HREvio vs Breathe HR: an honest 2026 comparison for SMBs

We build HREvio, so read this knowing who wrote it. Breathe and HREvio actually agree on the big idea - flat pricing, not per-seat - so this comparison is mostly about geography and price.

The short version: Breathe is a UK product with UK employment-law content and GBP pricing. HREvio is EU-hosted with EN/UK/PL/DE and 48-country holidays, and prices lower. If you're outside the UK, that difference is the decision.

The pricing difference

Breathe HR prices in flat bands by company size (ex VAT, monthly): Micro 1-10 £24, Starter 11-20 £44, Regular 21-50 £99, Pro 51-100 £175, Premium 101-150 £419, Plus 151-200 £579. Core HR only; rota and time, learning, recruitment, expenses, and health-and-safety are paid add-ons at £11-16/month each. Pricing is GBP and the product targets UK SMEs.

HREvio is also flat, in EUR. EUR 29/month up to 25 employees, EUR 49 up to 100, EUR 99 up to 250.

Breathe HR pricing from its own pricing page as of June 2026 (ex VAT, monthly bands; add-ons extra). GBP as published, not converted to EUR. HREvio prices exclude VAT; annual billing saves ~17%.

Both products prove flat pricing works for HR. The differences are geography (UK vs continental EU), currency (GBP vs EUR), legal content (UK employment law vs EU and GDPR-first), and price - HREvio is lower at every band shown.

What Breathe HR has that HREvio doesn't

This list is real, so here it is without hedging.

• UK employment-law content and UK-specific HR guidance
• Rota and shift planning (add-on)
• A learning and training module (add-on)
• Recruitment and expenses modules (add-ons)
• A long, established UK track record

If you're a UK company that wants UK-specific HR content and the optional rota, learning, or recruitment add-ons, Breathe is a solid, established choice. This page is for teams outside the UK that want flat pricing without GBP and UK-only framing.

What HREvio does, and does well

Core HR that a 5-100 person company actually uses every week:

• Employee directory with profiles, manager hierarchy, and an activity log of every change
• Vacation and sick leave: requests, approvals, balances, accrual, carryover, and a full per-employee ledger
• A team absence calendar plus public holidays for 48 countries, imported automatically
• Compensation history with effective dating; salary amounts encrypted at rest
• Roles and permissions (25 granular permissions), audit trail across the system
• Self-serve billing by card, upgrade or cancel in-app, no sales call at any point
• Interface in English, Ukrainian, Polish, and German

GDPR isn't a checkbox here. Hosting is on Hetzner in the EU, the data processing agreement is part of signup rather than a separate sales artifact, salary data is encrypted at rest, and the audit log masks encrypted fields automatically. We process EU employee data, so we built the product the way we'd want our own data handled.

Who should pick which

Pick Breathe HR if you're a UK company and value UK employment-law content and its add-on modules, priced in GBP.

Pick HREvio if you want flat-rate core HR for SMBs in EUR, EU-hosted, with EN/UK/PL/DE UI and public holidays for 48 countries.

Switching from Breathe HR

Start a trial, bring your employee list, and set starting leave balances with the built-in onboarding workflow, so mid-year balances carry over correctly.

The trial is 30 days, full Standard features, no credit card. After it ends your data goes read-only, and we send reminders before anything changes state. Nothing is deleted without warning and time to act.

Frequently asked questions