Factorial is a good choice for businesses with a presence across different European countries, or if you want to combine HR, payroll, finance, and IT in one place. But for many small UK businesses, there’s a better choice — especially if you don’t meet the minimum team size for Factorial.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best Factorial HR alternatives for UK teams. Learn more about why businesses switch away from Factorial and how competitors compare on offer and pricing, followed by a detailed look at each alternative and who they’re best suited to.
I spoke with our product managers and created this guide to help you find the ideal match for your small business. We’re hoping that’s Charlie, but if it’s not, we still want you to find the right alternative to Factorial HR.
This alternatives guide is the result of speaking to customers, reviewing sales calls, reading reviews, and gathering insights on all the tools on this list. Charlie isn’t paid for any links or placements within this guide, and we aim to update it every 6-12 months to reflect changes in features and pricing — this guide was last updated in July 2026 by senior product manager, Jenny Tatum. If you have any questions about our compare HR software guides, reach out at help@charliehr.com
Factorial is a popular HR system for European-based companies — especially teams that want to combine HR, payroll, finance, and IT management in one platform. But with more features often comes complexity and HR software pricing that doesn’t always align with the needs of small UK businesses.
From speaking to Charlie customers and analysing customer reviews, common reasons people look for alternatives include:
Whether your reason for considering an alternative is that you need greater payroll support or that your team size means it’s unrealistic (and too expensive), you’ll find an HR system that better matches your needs in this guide.
This Factorial alternatives guide is ideal for busy founders, CEOs, and managers that handle HR as part of their role. It’s aimed at UK businesses with 5-30 employees, no dedicated hire, and teams looking for the best HRIS system that’s ready to go quickly.
If that’s not you, Factorial might still be a good choice — especially if you need in-depth shift scheduling or you’re scaling across multiple European countries.
Factorial
CharlieHR
BambooHR
Breathe
Personio
HiBob
Pricing model
Not publicly listed, reported to be per employee per month
Bracket pricing
Per employee per month
Bracket pricing
Not publicly listed
Not publicly listed
Minimum employees
14
1
1 (minimum monthly spend of £200 for under 25 employees)
1
1
1
UK-native?
No (Spain)
Yes
No (US)
Yes
No (Germany)
No (US + Israel)
Cost for 20 employees
Not publicly listed, but starts at £5.40 per user per month
£105 per month
Flat rate of £200 per month (as under 25 employees)
£44 per month
Not publicly listed, available by quote only
Not publicly listed, available by quote only
Best for
European SMEs
UK small businesses under 50 employees
Mid-size businesses, 50-500 employees
UK SMEs
Process-heavy businesses, 10-200 employees
Culture-focused businesses, 50-500 employees
CharlieHR is the best Factorial alternative for very small teams — especially those with no HR manager. The platform is designed to be easy to use, so busy founders, CEOs, and managers can take care of essential HR and compliance in a streamlined way.
CharlieHR enables small teams to:
Organise employee data and docs into one place
Take care of leave management in a simple way
Promote employee engagement and feedback
Run performance reviews tailored to your needs and goals
Create automated yet personalised workflows with built-in onboarding software
Offer perks and discounts to employees at no extra cost
CharlieHR’s pricing starts at £5 per month for a team of 1-4 people (6 month initial term, £20 thereafter). Choose CharlieHR if you’re a small UK business and you want HR software that’s easy to use, with all the features you need included (instead of as add-ons).
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BambooHR is a popular HR system for medium-to-large sized businesses, but it can feel too complex and overwhelming for smaller companies — however its features closely match those of Factorial, making it a good potential alternative:
Save time on repetitive admin with automation
Improve the onboarding experience
Introduce and customise a performance review process
Use the integrated AI to surface data and insights
Prepare and export data ready for payroll runs
BambooHR’s pricing starts at £8.10 per employee per month, or £200 per month flat rate for companies with 25 employees or fewer.
Choose BambooHR if you’re a larger business with greater needs in terms of reporting or working across different regions.
Breathe is another UK-based HR system that offers affordable pricing. Breathe users can choose between different plan tiers, then add modules depending on their needs — including ones familiar to Factorial users like rota, time & attendance, recruitment tracking, and learning management:
Manage leave requests, approvals, and visibility across the business
Monitor employee data from dashboards
Store company documents and details in one place
Collect feedback through check-ins and performance reviews
Build onboarding flows to introduce new team members
Breathe’s pricing starts at £24 per month for a team of 1-10 people, with optional add-ons starting at £11 per month per business.
Choose Breathe if you’re looking for a UK-based alternative to Factorial and prefer the add-ons and module-based system over an all-in-one plan.
Personio calls itself an “intelligent HR platform” that connects core HR, talent, and payroll. With talent management and pre-payroll in the mix, the features are similar to that of Factorial, and it also takes a module-based approach to plans:
Surface data insights with AI-powered queries
Streamline workflows with automation
Ask questions and get answers with built-in AI assistant
Set and track goals and manage performance
Prepare payroll data ready for export to your chosen software
Personio’s pricing isn’t available online, so you’ll need to contact them directly for a personalised quote.
Choose Personio if your focus is on AI-powered features and automation, and your business is big enough to have dedicated HR support — either in-house or outsourced.
HiBob is the HR system on this list that’s the closest Factorial competitor in terms of variety of features, with the ability to combine HR, payroll, and finance in one platform. This HR software is best for bigger teams or fast-growing startups that benefit from the AI and culture environment:
Start with core HR and add the modules you need
Generate rich reports with detailed HR data
Streamline the payroll process with native UK payroll
Get financial insights and planning alongside your HR data
Manage HR on the go with a dedicated mobile app
HiBob’s pricing isn’t available online, so you’ll need to speak to their sales team for a custom quote.
Choose HiBob if you’re a business with 50+ employees and want to focus your attention on culture, employee engagement, and AI-powered automations.
All of the Factorial alternatives in this guide have their pros and cons. There’s no clear winner for everyone — the right HR system depends on your needs, company size, budget, and experience.
Book a demo to see why CharlieHR works so well for small UK teams.
The best Factorial alternative depends on your requirements, budget, and the size of your team. For small teams, CharlieHR is an ideal option. For bigger teams that want a UK alternative, try Breathe. BambooHR, HiBob, and Personio are better choices for larger businesses.
Factorial applies a minimum number of seats for all of its plans. For businesses in the UK, the minimum number of seats is 14. While you can operate the system with fewer users, you’ll be billed for a minimum of 14 seats.
Yes, Factorial is available to businesses in the UK. Although it’s headquartered in Spain, the system is set up to be compliant and suitable for UK small businesses. If you’d prefer a UK-based HR system, try CharlieHR or Breathe.
Factorial allows customers to export employee data including personal details, compensation, work schedule, and contract dates. Note that one customer review highlights an issue they encountered when trying to export personal data.
Switching from Factorial to CharlieHR depends on how long it takes to extract your data from Factorial. Once you have your HR data, you can prepare it for upload and import to Charlie in minutes
For a team of 20 people or fewer, CharlieHR is our top pick. The platform is designed with small teams in mind, and it shows in the user experience, range and depth of features, and the way it integrates with popular UK payroll and HR tools.
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.
