Breathe HR Alternatives for UK Businesses

Breathe HR is one of the most widely adopted HR platforms for UK small businesses, and for good reason: it is simple, affordable, and handles leave, documents, and employee records well. Businesses typically look for an alternative when they need native payroll, when they want ERA 2025 compliance features built in, or when the per-employee cost at higher headcounts makes a different pricing model more attractive.

The main alternatives worth evaluating are Mellow, CharlieHR, BrightHR, and — at a higher price point — Personio. Of these, Mellow is the only one that includes native UK payroll at a price comparable to Breathe. CharlieHR and BrightHR are HR-only like Breathe. Personio adds more features but at a significantly higher cost.

If the primary driver for switching from Breathe is payroll — you want to stop exporting data to Xero or a bureau — Mellow is the most direct replacement that adds payroll without dramatically increasing the per-employee cost. The migration itself is manageable: employee records export from Breathe as CSV, import into Mellow, and payroll history from a previous provider can be loaded as year-to-date figures. Most businesses complete the migration within a working week.