Questions to ask when comparing Employment Hero vs CharlieHR

Does CharlieHR actually run my UK payroll?

If payroll is a priority alongside HR, these are questions worth putting to any platform you are evaluating:

Does the platform run PAYE, National Insurance and RTI submissions natively, or does it rely on syncing data to a separate payroll provider? Are statutory payments including SSP, SMP and SPP calculated inside the platform, or does your payroll provider handle those separately? If payroll lives outside your HR system, how does that affect your pay run process each month?

Employment Hero runs HMRC-recognised payroll natively: PAYE, National Insurance, RTI submissions and pension auto-enrolment are all handled inside the same platform as your HR, so you are not reconciling two systems every pay ru

Can CharlieHR handle shift-based or hourly teams?

If you manage hourly, frontline or shift-based teams, it’s worth asking whether their platform includes native time and attendance, or whether it has clock-in data managed through a separate tool instead. You’ll also want to know if rota and shift scheduling are built in, or whether frontline teams need to use a different system. 

Employment Hero includes rota scheduling, shift bidding and swapping, geofenced clock-ins and award-based costing as part of its time and attendance solution, built for retail, hospitality and care teams as well as office-based staff.

Will I need to buy extra tools alongside CharlieHR as I grow?

It’s important to ensure your tools can grow alongside your business, and to look for features that support your business as you scale. Does your chosen platform have recruitment built into the core plan, or is it a separate paid add-on? Is HR advisory and support offered if you need it? Are learning management and employee benefits part of the platform, or do you connect them through a third-party marketplace? 

Understanding what is included in your base plan versus what requires an additional subscription helps you compare the true total cost. Employment Hero includes an ATS, AI-powered hiring, an LMS powered by Go1 and a UK benefits marketplace as part of the same platform so you are not stitching together a stack of point solutions as your team grows.

The information on this page is current as at July 2026 and has been prepared by Employment Hero Pty Ltd (ABN 11 160 047 709) and its affiliates (Employment Hero). This page describes Employment Hero’s products and poses questions you may wish to raise with other providers; it is general information only and not professional advice. Product features, plans and pricing change over time, so please confirm current details directly with each provider before making any decisions.