If you run a limited company where the only person on payroll is you, it’s hard to find advice on the best payroll software since you don’t need a complex HR platform. Instead, you need software that files RTI on time, costs as little as possible, and stays out of your way for the rest of the month.
In this article, we’re writing about five options to help sole directors manage their solo payroll needs: what they actually cost and our recommendation.
Do you even need payroll software?
You do. HMRC expects a Full Payment Submission on or before every payday, and the late-filing penalty starts at £100 and climbs from there.
There is a free option from HMRC itself, Basic PAYE Tools, and for a sole director it’ll technically do the job. The problem is what it can’t do: it won’t produce a payslip PDF, it won’t handle auto-enrolment, and it caps out at nine employees with no upgrade path. The first time your mortgage broker or accountant asks for a payslip, you’re stuck.
For most one-director companies, the right answer is paid software that costs £0–£12 a month. Here are the ones worth looking at.
| Software | Starting price | Free trial | HMRC RTI | Auto-enrolment | Best for |
| Sage Payroll | £20/month (10 employees) | 1 month free | y | y | From Directors to growing teams |
| Xero Payroll | Included in Grow (£37/mo) | 30 days | y | y | Xero accounting users |
| Moneysoft | £90/year | N/A | y | y | From Directors to SMEs |
| BrightPay | Quote-based (cloud) | 60 days | y | y | Accountants & cost-conscious SMEs |
| Director payroll services | from £17/month | N/A | y | y | Directors |
| HMRC Basic PAYE Tools | Free | N/A | y | n | Micro-businesses (=9 employees) |
1. BrightPay free tier
Cost: £0
BrightPay’s desktop edition is free if you have three or fewer employees. That includes RTI submissions, payslips, P60s, P11Ds and pension integration. For a director-only setup it really is free, not free-with-an-asterisk.
The real limitation is that it’s desktop software, so it lives on one machine. If you switch laptops or want your accountant to peek at the data, you’ll want the cloud add-on (BrightPay Connect), which runs around £59 a year. That’s still cheap.
If you want me to pick one thing for a solo director, this is it.
2. Xero Payroll
Cost: £5/month
Xero will sell you payroll for £5 a month covering up to five employees. The catch is the underlying Xero subscription. Xero Starter is roughly £16 a month in 2026, so the real bill is £21, not £5.
That’s still fine value if you’re already using Xero for your books. If you’re not, you’re paying £16 a month for accounting software you didn’t really want, in order to access a £5 payroll add-on. Not the cheap option in disguise.
Worth it for: existing Xero customers.
3. Sage Payroll
Cost: £10/month
Sage starts at £10 a month for up to five people on payroll, with RTI, auto-enrolment and payslips included. Sage isn’t the cheapest, but it’s the one your accountant has almost certainly used before, and the phone support is genuinely good when something goes wrong with HMRC.
If you’d rather pay a tenner and never think about it, this is a reasonable answer.
Moneysoft Payroll Manager:
Cost: £144 a year
Moneysoft is the option nobody talks about and small accountancy practices quietly love. £144 a year buys a full licence covering up to fifteen employees, RTI included. It does what payroll software is meant to do and nothing else.
Two warnings. The interface looks like Windows XP. And it’s desktop-only, so you’re tied to a single PC. Neither of those things matters for a one-director payroll once a month.
A specialist option: Director Payroll Service
Cost: £17/month
Worth mentioning because some directors don’t want to run payroll at all. Director Payroll Service does it for you — sends payslips, files FPS, deals with HMRC if you change your salary mid-year — from £17 a month. More expensive than DIY, but if your hourly rate is £80 the £100 difference vs Moneysoft pays for itself in about an hour of saved faff.
The auto-enrolment loophole
Here’s the one bit of small print that actually saves you money. A sole director with no other employees on payroll is exempt from auto-enrolment duties. You won’t be assessed, you don’t need to set up a workplace pension, and you don’t need pension features in your payroll software.
You do still have to tell The Pensions Regulator the exemption applies — it’s a single online form. But that exemption means BrightPay’s free tier and Moneysoft are both perfectly safe choices. You’re not missing functionality you’ll need.
The minute you put a second person on payroll who isn’t a director, the exemption disappears. At that point check that your software supports NEST or Smart Pension uploads before you commit.
Which to choose?
For a director-only company where you’re paying yourself a fixed salary every month then BrightPay free tier. Nothing else gets close on price, and the features are all there.
If you are already a Xero customer for accounts, I’d add Xero Payroll for £5 because the bookkeeping integration is worth more than the £60 a year. If I hated the idea of desktop software and wasn’t on Xero, Moneysoft at £144 a year is the best paid option you can buy.
If your headcount creeps past three, the picture changes — that’s when auto-enrolment, more flexible cloud access, and proper employee self-service start to matter. The full shortlist for that stage is in our five online payroll providers for small business guide.
Frequently asked questions
Not necessarily — you could use HMRC’s free Basic PAYE Tools. However, even with one employee, the time savings and error reduction from a proper payroll product are usually worth the cost. If you’re already paying for accounting software from Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, or Sage, payroll may already be included or available at a low add-on cost.
RTI stands for Real Time Information – HMRC’s system requiring employers to report payroll data digitally on or before each pay day. Before RTI was introduced in 2013, employers reported payroll information annually. Today, failing to submit on time can result in penalties starting at £100 per month. All payroll software products handle RTI automatically.
GoSmallBusiness.co.uk is independent and reader-supported. Pricing correct as of May 2026 — always verify directly with the provider before purchasing. This article will be reviewed and updated every six months.
