HR software for small businesses | Sense HR

HR for UK small businesses.

10 to 100 people, somewhere on the journey from spreadsheets to proper HR. Sense gives you a place to start (Professional, £3) and a place to go when you grow (Elite, £8). Same tenant, two-click upgrade.

Most small businesses start on Professional.

From £2 per employee / month. For office-led teams without work patterns, clocking or recruitment-heavy hiring, Professional covers everything you actually need. Most small businesses run on it happily until they hit ~80 staff or add their first frontline team. Includes: Core HR with UK statutory leave, performance, onboarding — AMI assistant for HR questions — Data loader for self-serve migration — Native UK payroll (Sage, Xero, BrightPay) — Open API (read-only) for your existing tools — 14-day free trial, monthly or annual contract.

When small businesses move up to Elite.

Frontline staff added

You've hired your first cleaner, carer, engineer or shift worker. Elite gives you T&A, work patterns and hardware clocks.

Recruitment volume

You're hiring more than 5 people a quarter. Elite's built-in ATS and AMI AI screening pay for themselves.

Compliance complexity

DBS, right-to-work, sponsorship licence, training matrix — Elite tracks them automatically and produces audit-ready reports.

Self-serve start, Elite when you need it.

Most small businesses start on Professional and upgrade to Elite somewhere between 50 and 100 employees. Both options below.

Sign up to Professional

Self-serve trial. Data loader brings the team across. Live by tomorrow.

Run on Professional

HR, holidays, performance, basic onboarding on autopilot. Most small businesses stay here for years.

Upgrade to Elite

First frontline hire, recruitment ramp, or compliance complexity triggers the upgrade conversation.

Free implementation

UK specialist migrates the configuration, configures ATS / T&A / Automate, trains the team.

Common questions at this scale.

How do I know which tier to start on?+

If you're office-led with no work patterns or clocking, start on Professional. If you've already got a frontline team, T&A pain or heavy recruitment, start with an Elite demo. Honest answer: 80% of small businesses start on Professional and upgrade later.

Can we mix — some staff on Professional, some on Elite?+

No. Both tiers cover the whole company. The difference is which features your HR team has access to, not which employees are 'in scope'.

How does the upgrade from Professional to Elite work?+

Two clicks in the admin panel. Data, settings, employees, history all carry across. We schedule a one-off upgrade workshop with a UK specialist to switch on ATS, Automate, T&A and the AI agents in the right order.

Will Sense scale past 100 employees?+

Yes — comfortably to 1,000+ on Elite. Multi-entity support, advanced workflows, AI agents and hardware T&A are all designed for mid-market workloads. Past 1,000 employees or for regulated industries, look at Sense Workplace at senseworkplace.com.

Is there a contract minimum?+

Professional is monthly or annual (10% off annual). Elite is annual to fund the free implementation we run. No multi-year lock-in on either.

Start with Professional. Upgrade when you're ready.

10 to 100 people. Start free, grow without switching systems.

Book an Elite demo Start free trial

Meet AMI — your AI agent stack.

AMI conducts the first-round interview.

Workflows named for UK HR.

Six AI agents working on your HR.

The only HR system that builds its own location hardware.

TrustID powers right-to-work.