Estimark and Breathe HR, compared for UK trades

UK small businesses under about fifty people, buying holiday booking, staff records and absence tracking, sold widely through a partner and reseller network.

• It is horizontal SME HR rather than a trades product, and small contractors usually arrive at it for holiday booking and staff records.
• Health and safety, rota, time and attendance, expenses, learning and recruitment are sold as separate add-ons on top of the core fee.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.

A flat monthly fee per business, banded by headcount and exclusive of VAT, with paid add-ons on top.

• A ten-person firm pays the same as a one-person firm in the Micro band. The eleventh hire moves it to Starter, an 83% jump for one person.
• Health and Safety is an add-on from £12 a month per business, and Rota, Time and Attendance from £11 a month. A contractor who wants either pays more than the headline.
• Annual billing carries a discount of around 15% on core HR for these bands, and Breathe does not print the resulting figure.

NoteBreathe HR's published UK prices, read on 15 September 2026. Check their own site for today's.

Employee records, contracts, Right to Work evidence, leave and absence, training and certification expiry, and toolbox talks with a signed attendance register, held against the same people who are booked on the jobs.

• Leave policies with annual days, sick days, carry-over days and a carry-over expiry, per-person balances by year and leave type, and requests routed for approval with the reviewer and their notes on the record.
• Employee records with employment type, status, pay type, pay frequency, department and reporting line, so PAYE lads, self-employed lads and subcontractors stay separate.
• Contracts issued as a versioned document and signed on screen, capturing the signer’s name, signature, IP address, user agent and timestamp.
• Right to Work, passport, DBS and driving licence held per person with an expiry date on each, so a re-check can be diarised before the permission runs out.
• Training and certification expiry with a warning 30 days out, covering CSCS cards, tickets and gas competence per category and fuel.
• Toolbox talks with an attendance register, signed by each operative who was there, alongside RAMS sign-off, inductions and the live muster roll.

NoteHR Management is included from Pro up, and is £29 a month +VAT on its own below that.

No maintained HR document template library, no recruitment, no learning courses, no shift-pattern rota, no employment law advice line and no payroll filing.

• There is one contract template. There is no maintained library of policies, handbooks and letters kept current with UK employment law, and that is the gap a customer notices in week two.
• There is no recruitment or applicant tracking and no course library.
• Resource scheduling puts people on jobs by date range. There are no shift patterns, no availability, no shift swaps and no published rota.
• Payroll is exported, not filed. Estimark produces Sage 50, P32, CIS and HMRC RTI-layout files marked as estimates. It does not submit anything to HMRC and does not issue payslips.
• There is no employment law advice line and no tribunal indemnity insurance. Those are a staffed service and an insurance policy.

NoteEstimark holds no security certification: no ISO 27001, no SOC 2, no Cyber Essentials. It records the CIS300 and does not file it to HMRC, and it takes no card payment on a customer’s behalf.

It handles the four obligations a UK contractor is judged on: CIS deduction, the VAT domestic reverse charge, Construction Act payment timing, and the safety records that go with them.

• CIS deducted on labour only, excluding materials, VAT and plant hire, on 6th-to-5th tax months, with HMRC verification when connected and the CIS300 recorded with both statutory declarations.
• VAT domestic reverse charge under section 55A: the statutory wording on the invoice, nil VAT, controlled per client.
• Payment applications with Construction Act dates, the pay less deadline calculated, and retention tracked to release.
• RAMS with operative sign-off, inductions, permits and a live muster roll, plus EIC, EICR, Minor Works, PAT and CP12 certificates with typed test results.

NoteEstimark records the CIS300 and locks it to its tax period. It does not file the return to HMRC on your behalf.

When the business is not a contractor, or when HR is the only thing being bought and the job side is settled elsewhere.

• A business with no site work has no toolbox talk, no CSCS card and no RAMS to sign, so the construction half of Estimark is weight it does not need.
• A firm that wants a maintained policy and handbook library, a recruitment pipeline or a course catalogue is buying something Estimark does not have.
• Estimark sells HR inside a construction platform. A firm happy with its job system and shopping for HR on its own is comparing a module against a whole product.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.