We make Payburo, so read this as a vendor's comparison. To keep it honest, every figure about another product comes from that vendor's own website or from GOV.UK, checked on 4 October 2026 and linked at the foot of the page. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we say so and leave it blank. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email admin@payburo.co.uk and we will correct it.
How Each Is Priced
Prices are correct as of 4 October 2026.
| Sold as | Pricing model | Published price | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payburo | Cloud, for bureaus | A monthly band by number of client companies, with an employee allowance and a charge per employee above it | Free: 1 client, up to 9 employees. Solo £12 a month: 3 clients, 25 employees. Practice £29: 15 clients, 100 employees. Bureau £49: unlimited clients, 300 employees. £0.08 a month per employee above the allowance |
| BrightPay | Cloud only from 2026/27 (the desktop version is no longer updated) | By your highest number of employers and employees in the billing period | No list price published: BrightPay directs you to its pricing calculator for a figure |
| Moneysoft Payroll Manager | Software you download | An annual licence by size | £95 a year for one employer with up to 20 employees. £190 a year for any number of payrolls of up to 100 employees each. £285 a year for any number of payrolls of up to 250 employees each |
| Payroo Bureau | Cloud, for bureaus | A base fee plus a charge per active employee | £10 a month plus £0.20 per active employee per month |
| Xero Payroll | Cloud, part of Xero accounting | Per person, inside each organisation's Xero subscription | Plans from £18 to £70 a month per organisation after an introductory discount. Payroll is £1.50 per person on Ignite, with 1, 5 or 10 people included on the higher plans |
Payroo and Xero quote prices excluding VAT. Payburo is not VAT registered, so no VAT is added to its prices. A VAT-registered bureau reclaims the VAT on the others, so the figures are comparable as they stand; one that is not registered pays 20% more than the Payroo and Xero figures shown.
What That Means for a Bureau
Three sizes of practice, costed per month from the published prices above, correct as of 4 October 2026. Moneysoft's annual licence is divided by twelve.
| Bureau | Payburo | Payroo Bureau | Moneysoft | BrightPay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 clients, 20 employees in total | £12.00 (Solo) | £14.00 | £15.83 (the £190 licence) | Quote from its calculator |
| 10 clients, 80 employees | £29.00 (Practice) | £26.00 | £15.83 (the £190 licence) | Quote from its calculator |
| 40 clients, 400 employees | £57.00 (Bureau, plus 100 employees at £0.08) | £90.00 | £15.83 (the £190 licence, if no client has more than 100 employees; £23.75 on the £285 licence if one does) | Quote from its calculator |
Read plainly: Moneysoft's licence limits the employees in each payroll, not the number of payrolls, so one price covers all three practices, and it is the cheapest for the two larger ones. Payburo is cheapest for a very small practice. Between the two cloud products priced here, Payroo is a little below Payburo in the middle and Payburo is well below Payroo for a large practice. None of these differences is large next to the cost of an hour of a payroll clerk's time, which is the argument for choosing on what the software does.
Founding bureaus pay nothing. The first bureaus to join Payburo get every feature, for every client, at no charge and with no time limit, in return for telling us what works and what does not. If you run payroll for a practice, apply as a founding bureau. The prices in the table are what everyone else pays.
Xero is not in this table because it is not sold as a bureau product: each client company needs its own Xero subscription, and payroll is charged per person within it. It makes sense where a client already keeps its books in Xero.
What Each Does
| Payburo | BrightPay | Moneysoft | Payroo Bureau | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| On HMRC's list of recognised payroll software | Not yet: we have asked HMRC to start the process | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Files FPS and EPS with HMRC | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Where it runs | In a browser | In a browser | Downloaded to your computer | In a browser |
| Many clients in one account | Yes | Yes, with batch processing across clients | Yes, on the 100 and 250 licences | Yes, unlimited clients up to 5,000 employees in total |
| How employees get payslips | PDF payslips you download and send | Employee self-service portal | Printed or emailed payslips | Online and mobile payslips |
| Pension scheme files | NEST and NOW: Pensions | Auto enrolment support; see BrightPay for the providers | "All major pension providers", naming NEST, NOW: Pensions and The People's Pension | Auto enrolment support; see Payroo for the providers |
| Paying employees | A Faster Payments file for your bank. A Bacs file is built but not yet proven with a bank | Payments through Modulr | See Moneysoft | See Payroo |
| Accounting | A journal export with your own account codes | Journals to Xero, Sage, QuickBooks and others | See Moneysoft | See Payroo |
"See the vendor" means we could not confirm the point from their own published pages, so we have not guessed.
Where Payburo Is Behind
- It is not yet on HMRC's recognised list. Payburo files RTI directly with HMRC, and we have asked HMRC to start the recognition process, but the four others here are listed and Payburo is not.
- It is new. BrightPay says it is used to pay 3.5 million employees a month. Payroo says it has been recognised by HMRC since 2012. Payburo went on sale in September 2026 and has no track record to point to.
- Two pension providers. Contribution files for NEST and NOW: Pensions only. If your clients use The People's Pension, Aviva or Smart Pension, you would be entering contributions by hand.
- No employee portal or app. Payslips, P45s and P60s are PDFs that you send on.
- Bank payments are a file, not a service. There is no built-in payment service, and the Bacs file has not yet been through a bank's validation.
- No offline version. It needs a browser and a connection.
Where Payburo Is Ahead
- Checks before you approve. After every calculation, each payslip is checked by AI for figures that do not reconcile: a tax code that does not fit, an NI category that does not match, a deduction out of range. A pay run whose checks did not complete cannot be approved until they are run again or you confirm you have reviewed it. The checks see pay figures against an internal reference, never names, NI numbers or bank details.
- Pay runs that prepare themselves. For a client in supervised mode, Payburo creates and calculates each period's run on pay day and emails you to review it. One click approves it, and the payslips are issued and the FPS is filed.
- Import from any layout. Upload a CSV from the old system and the columns are matched for you to confirm. See importing employees from another payroll system.
- A price you can work out yourself. Four published bands and one per-employee rate, with no quote needed.
- A free plan that files. One client with up to nine employees, with RTI, payslips, P45s and P60s, no card and no time limit. It leaves out the AI features.
- Free for founding bureaus. The first bureaus to join use every feature for every client at no charge, with no time limit. Apply as a founding bureau.
We have not found AI checking of payslips or automatically prepared pay runs advertised by the other four. That is a statement about what their websites say, not a claim that they could not do it.
Which to Choose
- Moneysoft if cost is the priority and you are happy with software installed on your own computer.
- BrightPay if you want the most established cloud product, an employee app, and payments built in.
- Payroo if you want cloud software on a pay-as-you-use basis with online payslips for employees.
- Xero Payroll if the client already keeps its books in Xero and has a handful of staff.
- Payburo if a second pair of eyes on every pay run and less clicking for routine clients are worth more to you than an employee app, and you are comfortable being an early customer. The free plan lets you run a real client through it before deciding, and the first bureaus to join pay nothing as founding bureaus.
What to Check Before You Switch
- Your pension providers. List the schemes your clients use and confirm the software produces a file for each.
- How your clients pay staff. Bacs through a bureau number, a bank's bulk upload, or a payment service.
- The real price at your size. Count your employers and employees and price each product on those numbers, including VAT if you cannot reclaim it.
- Moving mid-year. You will need each employee's year-to-date figures: see the import guide.
- A parallel run. Whatever you choose, run one period in both systems and compare net pay, tax and NI before you rely on the new one.
Sources
All checked on 4 October 2026. Prices and features change: follow the links for the current position.
- HMRC's list of recognised payroll software: gov.uk (last updated 24 September 2026)
- BrightPay: brightpay.co.uk and its cloud pricing FAQ
- Moneysoft: moneysoft.co.uk/payroll-manager
- Payroo: price list and Payroo Bureau
- Xero: xero.com/uk/pricing-plans
Sage is not included. We could not confirm its current prices from its own published pages when this was written, and would not quote them from a third party.