Charlie vs Employment Hero
Which HR software is best?
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Charlie and Employment Hero are both HR platforms that allow teams to take care of the essentials like time-off management and onboarding, but beyond that they’re quite different.
Charlie is designed with small business HR in mind, and that’s pretty clear within our platform. Taking care of everyday HR tasks feels effortless and friction-free with Charlie, thanks to a combination of simple features, automation, and a user-friendly experience.
Employment Hero includes HR features, but it’s designed to be used as a more complete “employment operating system” with HR, payroll, hiring, and benefits in one platform.
When it comes to HR for small businesses, which is better — CharlieHR or Employment Hero? Let’s compare the two and find out.
Comparing Charlie vs. Employment Hero
Feature
CharlieHR
Employment Hero
Employee data and documents
✅
✅
Time-off management
✅
✅ *
Team or company calendar
✅
✅ *
Onboarding
✅
✅
Performance management
✅
✅ *
Employee surveys
✅
✅
Perks and benefits
✅
✅ *
Payroll
❌
✅ *
Hiring
⭐ As an optional paid add-on
✅ *
HR advice
⭐ As an optional paid add-on
⭐ As an optional paid add-on
Automation and workflows
✅
✅ *
Transparent pricing
✅
❌
Quick and easy setup
✅
✅
UK-based support
✅ Email and live chat
❓ AI-supported chat help available
Cost for 49 employees
£170 per month (inclusive of all Charlie features)
£196 per month (minimum)
Ideal audience
UK small businesses
Large international companies
* Some features in this category are only available in higher-tier subscription plans.
Why Charlie wins
Charlie stands out as a dedicated platform for those looking for an easier way to manage HR. Here’s why we think Charlie is an ideal choice for small business CEOs, leaders, and managers.
Built for UK small businesses
Employment Hero is built with larger, multi-national or international teams in mind, and has the feature set, complexity, and pricing to match.
Charlie is purpose-built for small UK businesses, and is ideal for companies with fewer than 50 members of staff. The setup and user experience is clean and simple, and there’s no overwhelming mix of features and settings to contend with. Enjoy access to UK-based support teams and a system designed for UK legal compliance from the ground up.
A simple all-in-one system with affordable pricing
Charlie’s approach to
pricing is refreshingly simple, with a subscription plan that scales as your team grows. This means there’s no sudden jump as you increase your team size within a bracket, and you have all the core Charlie features included as standard.
Employment Hero’s pricing is more complicated. Their introductory plan, HR Standard, starts at £4 per employee per month, but includes only the basics. To unlock access to everything, you need to speak to their sales team about their top-tier plan. Some of the features highlighted on landing pages are only available as a paid add-on — like HR advisory at £6 per employee per month.
Time-saving automations and smart workflows
While both platforms offer automation and workflows, Charlie’s focus is on helping you save time and they’re included in every Charlie subscription. To unlock workflows within Employment Hero, you need to pay more every month.
Charlie allows you to create time off approval flows, onboarding checklists, and automated review cycles. Users can upload and store documents, request to work from home, and more all from within the system — eliminating the back-and-forth emails.
Performance and perks included as standard
Performance management enables you to support your team to develop and grow, and it’s something we believe shouldn’t be locked behind expensive tools. Every Charlie user has access to performance management, while 1:1s and performance reviews are only available in Employment Hero’s premium and above plans.
Likewise, our perks are available on all Charlie subscription plans at no extra cost. Introduce your team members to useful discounts, wellness perks, and online courses from day one with no extra work required.
Integrations with more HR tools
When it comes to integrations, Charlie has a lot more to offer than Employment Hero. While you can sync Employment Hero up to the usual suspects like Xero, Freshbooks, and Slack, you have more options with Charlie.
Charlie users can use native integrations to connect to compliance tools (InfoVetted, Secfix), employee benefits (Huggg, Bonusly), employee engagement (Donut, CultureBot), payroll (Xero, PayCaptain), timesheets (Papershift), and more.
Reasons to choose Employment Hero
We believe Charlie is a top choice for small businesses that want a clear, simple, and reliable HR platform. But we recognise that it’s not always the best choice for everyone.
Here are some situations in which you might consider Employment Hero instead:
- You want built-in access to payroll functions
- You have a large global team
- You want native timesheet tracking
- You want an employee app
- You also want a library of e-learning courses
- You want a platform that handles more than HR
In many other cases, you may find you prefer Charlie for its ease of use, affordability, and smart range of intentional features for UK small business owners.
What our customers say
Although it’s built for smaller teams, you get higher levels of customisation for time off when it comes to Charlie — especially if you compare inclusions and plans with Staffology. At Charlie, all of the time off management sub features are included in all our plans.
An efficient and fairly priced solution for small businesses
Riannon Palmer, Founder and CEO at Lem-uhn, was looking for a holiday tracking system that made reporting easier and brought all the company’s HR data together in one place. The flexibility of Charlie won them over, as it allows them to track all the different types of leave they offer — like menstrual leave, wellness days, and flexible Fridays.
Since then, Lem-uhn has expanded into using other features like built-in templates and performance reviews.
Riannon Palmer, Founder & CEO at Lem-uhn
“Charlie is easy, streamlined and helpful for small businesses looking for HR software, even if you’re small.”
Read case study
Allows you to refocus time on what really matters
James Gill, CEO at GoSquared, was starting to feel the pressure of having to take care of HR while scaling a business. In 2015, GoSquared signed up for Charlie and everything fell into place.
From employee data and document storage, to time-off management and leave approvals, GoSquared uses Charlie to simplify processes and make decisions. The team also uses the built-in calendar for planning and communication:
James Gill, CEO at GoSquared
“With Charlie’s Calendar, I know I've got one place to check what’s going on in the team — who's going to be away, when and for how long. It has a real impact on the work we commit to as a company week by week.”
Read case study
So, is Charlie better than Employment Hero?
There will never be one HR tool that’s better than all the rest, because every type of business has unique needs. But for UK-based small businesses, we believe Charlie is the right choice.
With Charlie you benefit from:
- A simple, user-friendly platform
- Core HR features designed for ease-of-use and engagement
- Employee self-serve access
- Safe and secure storage for employee data and documents
Charlie makes it easy for small business owners to take back time spent on admin, so it can be put to better use. Everyone enjoys a better experience, and you have more time and energy to dedicate to high-impact work like product development, sales, or networking. Book a demo with our friendly team to see how Charlie can transform the way you handle HR admin.
Written by:
Jenny Tattum
Jenny is a Senior Product Manager at CharlieHR. She has years of experience with product planning and development, and user research too – she put together this guide by collecting data and information on competitors so we could improve our product and tailor it to small business owners.
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