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Comparison

Moved to BrightPay Cloud and
watching the price climb?

BrightPay for Windows was retired after 5 April 2026 — for the 2026/27 tax year and beyond, BrightPay is cloud-only, and the cloud subscription costs more and scales with your headcount. BrightPay Cloud still runs the payroll well; Ghugi just sends the payslips it produces — from your own email address, with DOB encryption and a full audit log. Here's the honest comparison.

Pick BrightPay if…

  • You need to run full UK payroll — PAYE, NI, RTI submissions to HMRC, statutory pay, holiday accrual, pension auto-enrolment — BrightPay Cloud handles all of it.
  • You're an accountant or bookkeeper — processing payroll for multiple client companies — BrightPay Bureau is built for that exact workflow.
  • You want an employee self-service portal — BrightPay Connect — now part of the cloud subscription — lets staff log in to download their own payslips and view P60s.
  • You want payroll and delivery from one cloud supplier — If you're happy with BrightPay Cloud's per-employee pricing and want calculation, RTI, and payslip emailing under one login, the all-in-one is a coherent choice.

Pick Ghugi if…

  • You were moved to BrightPay Cloud and mainly used it to email payslips — BrightPay for Windows is gone for 2026/27 and everyone's on the pricier cloud subscription. If payslip delivery was the part you cared about, Ghugi does exactly that step for a flat £15/mo — alongside BrightPay Cloud, or any payroll tool.
  • Your 2026/27 BrightPay quote made you wince — Bureaus have reported steep increases after the move to cloud — one AccountingWeb thread cites a jump from £549 to £2,960 +VAT. Ghugi's delivery step is a flat monthly fee whatever your headcount.
  • You want emails sent from your own domain, not the vendor's — BrightPay's payslip emails arrive from payslips@brightpay.co.uk — BrightPay support has told customers this is hard-coded and can't be changed. Ghugi sends from your own Google or Microsoft account, your own custom domain, or your own SMTP server.
  • You'd rather pay a flat fee than per employee — BrightPay Cloud bills per active employee, so a payroll with high turnover climbs fast. Ghugi is a flat monthly fee: 25, 100, or 200 payslips, same price.

Plot twist: many of our customers use both. BrightPay (or their accountant’s payroll) calculates the pay, Ghugi sends the payslips.

At a glance

Feature-by-feature comparison. We’ve tried to be fair — call us out on hello@ghugi.com if anything’s wrong.

FeatureGhugiBrightPay
Full UK payroll calculation (PAYE/NI/RTI)—✓
Submits RTI to HMRC—✓
Employee self-service portal—✓
Bulk email payslips to staff✓ Built-in✓ (cloud)
DOB-encrypted PDF delivery (AES-256)✓—
Email From: addressYour own domain (Google, Microsoft, custom domain, SMTP)payslips@brightpay.co.uk (hard-coded)
Pricing modelFlat per-org tiersPer active employee (cloud)
Drag-in PDFs from any payroll source✓Locked to BrightPay output
Custom email templates✓Limited
Full audit trail of every send✓Partial
Desktop edition (offline, one-off licence)—Retired after 5 April 2026 (cloud only)
30-day free trial, no credit card✓60-day trial
Starting price£15/moCloud: per employee (quote-based)
UK-built and UK-hosted✓✓

When BrightPay is the right choice

Established UK payroll software, popular with accountants and bureaus; cloud-only from the 2026/27 tax year after BrightPay for Windows was retired on 5 April 2026.

You need to run full payroll, not just send payslips

BrightPay Cloud handles PAYE, NI, RTI submissions to HMRC, statutory sick/maternity pay, holiday accrual, and pension auto-enrolment. If you don't have an accountant doing this and you don't already use Sage or Xero Payroll, BrightPay is a sensible pick.

You're a bookkeeper or accountant with multiple clients

BrightPay Bureau is built around running payroll for 5–500 client companies. It's industry-standard in UK accounting practices. Ghugi doesn't compete in that segment — it sits on top.

You want an employee self-service portal

BrightPay Connect — bundled into the cloud subscription — gives staff a login to view their payslips and P60s. Ghugi is email-first, with no portal, so if a login-gated portal is a hard requirement, BrightPay fits that shape.

When Ghugi is the right choice

Ghugi isn’t trying to be BrightPay. We do one thing: get your payslip PDFs from “produced” to “in the employee’s inbox” without any portal, login, or manual forwarding.

Your accountant runs the payroll

They send you payslip PDFs once a month. You forward each one to the right employee from Outlook. Ghugi replaces that 30-minute monthly chore with a 2-minute drag-and-drop.

You were moved to BrightPay Cloud and only needed the email step

The cloud subscription bundles in an HMRC submission engine and a portal — but if all you really used BrightPay for was emailing payslips, that's the one part Ghugi replaces. Keep BrightPay Cloud for the calculation (or switch payroll to anything you like); Ghugi sends the PDFs from your own address.

You care about encryption + audit

Every payslip Ghugi sends is AES-256 encrypted with the employee's date of birth. No "open the PDF, click the link, log in" portal flow — they just open the email and unlock with DOB. It's the same approach UK accountants have used manually for years; Ghugi just automates it.

You don't want to pay for payroll software you don't need

BrightPay Cloud is now priced per active employee, with bureaus reporting quotes of £1,500 – £5,000+/yr after the move to cloud (AccountingWeb). If you only need the email-out step, you're paying for an HMRC submission engine and a portal you'll never use. Ghugi Starter is £15/month, no annual lock-in.

Pricing, honestly compared

Here’s what the equivalent setup actually costs each way. They’re not apples-to-apples — BrightPay calculates the payroll, Ghugi delivers it — but the totals are real.

BrightPay Cloud + Connect

Per employee /mo

BrightPay Cloud is priced per active employee — there's no flat public tier since the desktop retirement; bureaus report quotes of £1,500 – £5,000+/yr after the move to cloud (AccountingWeb)

  • Full UK payroll (PAYE/NI/RTI)
  • Employee self-service portal (Connect)
  • Email payslips from payslips@brightpay.co.uk
  • Locked into BrightPay payroll engine

Ghugi Starter — 25 employees

£15/mo

or £150/yr · flat fee, no per-employee charges

  • Bulk email payslips with DOB encryption
  • Sends from your own Google / Microsoft / custom domain / SMTP
  • Works with any payroll source (PDFs)
  • Full audit trail of every send
Start free trial — no card required

Common questions

Quick answers to what most BrightPay users ask before switching.

BrightPay just quoted me 2-3x more for 2026/27. Should I leave entirely?
Not necessarily. Most businesses we hear from keep BrightPay Cloud for the payroll calculation (it still does that well) and use Ghugi for the payslip-email step instead of leaning on the parts of the subscription they don't really use. You're not leaving BrightPay — you're being deliberate about what you pay it for.
Do I still need BrightPay Connect if I use Ghugi to send payslips?
Connect is now bundled into the BrightPay Cloud subscription rather than sold separately, so there's nothing to cancel on its own. But you don't have to use its portal: run payroll in BrightPay Cloud, export the payslip PDFs, and send them through Ghugi — employees get the payslip in their inbox, from your own address, instead of logging into a portal.
Can I use both BrightPay and Ghugi together?
Yes — and many of our customers do exactly that. BrightPay Cloud handles the payroll calculation and produces payslip PDFs. Then Ghugi takes those PDFs, matches each one to the right employee, and emails them in bulk with DOB encryption. You get BrightPay's HMRC-approved payroll engine and Ghugi's modern delivery flow.
Why do BrightPay's emails arrive from payslips@brightpay.co.uk?
Because that address is hard-coded in their software — BrightPay support has told customers it can't be changed. Ghugi sends from your own Google or Microsoft account, your own custom domain, or your own SMTP server, so employees see the email arrive from your domain, not ours.
Will Ghugi work with payslip PDFs from BrightPay?
Yes. BrightPay Cloud exports payslips as PDF files. You drag those PDFs into Ghugi, and Ghugi auto-matches each one to the right employee (using the employee name on the PDF, or you can override manually). Then send.
How is Ghugi more secure than emailing payslips from Outlook?
Every payslip Ghugi sends is AES-256 encrypted with the employee's date of birth as the password. If it lands in the wrong inbox, they can't open it. It's the same approach most UK accountants have used manually for years — Ghugi just automates it.
What if my accountant won't switch from emailing payslips manually?
You can run Ghugi yourself. Ask your accountant to send you the payslip PDFs each month (or pick them up from their portal). Then you handle the delivery in Ghugi. Many of our customers do this — the accountant doesn't need to change anything.

Stop emailing payslips like it’s 2005.

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On BrightPay Cloud and only need the email step? Add Ghugi at £15/mo and send payslips from your own address.