Most small business leaders aren’t experts at HR — they’re running performance reviews while taking care of everything else. This means that busy founders and CEOs need performance management software that’s easy to use and built for the needs of small teams.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best performance management tools for small UK businesses — including who they’re designed for, features, pricing, highlights, and how to decide which is the right choice for your team.
We believe that Charlie is the best overall choice for small businesses looking for performance review software.Still, it doesn’t hurt to compare different options before settling on your final pick. We also understand that we’re not the right choice for some companies, and that it’s always important to know what else is out there.
As part of our process for building this list, we’ve:Most small business leaders aren’t experts at HR — they’re running performance reviews while taking care of everything else. This means that busy founders and CEOs need performance management software that’s easy to use and built for the needs of small teams.
In this guide, we’ll explore the best performance management tools for small UK businesses — including who they’re designed for, features, pricing, highlights, and how to decide which is the right choice for your team.
Our goal is to bring you a comprehensive shortlist of performance review tools for your small business, so you can make an informed choice.
Performance management software helps businesses track employee productivity through goal setting and tracking, feedback, and appraisals. Most tools allow businesses to customise and run performance according to their needs, which can include:
As well as setting goals and tracking progress, performance management tools also enable managers to review analytics and make decisions based on real data.
Charlie is a Human Resources Information System (HRIS) that’s ideal for small business leaders that want smoother performance review system. Maybe it’s the first time you’re introducing one, or you want to streamline the experience so it takes up less of your time. Whether you’re preparing for your first round of reviews or a seasoned pro, Charlie can help.
Charlie streamlines the performance review process so you can stop putting progression on the backburner and start taking action to support, nurture, and grow your team. Plus, you get access to all of Charlie’s other features (including time-off management, onboarding, and more) at no extra cost.
Quick and fuss-free set up: Set an end date, frequency, reviewers, and participants, and launch your performance reviews in minutes.
Built-in templates: Save time with built-in performance review templates written by qualified HR experts.
Progress dashboard: Stay in the loop and oversee the whole process across the company, without micromanaging.
Automatic reminders: Make sure reviews get completed on time without manually sending reminders to team members.
360-degree feedback: Unlock a complete picture of individual performance by collecting feedback from managers and peers at the same time.
Likert scale and feedback: Combine numbers and written feedback for a holistic performance picture.
Swift onboarding process: Sign up and explore the software with a free trial, with no need for a complicated onboarding journey or training sessions.
Not suitable for large businesses: Charlie’s easy-to-use performance review tool is designed for small businesses. If you’re looking for advanced reporting or performance reviews at scale, an enterprise-level software tool would be a better fit.
CharlieHR’s pricing starts at £5 per month for a team of 1-4 employees for the first six months.
Sage HR offers a range of HR features in one place, but the feature set and approach to pricing makes it more suitable for larger businesses. The performance management tool includes goal setting, 360-degree feedback, meetings, surveys, and quick feedback — but it’s only available as an add-on to Sage’s HR system.
Versatile for international teams: Handle performance reviews in multiple languages, making it ideal for companies with an international presence.
Goals and OKRs: Track progress for each team with objectives and key results that align with your bigger business goals.
1-to-1 meeting scheduling: Discuss different topics and catch up with team members regularly.
Quick feedback: Encourage team members to show appreciation for their coworkers or ask for feedback.
Not great value for money: As you scale, SageHR may not be the best choice as the cost of add-ons and extra services can increase quickly.
Poor user experience: Some reviews mention that they found the web interface and app clunky and that it wasn’t as modern as other tools.
Sage HR’s pricing starts at £2.50 per employee per month for the performance module, but this must be bundled with the core HR module at £5 per employee per month. Total starting cost including performance management is £7.50 per employee per month.
Curious about whether Charlie or Sage HR is right for you? Read our CharlieHR vs. Sage comparison guide.
Workday is a complex HRMS platform designed for large companies with more than 500 employees, so it’s not always the best fit for a small business. With both HR and finance functionality in one place, it’s a useful contender for startups that are scaling and want to keep operations running smoothly.
HR leaders and managers can use Workday to run performance and talent reviews, schedule check-ins, and discuss career goals — alongside a wide range of other HR tasks.
Complete performance management system: Automate even the smallest parts of your performance management workflows.
Career development tools: Perform thorough performance reviews and use the data for workforce planning.
Skill analysis and closing the gaps: Inform hiring decisions and identify training needs with integrated skills analysis tools.
Built-in AI agents: Deploy agents to complete HR, finance, and IT tasks across the organisation.
Lengthy set up: If you’re looking for a quick solution to your performance management needs, Workday may not be the ideal fit. Workday’s deployment timeline suggests a 4-6 month implementation period.
Aimed at larger companies: Workday can be expensive and overwhelming for small businesses, with a lot of detailed features that go unused despite being paid for.
Quotes available on request, but the perceived cost on Workday’s G2 profile suggests it may be outside the budget of most small businesses.
Leapsome is an AI-powered HR and talent platform that combines core HR with performance reviews, engagement surveys, learning management, and compensation management. Teams can use the built-in AI agents to act as an HR helpdesk, development coach, or data analyst — allowing HR teams to do more with their people data.
AI focus: Take advantage of the latest technology with AI-powered workflows, report builder, and agents.
Combined HRIS and talent suite: Handle core HR and a wide range of talent operations from one platform.
Assisted reviews: Help managers and employees save time and give more thoughtful feedback with an AI-powered review assistant.
Fast implementation time: Get started from day one, with many teams onboarded successfully within 1-4 weeks.
Priced for mid-market: With quotes on request and a starting price of $7 per user per month (per module), Leapsome’s pricing may be unaffordable for small teams.
Module-based approach: Leapsome allows you to bundle different modules together which works for some teams, but for others it’s more expensive and less effective than alternatives that include performance management as standard.
Quotes available by request. While Leapsome’s pricing page doesn’t share exact figures, Leapsome’s G2 profile suggests that modular pricing starts at $7 per user per month (billed annually).
Lattice is a dedicated performance management platform designed for high-performing teams. With performance and talent reviews, performance improvement plans (PIPs), and succession planning, it’s best suited to big teams and fast-scaling businesses with ambitious goals that they want to track.
Focused on performance: Keep the spotlight on performance management with a platform dedicated to reviews, goals, OKRs, and career progression.
Compensation management: Make sure that you’re rewarding talented team members correctly with fair market rates.
AI agents: Use built-in agents to support employees, managers, and leaders by answering questions and surfacing insights.
Save money with a bundled package: Choose the foundations plan to save money compared to purchasing products separately.
More than small teams need: The in-depth focus on performance management is likely to go beyond what most small businesses need, at least at the start.
Only for performance and talent management: Lattice doesn’t offer an HRIS, so you’d need to integrate it with your existing HR system (or look for a new alternative that includes core HR and performance management).
Lattice’s pricing starts at $11 per seat per month for the foundations plan that includes performance, goals & OKRs, analytics, AI agent, and integrations. Modules can also be purchased or bundled together separately, with the performance and goals & OKRs modules starting at $8 per seat per month. Lattice has a $4,000 minimum annual spend and contracts are billed annually.
Zelt combines core HR, performance management, payroll and benefits, and device management, making it an attractive option for UK teams that want to streamline the way they work. Zelt’s performance review software is included as standard, and gives teams the ability to run automated review processes and collect feedback.
Combined operations management: Stay on top of HR, payroll, and more from one platform instead of switching between tools.
Curated templates: Access ready-made templates, a question library, or build your own.
Detailed analytics: Review progress, trends over time, and average scores by role with a range of customisable reports.
Track and manage goals: Use the built-in goal setting system to set goals, align priorities, and monitor OKRs.
Only available as part of Zelt’s system: Unlike some of the tools on this list, Zelt’s performance management feature is only available as part of their wider HR system offer.
Limited functionality: Compared to tools like Lattice and Leapsome, Zelt’s performance review offering feels less in-depth.
Quotes available by request. Although costs aren’t listed on the Zelt pricing page, their HR software guide suggests that pricing starts at £5 per employee per month.
We’ve shared our top recommendations for performance review software, but ultimately the one you choose depends on your unique needs and goals.
To find the right performance management software, ask yourself these questions:
For many small businesses, we recommend prioritising ease of setup, 360 degree feedback, UK-based support teams, and integrations. Look for software that’s within your budget and decide whether you want a platform that has performance management included as standard or one where it’s an optional paid add-on, as the second option can increase your costs over time.
When you’re talking to software vendors, keep this list of questions handy:
Use this buying guide alongside our shortlist to find the best match for your small business.
Ideally you only want to invest in performance management tools once, but it’s easy to accidentally make the wrong choice — especially without the right buying guide. To avoid switching mid-year, here’s what to avoid when building your shortlist:
Curious about what performance management looks like in a small business? Find out how we do performance management at CharlieHR.
Performance management tools vary hugely, and not all of them are the right fit for small businesses. Some are too expensive, and many are so overcomplicated when all you want is to make running performance reviews easier.
If you’re a small business looking to streamline your appraisal process, you need Charlie.
Charlie is an ideal fit if:
Charlie’s performance management tool is designed specifically for small businesses. Every step of the process has been designed to make the overall experience easier — not just for you, but for your team members too.
Book a demo and experience Charlie’s performance management feature today.
Performance management software allows teams to run performance reviews, set and track goals, and give and receive feedback. HR software is more generalised and includes functions like employee data management, onboarding, and time-off management. Some HR software (like CharlieHR) includes performance management.
Performance management software typically costs between £2.50 and £11 per user per month based on the tools in this guide. You can also find performance management within some HRIS tools, including CharlieHR which starts at £5 per month for a team of 1-4 people.
Based on our research there aren’t any free performance management software tools. Some vendors offer a free trial or demo experience, but there aren’t any tools that are completely free to use. The next best option is a budget-friendly platform designed for small teams, like Charlie.
No, you don’t always need separate performance review software. Some platforms (including Charlie, Sage HR, Workday, and Leapsome from this list) cover both HR and performance management.
Performance management software should include the ability to run performance review cycles, set and track goals, set 1:1 meetings, and capture feedback in a variety of ways — like annual reviews, feedback surveys, and 360 degree feedback.
We believe that Charlie is the easiest tool for first-time HR teams or founders looking for a simple system. Charlie combines core HR with performance reviews, feedback, and automated workflows, giving even small teams the ability to promote growth with reliable performance review tools.
Joe is one of CharlieHR's product managers (and a former customer advocate!) which means he's responsible for product planning and user research.
Every week, he gets to speak to small businesses and startups to understand their individual needs and release features that are tailored to them.
He also spends a lot of time researching our competitors, signing up for free trials, getting on calls, networking, and has acquired a lot of knowledge about the HR software industry as a result.
