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ADP Workforce Now vs Amazon Redshift

ADP Workforce Now logo

ADP Workforce Now

Software

All-in-one HR, payroll, talent, and benefits

From
$23/employee per month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Amazon Redshift logo

Amazon Redshift

Software

Fast, scalable cloud data warehouse from AWS

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: ADP Workforce Now pricing not publicly available, making budget comparison difficult; Amazon Redshift on-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
  • They diverge on capability: ADP Workforce Now covers Payroll Processing, Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ADP Workforce Now and Amazon Redshift actually diverge.

Attributes where ADP Workforce Now and Amazon Redshift differ
AttributeADP Workforce NowAmazon Redshift
Starting price$23/employee per monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownusage-based
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, MobileWeb
Founded19492012

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Unknown).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ADP Workforce Now

  • Payroll Processing
  • Tax Administration
  • HR Management
  • Benefits Administration
  • Time and Attendance
  • Talent Management
  • QuickBooks
  • Xero

Only in Amazon Redshift

  • Columnar Storage
  • Massively Parallel
  • Machine Learning
  • AQUA Acceleration
  • Data Sharing
  • Federated Query
  • Concurrency Scaling
  • S3

Both cover

  • Web support

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ADP Workforce Now

No use cases recorded yet. See the ADP Workforce Now review.

Amazon Redshift

  • Business intelligencenot ADP Workforce Now
  • Data warehousingnot ADP Workforce Now
  • Real-time analyticsnot ADP Workforce Now
  • Reportingnot ADP Workforce Now
  • Machine learningnot ADP Workforce Now

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ADP Workforce Now

  • Pricing not publicly available, making budget comparison difficult
  • Additional modules increase per-employee cost significantly
  • Requires minimum 50 employees, not suitable for small businesses
  • Setup fees of $2,000 or more for additional modules

Amazon Redshift

  • On-demand pricing runs up to 75% higher than competitors like Snowflake and BigQuery
  • Requires significant manual tuning including managing concurrency scaling costs and configuring Workload Management queues
  • Performance degrades without proper design of distribution keys and sort keys
  • Limited elastic resize options - can only halve or double current cluster size
  • AWS lock-in makes it unsuitable for multi-cloud architectures

Pricing, plan by plan

ADP Workforce Now

$23/employee per month

No published plan breakdown. See the ADP Workforce Now review.

Amazon Redshift

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • 750 DC2.Large hours
    • 2 months free
    • Full features
  • On-Demand$0.25/hour
    • Pay per node hour
    • All features
    • Standard support

Which should you pick?

Choose ADP Workforce Now if

  • You need payroll processing.
  • You work on Web, Mobile.
  • You also want tax administration.
ADP Workforce Now review

Choose Amazon Redshift if

  • You need columnar storage.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want massively parallel.
Amazon Redshift review

Questions people ask

Is ADP Workforce Now or Amazon Redshift better?
Neither clearly leads. ADP Workforce Now starts at $23/employee per month and Amazon Redshift at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ADP Workforce Now or Amazon Redshift?
Amazon Redshift has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $23/employee per month for ADP Workforce Now and Free for Amazon Redshift.
Does ADP Workforce Now or Amazon Redshift run on more platforms?
ADP Workforce Now runs on Web, Mobile. Amazon Redshift runs on Web.
Can I use Amazon Redshift for free?
Yes. Amazon Redshift has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. ADP Workforce Now starts at $23/employee per month.
What can ADP Workforce Now do that Amazon Redshift cannot?
ADP Workforce Now covers Payroll Processing, Tax Administration, HR Management, Benefits Administration. Amazon Redshift covers Columnar Storage, Massively Parallel, Machine Learning, AQUA Acceleration. Both handle Web support.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ADP Workforce Now: How much does ADP Workforce Now cost?

ADP Workforce Now pricing starts around $23 to $30 per employee per month as base cost. Additional modules like recruiting cost extra, typically $3 per employee per month plus $2,000 setup fee.

Source
Amazon Redshift: What deployment options does Amazon Redshift offer?

Redshift offers Provisioned Cluster (with RA3 or DC2 nodes) and Serverless options to match varying workloads. The new Redshift RG instance family, powered by Graviton, delivers 2.4x faster performance than RA3 at 30% lower cost per vCPU.

Source
ADP Workforce Now: What payroll features does ADP Workforce Now include?

ADP Workforce Now includes payroll processing, benefits administration, time and attendance tracking, compliance management, and AI-powered anomaly detection that flags potential payroll errors before processing.

Source
Amazon Redshift: What does Amazon Redshift cost?

Provisioned cluster pricing: RA3 on-demand starts at $1.086/hour for ra3.xlplus. Serverless costs approximately $0.375 per RPU-hour with 4-RPU minimum (roughly $1.50/hour active workload). Managed storage costs $0.024/GB-month.

Source
ADP Workforce Now: Does ADP Workforce Now integrate with other systems?

Yes, ADP Workforce Now integrates with Workday through Flexspring connectors for near-real-time data sharing. Employee benefits, new hire data, and payroll information sync automatically between systems.

Source
Amazon Redshift: Does Redshift work with data lakes?

Yes, Redshift's integrated data lake query engine processes workloads on Apache Iceberg tables and other supported formats in Amazon S3, allowing you to run SQL analytics across your data warehouse and data lake from the same engine.

Source
ADP Workforce Now: Who is ADP Workforce Now suitable for?

ADP Workforce Now is built for organizations with 50 or more employees seeking comprehensive payroll and HR management with enterprise-grade features.

Source
Amazon Redshift: Is there a free tier for Amazon Redshift?

AWS offers a free trial with $300 USD in Serverless credits valid for 90 days, but Redshift is not part of the permanent AWS Free Tier.

Source
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