CharlieHR vs. Shapes

Key takeaways

Get to know the essentials and both platforms’ core strengths.

CharlieHR

CharlieHR is an all-in-one HR platform designed for UK small businesses, including micro teams. It includes all the features founders and office managers need to take care of HR effectively, efficiently, and compliantly — without needing to make an HR hire. 

Here’s where Charlie stands out: 

• Ease of use: Get started quickly and work efficiently with software that’s simple and easy to use, so you have time once again to focus on the big stuff.
• All-in-one HR software: Optimise workflows and manage your HR admin from one place with built-in features and integrations that improve efficiency and reduce risk.
• Budget-friendly: Spend less with affordable pricing tiers — including perks and discounts at no extra cost.
• Support for growth: Grow without switching to another platform, thanks to our add-ons like Charlie Recruit (ATS) and Charlie Grow (HR advice).
• Intentional AI use: Keep the focus on running the business with AI additions that are genuinely useful, rather than a distraction.
• Glowing testimonials: Join the growing collection of customers that rate Charlie highly for ease of use, customer experience, and features.

Shapes

Shapes is promoted as an agentic HR platform where AI agents, rather than automated workflows or HR teams, take care of the manual admin work. HR teams can also build custom tools, workflows, or dashboards from plain language commands.

Here’s where Shapes stands out:

• AI-native positioning: Lean heavily into using AI for HR with native agents, agentic workflows, and the ability to build custom tools from prompts.
• Broader feature set: Plan for the future with compensation management, advanced analytics, and API access.
• Built for global and scaling teams: Scale securely with access to advanced security and access management controls.
• Newcomer backed by funding: Shapes has been around in its current form since 2025, but is backed by $24M+ seed and Series A funding.

Why should you choose Charlie over Shapes?

Charlie is purpose-built for UK small businesses, with only the features and AI assistance that your team actually benefits from. If you want to manage core HR for small teams, Charlie is an excellent fit.

Ease of use

With Charlie you can get started in minutes, not days (or weeks). CharlieHR’s average onboarding time is less than 7 days, and the platform is so easy to use that you won’t need to invest time learning how to take care of everyday HR.

Charlie customers enjoy:

• A fuss-free setup: Sign up for a free 7-day trial with no credit card required, then follow the simple onboarding flow when you’re ready to get started.
• Simple yet effective user experience: Find what you need and take action quickly, without getting lost in features and settings you don’t need.
• Support when you need it: Get instant access to walkthroughs and tips from our help centre, send your request by email, or secure help within 30 minutes with human live chat.

👉 Shapes has a help centre with useful resources, but it’s not clear which support options are available and whether they’re AI or human powered. Users on the Pro plan can access priority support.

All-in-one HR in one plan

CharlieHR is designed for founders, managing directors, and office managers who want to take care of core HR efficiently from one place. All Charlie plans come with the features you need to manage time off, onboarding, employee docs, and performance reviews — without having to add expensive modules or integrate with other tools.

Charlie’s features include:

• Employee records and documents: Store employee data, files, and policies in one single system of record.
• Onboarding: Introduce an onboarding workflow with self-service elements, creating a better employee experience and saving time.
• Time-off management: Record time off, holidays, sick leave, and enable self-service time-off requests.
• Performance management: Automate performance review schedules, so you never miss an opportunity for feedback or growth again.
• Employee surveys: Understand how your employees feel with built-in surveys and polls — no need for another tool.
• Perks: Offer thousands of perks and discounts to your team members, included for free.

Charlie customers also have the option to upgrade to Charlie Grow (which includes HR advice) or add Charlie Recruit (applicant tracking system) to their plan.

👉 Shapes customers have the option to add surveys, performance, compensation, or goals & OKR modules, but these aren’t included with the standard plan.

Value for money

Charlie’s small business focus doesn’t stop at the features and user experience — it also includes the cost. Charlie’s pricing is affordable for even the smallest of teams, so there’s no barrier for founders that want to support their team from the start.

Charlie customers benefit from:

• Transparent pricing: Know what you’ll pay every month with Charlie’s clear and easy to understand approach to pricing.
• All-in-one feature access: Get access to core HR, time-off management, onboarding, performance reviews, and surveys in one plan, with no need to invest in extra modules.
• Perks included at no extra cost: Offer perks and discounts to employees without paying for a separate perks platform.
• Exclusive discounts: Enjoy exclusive discounts with software and services partners through Charlie Marketplace. 
• Monthly rolling contracts: Sign up and benefit from monthly contracts, instead of being billed annually.

👉 Shapes offers two plans — Core and Plus, which adds a sandbox environment and enhanced security and access features.

Established in the UK

CharlieHR has been providing UK small businesses with affordable HR software since 2016. The company is based in the UK, has a UK-based customer support and HR advice team, and is well equipped to support UK compliance.

CharlieHR users have access to:

• Software designed for UK compliance: Reduce risks and concerns with software built to support UK employment legislation and data protection laws, rather than a system designed for the US or international markets.
• UK-based support teams: Get help from local customer support teams who know the system and what’s required by HR teams in the UK. 

Charlie Grow customers also have access to an HR advice service, supported by CIPD-backed advisors with a wealth of experience in HR requirements and best practices in the UK.

👉 Shapes is relatively new to the market, compared to CharlieHR’s long tenure and established reputation. Shapes was established in Israel, and serves a global audience.

Why consider Shapes instead of Charlie? 

Shapes also covers core HR, but it’s only part of the offer. Shapes’ agentic platform introduces new opportunities for scaling teams that want to rely on AI, but this isn’t the focus for a lot of small business teams.

Broader range of features

Shapes gives HR teams access to a wider range of features than CharlieHR, although these are typically available through optional apps rather than as part of the core plan. With more features available, founders can streamline processes and reduce the number of HR tools in use — instead of adding to the HR tech stack.

Shapes’ extra features include:

• Vibe views: Build dashboards and workflows that use data you already hold within Shapes, making it easier to monitor the metrics that matter to you.
• Compensation: Let AI agents take care of calculations and benchmarking, and introduce approval flows to handle compensation management at scale.
• People analytics: Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and unlimited reports that you can share with stakeholders.

👉 CharlieHR doesn’t offer these advanced features, but customers can use integrations to connect Charlie with tools like Figures, Pave, and Qlearsite. Charlie includes basic HR analytics and reporting.

Powered by agents

Shapes markets itself as the only HR platform built on top of AI, and agents feature heavily across features and workflows. For teams that want to explore using AI to save time and reduce HR workload at scale, Shapes makes this possible.

Shape’s AI features include:

• Custom tools: Build custom workflows and tools by describing what you want, instead of having to know code or ask a developer.
• AI across every layer: Take advantage of AI being built into the product throughout, rather than as a bolt-on app that only works inside one feature.
• Employee self-service: Encourage employees to ask Shapes questions about time off or policies, instead of coming to the HR team every time.

👉 CharlieHR is built on a foundation of effective HR for small businesses, rather than AI. AskCharlie AI is launching soon for users on the Charlie Grow plan.

Configurable access permissions

As Shapes is designed for businesses beyond the micro or small stage, it comes with the ability to add enhanced access and security controls. This is especially important if you plan to scale quickly and want a system that can help you set strong boundaries around access to data.

Users on Shapes’ Plus plan have access to:

• ‍Okta & Microsoft Entra ID: Secure access with single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Unlimited custom permission roles: Create your own framework for who has access to what, and deploy your rules across the organisation.
• Sandbox account: Allow members of your team to build tools and make changes inside a sandbox environment before deploying the changes to your live platform.

👉 CharlieHR customers can enable Google or Microsoft SSO for user accounts and set access permissions, but the options are more limited than with Shapes. Charlie offers integrations with AccessOwl for access and Secfix for security and compliance.