How Much Does Sage Payroll Cost?

Sage Payroll offers three plans that address different payroll needs. The Essentials package retails at £10 per month for five employees, and you’ll get some basic payroll admin tools that will suit a lot of small businesses. More advanced tools, on the other hand, can be found in the provider’s remaining two plans, which start from £20 per month and £30 per month respectively. The cost per additional user also rises on these plans.

To help you decide which ones are best for your business, we’ll walk you through Sage Payroll’s features and pricing plans, suggesting which types and sizes of businesses would benefit most from each plan. Alternatively, if you want an overview of some of the other options out there, check out our guide to the best payroll providers in the UK.

Short On Time? Here Are The Different Sage Payroll Plans in Comparison

Sage Payroll Plans

Sage offers an Essentials Plan, Standard Plan, and Premium Plan under its Sage Business Cloud Payroll umbrella. Features and pricing vary by plan type, so read on to choose the best option for your business. Sage also offers Sage Advice, a free educational blog with content from industry experts for small businesses, medium businesses, and accountants.

The Payroll Essentials Plan

• Pricing: £10 per month with five free employees, plus £2 per month for each additional employee.
• Features: Streamlined payroll processing, direct deposit, automated payroll tax filing, year-end tax form preparation and filing (P60, P45, and P11D), automated RTI filing, and an online payroll portal for employers and employees.
• Best for: Start-ups, freelancers, solo entrepreneurs, and small businesses with basic payroll needs.

What is the Essentials Plan?

The Payroll Essentials Plan is Sage’s most affordable and accessible payroll plan. It gives you everything you need to start processing payroll, preparing and sending payroll tax forms, and remitting payroll taxes. You can even give employees their own online payroll portal profiles, which helps ensure that employee information is accurate and up to date.

What features does the Essentials Plan include?

The Standard Plan covers core payroll functions like direct deposit, automated tax filing features, and tax form preparation – like P60, P45, and P11D – which makes tax filing easy for employers and employees. Automations like these also reduce the risk of errors in payroll processing and tax filing, which helps keep your business in good standing with HMRC.

You can also view detailed customer and employee records and define user access permissions, which improves internal controls. In addition, you can automatically produce dozens of insightful, informative reports that help you understand your payroll. This allows you and your HR team to make quicker and better hiring and payroll decisions.

The Essentials plan also offers a built-in payroll portal that houses each employee’s personal information, like their name, phone number, email address, and physical address. This information is end-to-end encrypted, and employees can use secure credentials to access and update their information anywhere, anytime.

What are the drawbacks of the Essentials Plan?

The Essential tier’s features may feel inadequate for larger companies or those with more complex payroll and HR needs. They may be better served by Sage’s higher tiers, although the added features come at an increased price.

Who is the Essentials Plan right for?

Sage’s Payroll Essentials Plan is ideal for start-ups or businesses with a consistent number of employees and relatively simple payroll needs. Its cost is comparable to other payroll software offering similar functions and features.

The Payroll Standard Plan

• Pricing: £20 per month with five free employees, plus £4 per month for each additional employee.
• Features: Includes everything in the Essentials Plan, plus time tracking, enhanced payroll reporting functions, and mobile app access for employees.
• Best for: Growing businesses needing payroll features beyond basic payroll processing and payroll tax filing.

What is the Standard Plan?

Sage’s Standard Plan builds upon the Essentials Plan, allowing businesses to run more complex payroll, track time worked, and allow employees and employers to access payroll information through an intuitive mobile app.

What features does the Standard Plan include?

The Standard Plan includes everything from the Essentials plan, plus some more advanced tools.

These include time- and project-tracking features like employee timesheets, overtime management, and leave management, which are great for businesses needing to track work hours and associated pay and benefits. They’re also ideal for companies using project costing, helping them maintain accurate records, track expenses, and simplify their accounting and tax preparation.

You also get enhanced payroll reporting features, such as year-end payroll and tax reports, payroll summaries, leave and absence reports, pension contribution and matching reports, and project costing summaries.

The Standard Plan also includes a highly-rated mobile app for both iOS and Android devices. This is particularly useful for businesses whose employees work outside the office at a job site, a client’s physical location, or elsewhere. Employees can use the app to manage shifts, clock in and out, record hours, request PTO, track expenses, and more from anywhere.

What are the drawbacks of the Standard Plan?

The cost of the Standard may be beyond the budget of smaller businesses, which may also find some of the more advanced features unnecessary. On the flip side, businesses requiring even more advanced payroll and HR functions may be better served by Sage’s top-tier Payroll Premium Plan.

Who is the Standard Plan right for?

The Standard Plan is perfect for growing businesses with relatively complex payroll needs, like multiple worker classifications – such as employees, part-time workers, or contractors – or employees in various locations with differing payroll and tax laws.

The Payroll Premium Plan

• Pricing: £30 per month with five free employees, plus £6 per month for each additional employee
• Features: Includes everything in the standard plan, plus advanced reporting features, integrations with accounting software, and Sage HR tools like employee onboarding and performance management functions.
• Ideal Customer: Established businesses with complex employee structures seeking comprehensive payroll and HR solutions.

What is the Premium Plan?

The Premium Plan is Sage’s most feature-rich payroll option, taking everything in the Essentials and Standard Plans and adding features like enhanced HR tools, project management functions, and integrations accounting software.

What features does the Premium Plan include?

The Premium Plan includes advanced payroll and tax reporting functions, integrations with accounting software, and helpful HR tools like employee onboarding and performance management. Together, they help streamline your business’s payroll, HR, and hiring processes.

The Premium Plan’s ability to integrate with your business’s preexisting accounting software means that employee information such as wages and benefits paid, retirement plan contributions, and paid leave, can be automatically reflected in your financial statements. This makes tax and financial statement preparation easier down the road.

The addition of employee onboarding features allows businesses to hire new employees seamlessly. You can send them employment information such as right-to-work documentation, employment contracts, and starter checklists. Meanwhile, the advanced reporting features allow employers to easily prepare, send, and payroll and tax forms like P60, P45, and P11D.

What are the drawbacks of the Premium Plan?

The main downside of the Premium Plan is its cost, which may be too high for smaller to midsize companies. The plan costs £30 per month with five free employees, plus £6 per month for each additional employee. If you employ a large team, your per-payroll costs could add up quickly. The advanced features in this plan may also be overkill for some employers.

Who is the Premium Plan right for?

Sage’s Premium Plan is ideal for midsize to large businesses or those with complex or changing workforces and payroll needs. It can handle nearly any payroll situation and includes a range of HR functions. If you’re interested, you’ll need to contact Sage for a custom quote.

Sage Alternatives

Sage has existed since 1981 and offers capable and feature-rich payroll plans. There are, however, other well-equipped competitors on the market offering compelling payroll and accounting software options. These include ADP, Quickbooks Payroll, and OnPay.

ADP Payroll

ADP is one of the most widely used payroll providers on earth. It offers various payroll plans with features such as custom reporting, HR functions, automatic RTI filing, automated tax filing, and 24/7 customer service via phone or live chat. ADP is great for UK businesses of any size seeking a robust, extremely capable payroll solution.

ADP’s pricing is fully bespoke, so interested businesses must contact ADP to request a custom quote based on their business’s size, number of employees, required features, and more.

MHR Payroll

MHR Payroll is a popular and user-friendly payroll solution that includes functions such as automatic RTI filing, custom reporting, integrations with accounting and project management systems, and 24/7 customer service via phone and live chat. MHR is great for UK businesses seeking basic payroll, reporting, and HR features in a user-friendly software solution.

The cost is fully bespoke, so interested businesses will have to contact MHR to request a custom quote based on their business’s size, number of employees, required features, and more.

Moorepay Payroll

Moorepay is known for being a user-friendly and feature-rich payroll provider with a focus on small- to medium-sized employers operating in the UK. It offers basic payroll features such as automated payroll processing, direct deposit, P60, P45, and P11D preparation and filing, automatic RTI submissions, tax and legal compliance features, and more.

Moorepay’s pricing is fully bespoke, so businesses must contact Moorepay to request a custom quote based on their situation. It’s worth noting that Moorepay only operates within the United Kingdom, which means if your business expands beyond the UK, you’ll need to change payroll providers.