UK · Payroll & compliance
Employment Hero Vs Xero Payroll
Employment Hero Payroll and Xero Payroll look like alternatives until you sit down and price them. They are not. One is a free, HR-led platform that wraps payroll inside a wider people stack.
The other is a payroll module bundled into accounting software you may already pay for.
The right choice depends entirely on what you already own and what you want the second tool in your stack to do.
The headline contrast is sharp. Employment Hero offers free payroll for unlimited employees with no Xero plan or accounting subscription required. Xero Payroll cannot be bought standalone at all.
You need a Xero accounting plan starting at GBP 16/month before payroll becomes accessible, and even the entry-tier Ignite plan includes zero payroll employees by default.
For a 25-person UK SME running its books on QuickBooks or Sage, Employment Hero costs nothing for payroll while Xero costs roughly GBP 73-80/month before any other consideration.
That gap reverses sharply for accounting-native teams. If your finance team already runs Xero accounting at the broad tier, payroll for ten employees adds GBP 7.50/month to a bill you already pay.
Switching to Employment Hero saves nothing on payroll itself but introduces a new vendor, a new login, and a manual journal export to your accounting platform. The decision is rarely about Whichapp engine is better.
It is about which integration friction you are willing to absorb.
We assessed both platforms across pricing logic, HMRC compliance breadth, HR bundling depth, accounting integration, pension scheme coverage, and support quality for UK People Ops and Finance buyers in May 2026.
Employment Hero vs Xero Payroll: which should you choose?
UK-focused cross-provider analysis reviewed May 2026
Employment Hero wins on breadth, bundling HR, payroll and benefits in one platform; Xero Payroll wins when accounting integration matters more than HR depth.
Last checked: 2026-04-30 · Whichapp evaluates comparison pages quarterly. No paid placement.
Price from
Employment HeroFrom £8/employee/mo
Xero PayrollFrom £16/mo (payroll add-on)
Best for
Employment HeroAll-in-one HR + payroll + benefits platform
Xero PayrollAccounting-led teams already on Xero
Watch out for
Employment HeroHR breadth means payroll depth is secondary
Xero PayrollPayroll is an add-on; not standalone HR
How evaluated: Live UK provider pricing pages plus HMRC RTI and FPS filing checks; affiliate links used where programmes are live.
Employment Hero vs Xero Payroll at a Glance
The fastest way to read this comparison is to know where you sit on a single axis: do you already run Xero accounting, or not? Everything else flows from that answer.
If you do not run Xero, Employment Hero wins on cost outright. The free tier is a genuine free tier, not a freemium gate. HMRC recognition, RTI submissions, automatic enrolment, and unlimited employee headcount are all included at zero cost.
The trade is that you self-serve, accept ad-supported in-app placements in the free product, and integrate to your accounting tool through a third-party connector rather than natively.
If you do run Xero, Employment Hero stops being obviously cheaper because you are already paying GBP 16-65/month for the accounting subscription.
Xero Payroll then becomes a small marginal add-on (GBP 1.00-1.50/employee/month) sitting inside the same platform, with native journal posting, bank rec, and a single login. The cost difference shrinks; the integration gap widens.
The second axis is HR. Employment Hero is an HR platform with payroll attached. Xero is accounting software with payroll attached.
If your team needs onboarding workflows, document storage, performance reviews, and engagement surveys alongside payroll, Employment Hero handles both jobs in one tool. Xero does not. That is not a flaw of Xero, it is a positioning choice.
But it changes which tool fits which buyer.
The take: If you are not already on Xero, default to Employment Hero unless you have a specific reason not to. If you are already on Xero, default to Xero Payroll unless your headcount is approaching 200, you need P11Ds, or your pension provider sits outside the NEST and People’s Pension pair.
Full Comparison Table: Employment Hero vs Xero Payroll
The table below summarises the core specification differences for UK buyers. We have stripped marketing language and given you the contract-relevant facts.
| Criterion | Employment Hero Payroll | Xero Payroll |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, unlimited employees | No, requires Xero accounting plan |
| Standalone payroll product | Yes | No, bundled with accounting |
| Entry price | GBP 0/month | GBP 16/month (Ignite plan, 0 payroll employees included) |
| Per-employee cost | GBP 0 (free tier) or GBP 12 (managed) | GBP 1.00-1.50/employee/month |
| Employee headcount cap | None | 200 employees |
| HMRC recognition | Yes | Yes |
| RTI submissions | Yes, automatic | Yes, automatic |
| P11D submissions | Yes, native | No, not natively supported |
| Auto-enrolment pensions | PensionSync (NEST, The People’s Pension, Smart Pension and others) | NEST and The People’s Pension direct; file download for others |
| IR35 / off-payroll worker handling | Manual configuration | Native support inside payroll module |
| HR module included | Yes (HR Essentials at GBP 4/employee/month, min GBP 40/month) | No |
| Accounting integration | Xero, QuickBooks, Sage (third-party connectors) | Native (same platform) |
| Best for | Cost-sensitive SMEs, HR-led teams, non-Xero accounting users | Existing Xero accounting subscribers under 200 employees |
The take: The table makes the bundling logic visible. Employment Hero priced as a standalone product is unbeatable on cost. Xero priced as a marginal add-on to an existing accounting subscription is unbeatable on integration friction.
What Are the Key Differences Between Employment Hero and Xero Payroll?
Five differences matter for UK buyers. The rest is detail.
One: bundling logic. Employment Hero bundles HR with payroll. Xero bundles accounting with payroll.
You cannot buy Xero Payroll without Xero accounting.
You can buy Employment Hero Payroll without any other Employment Hero product.
Two: free tier. Employment Hero offers a genuine free tier with HMRC recognition, RTI, and unlimited employees. Xero has no free option for payroll at any tier.
Three: employee cap. Xero hard-caps payroll at 200 employees per organisation. Employment Hero has no cap.
UK SMEs growing past 200 staff need migration planning on Xero.
They do not on Employment Hero.
Four: P11D and benefits-in-kind. Employment Hero handles P11D submissions natively. Xero does not.
UK employers offering benefits-in-kind (private medical, company cars, accommodation) need a workaround on Xero, typically a third-party tool or manual HMRC submission.
Five: pension scheme breadth. Employment Hero connects to PensionSync, which covers NEST, The People’s Pension, Smart Pension, Now Pensions, and others through a single integration.
Xero supports NEST and The People’s Pension directly; everything else requires file download and manual upload to the pension provider’s portal.
These five differences explain almost every buying decision. The smaller items, like report customisation, payslip templating, or holiday accrual logic, sit downstream of the bundling and compliance choices above.
The take: Map your situation to the five differences. If three or more favour Employment Hero, buy Employment Hero. If three or more favour Xero, buy Xero.
The edge cases that need deeper analysis are rare.
What Is Employment Hero and What Does It Offer?
Employment Hero is an Australia-headquartered HR and payroll platform serving over 300,000 businesses across Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Singapore, and Malaysia. The UK payroll product began as KeyPay, a specialist UK and Australian payroll engine.
Employment Hero acquired KeyPay in 2022 and rebranded it as Employment Hero Payroll while retaining the underlying engine.
For UK buyers, the offering splits into three tiers. The free tier provides HMRC-recognised payroll for unlimited employees with RTI submissions, P45/P46/P60 generation, automatic enrolment via PensionSync, and standard payslip delivery.
The free tier carries advertising in some interface elements but does not gate compliance features. Core Payroll at GBP 30/month minimum adds removed advertising, advanced reporting, custom payslip branding, and timesheet integration.
Managed Payroll at GBP 12/employee/month adds full bureau service: a named contact runs your payroll, files RTI on your behalf, and handles HMRC correspondence.
The HR platform sits alongside payroll as a separate product. HR Essentials starts at GBP 4/employee/month with a GBP 40/month minimum, covering employee records, document management, leave tracking, and onboarding workflows.
HR Premium and HR Platinum add performance reviews, engagement surveys, learning content, and rewards.
The integration model is third-party. Employment Hero connects to Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage through journal export connectors.
The connection is reliable but not native; you are mapping payroll output to chart-of-accounts codes through a configuration screen rather than seeing payroll inside your accounting interface.
The take: Employment Hero is a credible standalone payroll product that happens to come with an HR platform. Buy it for the payroll if you want free or low-cost UK compliance. Buy it for the HR if you want a unified people platform without Workday or BambooHR pricing.
What Is Xero Payroll and What Does It Offer?
Xero Payroll is a payroll module inside Xero accounting, the New Zealand-headquartered cloud accounting platform that serves around four million subscribers globally. Xero is not a payroll-first vendor.
Payroll exists as a feature of the accounting product, sold to existing Xero subscribers as a way to keep employee transactions and journal entries inside one system.
The plan structure is the entry barrier. Ignite at GBP 16/month is the lowest Xero accounting tier and includes zero payroll employees by default; each employee added costs GBP 1.50/month.
Grow at GBP 37/month includes one payroll employee with the same GBP 1.50/employee/month for additions. broad at GBP 50/month includes five payroll employees. Ultimate at GBP 65/month includes ten payroll employees and reduces the per-employee rate to GBP 1.00.
The Ultimate plan also adds multi-currency invoicing and project costing, which are not payroll features but justify the higher tier for many buyers.
Inside the payroll module, Xero handles HMRC RTI submissions, FPS and EPS filings, automatic enrolment via NEST and The People’s Pension, payslip generation, P45/P46/P60 production, and IR35 / off-payroll worker classification.
It does not handle P11D submissions, which UK employers must produce annually for benefits-in-kind. Xero customers handling P11Ds either submit manually through HMRC’s online service or use a third-party tool such as Sage 50 P11D.
The 200-employee cap is the operational ceiling. Xero Payroll is designed for small and lower-mid-market UK businesses, not larger employers. Companies approaching the cap face a forced platform migration, typically to Sage 50, Brightpay, or a managed bureau.
Plan ahead if you expect to hit 150-180 staff within your contract term.
The take: Xero Payroll is the right answer for UK SMEs already running Xero accounting up to roughly 150 employees with simple pension setups and no benefits-in-kind. It is the wrong answer for everyone else.
How Do Employment Hero and Xero Payroll Compare on Features: HR Workflow Depth?
Feature parity exists on the payroll engine itself. Both run RTI, both handle automatic enrolment, both produce P60s and payslips. The feature gap opens around HR workflows.
Employment Hero treats HR as a co-equal product. Even at the free payroll tier, you get basic employee records, document storage for contracts, and self-service portals where staff can update bank details, view payslips, and request leave.
Upgrading to HR Essentials adds onboarding workflows where new joiners receive a sequence of forms, documents, and tasks before their first day. HR Premium layers on performance reviews, goals tracking, and 360 feedback.
The HR platform is opinionated, designed for SME People Ops teams running everything in one tool.
Xero Payroll has employee self-service for payslip access and timesheet submission. That is the extent of the HR layer. There are no onboarding workflows, no document storage beyond payroll-specific items, no performance review module, and no engagement surveys.
Teams running Xero Payroll typically pair it with a separate HR tool: BambooHR, Breathe, Personio, or sometimes a Notion-based system.
The cost implication for HR-needy buyers is significant. A 25-person team using Xero Payroll at the broad plan (GBP 80/month) plus BambooHR Essentials (around GBP 4.99/employee/month, so ~GBP 125/month) totals roughly GBP 205/month.
Employment Hero with HR Essentials for the same team costs GBP 100/month (HR only, free payroll). The HR-bundled choice saves around GBP 1,260/year.
The take: If your team needs HR workflows, Employment Hero saves money and reduces vendor count. If your team only needs payroll plus light self-service, Xero is sufficient and the HR comparison does not apply.
How Do Employment Hero and Xero Payroll Compare on Pricing: Total Cost at 25 Employees?
Pricing comparisons for these two providers must include the accounting context, the payroll line. We modelled three real-world UK SME scenarios.
Scenario 1: 10-employee team, no Xero accounting. Employment Hero free tier costs GBP 0/month. Xero requires accounting plus payroll: Grow plan at GBP 37/month plus 9 additional payroll employees at GBP 1.50/each totals GBP 50.50/month, or GBP 606/year.
The broad plan at GBP 50/month plus 5 additional employees at GBP 1.50/each totals GBP 57.50/month, or GBP 690/year. If you need accounting anyway, Xero is the answer. If you do not, Employment Hero saves the full annual cost.
Scenario 2: 25-employee team, no Xero accounting. Employment Hero free tier still costs GBP 0/month. Xero Grow at GBP 37/month plus 24 additional employees at GBP 1.50/each totals GBP 73/month, or GBP 876/year.
Xero broad at GBP 50/month plus 20 additional employees at GBP 1.50/each totals GBP 80/month, or GBP 960/year. The annual saving with Employment Hero is approaching GBP 1,000.
Scenario 3: 50-employee team, no Xero accounting. Employment Hero free tier costs GBP 0/month. Xero Ultimate at GBP 65/month plus 40 additional employees at GBP 1.00/each totals GBP 105/month, or GBP 1,260/year.
The free tier saves GBP 1,260/year and removes the 200-employee cap as a future migration risk.
The maths inverts only for existing Xero accounting customers. If you already pay GBP 50/month for broad accounting, adding 10 payroll employees costs GBP 7.50/month marginal.
Switching that team to Employment Hero saves GBP 7.50/month payroll but introduces a third-party connector, a second login, and bank reconciliation friction. Most finance teams in this position stay on Xero.
The take: Employment Hero is the cheaper choice for any team not already running Xero accounting. The economic case is decisive at 25+ employees. Below 10 employees on existing Xero, the marginal cost of Xero Payroll is small enough that integration convenience usually wins.
How Do Employment Hero and Xero Payroll Compare on Compliance: HMRC RTI and Statutory Submissions?
Both platforms hold HMRC PAYE software recognition and run RTI submissions automatically. Employment Hero submits all required RTI reporting directly to HMRC after a pay run, sending National Insurance data and PAYE in a single click, so the routine filing burden stays inside the payroll module (Employment Hero, automated payroll; Details last checked: 30 June 2026). The compliance breadth divergence sits in three places: P11D submissions, off-payroll worker classification, and Construction Industry Scheme handling.
P11D and benefits-in-kind. Employment Hero produces P11D submissions natively for UK employers offering medical insurance, company cars, accommodation, or other taxable benefits.
The forms generate from payroll data, file directly to HMRC, and reconcile against your year-end accounts. Xero Payroll does not handle P11Ds at all. UK Xero customers either submit manually through HMRC’s PAYE Online service or use a separate tool.
For employers with even a handful of benefits-in-kind, the Xero gap creates real annual workload at year-end.
Off-payroll worker / IR35 classification. Xero handles IR35 status determination and deemed employment payments inside the payroll module.
The contractor sits in the same employee list with a flag, payroll calculations apply employer NI and apprenticeship levy correctly, and the resulting payment runs through standard RTI.
Employment Hero requires manual configuration: contractors are typically run as separate payment types with the IR35 status manually applied to gross-to-net calculations.
For organisations using significant numbers of off-payroll contractors, Xero’s native handling reduces error risk.
Construction Industry Scheme (CIS). Neither product is a CIS specialist. Both can handle CIS deductions, but neither matches the depth of dedicated tools like CIS300 or specialist construction payroll bureaux.
If CIS is core to your business, run a separate proof-of-concept against a CIS-native product before committing.
The take: The compliance gap favours Employment Hero for benefits-in-kind employers and Xero for off-payroll worker volume. Most UK SMEs without significant off-payroll spend will value the P11D handling more than the IR35 native support.
How Do Employment Hero and Xero Payroll Compare on Integrations: HR and Accounting Connectors?
The HR integration question is partly redundant for Xero Payroll because Xero does not have an HR platform to integrate with. The real comparison is Employment Hero’s bundled HR layer against the third-party HR tools you would pair with Xero.
Employment Hero’s HR module covers the standard SME People Ops stack: employee records with custom fields, document storage with e-signature for contracts, leave management with self-service requests and manager approval, onboarding workflows that schedule pre-start tasks for new joiners, and basic performance review templates.
The integration with payroll is tight: when you mark a leaver in HR, the payroll module flags the final pay calculation. When you change a salary in HR, the payroll record updates. There is one source of truth for employee data.
Xero Payroll plus a separate HR tool requires careful integration setup. BambooHR, Breathe, and Personio all offer Xero connectors, but the connection scope varies. Employee record sync usually works.
Leave-to-pay integration is patchier; some tools push approved time off into Xero payroll automatically, others require manual entry. The result is two systems of record that need active reconciliation. For 50-person teams, this is manageable.
For 150-person teams, the duplicate-data overhead becomes a real burden.
Document management is another gap. Employment Hero stores contracts, policy documents, and signed forms inside the platform with audit trails. Xero Payroll does not.
UK GDPR and employment law obligations on document retention then sit either in your separate HR tool, in a shared drive, or in your HR consultant’s filing system.
The take: If document management, onboarding, and leave workflows matter for your team, Employment Hero handles them inside one platform. Xero buyers should plan a separate HR tool from day one rather than retrofitting one when the team grows.
How Do Employment Hero and Xero Payroll Compare on Support: Response Time and Channel Coverage?
Both providers offer multi-channel support, but the access models differ in ways that matter for time-pressured payroll teams approaching deadlines.
Employment Hero offers email and live chat support across all paid tiers, with response times typically under four hours during UK business hours. The free tier has access to a help centre and community forum, with chat support gated to paying customers.
Managed Payroll customers get a named contact who runs payroll and answers operational questions directly. Phone support is available on higher tiers but is not the default channel; the support model is chat-first.
Xero offers email support across all plans with no published phone number for general support. The model is ticket-based: you raise a question, receive a response within typically 24 hours, and continue the conversation through the support portal.
Live chat exists for some account types but is not universal. For payroll-specific queries during the RTI submission window, the response speed can feel slow if you are facing a same-day filing deadline.
Customer review patterns reflect this. Trustpilot reviews for Employment Hero (UK and global, around 5,000 reviews) cluster around fast chat responses and named-contact relationships in the managed tier; complaints focus on the free tier self-serve experience.
Trustpilot reviews for Xero (around 4,500 reviews) cluster around the breadth of the accounting product; payroll-specific feedback is more mixed, with some users praising the integration and others frustrated by support latency on payroll-only issues.
The take: If support speed during payroll runs is a priority, Employment Hero on a paid tier or Managed Payroll has the edge. Xero support is sufficient for routine questions but less responsive for time-critical payroll issues.
Which Should You Choose: Employment Hero or Xero Payroll?
The decision rules sort cleanly into four buyer profiles.
Whichapp view: the choice is rarely about Whichapp engine is better. It is about which friction you can live with, a new vendor and connector on Employment Hero, or a 200-employee ceiling and missing P11Ds on Xero.
Profile 1: SME under 50 employees, not on Xero, cost-sensitive. Choose Employment Hero free tier. The annual saving is GBP 600-1,260 versus Xero, and you give up nothing on HMRC compliance.
Re-evaluate at 100 employees if you grow into needing managed bureau services.
Profile 2: Existing Xero accounting customer, under 100 employees, simple pension setup. Choose Xero Payroll. The marginal cost is small (GBP 1.00-1.50/employee/month), the integration is native, and your finance team already knows the interface.
The 200-employee cap is a future problem, not a current one. Re-evaluate at 150 employees.
Profile 3: 100-200 employees, HR workflows required, no current Xero dependency. Choose Employment Hero with HR Essentials.
The combined HR plus payroll cost is lower than Xero Payroll plus a separate HR tool, the data lives in one platform, and you avoid the 200-employee migration cliff. This is the strongest case for Employment Hero in absolute terms.
Profile 4: Growing team approaching 200 employees with benefits-in-kind. Choose Employment Hero, even if currently on Xero. The migration cost from Xero is real, but the 200-cap and the lack of P11D support together create a worse migration problem within 12-18 months.
Better to switch on your own timeline than under deadline pressure.
Two anti-patterns are common. Choosing Xero Payroll because the rest of the company uses Xero, even when payroll alone would be cheaper on Employment Hero, is rational only if integration friction is genuinely high in your stack.
Choosing Employment Hero because it is free, even when you already pay for Xero accounting and have ten employees, often saves nothing once you account for the new connector setup time.
The take: Match your profile to the four scenarios above. The decision is rarely close once you map cost, headcount trajectory, HR needs, and existing accounting setup against the two platforms.
What Are the Best Alternatives to Employment Hero and Xero Payroll?
Three alternatives deserve consideration depending on what is driving the dissatisfaction with the Employment Hero / Xero choice.
If you want UK-specialist payroll with deeper feature breadth: Brightpay. Brightpay is a UK and Ireland payroll specialist with strong CIS handling, deeper P11D and BiK support than Employment Hero, and detailed reporting. It is desktop-led with a cloud component.
Pricing starts at GBP 199/year for a single-user licence with up to three employees, scaling by employee count. Brightpay does not bundle HR or accounting; it is a payroll-first product. Choose this if your priority is depth of payroll specifically, not bundled HR or accounting.
If you want bureau-level managed payroll: Moorepay or Sage Payroll. Both offer managed payroll services where a named bureau team runs your payroll end-to-end.
Moorepay starts around GBP 12/employee/month for managed service with HR support; Sage Payroll bureau pricing is quote-based. Choose either if your finance team does not want to operate the payroll system themselves and wants outsourced compliance responsibility.
If you want HR-led with deeper performance and engagement: Personio or HiBob. Both are HR-first platforms with payroll integrations rather than embedded payroll. Personio integrates with UK payroll providers; HiBob does similar.
Choose either if HR depth is the priority and payroll is a secondary concern handled through integration.
For a wider review of UK options, see our UK best payroll software guide.
The take: Brightpay for UK payroll depth, Moorepay or Sage for managed bureau service, Personio or HiBob for HR-first with payroll integration. The right alternative depends on which dimension of the Employment Hero / Xero comparison failed your needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Employment Hero Payroll really free for UK businesses?
Yes. The free tier provides HMRC-recognised payroll for unlimited employees with RTI, automatic enrolment via PensionSync, and statutory form generation. The catch is in-app advertising in some interface elements and self-serve support rather than a named contact.
Compliance features are not gated. Around 9,000 UK businesses run on the free tier as of 2026.
Can I buy Xero Payroll without a Xero accounting subscription?
No. Xero Payroll is sold only as part of a Xero accounting plan. The lowest entry tier is Ignite at GBP 16/month, which includes zero payroll employees by default.
Each payroll employee adds GBP 1.50/month. Standalone Xero Payroll does not exist as a product.
If you do not need accounting, Employment Hero or Brightpay is the better fit.
Does Xero Payroll handle P11D submissions for benefits-in-kind?
No. Xero Payroll does not produce P11D submissions natively. UK employers offering medical insurance, company cars, or other taxable benefits must submit P11Ds manually through HMRC’s PAYE Online service or use a third-party tool such as Sage 50 P11D.
Employment Hero handles P11D submissions natively at all paid tiers.
What happens when my team grows past 200 employees on Xero Payroll?
Xero hard-caps payroll at 200 employees per organisation. Companies approaching the cap need to migrate to a different payroll system. Common destinations include Sage 50, Brightpay, Moorepay, or Employment Hero.
Plan the migration when you hit roughly 150 employees so you have time to test, run parallel payrolls, and avoid a forced switch under deadline pressure. Employment Hero has no headcount cap.
Which platform handles auto-enrolment pensions better for non-NEST schemes?
Employment Hero. It connects to PensionSync, which integrates with NEST, The People’s Pension, Smart Pension, Now Pensions, and other major UK auto-enrolment providers through a single connection.
Xero supports only NEST and The People’s Pension directly; for any other scheme, you generate a contribution file from Xero and upload it manually to the pension provider’s portal each pay run.
For employers with Smart Pension or Now Pensions, the Employment Hero workflow is materially less effort.
Can I integrate Employment Hero Payroll with Xero accounting?
Yes. Employment Hero Payroll has a Xero connector that exports payroll journals into your Xero accounting file. The integration is reliable but third-party rather than native.
You map payroll output to your Xero chart of accounts during setup, and journals post on each pay run.
The trade-off versus running Xero Payroll natively is a small amount of additional setup and maintenance, in exchange for free payroll. For teams that already pay Xero for accounting and run 25 or fewer payroll employees, this hybrid setup is a common cost-saving choice.
Which platform is better for off-payroll worker (IR35) handling?
Xero Payroll handles IR35 / off-payroll worker classification natively inside the payroll module. Contractors sit in the same employee list with a status flag, deemed employment payments calculate correctly, and RTI submissions reflect the right tax treatment.
Employment Hero requires manual configuration of off-payroll workers as separate payment types. For organisations using significant numbers of off-payroll contractors, Xero is the lower-error option.
Does Employment Hero offer a managed payroll service like a traditional bureau?
Yes. Employment Hero Managed Payroll at GBP 12/employee/month provides a named bureau contact who runs your payroll, files RTI on your behalf, handles HMRC correspondence, and resolves payroll queries directly.
This is closer to the Moorepay or Sage bureau model than to the self-serve Employment Hero free tier. For 25-50 person teams without an in-house payroll specialist, the managed tier removes operational responsibility while keeping the platform consolidated with HR.
How We Compared Employment Hero and Xero Payroll
Whichapp is an independent comparison site for global payroll, EOR, and contractor management platforms. We do not sell these services and do not accept payment for editorial placement or rankings. We may earn a commission if you book a demo or request a quote through links on this page.
Rankings reflect the editorial team's independent assessment and were not reviewed or approved by any provider before publication.
Data Sources
- Provider pricing pages for all listed platforms (verified April 2026)
- G2 and Capterra reviews for all listed platforms (Jan–Apr 2026)
- Provider help centre documentation and country guides
- Whichapp provider score composite data (see sources & data)
Research Approach
Both providers were assessed against the same criteria: pricing model and total employment cost, entity model and compliance infrastructure, country coverage depth and quality, platform usability and onboarding, customer support model, and verified user feedback from G2 and Capterra. Neither provider was engaged for a paid pilot or contract. Last updated April 2026.