Access PeopleHR vs HourSquare: UK payroll suite or HR that is free for now?
Short version: Access PeopleHR is the better fit for a UK or Irish business that wants HR and native payroll from one vendor, needs performance reviews or recruitment, and accepts a tiered per-employee price list with paid add-ons. HourSquare is the better fit for any team that wants every module free with no tier decisions, and for teams of any size outside the UK and Ireland that want payroll with tax packs for 24+ countries inside the HR tool. PeopleHR publishes prices from £3 per employee per month with a 14-day trial. HourSquare is free forever for teams of up to 10 people, and free for now for larger teams. Both are self-serve at the entry level.
Who this is for: Teams paying per employee plus add-ons for features they use lightly, teams outside the UK and Ireland that need payroll for other countries, and teams that want EU rather than UK hosting. Stay on PeopleHR if you need UK managed payroll, performance reviews, an ATS or a documented API.
- Pricing
- Free forever for teams of up to 10 people, free for now for larger teams
- Free tier
- Every module, no card to sign up, no trial expiry, no sales call
- Team size
- Any size, from 1 employee up
- How you buy
- Self-serve signup
- Hosting
- EU-hosted
- Pricing
- £3 per employee/month (Starter)
- Free tier
- Trial only
- Team size
- UK SMBs
- How you buy
- Self-serve signup
- Hosting
- UK (Telehouse N2, London)
Vendor facts as published on 2026-09-05. (source)
Choose HourSquare if…
Every module is free for now, with no card to sign up, no tiers and no add-ons If you pay people outside the UK and Ireland, HourSquare runs payroll with tax packs for 24+ countries If you want timesheets, pulse surveys, whistleblowing and offboarding without per-module fees, HourSquare bundles them in one product If you need EU hosting and an audit log of sensitive-data reads and record changes, HourSquare states both; PeopleHR is UK-hosted with logs on request If you want 2FA with passkeys and SSO for every user, HourSquare includes them for every company
Choose Access PeopleHR if…
You want UK or Ireland payroll run or fully managed by the HR vendor You need performance reviews or appraisals; HourSquare has no performance module You need an ATS, learning or benefits in the same suite; HourSquare has none of these, and its Expenses module covers receipt claims with approval, paid outside payroll You need a native mobile app; HourSquare is a responsive web app with a phone layout You need a broad documented API and pre-built integrations; HourSquare's API covers time clocks, employees and time entries only
UK SMBs that want HR and native UK/Ireland payroll from one vendor and are comfortable with a modular, tiered price list.
Side by side
Every Access PeopleHR cell links to the page it was read from. HourSquare cells describe what ships today — nothing on our roadmap counts.
Pricing & buying
People & records
Time off & time
Payroll
Engagement & insight
Access & security
Platform
Vendor facts for Access PeopleHR were checked on 2026-09-05. If something has changed, email support@hoursquare.com and we will fix it within a day.
About Access PeopleHR
UK HR and payroll suite for small and mid-sized businesses owned by The Access Group, sold in tiered per-employee plans with paid add-on modules.
Where Access PeopleHR is genuinely strong
Native UK and Ireland payroll with self-service or fully managed options Low published entry price of £3 per employee/month with a 14-day no-card trial SSO, 2FA and a documented API with 94 endpoints Large UK install base: over 7,000 businesses and 680,000 users Wide suite including learning, benefits, expenses and recognition
Where it tends to fall short for our typical buyer
Modular add-ons (timesheets, performance, recruitment, analytics) each add £1.50-£2 PEPM on top of the tier Pro and Elite+ tiers are quote-only and sales-led UK-centric product; payroll limited to UK and Ireland Owned by a large enterprise software group; product spans several Access brands G2 rating of 4.1 is lower than the other two vendors here
Public reviews: G2 4.1/5 (295) · Capterra 4.3/5 (source)
Why teams pick HourSquare
Five things you can check before you sign up.
Not adjectives: each one is a thing the product does today, and you can see it on the tour or on the register page before you create an account.
Quick to start
Sign up with Google or an e-mail code, finish a 3-step company setup (details, country defaults, what you need first), and invite people when you are ready. No card, no demo, no sales call.
Organized in one place
People, time off, working time, approvals and pay sit in one system: one record per person, one approvals inbox, timesheets that feed payroll, and reports grouped by the question you are asking.
Easy for employees
A phone layout for requests, approvals and clock-in, an inbox for what needs you, a self-service profile, and an interface in English or Georgian.
Works with what you have
CSV import with a preview, personal calendar feeds, company sign-in with Okta, Microsoft Entra or Google, a public REST API, and payment and accountant exports in your own layout.
Always growing
Since June 2026 HourSquare has shipped recurring pulse surveys, an approval engine with configurable flows, company SSO, API keys, an expenses module, a rebuilt approvals inbox and leave policies with an impact preview. We publish what changed; we do not promise dates.
Free forever for teams of up to 10 people. Free for now for larger teams; if that changes, we'll tell you first. Gaps we say out loud: no applicant tracking, no performance reviews, no native mobile app.
Pricing: tiers plus add-ons versus free for now
PeopleHR publishes a GBP price list per employee per month: Starter £3, Core £5.50, Pro £8 and Elite+ £9.50. Starter and Core have a 14-day trial with no card; Pro and Elite+ are sold through sales. Timesheets, performance, recruitment and premium analytics are add-ons at £1.50–£2 per employee per month each, so a 10-person team on Core with timesheets and performance pays around £90 per month before payroll. HourSquare is free for now with every module included, no card to sign up and no trial expiry. There is no add-on pricing, no minimum seats and no annual commitment.
Where PeopleHR is stronger
PeopleHR runs native UK and Ireland payroll, as self-service software from £3 or fully managed from £5 per employee per month, which HourSquare does not offer as a managed service. It has a performance module with appraisals and reviews, an ATS, learning, benefits, expenses and recognition, native iOS and Android apps, and a documented API with 94 endpoints plus over 1,000 pre-built integrations. It is ISO 27001 certified, hosted at Telehouse N2 in London, and used by over 7,000 UK businesses. If you are a UK employer who wants HR, payroll and hiring in one suite with a mobile app, PeopleHR covers that today.
Where HourSquare is stronger for a self-serve team
HourSquare includes everything in one bundle with no add-on decisions: timesheets with manager approval, shift patterns, onboarding and offboarding templates with automatic login disable, surveys and recurring pulse surveys, an anonymous whistleblowing channel, a reports hub with CSV/XLSX export, roles and per-employee permissions, an audit log of sensitive-data reads and record changes, per-company SSO (Okta, Microsoft Entra, Google) and 2FA with passkeys. PeopleHR does not list offboarding, org chart or whistleblowing on its site, and its audit log is described as security logs available on request. HourSquare payroll runs for 24+ countries against PeopleHR's two, and HourSquare is hosted in the EU rather than the UK.
Migration: CSV export, no connector
There is no connector between PeopleHR and HourSquare. Moving means exporting employee records, absence balances and documents from PeopleHR as CSV and setting up HourSquare from those files. PeopleHR states data export and deletion within 30 days on exit. HourSquare's public API does not import employee records, so PeopleHR's API cannot be used to sync into it. If you run UK payroll in PeopleHR, close the tax year or a full pay period there before switching.
How to decide
- You need UK or Ireland managed payroll from the HR vendor: PeopleHR.
- You need performance reviews, an ATS, learning or benefits modules: PeopleHR.
- You need a native mobile app or a broad documented API today: PeopleHR.
- You want the full product free for now: HourSquare.
- You run payroll outside the UK and Ireland: HourSquare, with tax packs for 24+ countries.
- You want EU hosting, a full audit log and passkeys included: HourSquare.
Frequently asked
Does Access PeopleHR publish its pricing?
Where is PeopleHR hosted, and is it GDPR compliant?
How do I switch from PeopleHR to HourSquare?
Does PeopleHR run payroll, and which countries does each cover?
Other comparisons
READY TO TRY IT YOURSELF
See how HourSquare actually feels in your workflow.
Free forever for teams of up to 10 people, every feature included, no card to sign up. Free for now for larger teams; if that changes, we'll tell you first. If it does not fit, your people, time and pay data export as CSV and XLSX.
Free forever up to 10 people · GDPR-native · EU-hosted