The employee compensation philosophy of a specific organization will directly impact employee satisfaction rates.
When a company fails in basic compensation planning, it risks losing talent and scaring away potential hires—up to 52% of candidates say that competitive compensation is the most attractive element of a job offer. Designing effective compensation plans can be a challenge when organizations still rely on legacy compensation management solutions.
Organizations wanting to upgrade to modern, personalized software that will streamline processes and bring about pay equity are spoiled for choice. But what is the best compensation management software in the market today?
This article will provide HR professionals responsible for employee performance and human capital management (HCM) with an idea of the main features to look out for when deciding which HR software will be best for their needs.
The Best Compensation Management Software List
Here’s a shortlist of the best compensation management systems:
- DecuSoft Compose - Best for flexible compensation management
- Xactly - Best for quota-based work
- Balanced Comp - Best for the finance industry
- Payfactors - Best for market benchmarking strategies
- Workday - Best for data integrations
- Spiff - Best for sales teams
- CompTrak - Best for transitioning from legacy systems
- Maestro - Best for broker-dealer and registered investment adviser communities
- COMPview - Best for recognizing and compensating top performers
- Varicent ICM - Best for incentive compensation management
Looking for some other way to attract and retain high-quality talent? Try these other rewards and compensation management tools:
- Best talent management systems
- Employee wellness program ideas
- Best employee engagement software
- Best performance management tools
Compensation Management Software Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best compensation management software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): Are the different types of compensation easy to access and well laid out? Do users feel like they can grasp a holistic or drilled-down view of their compensation programs?
- Usability: Is the compensation tool easy to learn for HR professionals of all skill levels? Does the company offer good tech support and training?
- Integrations: Can the compensation management platform connect with other CRM, ERM, and HRIS systems? Do they offer any additional integrations to streamline your workflows?
- Value for $: Is the price of the compensation management tools appropriate for the feature set? Is the pricing scalable if you need additional users, functions, or storage space?
Compensation Management Software Key Features
The best compensation management software should provide an HR team with talent acquisition, forecasting, capturing the right metrics, onboarding, and maybe even time tracking. Here are some features I look at when we evaluate the various compensation management software in this article:
- Generating insights: HR managers and other company executives should design their company’s compensation strategy based on solid information generated by the human resources information system (HRIS).
- Automation: Can you automate some (or all) rewards management, pay programs, and long-term incentives in a real-time central database, reducing the time required to administer compensation processes.
- Self-service: When compensation management software provides self-service functionality, employee queries related to their compensation can be addressed automatically, lessening the administrative burden.
- Total compensation management: Good compensation management software should provide HR management with a comprehensive solution including budgeting and management of company perks, benefits, and incentives for top performers.
People Managing People is reader-supported. We may earn a commission when you click through links on our site — learn more about how we aim to stay transparent.
An Overview of the 10 Best Compensation Management Software
Here’s my compensation management software comparison, with a brief description of each software and screenshots that highlight some of the features.
DecuSoft Compose - Best for flexible compensation management
DecuSoft Compose’s user profiles give you a snapshot of compensation settings.
Xactly - Best for quota-based work
Xactly employee profiles chart sales targets and plot bonuses.
Sales teams come in different forms and sizes, and so do their compensation plans and benefits. Xactly is a compensation management software designed to continuously monitor sales teams so that HR professionals can run compensation strategies that motivate them. The software also comes with all the key features you would expect: seamless integration with existing applications, collaboration between teams, and the collection of compensation data, which will help companies allocate resources.
Xactly offers customized pricing upon request along with a free demo.
Balanced Comp - Best for the finance industry
Track basic employee details with Balanced Corp, like date in position, to determine compensation merit.
Balanced Comp delivers compensation management software that provides best-in-industry consulting, web-based salary administration, and performance management software specialized for the financial industry. The tool is designed to assist companies in structuring compensation to encourage pay equity, inclusion, and workforce diversity.
Balanced Comp provides customized pricing upon request. You can connect with their team via the chatbot on the company’s website.
Payfactors - Best for market benchmarking strategies
Payfactors can plot salary ranges across your organization for a 360 compensation overview.
Some of the main advantages of using Payfactors include job description customization, total rewards statements, and more than 25,000 compensation and HR professionals to share knowledge within the user community. This tool is primarily useful for organizations that want to benchmark their salaries with the market average. It also provides a company with survey tools that collect and organize the data required to get an idea of how employees feel regarding their company’s compensation strategy.
Payfactors offers customized pricing upon request and comes with a free demo.
Workday - Best for data integrations
Workday’s compensation solution can track merit, bonuses, and stock options.
Some of the main advantages of using Payfactors include job description customization, total rewards statements, and more than 25,000 compensation and HR professionals to share knowledge within the user community. This tool is primarily useful for organizations that want to benchmark their salaries with the market average. It also provides a company with survey tools that collect and organize the data required to get an idea of how employees feel regarding their company’s compensation strategy.
Payfactors offers customized pricing upon request and comes with a free demo.
Spiff - Best for sales teams
Spiff lets HR teams track commission trends by user, highlighting upward or downward movement.
To ensure that each sales representative is paid fairly and on time, Spiff has created a system that provides a personalized dashboard that updates as soon as a rep closes a deal or attains a milestone. This provides members of the sales team with a visualization of their compensation and the way it was calculated. In addition, because commissions and bonuses change in sales, Spiff software is designed to be flexible.
Spiff offers customized pricing upon request.
CompTrak - Best for transitioning from legacy systems
CompTrak has modern, sleek, and actionable dashboard data for smart compensation management.
Even though organizations are progressively moving away from legacy systems, the transition is not always easy because people tend to revert to familiar ways. An analysis of CompTrak shows that the designers of this program understand that the transition from legacy systems is not always easy. With that in mind, they have created an easy-to-use cloud-based system that makes accessing compensation data smooth and simple and provides valuable reports for decision making.
CompTrak offers customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo.
Maestro - Best for broker-dealer and registered investment adviser communities
Maestro is a compensation management platform that specializes in commissions and compliance.
As a specific community, broker-dealers and registered investment advisers often find themselves in an environment where regulations are in a constant state of change, and keeping up is a challenge. This is a problem that the designers of Maestro were conscious of when they created this software. Consequently, this tool eliminates manual tracking and introduces a flexible instrument for handling the changing character of rep compensation packages.
Maestro offers customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo.
COMPview - Best for recognizing and compensating top performers
COMPview provides real-time data on compensation decisions on an employee-by-employee basis.
An analysis of COMPview compensation management software shows that the tool performs best when calculating and allocating equity rewards and merit bonuses. The tool is primarily helpful for HR teams faced with complicated compensation structures. It enables them to distribute decision-making in connection with potential and performance in an easier way. In addition, the software allows all individuals concerned with making decisions about an employee’s compensation to access all the information they need in one place.
COMPview offers customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo.
Varicent ICM - Best for incentive compensation management
Varicent ICM can track payouts and push them through comprehensive approval processes to ensure compensation accuracy.
If a business is unable to provide incentives to those that excel, such business is likely to become a revolving door of talent. A challenge of this kind can be mitigated by a software solution that assists a company to award employees for exceeding performance and productivity expectations. This is the solution provided by Varicent ICM. In addition, the software eliminates the risk of mistakes related to underpaying or overpaying employees.
Varicent ICM offers customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo.
The Best Compensation Management Software Summary
| Software | Overview | Free Option | Price | Site |
|---|---|---|---|---|
DecuSoft Compose  | Read DecuSoft Compose features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request | Check out DecuSoft Compose |
Xactly  | Read Xactly features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request along with a free demo | Check out Xactly |
Balanced Comp  | Read Balanced Comp features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request | Check out Balanced Comp |
Payfactors  | Read Payfactors features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request and comes with a free demo | Check out Payfactors |
Workday  | Read Workday features & functionality | 30 days free trial | From $100-$200/user/year on a 3-year contract | Check out Workday |
Spiff  | Read Spiff features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request | Check out Spiff |
CompTrak  | Read CompTrak features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo | Check out CompTrak |
Maestro  | Read Maestro features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo | Check out Maestro |
COMPview  | Read COMPview features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo | Check out COMPview |
Varicent ICM  | Read Varicent ICM features & functionality | Not Available | Customized pricing upon request and offers a free demo | Check out Varicent ICM |
Other Compensation Management Software Options
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list.
- CaptivateIQ — Best for customer-facing teams
- ChartHop — Best for smart eligibility rules
- Salary.com — Best for compensation negotiations
- PayScale — Best for designing pay structures, monitoring pay equity, and managing merit increases
- SAP SuccessFactors HXM Suite — Best for employee feedback
- Ascentis HRIS Software — Best for managing and tracking employee records
- Comp XL — Best for combining streamlined compensation processes and flexibility
- Simply Merit — Best for merit, bonus, and equity allocation
- Certent Equity Compensation Management — Best for streamlining equity administration and reporting
- TalentSoft — Best for managing talent and training needs
- CURO Compensation — Best for making compensation decisions easier and fair
- CompLogix — Best for simplicity and flexibility in tracking, monitoring, and reporting
- TalentComp by CWS Software — Best for compensation process automation
- Equity Management Software — Best for equity compensation management
- Global Shares — Best for stock plan compensation administration
- CompAccelerator by Dartican — Best for compensation management customer support
- Compease by HR Performance Solutions — Best for determining market-based compensation
- HubbubHR — Best for gathering salary survey data and designing competitive compensation strategies
- DayForce — Best for integrating HR processes, talent and workforce management, payroll, and benefits
What is compensation management software?
Compensation management software is a program and operating information that enables a computer user to plan, design, and implement compensation packages for employees.
Even though compensation management software differs based on the industry where it is used, some basic features and functionalities are expected from a good compensation management tool. For instance, for a software package to qualify as a tool for managing compensation, it needs to provide an organization with a central place where compensation planning, policies, strategies, data, and reports are accessible to all those authorized to view them. The software should also streamline processes through automation and reduce the need for HR employees to do repetitive low-value tasks while also integrating with other software.
How does compensation management software help employers?
Compensation management software helps organizations to structure the way they pay employees with different skills. Ensuring that no one is underpaid or overpaid is vital for creating an environment of fairness where individuals feel that their efforts are recognized. This could help the organization attract and retain talent.
Compensation management tools can also reduce the costs of managing employee compensation as HR employees are able to spend their time doing high-value tasks while the software takes care of repetitive jobs.
Tools that ensure equity and fairness reduce the risks associated with non-compliance with labor laws while helping establish a favorable relationship with labor unions and employee representative groups. In addition, when employees feel that they are fairly compensated and the company can provide a rationale for its compensation structure, employees are likely to feel motivated to do their best at work, increasing productivity and profits.
What Do You Think About Compensation and Benefits Management Software?
Has your team used any of the tools we featured in this article? If so, how did they improve your compensation planning, implementation, and overall strategy? Please use the comments section to share your views. For the latest insights from top thinkers in the niche, please sign up for the newsletter.
