HollyHR vs Whale
HollyHR
hollyhr.com
Whale
usewhale.ioSide by side
| Figure | HollyHR | Whale |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | £1/mo | $249/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 9 | 4 |
| Spec score · Employee Onboarding Software | 8.8 (#5) | 8.7 (#6) |
| Headquarters | The registered office is 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom. | Ghent, Belgium |
| Integrations | Official connection options include Zapier, Make, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Claude, Google Calendar, Outlook, Xero Payroll UK and a Staffology Payroll preview. | Listed integrations include Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot, Microsoft tools, Google Drive, OneDrive, BambooHR, ADP, Asana, monday.com, Zapier and Zoho. |
| MCP | HollyHR offers a hosted MCP endpoint for approved AI assistants with permission-scoped tools and confirmation for writes. | Whale provides a remote MCP server usable with Claude, OpenAI, Gemini and other MCP clients; OAuth and Whale permissions govern access. |
| Product | HollyHR is core HR software for small UK teams, bringing people records, working patterns, leave, documents, starters and standard reports together. | Whale is an AI-powered SOP and training platform for documenting procedures, organizing company knowledge, and training employees. |
| Support | Free users receive the help centre and email support; Standard adds priority support with a one-UK-business-day target. | Whale says its customer success team offers quick answers, coaching sessions, and help migrating existing documentation. |
| What it does | HollyHR is UK-focused core HR software for small teams covering employee records, leave, sickness, documents and onboarding. | Whale is an AI-powered platform for capturing, sharing and managing standard operating procedures and training. |
Plans
HollyHR
- FreeFree
- Standard£2 a month
- Plus£4 a month
- FreeFree
- Charity Standard£1 a month
- Charity Plus£2 a month
- Plus (coming soon)£4 a month
- Standard annual£20 a year
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
HollyHR
HollyHR is core HR software for small UK teams, bringing people records, working patterns, leave, documents, starter processes and reports together. Teams can manage leave requests and approvals, balances, sickness records and UK public holidays, with a shared Who’s Away calendar. Reusable onboarding packs create individual journeys with due dates and owners; private files, right-to-work evidence and policy acknowledgements stay with employee records. Built-in headcount, turnover and time-off reports export as CSV or PDF. Organisation export includes CSV data, available uploaded files and a manifest. HollyHR connects with services including Zapier, Make, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Claude, Google Calendar, Outlook and Xero Payroll UK, with differing capabilities and availability. Approved leave can be sent to Xero after employees and leave types are matched, but salary, tax, bank, pay-run and employee-creation data do not sync. API reads and signed webhooks are available on every plan; creating records through the API or integrations requires Standard and System Admin permission. A free plan covers up to 10 active employees; Standard starts at £2/user/mo. The service runs on web and through an API.
Whale
Whale is an AI-powered platform for documenting procedures, organizing company knowledge, and training employees. Its Step Recorder captures clicks, video, annotated screenshots, and written instructions. Alice can draft SOPs from prompts or imported Word files, PDFs, PowerPoints, and uploaded videos. Training Flows arrange playbooks, videos, and quizzes into sequences, with assignments by role or group and completion tracking. Employees can reach documented knowledge through a browser extension, mobile access, QR code sharing, or AI chat. Listed integrations include Google Drive, OneDrive, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Gmail, Zapier, and BambooHR. Whale MCP works with Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, and other MCP-compatible tools, and Whale says it is included on every plan at no extra cost. Whale states that it is SOC 2 and GDPR compliant and HIPAA ready, with customer data encrypted at rest and in transit. The free plan includes 10 members, one creator, 20 Playbook items, and 20 AI credits. Scale costs $249 a month billed yearly.