Allbirds
  • HOVER
  • Canva

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.

Best For

Companies looking to provide transparent compensation to employees and candidates.

Pave in action
Reviewer's Rating
8/10

We used Pave to help benchmark job salaries and equity within the job market. It helped us ensure we remained competitive and within the pay ranges offered in the marketplace. This helped us attract and retain talent by offering candidates and employees attractive compensation packages. Pave was also more user-friendly and less complex to navigate. Other platforms had a steep learning curve whereas Pave was very straight forward.

What do you like about this tool?

Pave was very user-friendly and easy to navigate. Pave used clear and easy to understand language to explain the data provided. Pave was cost-effective compared to other solutions on the market.

Why did your organization buy this tool, and how long have you used it for?

My prior company was part of a portfolio of PE-backed companies. Pave was one of those companies so they offered a heavily discounted price to their fellow portfolio companies. This is how we were introduced to Pave. I used it for less than 1 year. Pave was a competitor to other compensation benchmarking tools like Option Driver and Radford. Pave is a compensation management platform that provides real-time data.

What do you dislike about this tool?

While Pave offered great services, it was a newer company so they were still building their compensation database. Their data sets were not as robust as Radford and Option Driver who had been around longer.

How is this tool different than their competitors?

Pave was very easy to use and understand. They didn't make it overly complicated to navigate which was an attractive benefit when switching systems. While I would have preferred Pave to have a larger database, I would use them again.

What Instructions should people think about when buying this type of tool?

Think about the types of industries you need to obtain benchmark data for and the types and sizes of the companies. Some systems only deliver niche industry data which can skew your compensation programs.

How has this tool changed or evolved over time to meet users needs?

Pave continues to add more clients thereby increasing the real-time comp data available to its clients.

What specific type of user or organization is this tool very good for?

Small to midsize companies would benefit from using Pave.

What specific type of user or organization would this tool not be a good fit for?

Large organizations that have a lot of comp benchmarking data already accessible in their industry or space may not gain much from a tool such as this one.

PayScale

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PayScale
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Popularity Score
4.1 / 5
User Score
3.2 / 5
Product Score
3.8 / 5

Why we picked PayScale

PayScale is the trusted compensation platform for more than 7,500 customers, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies.

PROS

CONS

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

  • Patagonia,
  • The New York Times
  • Wendy’s
  • UnitedHealth Group
  • Bloomberg

PayScale Pricing

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.

PayScale in action
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CURO

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CURO
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Popularity Score
4.1 / 5
User Score
4.1 / 5
Product Score
4.3 / 5

Why we picked CURO

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.

PROS

CONS

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

  • Sage
  • Sony Music
  • Brigham Young University
  • Deezer

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.

Best For

Large and enterprise companies looking to drive efficiency and savings.

CURO in action
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CompAnalyst

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CompAnalyst
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.4 / 5
Product Score
4.3 / 5

Why we picked CompAnalyst

Salary.com’s CompAnalyst is the largest HR-reported source of market pricing, with 800 million market data points in 22 countries.

PROS

CONS

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

  • GE
  • Hallmark
  • Toyota
  • Wegmans
  • Nordstrom

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.

Best For

Companies of all sizes will find CompAnalyst useful. As your company grows, you can expand your feature set from the base level.

CompAnalyst in action
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COMPview

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COMPview
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.5 / 5
Product Score
4.3 / 5

Why we picked COMPview

COMPview is a flexible solution for companies of all sizes. It’s designed to adapt to any compensation plan, whether simple or complex.

PROS

CONS

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

  • Nintendo
  • Square
  • Ameriprise Financial
  • WellCare

COMPview Pricing

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.

COMPview in action
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Compete

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Compete
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Popularity Score
4 / 5
User Score
4.5 / 5
Product Score
4.2 / 5

Why we picked Compete

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.

PROS

CONS

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.

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.

Best For

HR leaders, CFOs, and Venture Capital Funds in tech.

Compete in action
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ChartHop

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ChartHop
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Popularity Score
4.6 / 5
User Score
4.3 / 5
Product Score
4.6 / 5

Why we picked ChartHop

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.

PROS

  • ChartHop seamlessly integrates with existing HR and ATS systems, streamlining processes by centralizing functionalities.
  • The tool's organizational chart has long been a standout feature. It allows users to edit and navigate company structures easily. This fosters efficient communication and change tracking after reorganizations.
  • ChartHop's goal-tracking interface is user-friendly and intuitive, simplifying goal management.
  • The Map feature fosters a sense of togetherness for remote teams, enhancing employee engagement.
  • Charthop nicely integrates with your existing HR and ATS systems. Having everything under one roof means not having to use ten different applications.
  • Charthop’s organization chart is its biggest asset. Their drag-and-drop feature to edit the chart is a hit amongst a majority of the users. Overall, the tool makes navigation throughout the company really easy - you can find the people you need, figure out their responsibilities, and track changes after the latest company re-organization.
  • Charthop's goal tracking interface is simple, intuitive, and easy to build. There's not much else you can ask for. 
  • Charthop's Map feature allows businesses to see where each employee is located. For organizations that work remotely, this promotes a feeling of togetherness, which is crucial for employee engagement.

CONS

  • Navigating ChartHop's organizational chart can be challenging due to its fast zooming and somewhat unintuitive gestures.
  • ChartHop's search function lacks user-friendliness and, from our research and testing, occasionally provides incorrect results.
  • Compared to other tools, some users have shared that the user interface of ChartHop can seem outdated and cumbersome.
  • Charthop's organization chart navigation isn't the best. The chart zooms in and out quite quickly, and the gestures aren't intuitive, making it difficult to use. 
  • Charthop can be a little complicated to figure out. Also, the fact that there are so many features is a little intimidating.
  • Charthop's search function isn't user-friendly. There's not much information on how to use it effectively, and it sometimes throws the wrong results.
  • Charthop's UI is somewhat dated and clunky.

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

  • Peloton
  • OpenAI
  • better.com

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.

Best For

Any company looking for an entire people planning suite with compensation built in.

ChartHop in action
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Compensation Management Software Use Cases

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.

  • Enhance recruitment: Comp software helps provide clarity to what the market pays for a role. It will give you and your recruiting team a range for the job. This beats the old way of asking the hiring manager or using free sources.
  • Boost retention: You’ll be able to tell how your employees are paid relative to the market. Therefore, you can make adjustments to prevent someone from leaving because of a better-paying opportunity elsewhere. 
  • Budget and model for future needs: Since compensation can make up 70% of the company budget, it’s essential to know how strategic decisions will impact compensation. If you are opening in a new location, hiring brand new roles, or implementing a new incentive compensation policy, these tools can help you understand costs.
  • Deliver bonuses and equity: Instead of relying on a complicated spreadsheet to calculate bonus and equity amounts, your compensation software will do this for you.
  • Manage compensation survey data: For those already using salary survey data, the software can help manage it all in one place. Additionally, many offer tools or services to help with the tedious task of survey participation.
  • Manage job descriptions: Job descriptions are just as impactful on compensation. A role with additional responsibilities should pay more. Descriptions should emphasize that. Some vendors have a tool, while others outsource this function to partners.
  • Build transparency and equality: Compensation management platforms have tools that show where you can improve equality in the workplace. By recognizing gender and racial pay gaps, your company can take steps to overcome implicit biases. Many software solutions promote transparency as well. Employee dashboards break down their compensation on the individual level.

Pro Tips on Compensation Management Software

Pitfalls to Avoid When Using Compensation Management Tools

When considering compensation management software, it’s important to avoid common pitfalls that may occur. 

  • Avoid shiny object syndrome: During a sales pitch, you may have seen powerful analytics tools and smooth UX that attract you to a certain vendor. But it’s essential to understand what your must-have features are, so you can separate them from the nice-to-have and extraneous features. Think about what’s essential. Otherwise, you might waste your budget on tools you’ll never touch. 
  • Understand the professional services vendors offer: Sometimes organizations will position their solution with a “dedicated” compensation professional with “unlimited” access. These terms are often used as a selling point. Be sure you understand how the services work, how quickly you can expect replies, and the skills of the services team.
  • Implementation takes time: Adopting a compensation management software takes time and prioritization from your team. There are no instant solutions where you just send over an HRIS, API key, or CSV and everything is up and running. Discuss timelines and expectations with vendors upfront.
  • Be mindful of contract length: Three-year or five-year contracts with big discounts can be tempting, especially when you’re trying to be budget-conscious. However, this could leave you with software you don’t like or don’t use. Be sure you know the cancelation policy, and choose a contract length that allows you to reevaluate after a reasonable amount of time. If you do your research beforehand, this shouldn’t be an issue. But sometimes unforeseen things happen, and you don’t want to be trapped.
  • Know the data sources: It’s critical to understand where vendors source their data from and how it is validated in your compensation software. There are many different approaches that exist. For example, a data set may be validated by compensation professionals, but be very limited in job titles. Another may be from a large data source, but weak in certain regions. Think critically about what data is important to you and choose a vendor accordingly.

Benefits and ROI of Compensation Management Software

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:

  • Save time and costly errors: Having a streamlined process for pricing a job will save you countless hours. Being able to model and use pre-built reporting provides insights you may have never discovered in Excel without the risk of errors.
  • Strengthened employee loyalty: When making informed compensation decisions, employees can rest assured they are being paid competitive salaries and bonuses. As a result, they will feel valued by your company, which builds loyalty.
  • Ensured compliance: Compensation compliance can be tricky, especially if you’re hiring remote workers from different geographic locations. Instead of doing all the granular research yourself, comp management software automatically assists with staying compliant
  • Decrease days to fill job req and false starts: Knowing the approved salary range for the role and what the market pays will ensure you avoid the dreaded “oh I was looking for $10k more in base pay.” 
  • Increased transparency: Employees who know what, how, and why they are paid are more engaged and less likely to leave. By being able to communicate a paid strategy from a high level as well as an individual will impact retention.
  • Equal pay: Many comp solutions pull data from your HRIS or HCM to map salary and bonuses in accordance with gender and race. By recognizing pay gaps, you can take initiative to create an equitable workplace.
  • Save money: In addition to saved time, comp management software saves money too. Benchmarking data shows you if you’re overpaying for a new executive. You can tweak company-wide bonus structures based on integrated performance or talent management data. These are just a couple of many examples.

Compensation Management Pricing

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.

Key Features of Compensation Management Software

Compensation management software is designed to streamline all of your comp operations. The features reflect that goal. 

  • Salary management: Easily keep track of how much employees make and use that information to make future compensation decisions.
  • Performance management: Compensation management software often has performance management tools to determine eligibility for bonuses and equity.
  • Bonus and equity administration: Comp management software automatically determines who is eligible for bonuses and equity based on performance, time since hire, and other factors. Once HR managers gather this information, they can submit it to managers for approval all in the system.
  • Planning, budgeting, and forecasting: Using past and current data, your company will be able to plan compensation budgets and headcount. In addition, you can use this data to forecast where your company’s needs will be in the future. Detailed dashboards make this easy to visualize.
  • Market analysis and benchmarking: Many comp solutions have access to detailed salary information from across the job market. You’ll be able to tell what competitors and peers are paying their employees in similar positions. As a result, you can offer new hires competitive compensation based on market data.
  • Integration with HR systems: Compensation management systems centralize all your people data to make informed compensation decisions.

Questions for Demos

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:

  • How can your product help me achieve my compensation goals?
  • Can you benchmark this job for me? 
  • How do I build a report? How would I present this to others?
  • We are opening a new office. How would I model the compensation costs with your software?
  • Does this integrate with my human capital management system? If not, how much work will it take on our end to connect them?
  • What features do current clients use the most?
  • Are there automation features?
  • Is the training required in the implementation process self-service, or hands-on with a customer success team?
  • Has your product lengthened the employee lifecycle for your customers?

Implementing Compensation Management Software

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 Software FAQs

What is compensation management?

Compensation management is the process of determining the wages, salary, bonuses, equity, and benefits employees and potential hires receive.

What is compensation management software?

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. 

What are some benefits of compensation management software?

Benefits of compensation management software include saved time and money, transparency and equal pay, ensured compliance, and heightened employee retention and satisfaction.

What are the features of compensation management software?

Compensation management software features include salary and performance management, benchmarking, reporting and analytics, planning, budgeting, and forecasting tools, and bonus and equity administration.

Final Advice and Important Takeaways

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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  • Our goal at SSR is to help HR and recruiting teams to find and buy the right software for their needs.
  • Our site is free to use as some vendors will pay us for web traffic.
  • SSR lists all companies we feel are top vendors - not just those who pay us - in our comprehensive directories full of the advice needed to make the right purchase decision for your HR team.

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