Planning headcount is a crucial part of workforce management and a key tool for HR teams. When you forecast headcount, HR and finance teams can prepare for different scenarios. Using software to plan makes everything faster and more accurate, but choosing which tool to invest in can be complex.
What is Workforce and Headcount Planning?
HR and people teams at both scaling mid-market businesses and global enterprises handle workforce or headcount planning. While resource management teams usually take on this task, planning organizational headcount and organizing human capital is tightly connected to a company's finances and strategic goals.
Research indicates that 63% of workers quit their jobs in 2021 specifically because of limited advancement opportunities, highlighting the critical importance of internal development programs in retention strategies.
We plan headcount in advance so teams have the resources, training, experience, and management they need to achieve strategic workforce planning goals. This prevents costly issues like over- or understaffing and lets managers know when teams need to grow.
What is the Difference Between Workforce Planning and Management?
Workforce management is a broad HR discipline that involves managing the entire workforce of an organization. It includes analyzing and allocating resources and people, identifying talent gaps, and ensuring legal compliance for both employees and the employer. Additionally, 75% of organizations believe AI and machine learning will transform workforce management practices, enabling automation of critical functions including demand forecasting and schedule optimization.
Workforce planning is a specific task within the broader management discipline that focuses on planning headcount numbers, allocation, and resources. It helps businesses create a headcount plan aligned with the company's strategic goals for the near and far future. Organizations implementing workforce management software report average labor cost savings of 7% and productivity increases of 68% following implementation. Our headcount planning template is a simple tool to plan your teams.
How Can Software Tools Help with Headcount Planning?
Utilizing an FP&A software platform for headcount planning can lead to better and more accurate results:
Forecasting and scenario planning software are more accurate and less prone to errors than manual calculations.
It can also incorporate other financial planning aspects to create a central planning operation. This provides better visibility and accountability.
Automation functions in headcount planning software let you plan faster and more efficiently, freeing your team to perform other tasks.
Forecasting and scenario planning software are more accurate and less prone to errors than manual calculations. This reduces mistakes and gives decision-makers more confidence in the data to fill skill gaps.
The 8 Best Headcount & Workforce Planning Software for 2025
We've created our ranking based on our expertise in HR and financial planning, personal experience with these platforms, and what G2 says. We used each platform and assessed its standout points, key features, and watch-outs, then weighted that with its G2 rating to create a holistic ranking that shows how it compares against competitors.
The rankings mostly include two types of tools: financial planning and forecasting platforms with headcount planning capabilities, and comprehensive resource management tools with planning functionality.
1. Abacum – Best for Scaling Mid-Market Businesses and Enterprises
Abacum provides a centralized planning platform for both financial and business resources, letting HR teams combine operational data with finance data in one environment. The software is built for collaboration, so multiple teams can view and work on a single document at the same time. This makes it easy to view, amend, and share headcount plans in one place across your entire company. Strong access controls ensure only the right people see your plans.
Key features: Alongside Abacum's excellent collaborative functionality, it also excels in forecasting and planning with real-time financial and operational data. The software can accurately model future performance to inform headcount and resource allocations. Its integrations let it fit seamlessly into your existing HR or People tech stack.
What to look out for: Abacum is perfect if you're a scaling mid-market business dealing with siloed, manual workforce planning. It speeds up headcount planning and better aligns HR with finance and strategic goals. Abacum also offers quick customer support and feature updates. However, it's not the best fit for large enterprise businesses.
G2 rating: 4.8/5
Website: Abacum
2. Rippling – Best for Small to Mid-Market Businesses
Rippling is a collective platform for HR, IT, and some financial management tasks, focusing on handling the entire employee lifecycle. Like Abacum, Rippling's centralized platform helps you manage your workforce more efficiently.
Key features: It handles IT device and software access, compliance management, and time tracking. It also covers some accounting aspects with payroll management.
What to look out for: Ideal for small to mid-market businesses, Rippling offers one of the best user interfaces among its competitors, although its mobile app can be glitchy. While it includes financial management features, it doesn't integrate easily with many accounting tools.
G2 rating: 4.8/5
Website: Rippling
3. Anaplan – Best for Enterprise Data Modeling
Anaplan is primarily an FP&A tool that handles headcount planning as a statistical model and flags potential issues before they arise.
Key features: Data modeling is Anaplan's core function, and it applies this approach to headcount planning with a patented calculation engine.
What to look out for: Its in-memory processing can handle large datasets, making it a good fit for enterprise-level businesses. However, this complexity can be tough for new users, and it's also harder to integrate with existing stacks. Small and mid-market businesses may find it too costly.
G2 rating: 4.6/5
Website: Anaplan
4. Workday Adaptive Planning – Best for Large-Scale Enterprises
Workday is an all-in-one tool specialized for enterprise-level businesses, with functionality extending to headcount forecasting and planning. It's a robust platform with solutions for both financial and operational teams.
Key features: Workday offers forecasting for headcount planning with collaborative features that let multiple teams bring budgets and objectives into the process.
What to look out for: As an all-around tool, Workday has a huge number of integrations, but it might feel clunky for small or mid-market businesses. It's cost-effective only for large enterprises.
G2 rating: 4.3/5
Website: Workday Adaptive Planning
5. Planful – Best for Flexible Financial Modeling
Planful stands out for its ability to create custom strategic models for planning and forecasting. Primarily a financial tool, Planful makes cross-collaboration between HR and finance teams easier.
Key features: It includes headcount planning and workforce cost management, along with a suite of financial forecasting tools. Planful also has strong data security features.
What to look out for: It's easy to scale, offers solid collaboration and modeling features, and integrates well across platforms. However, its deep financial focus might feel confusing for HR teams starting out with headcount planning.
G2 rating: 4.3/5
Website: Planful
6. ChartHop – Best for Team Transparency
ChartHop's People Operations Platform is a workforce management tool that offers a unified data source for multiple teams. It emphasizes accessibility and cross-team collaboration.
Key features: ChartHop aligns teams across an organization with a single HR platform and many in-built integrations. The user interface is friendly and easy to use.
What to look out for: It's a newer platform and lacks the advanced forecasting and modeling features offered by some competitors.
G2 rating: 4.3/5
Website: ChartHop
7. Runn – Best for Real-Time Project Management
Runn is a robust workforce and resource management platform with an effective forecasting suite. Its strongest features are real-time project management and people tracking, while it also forecasts resource needs and bottlenecks.
Key features: Runn offers a high-level view of resource utilization, plus scenario analysis and workload distribution visuals that can inform workforce planning.
What to look out for: It's ideal for small, agile teams that need to pivot quickly and manage resource planning in one place. It's less suitable for mid-market or large businesses that need a comprehensive tool with extensive forecasting capabilities.
G2 rating: 4.5/5
Website: Runn
8. Deel – Best for International Hiring and Management
Deel is designed for large and enterprise-level companies to manage their workforce from a single platform. It focuses on talent acquisition, onboarding, and employee support, and it offers customizable performance workflows.
Key features: Deel's ability to measure employee performance is key for headcount planning. Its standout feature is strong support for international or multinational teams.
What to look out for: You can measure workforce performance and output, but there's no dedicated headcount forecasting functionality. That limits its ability to fully help with workforce planning.
G2 rating: 4.8/5
Website: Deel
Choosing Software that is Right for Your Business and Teams
While this ranking provides an overview, you should pick software based on your own business needs. If you're a mid-market business or an enterprise, Abacum might be your best choice.
