In 2024, the global Payroll software market grew to $8.4 billion, marking a 12% year-over-year increase. The top 10 vendors accounted for 59.6% of the total market. ADP led the pack with a 9.9% market share, followed by Paycom, Workday, and Paylocity.
Through our forecast period, the Payroll applications market size is expected to reach $11.1 billion by 2029, compared with $8.4 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate of 5.7%.
Top 10 Payroll Software Vendors in 2024 and their Market Shares
Source: Apps Run The World, July 2025
Other Payroll software providers included in the report are, Access Group, Advanced, AFAS Software, Asure Software, Inc., Alight Solutions, Aurion a part of Recruit Holdings, Businessolver, Cegedim, Cegid, CloudPay, TruBridge (Formerly Computer Programs and Systems), CDK Global, Constellation Software, Dailypay, Datacom, DATEV, Epicor, Equifax, Frontier Software, Inetum (formerly Gfi), Gusto, Hilan, HITS Solutions, HR Cloud, Ignite Technologies, Infinite Campus, Infor, Insperity, Inc., IRIS Software, iSolved, LG lugar de gente, LGI Health Solutions Formerly (Logibec Groupe Informatique), Malam PayRoll, MHR International Ltd, Microsoft, MYOB, Namely, a Vensure Employer Solutions Company, OBIC Co. Ltd., Oracle, P&I Personal & Informatik AG, Paycor, Payworks, PlanSource, PrismHR, Ramco Systems, Sage, SD Worx, ServiceNow, Sprout Solutions, Skillsoft, Sopra Steria, TOTVS, TriNet, UNIT4, Xero, Yonyou, Zellis (ex NGA Human Resources UK & Ireland), and others.
Vendor Snapshot: Payroll Software Market Leaders
ADP
In 2024, ADP launched its Next-Gen Payroll Engine—powered by ML models—to accelerate run-times and surface real-time anomaly alerts, with plans to embed generative-AI assistants by late 2025. The vendor has deepened its AI investments through partnerships with leading cloud and ML platforms, enhancing natural-language reporting and predictive compliance. Recent acquisitions focused on global payroll connectivity and analytics have strengthened ADP’s ability to serve complex, multinational workforces within a unified payroll ecosystem.
Paycom
Paycom rolled out its AI-driven Self-Service Insights dashboard in early 2025, which delivers personalized wage projections and automates garnishment calculations to reduce manual workload. The company continues to invest in machine-learning research, extending its automated auditing capabilities to flag compliance issues before payroll runs. Although no major acquisitions were announced in 2024, Paycom’s roadmap emphasizes deepening its single-database architecture and expanding AI-powered employee self-service tools.
Workday
Workday’s latest release introduced AI-powered payroll reconciliation and error-pattern detection workflows, reducing manual corrections by guiding users with natural-language prompts. The company has also invested in ML-based headcount and cost-forecasting models, now embedded in real-time analytics dashboards for finance and HR teams. Its acquisition of Peakon continues to feed sentiment and engagement data into payroll planning, while generative-AI assistants for payroll inquiries are also in development.
Paylocity
Paylocity has rolled out its AI-enhanced Smart Pay feature, which predicts and highlights payroll errors before processing and recommends correction actions. Investments in conversational AI enable employees to query payroll data via chatbots, reducing support tickets. Paylocity’s acquisition of Avionté in 2024 expanded its global payroll footprint, adding new capabilities for staffing and seasonal workforce payroll management.
Paychex
Paychex has upgraded its Flex platform with ML-driven tax-filing accuracy checks and turnover-forecasting analytics, improving compliance across 50+ jurisdictions. The vendor’s 2024 acquisition of a specialist tax-automation provider has bolstered its backend engines to automate complex withholding calculations. Paychex continues R&D toward blockchain-secured paycheck delivery and aims to pilot generative-AI pay-query bots in early 2026.
Dayforce
Ceridian’s Dayforce Assist, launched in Q1 2025, applies AI to automate exception handling, payroll corrections, and regulatory reporting in real time. Its acquisition of Aptitude Software in 2024 enhanced its global payroll calculation engine, improving multi-country tax and benefits accuracy. Dayforce is now investing in a generative-AI roadmap to offer conversational payroll support and advanced predictive scheduling by mid-2026.
Visma
Visma has launched its Smart Payroll Hub, an AI-driven service that consolidates payroll data across Nmbrs, Raet, and YourService into a unified analytics dashboard with anomaly detection. The company continues to invest in ML models that optimize pay-run scheduling and forecast social-security costs in multiple European markets. Recent acquisitions of local payroll bureaus reinforce Visma’s pan-European coverage and compliance expertise.
UKG
UKG’s Spring 2025 update added AI-powered payroll validation agents within UKG Pro and UKG Ready, automatically flagging discrepancies and suggesting corrective entries. The vendor has invested in predictive analytics for overtime cost modeling and labor-market benchmarking. UKG’s 2024 acquisition of Pareto added deep analytics capabilities to its workforce management suite, extending its payroll intelligence for enterprise customers.
SAP
SAP’s SuccessFactors payroll module now integrates SAP AI Core, offering anomaly detection in gross-to-net calculations and automated tax-report generation. Investments in ML have improved headcount and cost-center forecasting, embedded directly into the EC Payroll dashboard. While SAP hasn’t made recent payroll-specific acquisitions, its broader purchase of Emarsys and continued uptake of Qualtrics reinforce end-to-end employee experience and payroll compliance workflows.
SD Worx
SD Worx introduced its Intelligent Payroll Companion—an AI tool that guides payroll administrators through complex legal and compliance checks across multiple jurisdictions. Machine-learning enhancements optimize pay frequency and reduce manual journal entries, while embedded chatbots address common payroll queries. Strategic investments in regional payroll specialists have expanded SD Worx’s service capabilities in the Benelux and Nordic markets without major acquisitions in the past year.
ARTW Technographics Platform: Payroll customer wins
Since 2010, our research team has been studying the patterns of Payroll software purchases, analyzing customer behavior and vendor performance through continuous win/loss analysis. Updated quarterly, the ARTW Technographics Platform provides deep insights into thousands of Payroll customer wins and losses, helping users monitor competitive shifts, evaluate vendor momentum, and make informed go-to-market decisions.
List of Payroll customers Â
Source: ARTW Buyer Insights Technographic Database
Custom data cuts related to the Core HR Applications market are available:
- Top 500+ Core HR Applications Vendors and Market Forecast 2024-2029
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Vertical Market (21 Industry)
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Country (USA + 45 countries)
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Region (Americas, EMEA, APAC)
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Revenue Type (License, Services, Hardware, Support and Maintenance, Cloud)
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Customer Size (revenue, employee count, asset)
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Channel (Direct vs Indirect)
- 2024 Core HR Applications Market By Product
Through our forecast period, the HCM applications market is expected to reach $81.1 billion by 2029, compared with $58.7 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate of 11.7%.
Through our forecast period, the Core HR and Talent Management applications market, which is comprised of nine subsegments, is expected to reach $48.6 billion by 2029, compared with $35.5 billion in 2024 expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6%. For the Top 10 vendors in each of the nine subsegments, please check their own index page by following the link below.
Through our forecast period, the Talent Acquisition applications market, which is comprised of six subsegments, is expected to reach $20.3 billion by 2029, compared with $14.5 billion in 2024 expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 11.7%. For the Top 10 vendors in each of the six subsegments, please check their own index page by following the link below.
Through our forecast period, the Workforce Management applications market, which is comprised of six subsegments, is expected to reach $12.1 billion by 2029, compared with $8.7 billion in 2024 expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1%. For the Top 10 vendors in each of the six subsegments, please check their own index page by following the link below.
Our HCM Top 500 research team also tracks Time Clock Hardware vendors separately by zeroing in on their embedded software as well as their extensive use of OEM and distribution partners.
Exhibit 3: Worldwide HCM Software Market 2024-2029 Forecast, $M
Source: Apps Run The World, July 2025
Exhibit 4 shows our projections for the HCM enterprise applications market by HCM sub-segment, based on the buying preferences and the customer propensity to invest in new software within those industries as they continue to upgrade and replace many legacy industry-specific applications that have been identified and tracked in our Buyer Insight Database.
Methodology
Similar to any of the hundreds of reports that we have published since 2010, HCM Top 500 is a labor of love. Since 2013, our team of researchers has been conducting rigorous research on thousands of HCM vendors, surveying them quarterly, reviewing their products at even shorter intervals because of the compressed Cloud release cycle, and discussing HR vision with their customers to better understand user needs as well as different paths to upgrade and replace their existing systems.
Each year we also attend many industry-wide and vendor-specific user conferences – HR Tech, Dreamforce, SAPPHIRENOW, Oracle Open World, just to name a few, to gauge what customers are looking for.
Throughout this process comes a rich database of more than 2,000 HCM vendors as well as over 50,000 HCM customers that have been touched one form or another through regular surveys, phone and in-person interviews, email exchanges, and social media interactions, etc.
On a proactively basis, we contact the vendors directly to tabulate their latest quarterly and annual revenues by HCM segment, vertical market, revenue type, region, country and customer size.
We supplement their written responses with our own primary research to determine quarterly and yearly growth rates in each of the 22 segments and 21 verticals, in addition to customer wins to ascertain whether these are net new purchases or expansions of existing implementations.
Another dimension of our quantitative research process is through continuous improvement of our customer database, which stores more than one million records on the enterprise software landscape of over 100,000 organizations around the world.
The database provides customer insight and contextual information on what types of HCM, enterprise software systems and other relevant technologies are they running and their propensity to invest further with their current or new suppliers as part of their overall HCM and IT transformation projects to stay competitive, fend off threats from disruptive forces, or comply with internal mandates to improve overall enterprise efficiency.
The result is a combination of supply-side data and demand-generation customer insight that allows our clients to better position themselves in anticipation of the next wave that will reshape the HCM marketplace for years to come.
HCM Market Taxonomy
Definition of Human Capital Management (HCM) Applications
Core HR and Performance Management
Core HR and Talent Management | Description |
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Personnel and Organization Management | Core human resource management system, personnel records, HR master file, accruals, organizational development, org chart visualization |
Payroll | Payroll processing, tax filing, language support, country-level updates, payslip calculations, automatic deductions and other government requirements for proper disbursement of employee compensation. |
Benefits Administration | Benefits and health administration. Plan and design benefits lifecycle, billing and payment. Carrier solutions are also included for integration purposes. |
Pension Administration | Pension and retirement fund(401K) administration as well as software that helps manage profit sharing plan, defined benefit plan, or cash balance plan. |
Compliance | Compliance, regulatory updates and reporting including such laws as Affordable Care Act, Overtime Regulations, Fair Labor Standards Act |
Performance and Goal Management | HR performance management applications are designed to automate the aggregation and delivery of information pertinent to the linking of job roles and the mission and goals of the organization. More specifically, the system allows users to automate the performance review process by using mechanisms such as training and key performance indicators to continuously track and monitor the progress of an individual employee, work team, and division. Some of the key features include: Assessment of individual career objectives and organizational skills gaps that impede performance and job advancement. Continuous reviews and establishing milestones. 360-degree evaluation and real-time feedback. Performance appraisal automation. Goal setting and tracking. Employee surveys. Alignment of human assets to corporate objectives. Fast tracks for top performers. |
Learning and Development | Learning management systems refer to applications that automate the administration, tracking, and reporting of training events. Other tools may include courseware and other delivery, management, tracking, or integrated solutions whose focus is on the learning environment, including learning content management systems. Career development tools include apps for coaching, mentoring, employee development planning, and diagnosing of development needs. |
Succession and Leadership Planning | Identify and address current and potential talent gaps to create succession management reporting. Develop and maintain a continuous supply of internal talent to fill critical job roles. Improve employee engagement through digital tools to advance career path development opportunities. |
Compensation Management | Compensation management applications are designed to automate the process of providing cash, noncash, variable and nonvariable compensation to employees through advanced modeling, reporting, and built-in interfacing to payroll processing systems. Other key features include seamlessly manage compensation budgets and allocation in a single, shared tool. Streamline pay recommendation workflows and approvals. Support multiple pay and incentive practices. Ensure budget compliance and adherence to compensation guidelines. Quota and territory management. Calculation and distribution of commissions, spiffs, royalties, incentives to employees, and channel and business partners. Compensation analysis using internal and external data for retention risk analysis. Linking salary, commission and incentives — cash and noncash — to business objectives. Payroll and payment engine interfaces. Account payables integration. |
Talent AcquisitionÂ
Talent Acquisition | Description |
---|---|
Applicant Tracking | Applicant tracking software automates such functions as management of resumes, applicant information, scoring, workflow, matching, search, interview scheduling, job descriptions, EEOC reporting, job postings and notifications |
Recruiting | Recruiting applications are designed to automate the recruitment process of salaried and hourly employees through screening and skills assessment, as well as automated selection processes to improve hiring pipeline by identifying talent inside or outside the organization. Other key features include: Manage skills inventories. Create and manage job requisitions. Coordinate team collaboration within hiring processes. Video Interviewing, team building and digital coaching. |
Candidate Relationship Management | Applications designed to attract and engage candidates and employees. Other tasks automate functions such as candidate relationship management apps, career site technology, social recruiting, employee referrals, branding, video engagement, campus recruiting and internal hiring |
Contingent Labor Management | Processing of hiring of contingent labor, search, skills matching, assessment, interview scheduling, negotiation of rates, approvals, project milestone payments, project completion tracking, performance ratings |
Sourcing | Facilitate resource planning for staffing firms as well as vendor managed system, allowing for front office integration for employment agencies as well as talent acquisition apps designed for staffing firms. |
Onboarding | Applications designed to deploy workers to appropriate jobs, projects, or teams for accelerated on-boarding. |
Workforce Management
Workforce Management | Description |
---|---|
Absence and Leave Management | Absence management applications offer automated features to support employee leave management, employer authorized leave, Short-Term-Disability/Workers’ Comp coordination, federal and state compliance, customized leave correspondence, medical certification processing, insurance premium payment tracking as well as employee self-service capabilities. Leave Management supports compliance activities related to government regulations such as the Family and Medical Leave Act in the United States and other local leave laws in different countries. |
Workforce analytics | Workforce analytics are used to analyze compensation, benefits, and other employee variables. These applications can also be used to analyze and optimize labor allocation for particular projects. |
Fatigue Management | Fatigue Management apps help automate key facets of fatigue risk mitigation, enforcing employee work-hour limits and aligning with fitness for duty best practices. Similar apps may act as electronic work diaries for real-time reporting and compliance with transportation laws. |
Hardware (Time Clock) | Time capture is the hardware platform that provides authentication features for clock-in and clock-out times, meal and rest breaks, as well as timesheet and payroll reporting and compliance. |
Scheduling | Products are designed to Increase forecasting accuracy by factoring in a variety of methods and historical patterns. Create optimal schedules to meet customer demands, while reducing costs and maximizing resources |
Task Management | Task Management offers labor management capabilities such as task-based and project-based activity tracking as well as measurement and reporting functions against performance standards like engineered labor standards, team standards and reflective standards. |
Time & Attendance | Time and Attendance applications are designed to automate employee time tracking in different locations, help reduce overtime expenses, improve payroll accuracy, eliminate pay errors and adjustments, along with the need to simplify and optimize administrative tasks and complex rate calculations by making available accurate and current labor data and full audit trail of payroll data. |
- Fisher Investments, a United States based Banking and Financial Services organization with 5500 Employees
- Ahola, a United States based Professional Services company with 90 Employees
- Post Oak Toyota, a United States based Automotive organization with 50 Employees
Logo | Company | Industry | Employees | Revenue | Country | Evaluated |
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