Kei HR vs CharlieHR

CharlieHR is UK small-business HR. Their public line is "HR software built to be your first HR hire". Kei HR is HR software for small UK teams: the essentials, one flat price, not an enterprise suite.

How much is 5 users?

Five users on Kei HR Starter is £35 a month. That is £10 flat plus £5 for each of the five users.

CharlieHR's published price for 5–9 people is £47 a month, and that figure excludes VAT. The published price for 1–4 people is £21 a month, also excluding VAT.

What happens when you pass 15 users?

Starter stops at 15 users. Scale is £20 a month flat plus £4 per user, and that £4 rate applies to every user, not only the ones past 15.

Fifteen users is £85. Sixteen users is £20 + 16 × £4 = £84. The monthly total can fall when you cross the line, because the lower per-user rate replaces the higher one for the whole team.

The calculator on the pricing page does this sum for any headcount before you start a trial. CharlieHR's brackets do not show that jump with a calculator.

What is included, and what is not?

Time tracking and payroll calculations are in Kei HR, not a later add-on. Payroll means working out pay for salaried and hourly people from hours already tracked, then marking a run paid.

• Time off with accruals, carryovers, and regional holidays.
• Hours for people who are not all in one office, including location on the record.
• Documents with version history and an audit trail.
• Permissions per feature, so managers, admins, and employees open only the records they should.
• It does not submit PAYE, RTI, or pensions to HMRC. You still need a payroll filing route for that.

The trial is 3 days, every feature, no credit card. You can cancel anytime. Fees are non-refundable except where required by law. Prices on this site are in GBP and billed monthly. Payments go through Stripe.

Where does the data sit, and what proof is missing?

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

CharlieHR states GDPR and ISO 27001. Kei HR does not claim ISO 27001 or SOC 2. There is no published review score on this site.

CharlieHR publishes two named testimonials and a support-speed claim. Those quotes are not repeated here. Kei HR does not publish customer quotes or a measured response time.

Support is replies in hours, from the people who built the product. The hours figure is not a measured average. Product documentation is at the Kei HR docs. Kei HR is run by Harry Thorpe at Keiko Labs, company 15833345, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ.

What should you check before you switch?

A team of 4 pays CharlieHR's published £21 a month, which excludes VAT, or £30 on Kei HR Starter. The fifth person moves CharlieHR onto the £47 bracket.

On Kei HR that fifth person adds £5. The month goes from £30 to £35. There is no bracket jump inside Starter.

This page does not have a published CharlieHR price above 9 people. The 15-user and 20-user rows are Kei HR only. Do not read them as a CharlieHR quote.

The trial is 3 days. That is long enough to enter a headcount, record a holiday, and run one pay calculation. It is not a quarter of accruals. Every feature is on, and no credit card is taken.

If the job you need is HMRC filing, Kei HR will not do it. If the job is seeing the monthly number before a sales call, use the calculator. Support replies in hours, and that figure is not a measured average.

See also Kei HR vs BambooHR and HR software for small business UK.