Workforce planning software compared

A finance lead approves 40 hires in the budget, and by the third quarter nobody can say how many of those jobs are filled, open or quietly changed into something more expensive. Workforce planning software exists to answer that question from one record. The eight products on this page each let a team build headcount plans, track positions that are approved, open or filled, and compare budget scenarios. We read each vendor's own pages, and each product page links to the sources.

What the software has to do

Three capabilities decide whether a product belongs here. A headcount plan sets how many people each team will have over a period and what they will cost. Position management tracks each approved job as a record that stays open until someone fills it. Budget scenarios let a planner change a hiring pace or a reorg and see the cost effect without touching the live plan.

The three depend on each other. A plan with no position records drifts away from reality as managers open requisitions on their own. Position records with no scenarios give finance nothing to test before a decision. Scenarios with no link to actual headcount produce numbers that nobody can reconcile in the next quarter.

Our wording matters because vendors use the terms loosely. Only headcount365 calls its feature position management on its own page, and TeamOhana sells it by that name as an add-on. The others describe the same job in other words, such as open roles, approved positions or planned roles. We counted a product when its page describes tracking approved and open jobs against a plan, and each product page shows which page we used.

Finance tools and HR tools approach the problem differently

The products fall into two groups by where they started. Anaplan, Pigment, Abacum and Cube are planning platforms for finance teams. They treat headcount as one cost line inside a larger budget model, so a hiring change flows into the profit and loss statement and the cash forecast.

ChartHop, headcount365, TeamOhana and Rippling start from people data. Their screens are built around org charts, requisitions and approvals, and the budget view sits on top of the employee record. Rippling belongs in this group because its headcount planning runs on the same employee record as its HR and payroll products.

The choice matters because the two groups fail in opposite ways. A finance platform can model a reorg well while recruiters never see the approved role. A people-data tool can push an approved requisition straight to an applicant tracking system while the finance team still exports a file to run a full forecast. Ask which team will own the model day to day, and pick the product that team already thinks in.

Where prices are published

Only two of the eight publish list prices. headcount365 charges by company size: Lite is from $12,000 a year for up to 500 employees, Core is from $30,000 for 501 to 2,000, and Enterprise is from $65,000 above that. Each plan carries a one-time implementation fee, $3,000 on Lite and $5,000 on Core, and the minimum commitment runs from one year on Lite to two years on Enterprise.

TeamOhana publishes four plans. Free costs $0 a year, Professional is from $15,000, Growth is from $45,000 and Enterprise is from $95,000. A one-time fee of $5,000 applies on Free and Professional and $15,000 on Growth. Position Management is an add-on at $3 per employee per month on Growth and Enterprise only.

A rough example shows how the numbers differ in practice. At 600 employees, headcount365 Core starts at $30,000 a year plus $5,000 once, and position management is included on that plan. TeamOhana Growth at the same size starts at $45,000 plus $15,000 once, and position management adds 600 times $3 times 12 months, or $21,600 a year. These are starting prices from the vendors' pages, so a quote can differ.

The other six publish no prices. ChartHop asks for an employee count in a short form and replies with a proposal. Anaplan and Abacum route buyers to a demo request. Cube lists Bronze, Silver and Gold plans by legal entity count and quotes each one. Pigment's homepage shows no prices. Rippling says plans start at $8 per employee per month with a monthly base fee, but that figure covers the whole product line and its headcount planning page has no price.

Read the pricing pages closely

Both vendors with published prices contradict themselves somewhere on the page. headcount365's comparison table leaves scenario plans off Lite, while its FAQ says scenario planning is on all paid plans. Its table lists SAML single sign-on under Enterprise, and its FAQ calls SAML a paid add-on elsewhere.

TeamOhana's pricing cards say the free tier covers up to 100 employees, and its table and FAQ say 150. The cards describe Growth as annual or multi-year, and the table gives a two-year minimum. Its FAQ says there is no per-seat charge, yet its AI analyst add-on costs $150 per seat per month.

We list the figures as the page prints them and flag the gaps. Get the plan, the employee band, the term and the add-ons confirmed in writing before you sign, because a free tier with a $5,000 setup fee and a two-year minimum is a different purchase from the headline.

How headcount plans are built

The products agree on the broad shape of a plan and differ on who touches it. ChartHop's module page says HR and Finance plan together, and that the approved plan is kept as its own layer next to live headcount and cost. A feature it calls time travel shows the structure as it stood on the day the plan was approved, which helps when someone disputes what finance signed off.

Abacum lets department heads submit and adjust their own headcount within limits that finance sets. Cube describes planning every role with a start date and a fully loaded cost, rolled up from each leader to the company plan. Pigment's page describes comparing budgeted headcount against actuals at a glance, and routing open positions through approval.

Rippling approaches control from the hiring side. Its page says planned hires can be approved automatically and requests that go off plan are routed through an approval chain you define. When a position is filled, the plan updates and recruiters are notified. Rippling's own blog says most companies spend 60% to 70% of their operating costs on people, which is a vendor claim and not a measured figure, though it explains why finance teams care about this one line.

Position control is the hard part

Position management fails quietly when it is missing. A manager opens a requisition for a senior engineer where finance approved a mid-level one, and the extra cost shows up only after the offer is signed. Systems that tie each requisition to an approved position catch that mismatch at the request stage.

headcount365 defines position management as tracking and controlling every job in a company, approved, open or filled, and says teams can model splitting or merging roles without changing position data. ChartHop describes guided workflows for opening a job, updating a job, or ending one and creating a backfill. It also states that approved requisitions can be pushed to Ashby, Greenhouse, Jobvite or Lever.

Anaplan describes continuous position planning aligned with the financial budget. Cube defines an open role as an approved position not yet filled. Pigment mentions to-be-hired approval workflows. Each of these three describes the idea in its own words, so ask each one in a demo whether a requisition can be created without a matching approved position.

Scenarios and what they cost to run

A budget scenario copies the plan, changes some assumptions and shows the cost difference. The useful versions keep the copy separate from the approved plan. ChartHop says scenarios can be built privately and then shared or combined, with access controls on who sees them. headcount365 says hiring teams can scenario plan without changing position data.

Anaplan lists headcount changes, terminations, transfers and merit increases as variables for what-if models. Cube describes a hiring freeze or an acceleration recalculated across the profit and loss statement and cash. Pigment says scenarios can test the cost of different hiring paths. TeamOhana puts scenario planning on Professional and above, and sells hiring-scenario modeling on Growth.

Test scenarios with your own numbers. Ask the vendor to model a hiring freeze in one department and a two-month delay on all open roles, then check whether the revenue side moves too. Tools that stop at the cost line answer a smaller question than tools that carry the change into the forecast.

Security claims

Four vendors state SOC 2 on pages we read. ChartHop says it completed a SOC 2 Type 2 examination by Schellman & Company. headcount365 says it is SOC 2 Type 2 and GDPR compliant, and Abacum lists SOC 2 Type II. Cube states SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 certification.

We found no SOC 2 statement on the pages we read for TeamOhana, Anaplan, Pigment or Rippling's headcount planning page. TeamOhana links a trust center and Rippling links a security page, and we did not open either. That is a gap in what the pages say, not proof that a report does not exist, so ask each vendor for its current report under a nondisclosure agreement.

Headcount data includes salaries and planned terminations, so the access controls matter as much as the audit report. headcount365 lists SCIM and OIDC single sign-on from Core and SAML 2.0 on Enterprise. Cube lists SSO and SCIM on Silver, and Okta, Microsoft Entra and Google as sign-in options.

Integrations decide how current the plan stays

A plan is only as current as the data feeding it. headcount365 lists Greenhouse, Teamtailor, Ashby and Lever for applicant tracking, and BambooHR, ADP, UKG and Personio for HR. It also names Pigment, Abacum and Adaptive on the finance side.

TeamOhana names Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, Deel, BambooHR, Workday, UKG, SAP SuccessFactors and HiBob. ChartHop names ADP and Gusto for payroll. Cube names Workday, ADP, NetSuite and Greenhouse, and Abacum names NetSuite.

Many integration lists name only the most common connections. TeamOhana places Workday and SAP SuccessFactors on its Growth and Enterprise plans, so the plan you can afford may decide which systems you can connect.

Products we left out

Five vendors came up in our research and did not make the list because we could not confirm the three capabilities on their own pages. Workday Adaptive Planning mentions headcount planning and what-if scenarios in its industry sections, but its overview page does not describe position management. It is covered under budgeting and forecasting instead.

Visier's workforce planning page describes scenario comparison of structure, cost and location, and does not mention positions. Planful's pages describe headcount, compensation and cost in one model, and we could not read a page that describes position records.

Paylocity announced a headcount planning product in September 2024, but its product page returned no readable content when we fetched it. SAP SuccessFactors and Oracle both document position-based planning, and we could not read their documentation well enough to confirm it. We will add any of these when we can source all three capabilities from the vendor.

What to test during a trial

• Create a position, approve it, open a requisition against it and fill it, then check that the plan shows the change without a manual step.
• Build a scenario with a hiring freeze in one department and confirm that the approved plan does not change.
• Raise a requisition above the approved pay band and record what the system does.
• Import a month of headcount from your HR system and compare it line by line with your payroll register.
• Ask for the SOC 2 report and the sign-in options that come with your plan.