Video summary:

Both platforms offer payroll and HR tools, but they differ in pricing structure, flexibility, and how features are packaged.

Overview

• Employment Hero: A flexible, all-in-one HR and payroll platform with a free payroll option and bundled HR features.
• Sage UK: A well-established provider offering modular payroll and HR tools with add-ons for customization.

Payroll Comparison

Employment Hero Payroll Software Pricing

Note the pricing page was accurate at the time of filming but may have since changed. You can see the latest version by clicking here. 

Employment Hero offers three payroll options:

Free Payroll Plan

• £0/month
• Includes:
  • Automated pay runs
  • Payslip generation
  • Pension administration
  • HMRC compliance
• Limitations:
  • Restricted integrations
  • No advanced API or PAYE features

Best for very small businesses with simple needs.

Managed Payroll

• ~£12 per employee/month
• Fully outsourced payroll service
• Includes:
  • HMRC reporting
  • Pension submissions
  • Compliance handled end-to-end

Ideal for businesses wanting to outsource payroll entirely.

Payroll Premium

• ~£2 per employee/month
• Advanced features (not managed service), including:
  • Multiple PAYE schemes
  • Pay condition engine
  • API access

Designed as an add-on for HR users needing more control.

Sage Payroll Software Pricing 

Note the pricing page was accurate at the time of filming but may have since changed. You can see the latest version by clicking here. 

Sage offers three tiers:

Essentials

• ~£2 per employee/month (up to 10 employees minimum)
• Core payroll features:
  • HMRC submissions
  • Payslips and P60s
  • Pension enrolment

Standard

• ~£4 per employee/month
• Adds:
  • Timesheets
  • Absence tracking
  • Automated workflows

Premium

• ~£6 per employee/month
• Adds:
  • Shift scheduling
  • Project tracking
  • Advanced workforce management

Important note:

• Pricing is based on a minimum of 10 employees, meaning smaller teams may overpay.
• Discounts (e.g. 90% off for 6 months) are often promotional.

Payroll Verdict

• Employment Hero: More flexible, especially with a free plan and managed service option
• Sage: Predictable pricing but less flexible for small teams due to minimum user requirements

HR Software Comparison

Employment Hero HR Software Pricing

Note the pricing page was accurate at the time of filming but may have since changed. You can see the latest version by clicking here. 

Employment Hero offers bundled HR plans:

HR Standard (£4/employee/month)

• Onboarding
• Leave management
• Applicant tracking
• Document management
• Includes free payroll

HR Premium (£7/employee/month)

Adds:

• Performance reviews
• Expense management
• Advanced reporting
• Additional payroll integrations

Platinum & Unlimited (Custom Pricing)

Includes:

• Custom workflows and branding
• API access
• HR advisory services
• Managed payroll included (top tier)
• Learning and development tools
• Employee assistance programs

Key Strengths

• All-in-one platform (HR + payroll bundled)
• Applicant tracking included in base plans
• Extensive feature coverage across tiers
• Add-ons like:
  • Employee assistance (£6/employee/month)
  • Learning bundles (£3/employee/month)

Sage HR Software Pricing 

Note the pricing page was accurate at the time of filming but may have since changed. You can see the latest version by clicking here. 

Sage uses a modular pricing approach:

Core HR System

• £5 per employee/month
• Includes:
  • Employee records
  • Leave management

Add-ons

• Performance management: £2/employee/month
• Timesheets: £2.50/employee/month
• Shift scheduling: ~£2.50/employee/month
• Expense management: £1.25/employee/month
• Recruitment: ~£170–£184/month

Key Strengths

• Highly customizable (pay only for what you need)
• Strong workforce management tools
• Scalable with add-ons

Limitations

• Costs can increase quickly with multiple add-ons
• Recruitment feature is significantly more expensive than competitors
• Core features are less bundled compared to Employment Hero

Key Differences

Pricing Structure

• Employment Hero: Bundled pricing with many features included
• Sage: Modular pricing, more control, but costs can add up

Payroll Flexibility

• Employment Hero: Free plan + outsourced payroll option
• Sage: Structured tiers with minimum employee requirements

HR Capabilities

• Employment Hero: Broad feature set included from lower tiers
• Sage: Core system + paid add-ons for advanced features

Recruitment Tools

• Employment Hero: Included in most plans
• Sage: Separate module with high monthly cost

Ease of Use vs Customization

• Employment Hero: Simpler, all-in-one solution
• Sage: More customizable but potentially more complex

Which Should You Choose?

Choose Employment Hero if:

• You want an all-in-one HR + payroll platform
• You prefer simple, bundled pricing
• You need free or low-cost payroll options
• You want built-in recruitment and performance tools

Choose Sage if:

• You want a modular system where you pay only for what you use
• You need advanced workforce tools like scheduling and project tracking
• You already use other Sage accounting products

Final Thoughts

Both platforms are competitively priced and capable, but they take different approaches:

• Employment Hero focuses on simplicity, bundling, and value for money
• Sage emphasizes flexibility and customization through add-ons

The best choice depends on whether you prefer an all-in-one system or a build-your-own HR stack.

Video Transcript

All right, today we’re going to compare Employment Hero and Sage UK for the UK pricing for kind of payroll and hr software. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to compare the payroll costs for Employment Hero on Sage, and then I’m going to compare their hr pricing plans here. So, let’s get right into it.

So, Employment Hero here. They offer a free payroll plan here, which includes automated pay runs multiple pay schedules benefits pay slip, generator, all that, and all that’s for free. With their kind of basic thing here, they offer a managed payroll service, which is 12 pounds per employee per month, I think.

So, it allows them to manage your things end to end while you have full visibility with all that. And it’s they manage all the HMRC reporting and pension declarations and compliance and all that fun stuff, which is great when you’re running a business. And then they have this payroll premium here, which is two to two pounds per employee per month.

You’ve got multiple PA PAYE they’ve got a pay conditions engine, single sign on. So, this is not kind of a managed service but is more of a kind of advanced features. It’s really designed to be an add-on with their hr software, which we’ll get to in a few minutes. But let’s just go down here and compare the plans here.

So, they have all the compliance and plan filing across all three plans pension administration across all three things too, which is obviously a legal requirement in the UK now. Pay slip management across all three plans. Payroll reports against all three plan plans, automations against it. All integrations are limited on the free plan, so that’s like third party apps or accounting software, other things, customer support.

You get across all the plans, self-service across everything. Payroll adjustments across everything user management across everything. You have payroll settings across everything. You don’t get PAYE and API access on the on the basic plan, whereas you do on the other one. So, if you need more advanced.

Features that the free one might be a little bit limited, but if you’re a really small business, you can get away with it. And it’s as I say, all free for the very basic plans here. And then they have their yeah, managed payroll, which you saw here, two to 12 pounds per employee per month.

Payroll premium, two pounds per employee per month. There’s learning things here there’s learning bundles. Which gives you information, I guess about different industries. Three pounds per employee per month. Employment. Employment, I’m sorry, employee assistance programs, which is six pounds per employee per month.

And other ones here as well. So, we’ll come back to Employment Hero in a moment, but very simple pricing and very low pricing really for what they offer. Sage is one of the big companies in the space in the UK. They have three plans here as well, so they have an essentials.

Standard and premium, and it’s two pounds per employee per month for excluding VA for their essentials, four pounds per standard and six pounds for their premium plan. And you they’re offering 90% off for six months. When I was recording this had probably changed. I’ll have links down in the description area where we can click through and see if they’re offering any kind of special offers right now.

You can oh, so this is actually this is actually, is this per month and then you get 10 employees here? I’m not sure what this sort of says here. Okay. What doesn’t really here, okay oh I think so this is going to be up to up to 10 employees and then you. You can add additional ones at a one pound 30 a month.

You can do payroll in four simple steps. It gives you all the HMRC fund stuff self-service base lists, p sixties real-time information on HMRC pension enrolment, which again is we have to deal with records and HR tasks. Can manage holidays as well. And pay payroll and HR support.

We’ll get to Sage’s HR software in a moment as well. Then here we go here. So, we have standards, so everything with essentials, and it is we’ve got you, your 10 employees here, and then you’re adding three 30 extra. You’ve got one step payroll instead of four steps time sheet and overtime online.

You can run reports to see time sheet status. There’s a personalized portal. You can build an org chart if they want to do that. Automated workflows, approvals, and you can track all the leave and absences as well. Let’s move on to premium. Again, you can get up to 10 employees. So, this is, and then you’re just paying five 30 per extra employee per month. You can do project management managing shifts scheduling and all that. All sorts of fun stuff down here. So, you can see here, get 90% off for the first six months, then 20 pounds for payroll centrals per month.

So again. Pricing is two pounds per employee per month, up to 10 employees, but you’re paying for all 10, basically 40 pounds for standards. So again, up to the 10 employees and then the discounts from there. And 60 for the premium. It’s a bit misleading. I’d say the pricing here is six pounds per month, but it’s per employee, and you’re paying to pay for 10 employees.

So, if you have five. You’re obviously having to pay for those as well. We’ve got all the things here and it doesn’t include VAT, so you can request a demo and everything like that, but still, not hugely expensive for most businesses.

Payroll is a massive headache and even if you’re paying 60 pounds a month for it, it’s not really, not the end of the world, I think to save the time. Now moving on to more advanced HR software. So, we’re going to jump back to Employment Hero here. So, they have four different tiers. So, they have their HR standard, which is four pounds per employee per month. So onboarding leaf management certification.

Health option to purchase private health insurance documents, applicant tracking. And you get the free payroll thing, which we saw before. And the plan there. HR premium is seven pounds per employee per month. You’ve got allowances, expense management. I actually been doing some videos and expense management soon, so look out for those.

Various milestones but you can do performance reviews. And again, the private health insurance and there’s all sorts of the payroll upgrades available there. Then you have their platinum plan here, which they have moved away from showing you the pricing which obviously means you have to speak to their salespeople there, which obviously means it’s going to be a bit more expensive.

But they offer things like cool setting, custom branding, one-to-ones custom fields, API access, and again, this access to purchase health insurance is a problem one here. And then they have Employment Unlimited, which is again, is a pro a software that they want you to speak to sales about. And they’ve got all the kind of things here.

Learning bundle telephone support. Earned wage access, HR advisory, manage, payrolls included in that too. So, a whole bunch of things here. So, let’s just quickly go through and compare the plan. So, you’ve got HR and payroll support. It’s employment Unlimited, which is the, I think the plan they’re really trying to push you for.

As you can see here, they have everything here. If we expand that, they’ve got managed payroll representation and claims, HR advice, not seen any, the other things here would help in assistance across everything, though you’ve got clocking in time sheets across all plans.

Rostering and scheduling across all plans except for the standard one here, but every other plan seems to have it costing and budgeting again on premium and up. You’ve got workflows on the two highest plans here. Expense management on everything, with the exception of the standard option.

Security permissions across everything, customization across everything. Reporting across everything here. I’m not sure what okay. Let’s, oh, no. Custom reporting on their standard plan here. Employer records, obviously across everything would be kind of a pointless not to have. That I think if you if you’re using HR software, got management tools across everything here, and then we’ve got things it’s also like applicant tracking software.

So, job postings across everything, collaboration across everything screenings, across everything pipeline. With in all their plans except for standard compliance and GDPR obviously if would be very pointless to be running HR software in the UK if that was not GDPR compliance. So that should be a given.

References and onboarding with their plans except for standards analytics across everything, diversity, inclusion across everything, data security, which is just, should be just given. Documents and policies across everything. Compliance, tracking across everything. Compensation of roles on everything except for their standard plan here.

Things there, people management across everything. Leave management across all the plans, health and safety across everything. Communication, across everything. Performance management, across everything. Perks and benefits. They have it all there, learning and growth. This is their kind of custom thing that they offer.

I’m not really a hundred percent sure how good or not it is. I have no real say on it, but they’re obviously a payroll and hr specialist company, so I’m not sure how much stuff they’ll be able to tell you about your own industry. But maybe it is really good. But feedback and surveys across everything, rec, employee recognition, performance and reviews across their plans except for standard here.

Onboarding across everything, training and development options across everything, and rehiring and exits across everything here. So, lots of things here. And then you’ve got the managed payroll you can add on, or the payroll premium, which we saw before. They’ve got law advisory at six pounds per employee per month.

They’ve got that learning things, which we just talked about, and the assistance plans, which we saw in the payroll options for add-ons here. So, Employment Hero offers a lot of different stuff here and a lot of different options in both a HR and payroll software. So definitely worth a look out, I think if you’re in the market for it.

So, jumping over to Sage hr here we have, so we are, this is the HR modules, which we’ll work on with the payroll options here. So, you’ve got the core kind of HR and leave management system is five pounds per employee per month. You can try it three for 30 days at least as of right now. Again.

Check the description, I’ll have links to everything. You can get a custom sales demo here, and then they add on additional things here. So, you’ve got a performance thing, which is two pounds per employee per month time sheets, which is two pounds 50 per employee per month. Shift scheduling expenses, which is one pound 25 per employee per month, which is included with some of the more advanced plans from Employment Hero and recruitment.

At 184 pounds or 45 pounds per month. I’m not sure exactly why that pricing is there like that, but those are the kind of add-ons that they have there. They don’t list a kind of list of features the same way that employment Hero does here, but, so we’ve got the, they’ve got the payroll that we looked at before.

They’ve got performance management here with the sort of goals and OKRs, one-to-ones 360 feedback time sheets. You can have that whole process here, tracking hours. And who approved time sheets and everything like that for people who are on shift work, shift scheduling software as well. Two pound 50 per employee per month.

So again, the rota and scheduling that we saw all being offered also with employment hero here. So again, drag and drop tools. Here you can see an example of what that kind of looks like. There again, they have, you can try it out three for free, for 30 days expense management here.

This is a really competitive market in the UK right now. Across everything here. So, they have various things here. We can capture all the expenses that your employees are doing and then have it all turned into digital receipts and have that all kind of integrated and paid.

And then recruitment, they’re saying 170 pounds per month here, but then down here it’s saying 184. So, I’m not sure what the difference is between those two and why the, why that’s there. Probably to get in contact with them to figure out there, so they have these kinds of application fields and hiring flow and all this sort of thing here.

Whereas with Employment Hero, there they have, their applicant tracking was included with their kind of basic sort of software. Sage may be offering more. Advance things that kind of help you with that bit, bit more. But there, there certainly seems to be quite a big price difference here at 170 pounds per month, which I’m assuming is a flat fee.

But if you look at the hr sorry, HR premium was seven pounds. Per employee per month. And I think it included the, yeah, included all the kind of various applicant tracking and things like that. My kind of recommendation is to go have a look a bit more detail. Again, I’ll have the links in the description below.

You can kind of see what their latest prices are since this video was recorded. But both of them fairly competitively priced a huge amount. To decide between them. So, I just have a bit, probably a bit more of a look at what features they offer. You could obviously take advantage of any free trials available when you have a look.

And if you’ve used either Sage or Employment Hero for your business, I’d love for you to comment below and let me know what your new preferred and why. Thanks.