Breathe
The HR side of your business, made brilliantly simple
By Centurion Management Systems Ltd (trading as Breathe HR) · 4.0/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- UK SMEs with up to 250 employees wanting one system for HR admin, leave, absence and rotas
- Small businesses replacing HR spreadsheets with self-service leave requests and absence tracking
- Teams that need to centralise health & safety records, risk assessments and incident logs to stay audit-ready
- Employers wanting UK-specific online training (100+ courses) with tracked progress and certificates
- Companies that prefer flexible, commitment-free subscriptions over long-term contracts
Ideal size: 10–250 employees people · UK SME with a lean or part-time HR function
Not for
- Organisations with well over 250 employees or complex multi-country HR structures
- Businesses that require employee data to be hosted outside the UK
- Companies wanting a heavily customised enterprise HCM delivered through a large implementation project
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
1–2 weeks (self-service trial)
~14 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
On request
Subscription-based plans, no long-term contract and cancel anytime; list prices are not published on the vendor pages reviewed, so treat figures as quote-based
Implementation Friction
2/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
Pricing follows plan tiers (some features noted as 'regular and above') rather than seat minimums; employee data is imported self-service
Add-on costs
- Optional add-on modules such as e-learning, rota/time & attendance and health & safety
Company & support
Who is behind Breathe, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- Not recorded
- Headquarters
- Not recorded
How you get support
- PhoneNot listed
- EmailAll plans
- Live chatNot listed
- Support portal / ticketsNot listed
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsAll plans
- Dedicated account managerNot listed
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
Vendor describes Breathe as self-service with a friendly support team available during trial and after go-live, and points to a support email address and Breathe Support documentation. No business hours or SLA is stated on the pages reviewed.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Breathe sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Breathe
- Sales Cookie
- Duda
- Employee Navigator
- GoCo
- Trolley
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Breathe. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
No supported MCP path today, so it cannot be driven from an AI client.
AI & MCP readiness
What Breathe ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
AI features shipped
Homepage markets an 'AI-powered helpdesk for employees' and a Breathe AI assistant that answers staff questions instantly from the customer's own company policies; it is in early access. Vendor messaging describes Breathe as 'becoming an AI-first platform', and ISO 42001 certification covers AI governance.
Your data & models
- Trains on your data
- Not recorded — ask the vendor
- Runs on
- Not recorded
- AI pricing
- Not recorded
In your ecosystem
- AI connection
- Not supported
- Model key
- Not recorded
- AI usage audit
- Not recorded
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Breathe is UK HR software for small and mid-sized employers, covering leave, absence, rotas, online learning and health & safety in one system, aimed at businesses with up to 250 people. It claims 17,000+ UK SME customers and is sold on flexible, commitment-free subscriptions with a free trial. The vendor holds ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certification and hosts data in UK data centres. An AI assistant that answers employee questions from company policies is live in early access.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Breathe, and how long has it been in HR software?
Breathe is the trading name of Centurion Management Systems Ltd, a UK company that states it has been designing and implementing HR systems for over 21 years. Since 2020 it has been owned by Australian HR software provider ELMO (ASX:ELO), which was founded in 2002.
What size of business is Breathe built for?
The vendor positions Breathe for businesses with up to 250 people and says more than 17,000 UK SMEs use it. Larger, multi-country organisations with complex HR structures sit outside that stated sweet spot.
How is Breathe secured and governed for AI?
Breathe holds ISO 27001 for information security and ISO 42001 for AI management, states that customer data stays in UK data centres with a UK failover site, offers two-factor authentication, is ICO registered, and publishes an AI assistant privacy, security and responsible-AI policy.
What are the contract and pricing terms?
Breathe is sold on subscription plans with no long-term contract and cancellation at any time, plus a free trial with no credit card required. List prices were not published on the vendor pages reviewed, so ask for a quote matched to headcount and modules.
Is any AI feature live, and do you train on our data?
An AI assistant/helpdesk that answers employee questions from the customer's own policies is live in early access, and the vendor says it is building Breathe into an AI-first HR platform. The reviewed pages do not state whether customer data is used to train AI models, so confirm this in contracting.
What support is available?
Breathe describes itself as self-service, with a support team available during the trial and after go-live, a support email address for questions such as data export, and help documentation at Breathe Support. Business hours and response-time SLAs are not stated on the pages reviewed.