PayScale vs Salary.com

Last Updated:

Our analysts compared PayScale vs Salary.com based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Compensation Management Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Salary.com Software Tool

Product Basics

PayScale is a management tool that helps employers and employees understand what the right pay for a specific position should be. It provides a unique matching algorithm. It offers inclusions and resources to meet the unique needs of every business. Resources for unique roles are also available for professionals, employees, executives, HR leaders and people managers.

read more...
Salary.com is a compensation suite. It helps companies manage compensation expenditures using real-time analytics. Provides a reliable record of employee pay levels, best practices, trends and policies related to compensation processes.

Experienced teams help businesses understand the industry to suit business needs. Integrated with actionable content, it helps users make better decisions about payments, recruiting and retaining top talent.
read more...
Undisclosed
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Undisclosed
Get a free price quote
Tailored to your specific needs
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Small 
i
Medium 
i
Large 
i
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
we're gathering data

Product Insights

  • Enhanced Compensation Planning: PayScale facilitates data-driven compensation planning, enabling organizations to develop competitive and equitable pay structures.
  • Improved Employee Retention: By ensuring fair and competitive compensation, organizations can foster higher employee satisfaction and reduce turnover rates.
  • Streamlined Performance Management: PayScale's tools help align employee performance with compensation, promoting a culture of meritocracy and accountability.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Access to comprehensive compensation data empowers HR professionals and leaders to make informed decisions regarding pay, benefits, and rewards.
  • Increased Transparency: PayScale promotes transparency in compensation practices, fostering trust and open communication between employers and employees.
read more...
  • Make Better Decisions: Get detailed data insights and make pay decisions with confidence. Quickly and accurately price jobs while analyzing compensation pay practices. Explore new intersections between market, company and employee data using enhanced data integrations. Access important information using powerful tools and streamlined workflows.  
  • Maintain Salary Structures: Accurately reflect and manage pay practices across job families, departments or divisions. Visualize proposed structure changes using flexible modeling tools. 
  • Streamline Communications: Communicate critical pay data to managers and business leaders with presentation-ready reports. Ensure accurate pay conversations. 
  • Build Global Compensation Programs: Use HR-reported, high-quality data validated by experts to build and support global compensation programs. 
  • Leverage Comprehensive Databases: Instantly find minimum wage data for tipped and non-tipped employees across the US. Assess planned changes in minimum wage based on future dates. Identify how company size, location or industry affects minimum wages across the US. 
read more...
  • Advanced Search: Filter search results based on job title, company, degree, certification, skill, industry or school and get detailed information through salary research. 
  • Development Resources: Calculate cost of living in different cities, find out the right pay for a role using the career path planner and negotiate for better pay using articles from career and finance experts. 
  • Market Match: Generate compensation reports through the Market Match algorithm. Discover factors affecting the compensation for a role, and find the right match for a specific role using report data. 
  • Data Collection: Collect important data insights and reports using salary comparisons for people with similar skill sets and work experience. Explore how certain factors such as moving to a different place, promotion, learning and more can affect compensation. 
  • Data Standardization: Maintain data point consistency and accuracy and standardize data by comparing compensation data with external sources. The data is strongly correlated with other external sources. Describe and allocate price positions, defining type, size of the organization and skills required for the position. 
  • Reporting and Analysis: Get access to extensive analytics about an organization. Keep track of salary records and see if employee compensation matches market standards, adjust salaries, identify and avoid flight risks, and prepare compensation statements and reports. 
  • API and Data Licensing: Access global compensation data, including the world's largest database with 55 million profiles via an API.
read more...
  • Customization: Customize it to accommodate unique business processes. Create new fields, objects and workflows and assign review tasks to attain streamlined processes. 
  • Automation: Automate workflows by setting triggers and alerts that notify the right people to take action when needed. Maintain compliances per state mandates and federal regulations using built-in compliance features. Automate identification and flagging of unauthorized access and behavior. 
  • Global Access: Leverage location profiles, an automated currency converter tool and multiple language options to maintain and configure compensation globally. 
  • Data Management: Arrange and manage compensation data by creating compensation hierarchies and providing managers with relevant team information. Import, export and access compensation data within the system. 
  • Mobile Accessibility: Access it on mobile devices, receive reports and alerts, and create compensation rewards, packages and allowance plans with specific components and notifications. 
  • Compensation Structuring: Plan and structure compensation pools and hierarchies, including fixed and variable amounts. 
  • Integration: Integrate APIs and specify how the software interacts with other solutions. 
  • Progress Reports: Create compiled and detailed reports of compensation data using trends and graphics from analytics dashboards. Use analytical tools to track important business metrics and progress. 
  • Collaborative Dashboard: Use the centralized dashboard to interact and collaborate with other users. 
  • Data Sharing: Distribute and share content across job boards, social media, and websites. 
  • CompAnalyst: Leverage CompAnalyst to create, edit and model salary structures. Create new structures based on market data or an existing library structure. 
read more...

Product Ranking

#9

among all
Compensation Management Software

#15

among all
Compensation Management Software

Find out who the leaders are

Analyst Rating Summary

79
we're gathering data
74
we're gathering data
81
we're gathering data
89
we're gathering data
Show More Show More

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

PayScale
Salary.com
+ Add Product + Add Product
Budgeting And Forecasting Compliances Dashboard And Reporting Mobile Capabilities Platform And Security Capabilities Rewards And Recognition Salary And Pay Structure Management Variable Compensation And Incentives Management 74 81 89 88 86 100 76 78 0 25 50 75 100
70%
0%
30%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
83%
0%
17%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
89%
0%
11%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
71%
0%
29%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
80%
0%
20%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
100%
0%
0%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
76%
0%
24%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
78%
0%
22%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

38%
0%
62%
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A
we're gathering data
N/A

User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 201 reviews
Great User Sentiment 231 reviews
85%
of users recommend this product

PayScale has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 85% when considering 201 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

88%
of users recommend this product

Salary.com has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 231 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

4.3 (153)
4.4 (224)
4.0 (25)
5.0 (2)
4.3 (23)
4.4 (5)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated PayScale and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities and Rewards and Recognition.

Mobile Capabilities Award
Rewards and Recognition Award

we're gathering data

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Compensation Data and Insights: PayScale provides users with up-to-date and reliable compensation data, including salary ranges, benefits information, and market trends for various job roles and industries. This data helps organizations make informed decisions about employee compensation, ensuring they remain competitive in the market.
Compensation Benchmarking: PayScale's platform allows users to benchmark their compensation packages against industry standards and competitors. This feature helps organizations identify any gaps in their compensation structure and make necessary adjustments to attract and retain top talent.
Salary Negotiation Tools: PayScale offers tools and resources to assist both employers and employees in salary negotiations. These tools provide valuable insights into market rates and help ensure fair and competitive compensation packages.
Show more
Customer Support: About 90% of the reviews about support said the vendor provides friendly, responsive and helpful customer support.
Customizable Dashboards: Approximately 88% of reviewers said it is easy to customize dashboards, visuals and widgets as per their requirements.
Reliable Data Insights: Nearly all reviewers agreed that its analysis and data collecting tools are highly reliable and relevant. Reviewers reported that numerous outside surveys could also be uploaded into the tool for accurate executive compensation market pricing.
Functionality: About 63% of reviewers said the system contains useful and customizable features such as minimum wage tool, relo wizard, hot jobs, geo differentials, matched jobs and more to streamline the salary distribution process.
Collaboration: Almost all reviewers that mentioned collaboration said teams could collaborate on benchmarking roles and finding accurate job matches through effective data sharing.
Reporting and Analysis: According to 80% of reviewers, reports are easy to generate and provide updated market data.
Knowledge and Training: As per 63% of reviewers, the system has a big learning curve. However, the vendor provides sufficient training guides and customer support.
Show more
Limited Customization: PayScale's compensation management tools may not offer the level of customization required by larger organizations or those with complex compensation structures. For instance, it might be challenging to incorporate nuanced compensation elements like regional variations or industry-specific benchmarks.
Data Accuracy Concerns: The accuracy of PayScale's data has been questioned by some users, particularly for niche roles or specialized industries. This is because the platform relies heavily on self-reported data, which can be subject to biases and inaccuracies.
Usability Challenges: Some users find PayScale's interface to be less intuitive and more cumbersome compared to other compensation management platforms. Navigating through the platform and accessing specific features can sometimes be a bit clunky, impacting overall user experience.
Show more
Implementation: Most reviewers said that implementation is confusing, complex and requires sufficient training before users can leverage all features.
Speed: According to most reviewers who mentioned speed, the system can be slow with numerous bugs and errors.
Location-Based Data: Nearly 53% of reviewers believe the system dashboard could be improved by adding more location-specific features and compensation models.
Show more

PayScale has garnered positive feedback for its comprehensive compensation data and user-friendly interface, making it a valuable tool for organizations seeking reliable market insights. Users appreciate the platform's ability to provide detailed salary reports, allowing them to benchmark employee compensation against industry standards and ensure competitive pay practices. The platform's intuitive design and ease of use have also been commended, enabling HR professionals to efficiently navigate the system and access relevant information. However, some users have noted that PayScale's data may not always be as granular or specific as desired, particularly for niche industries or specialized roles. Additionally, the platform's pricing structure has been a point of contention for some smaller organizations, as the cost can be prohibitive depending on their size and needs. Compared to similar products, PayScale stands out for its extensive database and focus on compensation data. While other HR software solutions may offer broader functionality encompassing various aspects of human capital management, PayScale's specialization in compensation analytics provides a distinct advantage for organizations prioritizing accurate and up-to-date salary information. This focus allows PayScale to deliver in-depth market insights and benchmarking capabilities that are crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. Consequently, PayScale is particularly well-suited for mid-sized to large organizations with complex compensation structures and a need for reliable market data to inform their compensation strategies. The platform's robust features and comprehensive data sets empower HR teams to make data-driven decisions regarding employee compensation, ensuring both internal equity and external competitiveness.

Show more

Is Salary.com worth its salt when it comes to compensation management? User reviews from the past year paint a mixed picture. Some users praise Salary.com for its comprehensive data and analytics, highlighting its ability to provide real-time insights into salary trends and benchmarks. For instance, users mention how the platform helps them understand industry standards and make informed decisions about employee compensation, ensuring their pay practices are competitive. However, other users express frustration with the platform's complexity and clunky interface, finding it difficult to navigate and utilize all its features effectively. This suggests that while Salary.com offers a robust set of tools, its user experience could be more intuitive, especially for those new to compensation management. A key differentiator for Salary.com, according to users, is its integration with expert services. This means businesses can access personalized guidance and support from compensation professionals, which can be invaluable for navigating complex pay structures and ensuring compliance. However, some users find the pricing for these additional services to be prohibitive, particularly for smaller businesses with limited budgets. Overall, Salary.com appears to be best suited for larger organizations with dedicated compensation teams who can fully leverage its comprehensive data and analytics capabilities. Smaller businesses may find its complexity and cost to be a barrier, potentially benefiting from a more streamlined and affordable solution.

Show more

Screenshots

Top Alternatives in Compensation Management Software


beqom

CompAccelerator

CompAnalyst

Compease

CompLogix

Compport

CompTrak

COMPview

CompXL

DecuSoft Compose

Pave

SimplyMerit

TalentComp

Unit4 Compensation Planning

Willis Towers Watson

Xactly Incent

Related Categories

Head-to-Head Comparison

WE DISTILL IT INTO REAL REQUIREMENTS, COMPARISON REPORTS, PRICE GUIDES and more...

Compare products
Comparison Report
Just drag this link to the bookmark bar.
?
Table settings