Employment Hero

Employment Hero charges £3/emp/mo on Core Payroll, with no monthly base fee (£0). It enforces a 10-user minimum rather than a pound floor, so any team of 10 or fewer pays the same £30 and the bill only starts rising once you pass 10 employees. Managed Payroll, the fully outsourced tier, is charged at a higher per-employee rate. Employment Hero also publishes a genuinely free UK payroll tier with no employee limit, though it drops features such as the pay conditions engine, single sign-on, multiple PAYE schemes and third-party integrations, so most businesses running real payroll land on Core.

Yes. Employment Hero is on HMRC's recognised payroll software list and submits RTI Full Payment Submissions for every pay run. It also handles workplace pension auto-enrolment, integrating with NEST and other major pension providers so contributions are calculated and submitted alongside each pay cycle.

Yes. Employment Hero includes CIS support for businesses that need to deduct and report Construction Industry Scheme payments to subcontractors alongside standard PAYE payroll, which makes it usable for construction firms that employ staff directly while also engaging subcontractors.

Employment Hero includes Hero AI, a native suite covering features such as SmartMatch. Beyond the native tools, it connects to broader AI and automation platforms via third-party Zapier integrations rather than an official first-party MCP server, so deeper AI-agent connections rely on that middle layer.

Employment Hero is built for growing SMBs that want HR and payroll combined rather than payroll alone. Rated 4.4 out of 5 on Capterra from 239 reviews, it integrates with Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage for accounting sync, suiting UK businesses that are scaling headcount and want onboarding, leave, and payroll in one online platform.

Yes. Employment Hero calculates statutory sick pay, maternity and paternity pay, and other statutory leave entitlements automatically within each pay run, and produces P60s at year end and P45s when employees leave. These are included as standard rather than requiring a higher-tier plan.

Employment Hero publishes a UK rate card rather than quoting privately: HR Essentials is £4/emp/mo and HR Engage is £7 per user per month. It enforces a 10-user minimum, so a team of 10 or fewer pays £40/mo regardless of actual headcount, and the bill only climbs once you pass 10 employees. The two upper tiers, HR Elite and Unlimited, publish no price and are sold through sales.

Yes. Employment Hero includes native UK PAYE payroll, and pension auto-enrolment is handled within that same payroll engine. This means HR records, leave, and payroll calculations sit in one system rather than needing a separate payroll integration, which is a meaningful advantage for UK SMBs that want a single vendor for both.

No. Employment Hero was founded in Sydney and is now widely used by UK employers. It has built a genuinely native UK PAYE payroll engine and dedicated UK employment law coverage rather than simply localising the product it started with. UK employment law support and right to work checks are both rated as supported, and GDPR compliance is confirmed.

Employment Hero includes a native AI layer called Hero AI, with a recruitment-focused feature called SmartMatch built into the platform. Connecting Employment Hero to external AI agents or automation platforms currently runs through third-party tools such as Zapier rather than a first-party MCP integration.

Employment Hero connects natively with Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage, covering the main accounting platforms used by UK small businesses. Combined with native UK payroll, this gives a reasonably complete data chain from HR record through payroll run to the books, without a third-party integration layer in between.

Yes. Employment Hero's target market is described as growing UK SMBs that want HR and native payroll combined, and it does not require a long-term contract. For a UK business that wants to avoid running separate HR and payroll systems, Employment Hero's combination of the two in one product is the main selling point.