# Factorial — HR Management

Factorial by Factorial HR S.L. holds a panel rating of 1.5/5 from 6 AI judges (category median 2/5), as of 2026-10-19. Provenance: EU-Made; sovereignty: not determined.

- Vendor: Factorial HR S.L. (https://factorialhr.de)
- Category: [HR Management](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management.md)
- Provenance (editorial classification): EU-Made
- Canonical page: https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/factorial
- Alternatives: https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/factorial/alternatives ([markdown](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/factorial/alternatives.md))
- Data as of: 2026-10-21 · evaluated 2026-10-19 · oldest source captured 2026-09-15

**AI-generated.** Every score, rationale and verdict here is written by a panel of AI judges from public evidence — an analysis, not a hands-on test. Every fact quotes the vendor page it was read from. No score can be bought. How scores are made: https://whats-best.ai/methodology

## At a glance

- Vendor: Factorial HR S.L.
- Headquarters: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026
- Data hosting: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026
- Free plan: Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026

## The panel's verdict

Factorial HR S.L., a Barcelona-based HR Management vendor selling into the German market, presents a broad product menu while leaving most operational detail undocumented. Payroll readiness is the strongest verdict at a tight 4, on the strength of dedicated DATEV pages including one for DATEV LODAS — though the export format, vendor maintenance of the connector, and mid-month joiners and leavers stay undocumented. Pricing transparency is the weakest, 0 to 2: pricing pages captured in September and October yielded no figures. Core HR records and time and absence, both 2 to 3, rest on marketing pages for document management and vacation management, with no public information on dated change history, automatic entitlement, or working-time recording. Recruiting onboarding shows the widest spread, 2 to 4: the payroll officer, scoring 2, found no public information on structured stages or on handover into an employee record, while the higher scores credited the presence of both applicant-management and onboarding pages. Sovereignty sits at 2 to 3, with AWS and Azure named as infrastructure and no region stated; persona-weighted totals range from 2.2 to 3.3.

**Speaks for it:**
- Dedicated DATEV pages, including one for DATEV LODAS, give payroll a named handoff target
- A platform Data Processing Agreement is publicly available, with audit reports accessible through the trust centre on request
- External security grades are published, dated 27/03/2026: ImmuniWeb A, MDN Observatory B+, Qualys SSL Labs A+
- Stated recovery objectives publish a 1-hour recovery time and a 1-day recovery point
- Applicant management, onboarding and offboarding, vacation management, and document management each have their own pages, so each product area is marketed

**Held against it:**
- Pricing pages captured in September and October 2026 produced no figures, leaving per-employee rates, tiers, billing periods, minimums and VAT treatment unconfirmed
- We found no public information on working-time recording or on how the German working-time recording duty is met
- Amazon Web Services and Azure are named as infrastructure with no hosting region stated, and we found no public information on a subprocessor list or a confirmed contracting entity
- We found no public information on retention periods, executable deletion, field-level permissions, or an audit trail of who accessed whose file
- We found no public information on structured document types, org structure, custom fields, or dated contract and salary history in the personnel file

**Best for:**
- You run payroll in DATEV and want a vendor whose public pages name that handoff
- You are shopping for breadth — personnel files, vacation, applicant management and onboarding in one suite — and will verify details in direct conversations
- Your security review can start from a Data Processing Agreement, a trust centre with audit reports on request, and externally graded security posture
- You prefer an EU-headquartered vendor, Factorial HR S.L. of Barcelona, and are prepared to settle hosting region and subprocessors in contract

**Avoid if:**
- You need working-time recording to meet the German recording duty — the captured pages address vacation management, and we found no public information on working-time capture (the works-council judge cites the BAG ruling)
- You must budget from public prices before engaging sales — ask the vendor: the public pages we read do not show it
- Your works council or data protection officer requires documented retention periods, executable deletion and role separation before approving — we found no public information on any of these
- You require a stated hosting region or a published subprocessor list before shortlisting — the security page names Amazon Web Services and Azure without a region, and residency and subprocessor exposure are unconfirmed

## Scores by judge and criterion

Scores out of 5, each judge scoring independently against the published rubric (v1). "n/r" = not rated: the vendor publishes no price.

| Criterion | The People Lead | The Payroll Officer | The Works Council Advocate | The Data Protection Officer | The IT Integrator | The Skeptic |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Digital personnel file & data model | 1.5/5 | 1/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1/5 |
| Payroll handoff | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 |
| Absence & working-time | 1.5/5 | 1/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 1/5 |
| Recruiting & onboarding | 2/5 | 1/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 | 2/5 | 1.5/5 |
| Employee data protection & co-determination | 1.5/5 | 2/5 | 1.5/5 | 1.5/5 | 2/5 | 1.5/5 |
| European sovereignty | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1.5/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 | 1/5 |
| Pricing transparency | 0.5/5 | 0.5/5 | 1/5 | 0.5/5 | 1/5 | 0/5 |
| **Weighted verdict** | **1.5/5** | **1.5/5** | **1.5/5** | **1.5/5** | **1.5/5** | **1/5** |

### The judges

- **The People Lead** (v1.0): Runs HR for 400 people with two colleagues and is replacing a shared drive and eleven spreadsheets. Optimizes for the record being true and the month closing without chasing anyone. Buys breadth that actually connects, and is unmoved by a beautiful org chart sitting next to a manual vacation calculation.
- **The Payroll Officer** (v1.0): Closes payroll every month and answers to the tax adviser when it is wrong. Cares about one thing above all: whether the month leaves this system clean, with backdated changes, mid-month leavers and variable pay handled. Treats "CSV export" as a confession, not a feature.
- **The Works Council Advocate** (v1.0): Sits on the Betriebsrat and has to approve this rollout under BetrVG §87. Reads every feature for whether it can monitor behaviour, and asks what is logged, who can read it and what can be switched off. A tool that cannot answer those questions does not get installed, however good it is.
- **The Data Protection Officer** (v1.0): Answers for the most sensitive personal data the company holds, about people who cannot decline the processing. Wants retention that executes rather than promises, a published subprocessor list, and applicant data that deletes itself on the stated date. Treats an unpublished DPA as a finding.
- **The IT Integrator** (v1.0): Owns identity and has to make the HR system the source of truth for accounts. Wants SCIM provisioning, SSO that is not an enterprise upsell, and an API with documentation rather than a partner form. Judges onboarding by whether it can create the account, not by whether it has a checklist.
- **The Skeptic** (v1.0): Has watched three HR suites promise one system and deliver five modules with a shared logo. Reads every claim for what it does not say: which module the feature lives in, what it costs on top, and whether "integration" means a maintained connector or a documented endpoint someone could build against.

## European sovereignty — proven facts

Built only from facts on the vendor's own pages; a dimension we could not prove is left open, never scored as zero. Headline: not determined.

| Dimension | Finding | Points | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Not determined | — | — |
| Ownership | Not determined | — | — |
| Data residency | Not determined | — | — |
| Subprocessors | Not determined | — | — |

## Key facts

Each fact is the vendor's own statement, cited to the source page it was read from ([S*n*] → Sources).

**Compliance**
- DPA: yes [S4]
- Security grades: 27/03/2026 · A · ImmuniWeb · 27/03/2026 · B+ · MDN Observatory · 27/03/2026 · A+ · Qualys SSL Labs [S4]

**Hosting**
- Providers: Amazon Web Services · Azure [S4]

**Product**
- Access controls: Internal Single-Sign-On (SSO) · Least Privilege · Logging [S4]
- AI capabilities: AI Overview · AI Feature · AI Training Data [S4]
- Faq topics: uptime guarantee · AI output auto-actioning · internal security protocols · SSO · MFA · yes · yes [S4]
- Recovery objectives: Restricted · 1 hour · 1 day [S4]
- Security domains: Data Security · App Security · Network Security · Endpoint Security · Corporate Security · Access Control · Incident Response · BC/DR · Physical & Environment · Risk Management · Asset Management · Change Management · Continuous Monitoring… [S4]
- Trust center access: yes [S4]

**Support**
- Slas: Customer Support SLAs · Platform SLA · yes [S4]

## Questions

### Is Factorial European?

Yes. whats-best.ai classifies Factorial as EU-Made.

### Where does Factorial store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026.

### Does Factorial have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 19 Oct 2026.

### What are the best alternatives to Factorial?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates [rexx systems (3.5/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/rexx-systems), [HRworks (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/hrworks) and [Kenjo (3/5)](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/kenjo) highest among the other 30 HR Management products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is [rexx systems](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/rexx-systems) (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: [how scores are made](https://whats-best.ai/methodology#ordering). The full list, with European products first: [Factorial alternatives](https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/factorial/alternatives).

## Head-to-head

- [Factorial vs HiBob](https://whats-best.ai/compare/factorial-vs-hibob.md)

## What this page leaves out

- We could not confirm any pricing information on the vendor’s own pages as captured, so this page shows none rather than a statement we cannot stand behind.
- 243 product facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 41 compliance facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 33 integrations facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 21 subprocessors facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 12 support facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 9 legal facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 6 data facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 6 hosting facts could not be confirmed on the vendor’s page as captured and were left out of this page and of the panel’s material.
- 3 sovereignty dimensions could not be confirmed on the vendor’s own pages and are shown as unknown.

## Sources

- [S1] Vendor homepage: https://factorialhr.de/ (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S2] Pricing: https://factorialhr.de/preise (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S3] Privacy policy: https://factorialhr.de/datenschutz (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S4] Security / trust page: https://factorialhr.de/sicherheit (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S5] Digital personnel file & data model — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/dokumentenmanagement (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S6] Digital personnel file & data model — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/vorlagen/checkliste-digitale-personalakte (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S7] Payroll handoff — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/datev (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S8] Payroll handoff — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/apps/integration/datev-lauds (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S9] Absence & working-time — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/urlaubsverwaltung (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S10] Absence & working-time — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/urlaubsverwaltung-software-1 (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S11] Recruiting & onboarding — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/onboarding-offboarding (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S12] Recruiting & onboarding — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/bewerbermanagement (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S13] Employee data protection & co-determination — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/dsgvo (checked 2026-10-19)
- [S14] Employee data protection & co-determination — found from sitemap: https://factorialhr.de/datenschutz-app (checked 2026-10-19)

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Cite as: whats-best.ai, "Factorial — HR Management", AI panel analysis, as of 2026-10-21. https://whats-best.ai/software/hr-management/factorial

Corrections: https://whats-best.ai/correct/155?target=page