HR software for a team of 5
Five people fit on our Free plan, at £0. Pro, if you want it, is £15 a month. The other prices below were checked in November 2026.
Free for up to 5 active employees. Pro is a 14-day trial, with no card to start. We do not run payroll.
What five people need the software to do
At this size the work is usually one person, often the founder, keeping a record of who works here, who is off, and where the contract is. A spreadsheet does that until two people book the same Friday. We built the Free plan for that record: holiday requests, sickness dates, a fit note, policies people have acknowledged, and the right-to-work document stored on the person rather than in a private inbox.
We do not calculate holiday pay or statutory sick pay, and we do not check a share code with the Home Office. Those stay with payroll and with the employer. The leave and sickness page and the right to work guide split the record from the legal decision.
What a team of five pays
Read the five-employee column. The ten-employee column is there so you can see the step when you hire the sixth person. A lower number is not the same product: Timetastic is leave software, BreatheHR and CharlieHR charge per business, and BrightHR’s figure is the online 36-month Core price excluding tax.
Published prices checked in November 2026. This is not a ranking.
| Provider | 5 employees | 10 employees | What that price covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| CitoHR | £0 on Free. Pro, if you choose it, is £15 a month. | £30 a month on Pro. Free stops at 5 active employees. | Free is a permanent £0 plan for up to 5 active employees. Pro is £3 per employee per month, charged for every employee, with a 14-day trial and no card to start. We do not run payroll. |
| HollyHR | £0 on Free. | £0 on Free. Standard, if you choose it, is £20 a month. | Free covers up to 10 active employees. Standard is £2 per active employee per month, or £20 a year, including the first 10. Prices are before tax. Plus is listed as coming soon and is not for sale. |
| Zoho People | £0 if you are inside the free edition cap. | See their site. The free edition does not cover 10 users. | The global pricing page says the free edition is forever free for up to 5 users. A US-only line on the same page says 3. Paid edition prices are on that page and are not copied here. |
| BreatheHR | £24 a month, excluding VAT. | £24 a month, excluding VAT. | Per business, not per person. Micro is 1–10 people at £24 a month. The next band, 11–20, is £44. Add-ons are extra and start from £11 a month for rota, £15 for learning, £16 for recruitment, £14 for expenses and £12 for health and safety. 14-day trial, no card until you subscribe. |
| CharlieHR | £47 a month, excluding VAT. | £47 a month, excluding VAT. | Per business. 1–4 people is £21 a month, 5–9 and 10–14 are £47, and 15–29 is £108. Prices exclude VAT. AskCharlie is part of Charlie Grow, a separate add-on (£226 a month for 5–9 people, £346 for 10–14). Charlie Recruit starts from £55 a month. 7-day trial. No permanent free plan. |
| PeopleHR | £20 a month on Starter, if £4 applies to each employee. | £40 a month on Starter, on the same basis. | Starter £4, Core £6.25, Pro £9.25 and Elite+ £11, each per employee per month. The page does not state a minimum headcount or whether VAT is included, so the 5- and 10-person totals are £4 multiplied by headcount. 14-day trial, no card. Payroll is a separate package on the same page. |
| BrightHR | £83.35 a month excluding tax for Core, £16.67 per employee. | £107.00 a month excluding tax for Core, £10.70 per employee. | The page loads with 5 employees selected and shows those Core totals on the 36-month term sold online. The 10-person figure is that page’s Core tier for a headcount up to 10, the same tier list that matches the 5-person total on screen. The FAQ still says prices start from £3.00 per person and that an accurate quote needs a demo. Enhanced and full packages cost more. |
| Timetastic | £6.00 a month on Business, if £1.20 applies to each user. | £12.00 a month on Business, on the same basis. | For UK and Ireland visitors the page’s own script shows Business £1.20, Pro £2.00 and Rota & Time Clock £4.00 per user per month. Before that script, the markup shows $1.50, $2.50 and $5.50. The page does not say whether the pound figures include VAT. This is leave software, with rotas and a time clock on the top plan, not a full HR record. 30-day trial, no card. |
Free, and what stays on Pro
Free includes employee records and custom fields, leave and holiday, sickness, 1GB of documents, policies, expenses, training records, equipment tracking, and immigration records. It does not include custom onboarding workflows, shift scheduling, timesheets and geo-fenced clock-in, custom forms, advanced reporting, HMRC compliance reports, payroll export templates, immigration expiry reminders, the Slack connector, or the AI assistant and MCP connection.
Those are on Pro, at £3 per employee per month for every employee. Five people is £15 a month, not “the first five free inside Pro”. The database, application and uploaded files are hosted in London. The pricing page is the plan list, and the free HR software guide is the longer note on what “free” means.
Questions about HR software for 5 employees
Is HR software free for 5 employees?
Ours is. The Free plan is £0 for up to 5 active employees and does not expire. HollyHR’s Free plan also covers 5 people, and goes on to 10. Zoho People’s global pricing page says its free edition covers up to 5 users, with a US-only line on the same page that says 3. BreatheHR, CharlieHR, PeopleHR and BrightHR do not publish a permanent free plan at this size.
What do we actually include on the free plan?
Employee records and custom fields, leave and holiday, sickness, documents (1GB), policies, expenses, training records, equipment, and immigration and visa records. Email support is included. Custom onboarding workflows, shift scheduling, timesheets, the AI assistant and payroll exports are on Pro, not Free.
What if we want the Pro features while we are still five people?
Pro is £3 per employee per month, charged for every employee, including the first five. Five people on Pro is £15 a month. The 14-day trial does not need a card. When it ends you can stay on Pro or, with five or fewer active employees, use Free.
Do you run payroll for a five-person company?
No. We can store salary, tax code and National Insurance number, and on Pro we can export them for an accountant or bureau. We do not run payroll, submit RTI, or calculate tax, holiday pay or statutory sick pay.
Where should we look if the team is about to become ten?
The Free plan stops at five active employees. The HR software for 10 employees page shows the Pro total and the other published prices at that size.
Sources
Prices were read from each provider’s own pricing page in November 2026. If a live page disagrees with this one, follow the live page.
Guides for UK employers
Practical reading on the topics UK teams search for when they are choosing HR software.
- Will HR be replaced by AI? What an assistant can take on in a small company, and the conversations that still need a person.
- AI HR assistant for a UK team Policy questions, holiday balances, and the decisions that stay with a person.
- HR policy management Store policies, collect acknowledgements, and keep a record you can show in an audit.
- GDPR-compliant HR software What to expect from a system that holds employee data for a UK employer.
- Automate employee onboarding Right-to-work checks, contracts, and day-one access, in an order a small team can follow.
- UK HR compliance checklist A free checklist for holiday pay, sickness records, and right-to-work documents.
- BreatheHR alternative CitoHR from £3 per seat, with a free plan for teams of up to five.
- CitoHR vs BreatheHR Pricing, AI, holiday, sickness, and policy tools compared side by side.
- UK HR software Holiday, sickness, and employee records built for UK SMEs.
- HR software for 10 employees Pro is £30 a month. HollyHR’s free plan still covers 10.
- Cheapest HR software UK An honest price table. We are not the cheapest at every headcount.
- HR software alternatives CharlieHR, BrightHR, PeopleHR, Timetastic and BreatheHR, with dated prices.
- HR software for startups How a founding team runs HR before it hires a dedicated HR person.
- UK salary calculator Take-home pay for the 2026/27 tax year, after PAYE and National Insurance.