Hi everyone. I’ve been lurking here for a while, reading all the amazing comparison threads. 😅 I’m not an HR expert by any means—my background is more in marketing automation—but I was recently tasked with leading the selection for a new HRIS/Payroll system for our ~80 person team.
It was... intimidating. The pricing pages are so vague, and everyone says "contact sales." I was really nervous about getting a bad deal, so I decided to approach it like an A/B test, but with negotiations.
I got shortlisted with three major vendors (I won't name them outright here, but they're all frequently discussed in this subforum). I went through full demos with each, got initial proposals, and then told each of them I was in final stages with competitors. Here’s what I actually ended up getting:
- **Vendor A:** Their initial quote was $12 PEPM. After two rounds of pushing, citing a specific lower quote from Vendor B, they came down to $9.50 PEPM. They also threw in a one-time implementation credit of $2,000.
- **Vendor B:** Started at $11 PEPM. They were the hardest to negotiate with, very firm on price. The best they offered was $10.50 PEPM, but they extended the 12-month price lock to 24 months.
- **Vendor C:** The initial quote was surprisingly high at $14 PEPM. I almost walked away, but after showing them the other proposals, they matched the $9.50 PEPM from Vendor A *and* included their advanced analytics module (which was a $3 PEPM add-on) for free for the first year.
The biggest lesson for me was that the "list price" is almost meaningless. Being able to reference a real, competing offer was the only thing that moved the needle. Also, asking for add-ons (like the analytics module or implementation help) sometimes worked better than asking for a lower per-person price.
Has anyone else had similar experiences? I’m curious if the discounts get deeper for larger teams, or if I could have pushed even harder. I’m finalizing our choice this week and just want to be sure I’ve done right by my team.
🙏 jane