BrightPay

BrightPay at a Glance

BrightPay is the UK and Ireland payroll product from Bright Software Group (legal entity Thesaurus Software Ltd, headquartered in Warwick with an Irish office in Duleek, Co. Meath). The vendor has been building PAYE payroll software since the early 1990s and now sits alongside sister products BrightHR, BrightBooks, BrightCIS, BrightTax, BrightManager, and TimeKeeper. For UK accountants and small employers who want desktop-grade depth on RTI, auto-enrolment, and bureau workflows, BrightPay has spent two decades as a default pick alongside Sage and IRIS. The catch in 2026 is the desktop wind-down, which reshapes the buying decision entirely.

Pros and Cons of BrightPay

Who Should Use BrightPay

BrightPay is a regional product. It works extraordinarily well inside its remit and not at all outside it.

UK small employers (1 to 50 employees) running PAYE in-house. The desktop tiers price out cleanly: Micro at GBP 69 per tax year for up to 3 employees, Small at GBP 119 for 10, Medium at GBP 189 for 25, and Large at GBP 259 for unlimited employees on a single employer. Total annual cost is materially below subscription-priced cloud rivals once headcount stabilises.

UK and Irish payroll bureaus and accountancy practices. Bureau tiers are the strongest fit. Small Bureau at GBP 299 per tax year covers up to 10 client employers; Medium Bureau at GBP 499 covers 25 clients; Large Bureau at GBP 629 covers unlimited employers. That bureau economics math is hard to beat anywhere in the UK market.

Irish employers needing Revenue-compliant payroll with PAYE Modernisation. BrightPay Ireland handles ROS submissions, PRSI, USC, and the Irish auto-enrolment regime arriving from 2026 onward. The Duleek office reflects long-standing Irish market presence rather than a regional bolt-on.

Buyers ready to plan a cloud migration immediately. If you are starting in 2026 fresh, the answer is BrightPay Cloud rather than desktop. The desktop product is on a published end-of-life path; do not invest fresh implementation hours in a SKU that is being retired this tax year.

Not the right fit: US or Canadian buyers (try Gusto, OnPay, or Patriot Software for US), Indian SMBs running EPF and ESI (look at Pocket HRMS or Zoho Payroll), and US tech-forward teams wanting HRIS plus IT provisioning bundled (try Rippling).

BrightPay Product Suite

BrightPay ships in three deployment shapes today, with the desktop variant on a published exit ramp.

BrightPay Desktop (Windows)

The legacy product, sold per tax year by employee band. It has long been the bureau workhorse in the UK market. Functionality covers PAYE, NI, statutory payments (SSP, SMP, SPP, SAP, ShPP), auto-enrolment, P11D, P60, P45, RTI FPS and EPS submissions, and bureau-grade client management. Per vendor, the Windows desktop product is being discontinued at the end of the 2025/26 tax year, so new buyers should treat this as a sunset SKU.

BrightPay Cloud

The forward-going edition. Browser-based, multi-device, with the same payroll engine plus self-service portals, online payslip distribution, and direct integration to BrightBooks accounting. Pricing is calculator-gated by active employee per month rather than a flat annual licence. Most accountants migrating from the desktop product land here.

BrightPay Connect

Cloud-extension add-on for desktop users (during the wind-down period). Provides cloud backup, employee self-service app access, online payslips, and client portal features layered on top of a desktop installation. It is the bridging product for bureaus that need cloud touchpoints before completing a full cloud migration.

BrightPay Employee app

iOS and Android self-service for employees. Payslips, leave requests, document access, and personal detail updates. Bundled at no incremental cost when the employer is on a current BrightPay subscription.

How Much Does BrightPay Cost

Desktop and bureau prices are annual, excluding VAT, and tied to the UK tax year. Cloud is sales-led on price; budget for a per-active-employee-per-month rate that scales with headcount rather than a flat fee. UK and Ireland buyers should request a Cloud quote in writing for full-year cost modelling.

Implementation Plan: Rolling Out BrightPay

BrightPay is generally a 1 to 4 week implementation for a single employer, longer for bureaus migrating multiple client books from another product.

Week 1: Account setup and tax-reference configuration. Register on BrightPay, configure your PAYE reference, accounts office reference, Government Gateway credentials, NEST or pension scheme details, and pay calendar. For Ireland, configure your ROS digital certificate and Revenue PAYE Modernisation settings.

Week 2: Employee data migration. Import employee records from your prior system (CSV import is supported), reconcile year-to-date earnings, tax codes, and student loan flags, and verify auto-enrolment status for each employee. Bureaus replicate this per client book; budget 2 to 4 hours per book depending on complexity.

Week 3: Parallel pay-run pilot. Run BrightPay alongside your existing process for one pay cycle. Verify gross to net calculations match expected results, confirm pension contributions flow to NEST, The People's Pension, or Smart Pension correctly, and check that RTI FPS submissions reach HMRC successfully.

Week 4: Live cutover. Switch fully to BrightPay, distribute payslips through the employee app, and confirm year-end statutory forms (P60, P45) generate cleanly. For bureaus, stagger client cutovers across 4 to 12 weeks rather than attempting a single weekend migration.

Hidden Costs and Contract Gotchas

Windows desktop end-of-life at the close of the 2025/26 tax year. This is the single biggest decision driver for any new buyer in 2026. Per vendor, the desktop product is being retired and new customers are urged to use BrightPay Cloud. Buying desktop today means budgeting for a forced cloud migration inside 12 to 18 months. Plan around Cloud from the start.

Cloud pricing is calculator-gated. The desktop and bureau price grid is fully public, but Cloud pricing is requested per active employee per month through a calculator rather than published as a flat tariff. Request a written quote and model full-year cost before signing.

UK and Ireland only. BrightPay does not cover US, Canadian, Australian, or any non UK/IE tax regimes. UK employers with Irish subsidiaries can run both books on BrightPay; employers outside this geography need a different product entirely.

HMRC and Revenue regulatory recognitions are not security certifications. The HMRC recognised, RTI recognised, and Auto Enrolment Functionality labels are tax-authority approvals, not ISO 27001 or SOC 2. Buyers with formal procurement security checks should request the vendor's data-handling documentation separately.

No public customer logo wall. BrightPay leans on the 3.5 million employees-paid-per-month payment volume claim rather than named customer references. Buyers who need third-party customer validation should ask their accountant network or look for BrightPay testimonials inside accountancy trade press.

What Real Buyers Report

Common positive themes in UK and Ireland buyer feedback include bureau-tier economics (one annual fee covering unlimited client employers at the Large Bureau tier), depth of statutory functionality (statutory payments, RTI, auto-enrolment, P11D), pension integrations with NEST, The People's Pension, and Smart Pension, and UK and Ireland tax expertise inside support. Accountants running bureaus often cite cost-per-client as the dominant value driver versus IRIS, Sage Payroll Bureau, or Xero Payroll.

Critical themes include the desktop UI feeling functional rather than modern in 2026, anxiety around the desktop wind-down, calculator-gated cloud pricing making like-for-like quoting harder, and friction during peak filing windows where support queues lengthen.

BrightPay Alternatives

Bottom Line

BrightPay remains a strong pick for UK and Ireland small employers and payroll bureaus that want HMRC and Revenue recognised PAYE software with honest published pricing and bureau-friendly licensing. The 2026 caveat is significant: the Windows desktop edition is being retired at the end of the 2025/26 tax year, so any new buyer should plan around BrightPay Cloud from day one and request a calculator-based quote in writing before signing. Review the full payroll software guide alongside the broader HR software and attendance management shortlists for region-appropriate options, and pair payroll selection with a billing software review if back-office scope extends beyond pay processing.