This research investigates how algorithmic decision-making (ADM), compared to human decision-making (HDM), influences individuals’ distributive justice perceptions. Across five online experiments, we proposed and examined the mediating roles of interpersonal consistency and evaluative comprehensiveness and the moderating influence of social comparison motivation(activated via relative vs. absolute outcomes) in the relationship between ADM and distributive justice perceptions. Integrating motivated cognition with equity theory, we posit that the activation of social comparison motivation would influence how individuals process information regarding distributive justice. Findings reveal that ADM’s impact on distributive justice perceptions is context- dependent. Under absolute outcome scenarios, the indirect effect of decision-agent type (i.e., ADM vs. HDM) on distributive justice perceptions is more substantially mediated by the negative pathway through perceived evaluative comprehensiveness than by the positive pathway via perceived interpersonal consistency of the decision-making. However, this dynamic shifts in relative outcome scenarios. In relative outcome contexts, decision-agent type’s indirect effect on distributive justice is primarily mediated through the positive pathway of perceived interpersonal consistency, while the negative mediating role of evaluative comprehensiveness is diminished. We further explored the differential moderating role of outcome favorability under relative and absolute outcome contexts.