HR software that follows your rules
Most small firms are well served by Breathe or CharlieHR, and bigger ones by Personio, HiBob or BambooHR. This page shows what each covers, where a system built for you would do more, and what it would cost against your subscription. A first release with the four core features typically costs £3,250–£4,250 and goes live within a month.
£495 for a working prototype in 5 days. It comes off the build.
Next First Gear slot: w/c 19 Oct · 2 of 3 builds booked this month
Is custom worth it for you?
Three questions, and a straight answer.
What HR software does, and who offers it
These are the jobs HR software usually covers, and which of five well-known products offer each one. Press “Need it” on the ones your business needs. If your current system does them all, you may not need me; if it doesn't, the estimate follows your picks.
| Feature | Breathe | CharlieHR | BambooHR | Personio | HiBob | Your business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First release | ||||||
| Employee records and documentsContracts, emergency contacts, pay history and files in one place | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Holiday and absence, your rulesPro-rata, carry-over, TOIL and irregular-hours accrual worked out for each person | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Staff self-serviceBook leave, check balances and update their own details | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Right-to-work recordsCheck date, document copy, and a reminder before time-limited permission runs out | Not listed | Yes | Not listed | Not listed | Zinc partner | |
| Onboarding and e-signatureStarter checklists, and contracts signed online | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not listed | |
| Reports managers run themselvesAbsence, headcount and turnover by team, without asking HR | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Phase two | ||||||
| Reviews and one-to-onesReview cycles, objectives and notes from each meeting | Yes | Yes | Pro+ | Yes | Talent | |
| Rotas and timesheetsShifts planned, hours clocked and sent to payroll | add-on | Not listed | add-on | Timesheets | add-on | |
| Training and certificatesWho's trained in what, with renewal reminders | add-on | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Learning | |
| RecruitmentJob posts, applicants and interview stages | add-on | add-on | Yes | Yes | Hiring | |
| ExpensesClaims with receipts, approved and sent to your accounts | add-on | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | |
From each product's own site, checked Oct 2026: Breathe, CharlieHR, BambooHR, Personio, HiBob. “Add-on” and module names mean you pay extra for that part; Pro+ is BambooHR's Pro plan and up. A dash means the product's own pages don't list it.
Next: the tools it connects to ↓What I’d build first, and what waits
The first release follows one employee from offer to payslip: joining, taking time off and being paid correctly. That means their record and documents, holiday and absence worked out by your rules, self-service so they can book leave and fix their own address, and a right-to-work record with a reminder before any time-limited permission runs out. I’ve pre-ticked those four: right-to-work and holiday records are ones the law expects you to keep, and payroll goes wrong without the rest.
Onboarding with e-signature and manager reports are small enough to add to the first month. Reviews, rotas and timesheets, training records, recruitment and expenses come later, as a second fixed-price phase of about a month.
Three phase-two items matter most in regulated work, such as care, schools and construction sites. Training records can hold registrations that lapse, such as DBS checks, an NMC PIN or a CSCS card, and flag anyone on next week’s rota whose registration will have run out. Policy sign-off sends a revised handbook to each team it covers and lists everyone who hasn’t confirmed reading it. Pay rises above a figure you set, or a change to someone’s contract, can go to a second approver before payroll sees them.
What AI can do here
Where AI earns a place in HR, with a person making every decision about staff:
- Answer policy questions. Staff ask “can I carry over holiday?” and get the answer from your handbook, quoted with the clause it came from.
- Read documents in. A scanned contract or a certificate gets its dates and type pulled out for HR to check, so expiry reminders are set without typing.
- Draft the letters. Contract changes and return-to-work notes are drafted from the record for a manager to edit and sign.
AI doesn’t score candidates, rate performance or touch health notes. Each of these is £1.5k to £5k, added after HR has run a few months on the new system.
The payroll and accounts it should feed
Tick the payroll, accounts and sign-in services your HR system should talk to. Each connection is priced into the first release.
Switching from your current system
What comes across. Every employee with their contract details, job history, pay history, emergency contacts and documents, plus holiday and sickness history and current balances, right-to-work records and any review notes.
Documents. I move them all, priced into the import: contracts, signed letters, certificates and right-to-work copies, each attached to the right person with its original date, so the history an auditor or tribunal might ask for is intact.
How. Your data goes into a practice copy first, and I send you ten people to compare, holiday balances included, against what the old system shows. Differences get traced to the rule that caused them before anyone logs in for real. Hold on to a login for the old system until one more pay run has gone through, and check how much notice its contract needs.
What your current HR system lets you take
From each vendor's own pages, checked Oct 2026. Some help centres sit behind a login; where a public page doesn't say, I've written what I'd ask their support.
I'm on Breathe
- Breathe publishes an API, which I'd use to read employee records and absence history.
- Its help centre needs a login, so I'd ask support for a CSV of employees, holiday and sickness history, and a bulk download of documents, plus when data is deleted after you cancel.
I'm on CharlieHR
- A Super Admin can request a full account export: leave requests, documents, salaries, reviews, checklists and key dates, in XML.
- The export file is deleted from Charlie after a week, so download it as soon as the email arrives. Reports also export as CSV.
- Deleting the account removes everything for good, so the export comes first.
I'm on BambooHR
- Their terms give you 30 days after the subscription ends to download your data. After that it's deleted, apart from payroll data they may keep for up to seven years.
- The API reads employee data and runs reports, with a key tied to an admin user's permissions.
- I'd ask support how documents and time-off history come out in bulk before you give notice.
I'm on Personio
- The company data export gives one zip of employee data as CSV and another of documents. An Account Owner can create one every six days.
- People list views also export to CSV or Excel with the columns you choose.
- I'd ask whether absence and attendance history are in the company export or need their own reports.
I'm on HiBob
- HiBob's public API covers people data, time off, attendance, documents and reports, which is everything I'd move.
- Their help centre needs a login, so I'd ask support how long data is kept after the contract ends.
What HR software costs you now, and what a build would
Enter your headcount. I've started from Breathe's price for a company of 60; change it to the product you use, or enter your own figure.
£175 a month ex VAT
What a subscription can't give you
- Holiday and pay rules worked out the way your contracts say, not the nearest setting the software has.
- One record per person feeding payroll, rotas and accounts, so nobody types a change twice.
- No price step when you hire past the next headcount band.
- The code and the records are yours, including every document and the full history.
The build is the middle of your estimate (£3,750), paid up front. The first month's hosting is free, so the plan starts in month two, and one plan covers every site. Subscription prices are list prices ex VAT and leave out set-up fees and price rises.
What HR software costs
List prices ex VAT, from each vendor's pricing page, checked Oct 2026.
| Product | Price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Breathe | A flat monthly fee by headcount band: £24 (up to 10 employees), £44 (20), £99 (50), £175 (100), £419 (150), £579 (200). | Rotas, learning, recruitment and expenses are add-ons. Paying yearly costs less. |
| CharlieHR | A monthly fee by team size, from £21 (up to 4) to £754 (250 and over); £185 covers 30 to 49. | Recruitment is an add-on from £55 a month. |
| BambooHR | Core $10, Pro $17, Elite $25 per employee per month above 25 employees; flat fees below that. | Its payroll and benefits add-ons are for US employees only. |
| Personio | Quote-based, by headcount and the apps you add. | Sold as Core and Core Pro plans. |
| HiBob | Quote-based. | UK Payroll, Time & Attendance, Hiring and Learning are separate modules. |
When off-the-shelf is enough
Breathe or CharlieHR will serve a business of up to a hundred or so people on standard contracts for less than a build. Stay with a subscription too if:
- you want payroll, benefits and HR from one vendor and are happy to fit its way of working;
- your holiday and absence rules are the statutory defaults with a few extra days;
- nobody re-enters HR changes in another system.
Custom pays off when your contracts don’t fit the software (shift patterns, agreements per site, accrual rules) and someone fixes figures by hand every month, or when a per-employee price grows faster than the work it saves.
Open-source software you could run instead
You can also host free HR software and change it yourself. These three are maintained and licence-checked, Oct 2026. With any of them, I'd keep PAYE and RTI in your UK payroll software.
- Frappe HR GPL-3.0
Good for: The fullest of the three: onboarding, leave and attendance, expense claims with approvals, appraisals and a mobile app.
Missing for you: Its payroll is generic rather than built for UK PAYE, and it runs on the Frappe framework, which someone has to host and upgrade.
- OrangeHRM Starter GPL-3.0
Good for: Employee records, leave, timesheets and attendance, recruitment, performance reviews, expense claims and a staff directory.
Missing for you: Its modules don't include payroll, and UK holiday rules such as irregular-hours accrual would need adding.
- Odoo Community LGPL-3.0
Good for: Employees, time off, recruitment, attendance, skills and expenses, next to Odoo's accounting if you use it.
Missing for you: Payroll isn't in the Community edition, and UK-specific pieces would be custom modules.
If you'd rather go open source, I can set it up, host it, connect it to your payroll, and build the UK pieces it's missing.
Your HR system plan, ready to keep or send
Everything you ticked, split into a first release and phase two, with a price range for each. Email it to yourself or send it to me.
First release
The first month after kickoff
- Employee records and documents
- Holiday and absence, your rules
- Staff self-service
- Right-to-work records
Phase two
About a month, after the first release is in use
Nothing picked yet
- First release estimate
- £3,250–£4,250
- Phase two estimate
- None picked
- After launch
- Cruise, £199/mo
Estimates, not quotes: First Gear ends with a fixed price for the first release.
How the estimate works
Each phase starts at £1,500 for what every system needs: logins, hosting, backups and your data imported. Each feature and connection adds £250 to £1,000 depending on its size, and the range is 15% either side of the total. The break-even uses the middle of both phases.
A month in HR, before and after
Imagine 120 people across a head office and two depots. The rows are illustrative, not one client’s month.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Holiday requests | Emailed to a manager, then copied into a spreadsheet. Balances are checked when someone asks. | Booked on a phone, approved from a Teams message, and the balance updates at once. |
| A new starter | Contract posted, right-to-work copy saved to a shared drive, details emailed to payroll. | Contract signed online, the check date and document saved on their record, and payroll gets the starter details on the next run. |
| Depot shift workers | Holiday worked out by hand from timesheets. | Holiday builds up from hours worked, and the balance is there for the worker to see. |
| Month end | Leavers, pay changes and sickness typed into payroll from emails. | One file goes to payroll, checked by HR before it’s sent. |
The rules your HR system has to follow
- Right to work. Before someone starts, you check their right to work and keep copies of the documents during their employment and for 2 years after. Where permission is time-limited, you check again before it expires. The Home Office’s employer’s guide, updated on 1 October 2026, extends the checks to workers and individual sub-contractors engaged from that date. Digital checks are optional, but if you use a provider it must be a digital verification service provider registered with the Office for Digital Identities and Attributes.
- Holiday. Almost all workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday a year. Workers with irregular hours and part-year workers build it up from the hours they’ve worked, which is the calculation spreadsheets most often get wrong.
- Gender pay gap. Employers with 250 or more employees on the snapshot date (5 April for most private employers) publish their figures on the government’s service within a year of that date.
- UK GDPR. Employee files are personal data and sickness notes are health data, which UK GDPR protects more strictly. The ICO’s employment records guidance explains what to hold, who can see it, and how long to keep it.
The system records what you need to show you followed these rules. Whether you followed them stays your decision and your adviser’s; software can’t certify it.
Is my data safe?
A manager sees their own team’s leave, payroll sees pay, and sickness and disciplinary notes open only for named HR staff. Opening or editing someone’s file leaves an entry saying who and when, so a subject access request is a report, not a hunt. Staff records stay encrypted on UK or EU hosting, backed up overnight.
Will my staff use it?
Most staff only ever do three things: book leave, check a balance and update an address. Those screens are built for a phone first. During First Gear a manager and someone from the depot floor book leave on the prototype, and wherever they hesitate, that screen gets redesigned.
Other ways to solve it
| Option | Cost | Best for | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| HR software (Breathe, CharlieHR) | A monthly fee by headcount band | Small firms with standard contracts | Shift accrual and site agreements get worked out by hand beside it |
| HR platform (BambooHR, Personio, HiBob) | Per employee per month, often quoted | Growing firms that want HR, recruitment and reviews from one vendor | The bill follows headcount, and add-on modules cost extra |
| Custom build | £495 prototype, a fixed build price, nothing per employee | Shift workers, your own accrual and approval rules, several systems to feed | The cost is up front, and recruitment or reviews later are a second phase |
| Open source (Frappe HR, OrangeHRM) | No licence; hosting plus the time to configure leave rules | Firms with someone technical who likes owning their tools | Patching personal data systems is on you, and UK holiday and right-to-work pieces need adding |
| Spreadsheets | Free | A handful of employees | No audit trail, and balances depend on one person’s formulas |
Four guarantees, in writing.
They're written into the terms you accept when you pay.
Every build also comes with a 30-day fix guarantee. If something I built doesn't work as the plan describes, I fix it free.
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See it first
You click through a working prototype before you commit to the build, and you keep it either way.
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Fixed price
You pay the price in the build plan. New ideas go into a later phase with its own fixed price. Nothing is billed by the hour.
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On time
If I miss the go-live date in your build plan because of a delay on my side, you get 3 months of Cruise free (£597). If your data, feedback or sign-off is late, the date moves by the same number of days.
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Yours to keep
Code, data and accounts are in your name from day one. Export your data or cancel a plan whenever you like, and ask for a full handover pack.
You'll talk to me
I've built software for over ten years and started ByteGears in 2020. The person on your kickoff call is the person who writes the code. Recent work includes quoting automation for a renewable-energy installer and a cask whisky auction platform with ID and anti-money-laundering checks.
Questions about a HR build
Is a custom HR system cheaper than Breathe or CharlieHR?
For a small business on standard contracts, usually not. Up to about 50 employees their fees are below my Cruise plan, so on price alone a build doesn't catch up. It pays its way when people spend hours each month fixing holiday or pay figures by hand, or when you're quoted per employee by a bigger platform. Step 3 works it out with your numbers.
Can it handle shift workers and irregular hours?
Yes. Holiday accrues from the hours each person works, and shift patterns, bank holidays and part-year contracts are set per person or per group, the way your contracts say.
Does it run payroll?
No. It keeps the records payroll needs and sends starters, leavers, pay changes and hours to Xero Payroll, Sage or whichever payroll software files your RTI submissions to HMRC. Payroll stays where it's already right.
Can it produce the HR reports we're asked for?
Yes. Headcount, starters and leavers, absence by team and holiday still to take come from the same records, so they match what payroll was sent. If you report a gender pay gap, the system keeps the pay and bonus data as it stood on the snapshot date and works out the six figures from it. Reports a client, a funder or a regulator asks for in their own layout can be added as a phase-two item.
How soon could we switch?
First Gear takes 5 days and ends with a fixed price and a go-live date in writing. Most first releases are live within a month. I plan the switch for the start of a holiday year or straight after a pay run, so no balance is split across two systems.
Who owns the data and the code?
You do. The code is yours from day one and the records sit in a database you can export at any time. After the 30-day fix guarantee and a free first month of hosting, a monthly plan is optional, and you can host it yourself.
Let's get the gears turning.
Send me your plan. If First Gear is the right start, I'll reply with a payment link that holds your slot. If an off-the-shelf product would serve you better, I'll name it.