How we compare HR software
We list 16 HR platforms sold to UK businesses, and 9 providers publish a rate card we can cost from. Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, in pounds. Where a vendor quotes instead, the table says so.
The calculator takes your headcount and, separately, how many of your staff are employed overseas. Each published rate card is costed at those numbers, with any flat band, floor or included allowance applied, and the table sorts by the result. Commission does not change the order.
What HR software costs at your headcount
The pricing page publishes a rate. You are asking for a bill. The bill is the rate, your headcount, and whatever the vendor does at each end of the range.
| Provider | Per-employee fee /mo | Monthly base fee |
|---|---|---|
| Access PeopleHR | £3/emp/mo | £0 |
| BambooHR | From £8.10/emp/mo | £0 |
| Breathe | £0 (flat tiers) | £24/mo (up to 10) |
| CharlieHR | £0 (flat tiers) | £21/mo (1-4) |
| Connecteam | £0.37/user/mo above 30 | £22/mo (Basic) |
| Deel | £4/emp/mo | £0 |
| Employment Hero | £4/emp/mo | £0 |
| Factorial | From £5.40/emp/mo | £0 |
| HiBob | Quote | Quote |
| Multiplier | Quote | Quote |
| Oyster HR | Quote | Quote |
| Papaya Global | Quote | Quote |
| Payoneer Workforce Management | Quote | Quote |
| Personio | Quote | Quote |
| Rippling | Quote | Quote |
| Sage HR | £5/emp/mo | £0 |
Three shapes cover most of the priced rows. A straight per-employee rate with no base fee moves by one rate per hire. A flat band, which Breathe and CharlieHR use, costs nothing inside the band and steps up a whole subscription at the boundary, so a business just under a boundary should price the band above. A monthly floor, which several vendors publish, is the entire bill below the crossover headcount and irrelevant above it. A floor and a rate do not add together.
| Provider | Minimum cost /mo | Contract |
|---|---|---|
| BambooHR | £200/mo | Annual |
| Breathe | £24/mo | No |
| CharlieHR | £21/mo+ | No |
| Connecteam | £22/mo (Basic hub fee) | No |
| Employment Hero | £40/mo | No |
| Rippling | Quote | Not stated |
Connecteam is a variant: its hub fee covers the first 30 users and each one after that costs £0.37/user/mo above 30.
Count the people who need a record, not full-time equivalents. Part-timers, seasonal staff and leavers you have not archived are all billable on most of the table. Recruitment, time tracking and learning are sold as add-ons or modules on some rows, so if one of them is the reason you are shopping, read its row before trusting the entry rate. And enter your real headcount into the calculator rather than reading the entry figure off the table: on most rows the bill moves with headcount.
Where HR software stops and payroll begins
HR software owns the employee record: contracts, personal data, holiday balances, absence, documents and reviews. Payroll turns that record into gross-to-net pay and the filings that go with it. Pension duties live where payroll lives.
| Provider | Native payroll | Pension auto-enrolment |
|---|---|---|
| Access PeopleHR | Native (add-on) | Via payroll module |
| BambooHR | None (UK) | N/A (UK) |
| Breathe | Integration | Via integration |
| CharlieHR | Integration | Via integration |
| Connecteam | No (integration) | No |
| Deel | Native (global) | Yes |
| Employment Hero | Native (UK PAYE) | Yes |
| Factorial | Integration | Via integration |
| HiBob | Native (UK PAYE) | Yes |
| Multiplier | Quote | Not stated |
| Oyster HR | Via EOR | Not stated |
| Papaya Global | Native (global) | Not stated |
| Payoneer Workforce Management | Via EOR | Via EOR |
| Personio | Integration | Via integration |
| Rippling | Native (UK PAYE) | Yes |
| Sage HR | Via Sage Payroll | Via Sage Payroll |
If your row says integration, the question for the salesperson is not whether it integrates with payroll. It is which fields cross, in which direction, and what still has to be typed twice. Ask about new starter details and bank details by name. Our payroll comparison covers the filing side of the same purchase.
Right to work, employment law and employee data in UK HR software
A system designed for another country can be excellent software and still leave you doing the UK-specific parts by hand.
Statutory holiday entitlement in the UK is 5.6 weeks, and it has to be modelled rather than tracked: test in a trial whether accrual, pro-rating for part-timers and carry-over follow UK statute rather than an American paid-time-off pool.
Right to work is a process, not a document store. Filing a passport scan is not the same as running a share-code check and holding the evidence with a follow-up date on a time-limited permission. Employment law depth means contract templates, probation and notice handling, and structured disciplinary and grievance processes, not a legal opinion.
| Provider | Right-to-work checks | UK employment law |
|---|---|---|
| Access PeopleHR | Yes | Strong |
| BambooHR | Limited | Limited |
| Breathe | Yes (documents) | Strong |
| CharlieHR | Yes (documents) | Strong |
| Connecteam | Not stated | Not stated |
| Deel | Yes | Yes (global) |
| Employment Hero | Yes | Yes |
| Factorial | Limited | Yes |
| HiBob | Yes | Yes |
| Multiplier | Not stated | Via EOR |
| Oyster HR | Not stated | Via EOR |
| Papaya Global | Yes | Yes (global) |
| Payoneer Workforce Management | Not stated | Via EOR |
| Personio | Yes (share-code) | Strong |
| Rippling | Yes | Yes |
| Sage HR | Yes (documents) | Strong |
Employee data is among the most sensitive data a small business holds. Under UK GDPR you are the controller, and a subject access request from a departing employee is when you find out how the system stores things. The GDPR compliance row says where servers sit for some vendors; ask before you migrate. Support hours are a compliance feature in disguise: a question about a dismissal on a Friday afternoon is not one to hold overnight, and the Support row says where each vendor answers.
HR software for staff employed overseas
Several rows are not competing on HR pricing at all. They sell Employer of Record cover, where a provider that already holds an entity in another country employs the person on your behalf for a fee per person per month.
| Provider | Global/remote hiring | Employer of Record /mo |
|---|---|---|
| Deel | Yes (150+ countries) | £448/emp/mo |
| Multiplier | Yes (EOR in 160+ countries) | from £373/emp/mo |
| Oyster HR | Yes (EOR in 120+ countries, contractors in 180+) | £522/emp/mo |
| Papaya Global | Yes (160+ countries) | from £373/emp/mo |
| Payoneer Workforce Management | Yes (EOR, AOR and contractors in 160+ countries; payroll in 70+ currencies) | from £149/emp/mo |
| Rippling | Add-on (own entities or EOR) | Quote |
That is a different order of spend for a different problem. If everybody you employ is in the UK, leave the overseas input at zero and this group is not your shortlist.
Outgrowing small-business HR software without overbuying
Outgrowing shows up in three places. Flat-band products publish a top band, and above it you are in a quote conversation. The modules you skipped become the reason you shop again. And a business crossing into a second country needs capability its HR system was never built for.
Overbuying is quieter. A quote-only mid-market platform is a good product that a fifteen-person business uses a fraction of, and a floor means a small team pays the minimum however few records it holds.
Under about ten employees, a shared drive and a spreadsheet honestly cover holiday and documents. What forces the purchase is usually an event: an absence dispute nobody can evidence, a subject access request, or the first hire whose right-to-work permission has an expiry date. When it comes, ask what the data export looks like on the way out, because an HR system holds records you must keep long after you stop paying for it.