Strategic workforce planning software
Strategic workforce planning software compares versions of the workforce your business plan needs. If your HR system is Workday, Oracle, UKG Pro or Dayforce, start with its planning tool. Most products are a platform or a ready-built method. Only Dayforce publishes a price. The legal risk is that Oracle and Visier can predict whether individual employees will leave. The practical risk is buying a platform your team cannot build on.
Unlike a headcount budget, strategic workforce planning accounts for who is likely to leave or retire. Planful, Vena, HiBob and ChartHop sell workforce planning tools that plan next year's hires and what they cost. If you only need next year's budget, one of those tools may do the job.
The job you need done decides which kind of product fits
To tie the plan to the budget, start where Finance already plans
If Finance plans in Workday Adaptive Planning, Anaplan, Pigment or Oracle, ask whether your workforce plan can live there too. A shared platform lets HR and Finance work from the same numbers. The Executive Centre runs its finance and HR reporting and forecasting in Anaplan.
To find skills gaps, demo Orgvue, TalentNeuron or Faethm
Orgvue's scenarios show which skills will be in shortest supply. TalentNeuron adds outside job-market data to spot coming shifts in roles and skills. Faethm forecasts the skills gaps that automation and new technology will open.
To restructure, demo Dayforce, Orgvue or TalentNeuron
Dayforce's planning tool flags costly layers and spans of control that do not line up. Orgvue shows how each option would change roles and cost before you decide. TalentNeuron lets you test skill mix and headcount during a restructure or a merger.
The biggest difference between products is who builds your plan
A platform gives you the software to build a planning model on. Someone must build that model before it answers anything. A ready method comes with its calculations already built. You load your data and change the assumptions.
Choose a platform if someone on your team can build a planning model and keep it running. Choose a ready method if you would rather adjust a finished plan than design your own. Vendors publish almost no results for their planning tools, so ask each one for a customer you can call.
Dayforce and UKG Pro customers can start with their supplier's tool
- Dayforce Strategic Workforce Planning is a ready planning tool, sold as an add-on to the Dayforce Platform. Dayforce names no customer case study for this tool yet.
- If you run UKG Pro, check whether your contract covers its strategic workforce planning tool. Costa Coffee has used it since late 2021, across more than 1,500 UK locations. Ask UKG who builds the planning model.
- SAP plans to start selling its new workforce planning tool in November 2026. If you run SAP SuccessFactors, ask SAP for a firm date and a price.
Workday, Oracle, Anaplan, Pigment and Orgvue sell a platform to build on
- A setup wizard links Workday Adaptive Planning to Workday HCM. Ask Workday who builds the plan.
- On Oracle Strategic Workforce Planning, you or a partner must first set up the business numbers it calculates from.
- Your own team or a partner builds the plan on Anaplan.
- Pigment gives you a ready-made starting model for workforce planning, which you adapt. Carta's plan took 12 weeks to build with Pigment's own modelling team.
- You build your plan on Orgvue with its own consultants, called Expert Services, or with a partner. Orgvue bills its consultants' fees monthly, apart from the yearly subscription.
Nakisa, TalentNeuron, Faethm and 4PLAN HR come with a method built
- Nakisa's suite reviews your workforce by numbers, cost, skills, make-up and structure. It then sets out ways to close each gap, such as hiring, contractors, training or automation.
- TalentNeuron's tool guides you step by step. It combines outside economic data with your own attrition and retirement figures.
- Faethm's ready models run on anonymised workforce data that your team uploads, so allow time to prepare it.
- 4PLAN HR starts from a ready template, and its consultants lead the first 2 to 3 months. 4PLAN HR is sold to companies from about 500 employees.
Visier, Crunchr and Neobrain add planning to an analytics or skills platform
- Visier Workforce Planning comes with four ready models, for headcount and cost, forecasting, diversity goals and skills. You must buy Visier People Essentials before you can buy it.
- Crunchr's planning tool uses wizards to work out how many people, and of what type, your strategy needs. It runs on Crunchr's people-analytics platform.
- Neobrain's Talent Planner is part of Neobrain's skills platform. Neobrain says you can keep your Excel files as the input while it runs the rest.
Only Dayforce publishes a price for its planning tool
Dayforce lists Strategic Workforce Planning at $54.00 per employee per year. Dayforce sells it on top of the Dayforce Platform, which costs $171.96 per employee per year. Ask every other vendor for a written quote.
How a vendor counts your people changes how the price grows. Dayforce charges per employee, so its cost follows your headcount. Nakisa licenses per user, not per employee, so its cost follows how many people use it. Anaplan's UK government listing gives volume discounts from 5% to 30% as yearly contract value grows.
Orgvue's order forms add 7% a year to the price through the term. TalentNeuron renews for 12 months unless you give 30 days' notice. It can raise its fees by up to 5% at each renewal. Ask every vendor to write any yearly increase into the contract.
Check notice dates, data exit and legal duties before you sign
Some contracts renew on their own or cannot be ended early
Visier renews on its own unless you give 60 days' notice. You cannot end a committed Orgvue term early just because you want to. Anaplan's only public contract says its fees cannot be cancelled. That contract is from Google Cloud Marketplace, in November 2018.
What data you can take when you leave differs by vendor
- Orgvue's UK government listing lets you export to CSV, PPT and PDF at no extra cost when you leave.
- Anaplan gives you 30 days after the contract ends to take your data, then deletes it.
- TalentNeuron's terms say it owns all data your use creates, which limits what you can take.
Predictions about one employee can bring legal duties
Oracle's planning tool can predict how individual employees will perform and whether they will leave. Visier People can score which named employee is likely to resign. Ask other vendors whether their tools predict anything about one employee.
The EU AI Act lists some uses of AI at work. A listed system that profiles people is always high-risk. From 2 December 2027, employers in the EU must tell affected workers and their representatives before the system is used.
In Germany, employers must inform and consult the works council on personnel planning, whatever tool they use. From 1 January 2027, Colorado's law covers a tool whose output about a named person materially influences a job decision.
Skip buying if you plan once a year against one business plan
You can plan your workforce without buying a tool. A spreadsheet model works while one person owns it and keeps it up to date. The model stops working when that person leaves, unless someone else can run it.
A model of your own needs three parts.
- The people you have, less those likely to leave or retire.
- The people the business plan will need.
- The gap between the people you have and the people you need, and how you will close it.
Buy a tool when you need to compare many versions of the plan, or share it across HR and Finance.
The HR Agent Map breaks the build into steps. The HR Agent Map
Read the guide for your company's size and country next
- If your company has 200 to 2,000 people, read our mid-market guide.
- If your company has more than 2,000 people, read our enterprise guide.
- If you employ people in Europe or the UK, read our Europe and UK guide for the laws there.
- To see every product against the same questions, use our compare page.
- Each product named above has its own page, with its price, limits and questions to ask.
- Our advice would change when SAP's new planning tool goes on sale, or when another vendor publishes a price.
dayforce.com, published price book · Dayforce and Dayforce Platform list prices · read 26 Sep 2026
orgvue.com, subscription agreement · the annual price increase and committed terms · read 26 Sep 2026
talentneuron.com, terms and conditions · renewal, fee increase and data ownership · read 26 Sep 2026
EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (archived copy) · profiling and the worker-notice duty, Articles 6(3) and 26(7) · read 26 Sep 2026
EUR-Lex, Regulation (EU) 2026/1744 · the 2 December 2027 start date for employment systems · read 26 Sep 2026
gesetze-im-internet.de, Betriebsverfassungsgesetz §92 · the works council's information and consultation right on personnel planning · read 26 Sep 2026