Compare 14 strategic workforce planning products
If you already run Workday, Oracle, UKG Pro or Dayforce, demo that vendor's own planning tool first. Only Dayforce publishes a price, so compare the rest by who builds your model. Oracle's planning tool and Visier People both make predictions about individual employees. Those predictions carry the main legal risk, because employers in the EU can face EU AI Act duties.
Skip the platforms unless someone can build and run your model
Workday Adaptive Planning, Anaplan, Pigment, Oracle and Orgvue give you a planning platform, not a finished plan. Someone must design your plan on a platform before it gives you any answers. Nakisa, Visier, Crunchr, TalentNeuron, Faethm, 4PLAN HR, Neobrain and Dayforce start you from a method the vendor built. We would pick one of those ready methods if you would rather adjust a plan than design one.
Every vendor except Dayforce quotes on request or publishes no price. Ask each vendor on your shortlist for a written yearly quote you can set beside Dayforce's.
| Product | Kind of tool | Who builds your model | Price | What you need first |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workday Adaptive Planning | Finance planning software. Workday sells it for financial, workforce and operational planning. | Unknown. A setup wizard links it to Workday HCM. Ask Workday who builds the plan. | Quotes on request. Check whether your finance team already licenses it. | Unknown. Ask whether it plans from HR systems other than Workday HCM. |
| UKG Pro | Staffing forecasts. It works out the people you will need and the gap to the staff you have now. | Unknown. Ask UKG who builds the model and how long it takes. | Quotes on request. Ask whether your UKG Pro price already covers it. | UKG Pro, which includes the tool. It turns your sales, customer traffic or seasonal trends into staff numbers. |
| Dayforce | Scenario planning tool. You can test workforce scenarios and design your org structure with requests in everyday words. | Ready-made tool. It flags costly layers and suggests where to cut costs. | $54.00 per employee per year. The Dayforce Platform adds $171.96 per employee per year. | The Dayforce Platform. You must run it before you add planning. |
| Oracle | Inside Oracle's wider planning platform (EPM). It is one type of plan there. | You or a partner. You set up the business numbers and job combinations it plans from. | Quotes on request. One UK government order priced it per employee. | Set-up work. You create the plan, the user accounts and the permissions. |
| Anaplan | Planning for any team. Its UK government listing covers financial, supply chain and workforce planning. | Your team or a partner. BT has run its own workforce planning models on Anaplan for about five years. | No price published. Its UK government listing gives volume discounts of 5% to 30%. | A partner or a modeller. Partners train your team to build models themselves. |
| Pigment | Business planning platform. Pigment sells it to HR teams as a business planning platform. | You adapt a starting model. Carta chose Pigment's own modelling team to help, and its build took 12 weeks. | Quotes on request. Some ready-made starting models cost extra. | Check the HR link. Pigment marks its Workday link "On the Roadmap", meaning not available yet. |
| Orgvue | Planning platform. Orgvue says it adapts to your data, planning approach and goals. | Consultants or a partner. Orgvue aims to hand running the plan to your own team. | Quotes on request. The price rises 7% a year through the contract term. | Consultants' time. Orgvue bills its consultants monthly, apart from the yearly subscription. |
| Nakisa | One of three suites. Nakisa sells it beside its org chart and org design suites. | Ready method. You load data, set the business numbers and follow six fixed steps. | No price published. It is licensed per user, not per employee. | A supported HR system. SAP SuccessFactors, SAP HCM, Workday or Oracle E-Business Suite. Nakisa reads Oracle Fusion data in real time. Its ready-made link to Oracle Fusion is not available yet. |
| Visier | Analytics add-on. Most of the data it plans from sits in Visier People Essentials. | Four ready models. The models cover headcount and cost, headcount forecasting, diversity goals and skills. | No price published. Ask for one quote that includes People Essentials. | Visier People Essentials. You must buy it before you can buy planning. |
| Crunchr | Planning linked to analytics. It uses the same data and definitions as Crunchr's people analytics and HR dashboards. | Guided wizard. It forecasts headcount and cost, plus diversity and tenure. | No price published. Ask whether it is priced per employee or per user. | Unknown. Ask whether you must also buy Crunchr People Analytics. |
| Faethm | Long-range planning. Pearson owns Faethm. It looks at what may change the staff you need and have, one to ten years ahead. | Ready AI models. Faethm builds the models, and you supply the workforce data they run on. | No price published. Ask whether a services fee applies. | Anonymised records. You upload staff records, including pay, with identifying details removed. |
| TalentNeuron | Planning with market data. It shows your priorities and business numbers beside labour-market trends in one view. | Guided method. You enter business numbers, such as store count, and it works out headcount. | No price published. Fees can rise up to 5% at each renewal. | Your HR figures. Your figures on leavers and retirements feed its forecast of future staff. |
| 4PLAN HR | HR cost planning. Software4You sells it for planning and controlling staff costs. | Consultants, then you. Its consultants set it up over 2 to 3 months, then you run it yourself. | Quotes on request. Ask whether set-up is priced separately. | About 500 employees. Companies of 80 to 500 people are offered LIGHT, a budgeting edition. |
| Neobrain | Skills platform tool. Talent Planner sits beside Neobrain's skills, opportunities and performance tools. | You set the target. You agree the target headcount with colleagues, helped by a chat assistant. | No price published. Ask whether Talent Planner is sold without the rest of the platform. | Your HR data. Neobrain publishes pages on linking its platform to Workday and SAP SuccessFactors. |
SAP's new workforce planning tool is not in the tables because it is not on sale yet. SAP plans to start selling it in November 2026. If you run SAP SuccessFactors, ask SAP for a written date and a quote.
Oracle and Visier predict about individual employees, so check the law
Oracle says its planning tool predicts how individuals and teams will perform, and whether they will leave. Visier People can predict, with a score, which named employee is likely to resign next. Ask Visier whether its Headcount Forecasting model uses that score. Where the predictions column says Unknown, ask that vendor for a written yes or no.
| Product | Contract term | When you leave | Predicts about individual employees | Customer result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Workday Adaptive Planning | Unknown. Ask for the length, renewal and notice terms in writing. | Unknown. Ask how your plans and scenarios come out if you leave. | Unknown. Ask Workday for a written yes or no. | Unknown. Ask Workday for a planning customer you can call. |
| UKG Pro | Unknown. Ask whether the planning tool follows your UKG Pro contract. | Privacy notice only. UKG deletes or de-identifies personal data once it is no longer needed. | No. UKG describes forecasts for staffing, teams and the organisation only. | Costa Coffee. A customer since late 2021, across more than 1,500 UK locations. |
| Dayforce | Open-ended. It runs until ended. You may leave without penalty if a new law makes Dayforce change the terms. | Deleted after you leave. Dayforce returns personal data on request, in a form it chooses. | Unknown. Ask whether its warnings about costly layers ever name people. | None yet. Dayforce publishes no named customer story for its planning tool. |
| Oracle | One public order. A UK government order was billed yearly in advance and does not renew automatically. | Back up first. Deleting your copy of the software removes all its data at once. | Yes, individuals. Ask which managers can see each person's prediction. | A UK government order of March 2021 included Strategic Workforce Planning, priced per hosted employee. |
| Anaplan | Fixed for the term. Anaplan's only public contract is a November 2018 Google Cloud Marketplace edition. Under it, you cannot cancel fees or get them refunded. | 30 days to export. Then Anaplan deletes your account and data. Exports come as Excel, CSV, TXT or PDF. | Unknown. Ask whether a model your team builds could score named staff. | The Executive Centre. It has more than 2,000 staff and plans on Anaplan. |
| Pigment | No fixed end. The main contract runs while any subscription or service you bought under it is live. A breach gets 30 days to be put right. | Export before the end. It costs nothing extra. Personal data is deleted within 3 months. | No. Pigment describes no prediction about a named employee. | Carta. It has more than 1,800 employees. Keolis is a customer too. |
| Orgvue | Locked for the term. You cannot end a committed term early just because you want to. | Free export. CSV, PowerPoint and PDF at the end, under its UK government listing. | Unknown. Ask whether any Orgvue score or forecast names a person. | TVH. It has about 5,300 staff. |
| Nakisa | Nakisa can stop it. Its general terms let it change or stop the service at any time, without notice. Fees are non-refundable unless your contract says otherwise. | Deleted at the end. Export your plans before the contract ends. | Unknown. Ask whether its workforce assessment rates named people. | None tied to planning. Ask for a Suite customer on the HR system you run. |
| Visier | Auto-renews. It renews unless you give 60 days' notice. | Deleted within 30 days. Backups can last up to 90 days. | Yes, by name. Visier's AI terms say you give affected workers, and their representatives where required, any notice the law requires. | Providence. It says it hired over 2,000 caregivers ahead of vacancies. |
| Crunchr | Not published. Crunchr's public privacy statement covers only website visitors and job applicants. Ask for the contract. | Secure disposal. Ask how your plans come back before the data is destroyed. | Unknown. Ask whether its diversity and tenure forecasts show named people. | SITA. Its reported figures cover the whole Crunchr platform, not planning alone. |
| Faethm | Not published. Faethm's site has no working terms page. | Privacy policy only. Faethm takes reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify data it no longer needs. | Unknown. Faethm says its models assess individual job moves, using data it calls de-identified. | None tied to planning. Ask Pearson for a planning customer with a result. |
| TalentNeuron | Yearly renewal. It renews for 12 months unless you give 30 days' notice. | Export during the term. TalentNeuron owns the data your use creates and deletes yours within 6 months. | Unknown. Ask whether it predicts leavers by name or only in total. | None tied to planning. Ask for a customer that plans with its market data. |
| 4PLAN HR | Not published. Ask for the minimum term and notice period. | Not published. Ask what you get back, in what format and at what cost. | No. 4PLAN HR names no score for whether a person may leave. | Westfalen Weser Netz. It has about 1,100 staff. |
| Neobrain | Unknown. Ask how long the contract runs and how you leave it. | Unknown. Your data is hosted in France and stays in the EU. Ask how it comes back. | Unknown. Neobrain says its AI can predict a person will leave. Ask whether Talent Planner does. | None tied to planning. Ask for a Talent Planner customer you can call. |
An AI system on the EU AI Act's list of employment uses is always high-risk if it profiles people. Profiling means scoring or predicting something about a named person. From 2 December 2027, employers in the EU must tell workers' representatives and affected workers before the system is used. If you employ people in the EU, ask a lawyer about the AI Act before using Oracle's or Visier's predictions.
Treat every Unknown as a question to settle before you sign
Get each Unknown answered in writing, and check that the contract says the same. A Not published cell means you must ask for the document itself, such as the contract.
- What you need first can rule a product out, such as one that needs a suite you do not run.
- Contract term shows which deals you cannot end early, and which vendor can stop the service.
- Customer result shows which vendors name a planning customer you could ask to speak to.
Read the mid-market, enterprise or Europe and UK guide next
The mid-market guide is for companies of 200 to 2,000 people. It shows what to use when few products are built for that band.
The enterprise guide is for companies of more than 2,000 people. It says which tool to demo first if you run Workday, Oracle, UKG Pro or Dayforce.
The Europe and UK guide covers vendors based in Europe and the UK. It also covers laws that change the choice, such as German works council rules.
If you have not decided whether to buy at all, start with the main guide.
Sources and method
Every answer comes from each product's own site, help centre, technical guides and legal
terms. Each was checked against one fact list for this market. All were read on 26 September
2026. We say a product does not offer or publish something only where we checked for it.
Anything we could not confirm either way is marked "Unknown", as a question to ask the
vendor. Two products some buyers will meet in this market are not included here. SAP's
Workforce Planning goes on sale in November 2026 and has no page yet. Personio's Workforce
Planning plans next year's headcount and its cost. It does not set the people a company will
have against those it will need. That puts it outside this market. Both are named on the
market guide and the segment pages.