Guide
How much does payroll software cost in the UK?
Updated
Some UK payroll suppliers print a price. Others will not tell you until you have spoken to a salesperson. Both facts are worth knowing before you shortlist.
The prices we could actually read
| Product | Published price | What the cheapest tier covers |
|---|---|---|
| Basic PAYE Tools | Free | Fewer than 10 employees, per gov.uk |
| Employment Hero Free Payroll | £0 a month | Unlimited employees, stated by the supplier |
| Primo Payroll | £0, then £24.99 a year | 10 employees; the paid tier buys support |
| Moneysoft Payroll Manager | £95 a year excluding VAT | Up to 20 employees for one employer, leavers included |
| Xero | £16 a month excluding VAT | No payroll people included; £1.50 per person |
| FreeAgent | £19 to £33 a month | No per-employee charge |
| IRIS Staffology Payroll | £43 a month plus VAT | 19 payslips a month |
Every figure above was read on the supplier's own pricing page on 15 August 2026 and is reproduced, not estimated. Introductory discounts were in force on several of these pages at that date, so the headline you see may be lower for a first term. Check the supplier's page before you buy.
The ones that publish nothing
BrightPay states that annual and monthly plans are available and sends you to a quote calculator, adding that more than 250 employees for a single employer is quote only. PayFit has no pricing page at all: the site routes to a demo booking. Sage and QuickBooks are both on HMRC's recognised list, but their websites refused our automated checks entirely, so we have not quoted a price for either and have left them out of the comparison table.
What actually moves the price
- Headcount, or payslips
- The commonest unit. Xero charges per person on top of the plan; IRIS Staffology charges a flat fee to 19 payslips then per payslip; Moneysoft sells bands of 20, 100 and 250.
- Number of employers
- One company or many. Moneysoft's £95 tier covers a single employer; its £190 tier removes that limit. This is the single biggest jump for accountants and bureaux.
- Support
- On more than one supplier the paid tiers buy a response time rather than a feature. Decide what an unanswered question in the week of a pay run costs you.
- Pensions and CIS
- Auto-enrolment assessment and provider submissions, and CIS subcontractor handling, are the two things most likely to be a separate module or a higher tier.
- Bundling
- If payroll comes attached to bookkeeping, the payroll line is rarely the whole cost. FreeAgent is free while you hold a qualifying NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle account, which changes the arithmetic entirely.
A price behind a demo is not a red flag, but it is information
Suppliers who quote rather than publish are usually selling into a longer conversation, often with HR features attached. That can be the right product. It does mean you cannot compare it on cost until you have given a salesperson your details, and it means the price is negotiable, which a published one is not. Ask for the per-employee figure and the minimum term in the first call.