SaaS solutions like Payscale often don’t disclose pricing, which can pose a challenge during the procurement process. Vertice is here to help — our Payscale pricing guide breaks down the features and available subscription options, plus how it compares to competitor vendors. Additionally, find out how our SaaS Purchasing Platform can help you get Payscale at the lowest price.

What Payscale can do for you

Payscale is a cloud-based compensation management platform helping businesses manage and optimize their compensation strategies. Its primary product is Payfactors, which provides access to an extensive salary information database covering various industries, job roles, and geographies. 

Payscale’s compensation software provides businesses with robust tools for salary benchmarking, pay equity analysis, and compensation planning via a user-friendly platform seamlessly integrating with HR systems. 

Payfactors data helps businesses ensure compensation packages are competitive with the rest of the market, helping attract and retain top talent while reducing turnover and associated recruitment costs. 

Additionally, this data can guide decisions around salary increases, bonuses, and other forms of compensation, better aligning comp strategy with business objectives. It’s also easy to identify and address pay disparities, improving compliance with pay equity laws and mitigating the risk of related legal issues. 

Ultimately, leveraging a solution like Payscale enables organizations to make informed, data-driven decisions about salaries and benefits, driving employee satisfaction by providing fairer and more competitive compensation packages across the board.

Payscale pricing structures and tiers

Payscale offers four different tiers for its flagship Payfactors product. Pricing is not disclosed publicly — customers must contact the sales team for a quote. This tactic is often used by vendors to maintain a competitive edge during SaaS contract negotiations. 

While vague or obscured pricing can be a frustrating procurement operations challenge, it also presents an opportunity. Buying teams can often drive solution costs down by paying only for the features actually required. Furthermore, strategic negotiations utilizing pricing benchmarks such as those offered by Vertice can help achieve the most competitive deal, with significant discounts on list prices often attainable. 

With all that said, Payscale pricing typically varies based on number of licenses and usage volume — along with your chosen subscription tier. You can find a breakdown of what’s included in each plan below. 

Payscale pricing – Free

Cost: $0.

Payscale’s free tier is ideal for companies looking to test out the Payfactors solution. Users get access to the platform’s HR market analysis — a curated database of HR-reported compensation data with over 5,000 jobs benchmarked in more than 250 industries across over 31,000 cities. 

Users also get access to the pricing tools, where they can build sets based on competitor companies, quickly answer job pricing requests, and walk through different pay scenarios thanks to a market pricing sandbox. 

However, the free subscription is limited to pricing three jobs in total. 

Payscale pricing – Basics

Cost: contact sales.

Upgrading to the Basics Payscale pricing tier removes the three-job pricing limit while also providing access to some additional features. Along with Payscale’s curated HR market analysis, users can gain compensation insights through employee-reported data. 

This tier is perfect if you simply need to price jobs via quick access to reliable market data. 

Payscale pricing – Professional

Cost: contact sales.

Professional Payscale pricing unlocks significantly more of the platform’s functionality. Users can import employee and job data from their human resources information system (HRIS) using native integrations. 

There are also tools for managing pay structures. Users can set job-based or grade-based pay ranges, model what-if scenarios to understand the impact of compensation changes, and drive fairer pay practices through increased transparency and consistency. 

Analytics features are significantly bolstered too, with easy-to-use pre-built reports based on geography, salary structure, and wage gaps, plus the ability to create custom reports based on any of your data points. Native Tableau integration further expands your options for visualization and tabular reporting. 

Payscale pricing – Advanced

Cost: contact sales.

The Advanced tier gives users access to the full Payfactor suite. It’s nearly the same as the Professional plan, but adds the ability to access third-party survey data sourced directly from over 2,000 participating organizations. By combining this with Payscale’s own data sources, users get a fully comprehensive outlook of current compensation trends.  

Additional Payscale costs to consider

On top of the core Payfactors product, Payscale offers a number of other solutions at an additional cost. Here’s a round-up:

Peer

With Peer, organizations can compare compensation data using real-time, employee-sourced information from similar organizations in an aggregated, anonymized format. Peer is constantly updated with new data, reflecting the most current market conditions for compensation.

Compensation planning

Payscale’s compensation planning software provides a unified solution for managing your organization’s compensation strategy. Features include budget management, bonus and promotion management, long-term incentives management, advanced filtering, and dashboards for benchmarking data and audit trail visibility. 

MarketPay

MarketPay is Payscale’s most advanced compensation management solution, aimed at global companies with larger workforces. Key features include employee-reported compensation survey data, pay equity reporting, compensation modeling, and dynamic visualizations, dashboards, and models for real-time analytics.

Professional services

Payscale also provides expert consulting services to help businesses develop and implement effective compensation strategies. Offerings include professional benchmarking and job pricing, pay equity reviews, personalized guidance on pay structure design, and assistance with legal and regulatory compliance.

Other vendors offering compensation management

Payscale is one of just a few vendors providing compensation benchmarking and management software. As part of a strong procurement process, you should always consider alternative solutions in order to select one that best meets your needs. We’ll compare Payscale with three other compensation management products to get you started: 

Payscale pricing vs Workday Compensation

Sitting within Workday’s comprehensive enterprise management solution, the Workday Compensation platform excels in managing complex compensation plans, automating compensation cycles, and providing real-time insights into pay equity and performance. As it integrates seamlessly with Workday's suite of HR and financial management tools, it’s ideal for large enterprises seeking an all-in-one HR management system. 

‍Workday pricing is typically higher than Payscale's, reflecting its extensive functionality and integration capabilities, which may be overkill for smaller businesses.

Payscale pricing vs Glassdoor

Glassdoor offers compensation insights primarily through user-generated data, making it a valuable tool for transparency and market comparison from an employee perspective. The solution is best suited to SMBs looking to understand market trends and employee perceptions. 

Typically speaking, Glassdoor pricing is often lower than Payscale's comprehensive data and software packages, but with less depth and analytical power. Users get free access to more basic compensation data, so the solution could be a good choice if you have simple requirements.

Payscale pricing vs Salary.com

Salary.com provides a robust platform for compensation benchmarking and planning, including its standout CompAnalyst tool. It offers reliable, HR-reported data, making it suitable for mid-sized and enterprise businesses needing accurate and customizable compensation reports. 

Salary.com pricing is competitive with Payscale, but it may offer more flexible options for businesses looking specifically for in-depth compensation analytics and planning tools.

Payscale pricing – the Vertice verdict

Payscale provides a number of compelling, powerful tools for managing compensation strategy within your organization. Its combination of curated HR insights, employee-sourced information, and third-party survey data sets means customers are well-poised to make accurate compensation decisions based on the latest market trends and conditions. 

Many customers will find the menu of professional services particularly valuable, from help with onboarding to expert assistance pricing jobs and creating equitable pay structures. 

That said, the Payscale pricing structure isn’t totally straightforward, with a number of overlapping products and functionalities on top of its flagship Payfactors solution that are available for an extra cost. So if you’re looking to acquire Payscale, why not partner with Vertice?

Our expert buyers enter procurement negotiations on your behalf for the best possible deal, getting you access to the features you need at a price that’s in line with what similar companies are paying. Furthermore, our SaaS Purchasing Platform provides detailed insights, supercharging SaaS spend management and helping you save money across your tech stack. Want to know more? Get in touch using the form below.