# BrightHR review (2026): is it worth £16.67 a month? > HR software with holiday, rota and absence tools and advice lines Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. BrightHR is HR software for small and mid-sized businesses in the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It covers holiday and absence tracking, shifts and rotas, clocking in, expenses and document storage, with optional health and safety software, an employment-law advice line and payroll sold alongside it. - **Category:** HR Software - **Made by:** BrightHR - **Website:** https://www.brighthr.com - **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you are in the US, as no US edition was found. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, BrightHR is a paid product, starting at £16.67 per employee / month (£83.35 a month at the smallest size shown). - **Pricing model:** Paid - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Core HR software | £16.67 per employee / month, excluding tax | Holiday planner, rotas, absence, performance, overtime and expense tools, reporting, and a payroll navigator. £83.35 a month at 5 employees. | | Enhanced HR support | £21.20 per employee / month, excluding tax | Core package plus a 24/7 HR and employment law advice line and document templates. Insurance is quoted separately. £106 a month at 5 employees. | | Full HR, health and safety support | £31.30 per employee / month, excluding tax | Enhanced package plus health and safety software and advice and a wellbeing portal. £156.50 a month at 5 employees. | Read from https://www.brighthr.com/pricing/ on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with BrightHR before buying. ## Key features - **Holiday and absence management:** A staff holiday planner with booking and approvals, plus tools for recording sick leave and lateness across the team. - **Shifts and rotas:** Create and edit shifts across any working pattern, including an open shifts feature, and let staff clock in and out from the Blip app. - **Expenses, documents and reporting:** Expense tracking, HR document storage and a custom reporting system sit in the core package. - **Advice lines and templates:** Higher packages add a 24/7 HR and employment law advice line and a library of HR document templates. - **Health and safety software:** Accident and near-miss reporting, 600+ risk assessment templates, task reminders and hazardous substances management. - **Payroll navigator and payroll service:** A payroll navigator is in the core package, and a separate payroll software and managed payroll service is sold on its own pages. ## Good for - Small UK or Irish businesses that want HR tools and an advice line from one vendor - Shift-based teams that need rotas and clocking in - Businesses that also want health and safety software ## Worth knowing - Prices are in pounds, excluding tax, and the site is aimed at UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; no US edition was found. - The FAQ says prices start from £3.00 per person depending on business size and that quotes come from a demo. - The pricing page does not state the contract length beyond calling them fixed-term contracts. - Insurance is not in the online prices; it is quoted separately. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. BrightHR covers holidays, rotas, absence, performance and expenses, and sells an HR and employment-law advice line on top. Prices start at £16.67 per employee a month excluding tax, which is about $22, and the cheapest plan has no advice line. It's aimed at the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with no US edition. - **Value for money: C.** £16.67 per employee a month excluding tax, about $22, near the top quarter of the category. £83.35 a month at 5 employees; advice lines and safety tools push it to £31.30. - **Free plan and trial: F.** No free plan and no trial is on record in the listing or on its pricing page. - **Features: B.** Holiday, absence, rotas, overtime, expenses, documents and reporting, plus a payroll navigator. The listing names no gap in the core HR work; payroll itself is not run. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. Holiday rules, rotas and documents need setting up. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web plus iOS and Android apps, with an integrations page (5 on record). No desktop app. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Bright HR's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among HR software - BrightHR's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 30 of the 63 other HR software we grade, and level with 10. - It stands best on features (B, above 41 of 63) and worst on free plan and trial (F, above 0). - Its paid plans start at about $22.34 a month for each person, against a middle price of $5.36 for the category: 27 of the 36 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.7 out of 4. 1 tool scores higher and costs less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/hr-software ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace BrightHR you would be making payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It costs $268.03 a year. - You could make: Employee records, time off and reports: an app builder makes these well. - You could not: Payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. - You could not: A rota the whole staff sees on their phones, with swaps and alerts. - You could not: Clocking in from a phone, checked against where and when. - You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page. - You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Zapier, Microsoft Entra ID and Xero among them. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Zapier, Microsoft Entra ID, Xero, Slack, HubSpot **Tags:** Employee records, Time off, Shift scheduling, Time clock, Payroll, Reports ## Alternatives - [Breathe](https://toolgpa.com/tools/breathe): UK HR software for small firms, priced per business, not per person. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/breathe-vs-brighthr) - [CharlieHR](https://toolgpa.com/tools/charliehr): HR software for UK small businesses, priced by team-size bracket. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/brighthr-vs-charliehr) - [Factorial](https://toolgpa.com/tools/factorial): HR, time, shifts, expenses and IT for small firms, quoted by module. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/brighthr-vs-factorial) - [Personio](https://toolgpa.com/tools/personio): European HR platform for records, absences, time and recruiting. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/brighthr-vs-personio) - [BambooHR](https://toolgpa.com/tools/bamboohr): HR records, hiring, time off and reviews, with US payroll as an add-on. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/bamboohr-vs-brighthr) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://www.brighthr.com/pricing/ - https://www.brighthr.com/ - https://www.brighthr.com/integrations/ - https://www.brighthr.com/hr-software/ - https://www.brighthr.com/about-us/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/brighthr Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).