Sage HR

Sage HR started life as CakeHR and Sage has kept what made it good: it is modular, it is priced per employee, and you can start with one thing and add the rest later. That structure suits growing UK businesses far better than a monolithic HR suite you buy once and grow into over three years.

What it does well

Leave management is the core, and it is the module most businesses buy first because it replaces the spreadsheet everybody hates. Employees request, managers approve, HR sees the calendar, and entitlements calculate themselves including part days. It is unglamorous and it works.

The modular pricing is honest. Core Sage HR with leave management starts at £5 per employee per month. Performance management, timesheets and shift scheduling are £2.50 per employee per month each. Expenses is £1.25. Recruitment is a flat £184.45 per month. You can see exactly what each capability costs before you commit, which is refreshing in a market that prefers to bundle and obscure.

The mobile app is properly built rather than an afterthought, which matters when half your workforce does not sit at a desk. Requests and approvals from a phone are the difference between a system people use and a system HR chases people to use.

Where it falls short

The modules add up quickly. A business wanting leave, performance, timesheets and expenses is at £11.25 per employee per month before recruitment, which for fifty staff is over £560 a month. That is competitive against enterprise HR but no longer cheap, and it is well above what the £5 headline suggests.

The 250 employee ceiling is real. Sage positions this for companies up to that size and steers larger organisations to Sage People. If you are at 200 and growing fast, ask about the migration path before you invest in configuration.

Payroll is a separate subscription. Sage HR connects to Sage Payroll but does not include it, so do not read the HR features in the payroll products as the same thing as this.

The UK detail that matters

Leave calculations handle UK statutory holiday entitlement, and the platform connects to Sage Payroll for UK RTI compliant pay runs. Sage also sells HR Advice separately for UK employment law and health and safety guidance, which small employers without an HR function often need more than they need software. There is a 30 day free trial with no payment details required.

Who should buy it

UK businesses between roughly 20 and 250 employees who want to retire the holiday spreadsheet and add capability over time. Price the specific modules you need rather than working from the headline figure, and compare the total against BreatheHR and CharlieHR at your actual headcount.