HR software for small business UK

Kei HR is for small UK teams. The essentials, one flat price, plus a rate per user. No hidden fees. It is not sold as a platform for enterprise procurement.

What jobs does it cover?

Time off, hours, documents, and pay calculations. It is not an enterprise suite, and it does not add modules you will not use.

• Holiday tracking handles accruals, carryovers, and regional holidays.
• Time tracking is for hybrid teams, with location on the record, and those hours feed pay calculations.
• People records sit in one place: org chart, profile, payment details, and a department name.
• Documents have version history and an audit trail. You can upload a document on an employee page.
• Permissions are per feature, so managers, admins, and employees only open the records they should.
• Training can be recorded against a person.

How much does 5 users cost?

Five users on Starter is £35 a month. That is less than a day of the HR admin you are doing by hand.

What happens at 16 users?

The £4 rate applies to all users, not only the 16th. Fifteen users is £85. Sixteen users is £84.

Starter is the tier recommended for teams up to 15. You can type a headcount into the calculator and see the monthly total before you start. Fees are non-refundable except where required by law.

Does this file UK payroll with HMRC?

No. Pay is calculated from a salary or from hours already tracked, and you can mark a run paid. Overtime can be included for a salaried person.

It does not submit PAYE, RTI, or pensions to HMRC. Lunch can be deducted from tracked hours when timesheets are set that way, so the hours in the pay calculation are the ones you meant to count.

How long is the trial, and where is the data?

The trial is 3 days, every feature, no credit card. You can cancel anytime.

Customer data is hosted in AWS Europe (Ireland), encrypted at rest and in transit. GDPR and UK Data Protection Act compliant: audit trails, data export, and deletion on request.

Kei HR does not claim ISO 27001 or SOC 2, and it does not publish a review score. Support is replies in hours, from the people who built the product. That hours figure is not a measured average. The product is run by Harry Thorpe at Keiko Labs.

What breaks if you assume an enterprise suite?

There is no implementation project and no price you only get on the phone. Setup is the trial: 3 days, every feature, no credit card.

A team of ten stays on Starter. Ten users is £10 + 10 × £5 = £60 a month. You do not cross into Scale until the 16th user, and then the £4 rate applies to all 16.

Holiday carryover and regional holidays are in the time-off record. They are not a separate module. Hours from people in more than one place feed the same pay calculation.

The written limit is the one to keep: pay calculations are not HMRC filing. If you need PAYE, RTI, or pensions submitted, that work stays outside Kei HR. The product manual states the same rules.

Invitation emails bring a person onto the team. Time-off emails can carry a calendar file. Neither one is a payslip. Billing status in the app shows whether the subscription and the payment are in place. It does not change the £35 or £100 examples above.

A spreadsheet can hold the same names. It will not apply the 16-user rate to every user, keep document versions, or show the monthly total before you type a card number. The calculator does the total. The trial does not take a card.

Keiko Labs was incorporated in 2024. The registered office is 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ. The company number is 15833345.

Side-by-side notes: Kei HR vs CharlieHR and Kei HR vs BambooHR. Documentation is at the Kei HR docs.