CharlieHR vs Breathe –
Key takeaways for multitaskers 

If you don’t have time for an in-depth Breathe and Charlie comparison, I’ve put together a few key takeaways:

Why is CharlieHR a better choice than Breathe for your small business or startup? 

It might be a bit ironic to read something like this coming from Breathe’s direct competitors. After all, yes, both CharlieHR and Breathe were built to help small businesses streamline their HR.

But based on our research and our customers’ feedback, we believe Charlie does that better.

So instead of losing yourself in the many comparison lists available online, we thought we’d add the knowledge we have on our product and the feedback from over 11,000 small businesses and startups that use us.

‍To make it easier for you, here’s where we’ve narrowed down the pros of picking CharlieHR over Breathe and where you may see how Charlie can fit your needs.

Pros of using CharlieHR

Focuses on the core features a small business or startup really needs

With all the different HR software tools out there, it’s easy to get tempted by the shiniest software that can do everything, but that often misses the point. So you might be attracted to the prospect of automating everything all at once, but you’ll soon realise that this type of software doesn’t actually meet your basic needs.

‍At Charlie, we took a different approach. Instead of trying to solve all your HR tasks and create features just for the sake of it, we focused on what small businesses and startups really care about.

In practice, that means we help you: 

Get rid of time-consuming manual processes and spreadsheets 

• No more hand-holding — onboard new hires through a self-service process by inviting them onto the platform
• No more documents scattered around — get all your employee data and information in one place
• Give autonomy to your team — let team members submit their own time off requests (holidays, sick leave, customisable types, etc.) and approve or deny in one click 
• No need to fix formulas — time off allowances reset automatically and team members can cancel or amend their own requests 

Remove all the back and forth between you and team members

• Documents are securely uploaded and stored — no more files stored in emails, instead all documents (including passports and P45s) are stored securely within Charlie
• No reason for you to be the bottleneck anymore — company handbook and essential information are all in the same spot
• Stop chasing others to complete their tasks — assign checklists and tasks with due dates

The remote team’s best friend

In today’s world, it’s become more and more important to make it easy for teams that are either completely remote or hybrid to automate their HR processes.

‍At Charlie, for example, our software is an essential part of our day: we get the information we need online from the platform, whenever we need it, with no need for HR management:

Super easy to use

There’s nothing more important to small businesses and startups than making sure there’s no extra work added to their already busy day. With Charlie, you get: 

Find and retain the best talent

While Breathe has a recruitment feature, it’s nowhere near as useful or detailed as Charlie’s. With Charlie Recruit, you can unite hiring and human resources in one place — and all with the same user-friendly interface you can expect from Charlie.

Charlie Recruit automates manual tasks, helps you use real-time data to make smarter hiring decisions, and presents your candidates and new hires with a simple, seamless experience.

‍Included as part of Charlie Recruit, you can enjoy:

Charlie Recruit is available as an optional add-on from as little as £55 per month.

Lean into exclusive HR extras 

According to our product managers, our most important mission is to focus on what small businesses and startups need — but we also want to differentiate ourselves from other products like Breathe, for example, by offering extras that they don’t have: 

We were struggling to come up with benefits that everyone in our team would truly appreciate. Charlie’s Perks does exactly that and our team is really happy with it.

— Jonathan Lindon, co-founder @ Talent Heroes

Cons of using CharlieHR

We would be hypocritical if we didn’t openly display where we might not be the best fit for your business, so that’s why we’d like to be as transparent as possible so you can make an informed decision. CharlieHR might not be for you in the following situations:

You need more in-depth reporting 

We do have a reporting feature that allows you to report on:

These reports can be very useful at a startup and small business level, and to be honest, they might be all you’re looking for. Each can be viewed and filtered in our software and exported in CSV files, but if you’re looking for more complex reporting, you’d have to look somewhere else.

You need shift management software

Some small businesses and startups need to create rotas and manage shifts. If you need this, we’re not the right fit for your business as this isn’t one of our features.

However, we do offer time-off management to completely automate your team’s leave process.

You want to put a high emphasis on culture 

We’ve made a conscious choice not to focus on gamification and culture, because we know that’s not a priority for many small businesses and startups. It also takes more than a few fancy features to build a strong culture.

That doesn’t mean, however, there’s nothing you can get out of Charlie. Our shoutouts, company handbook, and customisable onboarding flow offers a good start when it comes to building your company culture.

Pros of using BreatheHR

Data-driven insights with HR reporting and analytics

One feature that stands out from the rest is Breathe’s reporting capabilities. Although many small businesses and startups may not need such in-depth reporting in early stages, it’s there if that’s essential for yours.  

Great for time off management, rota scheduling and time tracking 

Breathe extras that you might be looking for

Similar to Charlie, Breathe offers a few extras that we haven’t seen in other software and they might be what you’re on the lookout for. Let’s have a look at what they are. 

Cons of using Breathe

Through the research we regularly do and the audits we often run when it comes to our direct competitors, we’re able to spot where their software falls short of expectations.

Here, we’ve tried to think about what small businesses and startups really look for that Breathe doesn’t offer at the moment.

It feels clunky and complicated to use

Many customers who have switched from Breathe to CharlieHR report the same problem: the platform is too crowded, not user-friendly, and difficult to navigate.

Unfortunately, a lot of customers have reported that the interface is not very easy to use, and it often takes time and sometimes contacting customer support to understand how to complete a simple action.

It might seem like something you could get used to, but in reality it means you’ll:

The onboarding process is time-intensive

The onboarding process is one of the most crucial aspects small businesses and startups want to automate as they start to look at HR software.

That’s why you should look at picking an onboarding feature that works smoothly and flawlessly with the rest of your HR stack.

Gathering feedback from people who have decided to leave Breathe for Charlie, we quickly heard that their onboarding feature is not up to scratch. Here were the common complaints about it:

Comparing Charlie vs Breathe on pricing

Before we come to a final conclusion, let’s see how Charlie and Breathe compare on pricing. Both HR tools are transparent about their pricing, which allows you to see exactly what you’ll be paying every month.

Charlie’s pricing

Our goal is to keep our plans simple and straightforward, which is why we currently have two options — Charlie and Charlie Plus.

Charlie, our all-in-one plan, starts from just £5 per month for teams of up to four. That’s not per employee, that’s the total cost per month.

If you’d prefer 1-to-1 account setup and priority customer support, choose Charlie Plus. It’s still affordable, starting at just £30 per month, and is ideal for small businesses that want extra support and guidance.

Our pricing plans include all of Charlie’s features (from absence management to performance management and appraisals), with no setup fees or hidden costs — giving you excellent value for money.

Breathe’s pricing

Breathe also takes a transparent approach to pricing, which is always a bonus for small businesses. Their pricing plans are a little more complicated, as you can choose from a range of add-ons to enhance your experience depending on your needs.

Breathe’s core plan starts at £18 per month per business and includes time-off management, document management, performance management, and reporting.

Optional add-ons include rota, time and attendance management (starting at £10 per month per business), Breathe Learn (starting at £10 per month per business), recruitment tracking (starting at £20 per month per business), and expenses management (starting at £10 per month per business). These extra fees scale as your team size grows, so with a team of 50 people these costs can double or even triple.