# Breathe Reviews
**Vendor:** Breathe  
**Category:** [Core HR Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/core-hr)  
**Average Rating:** 4.4/5.0  
**Total Reviews:** 604
## About Breathe
Breathe is a type of human resource management software solution designed to help users streamline their core people processes online. Specifically tailored for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK, Breathe facilitates the management of essential HR functions, allowing businesses to save time, enhance efficiency, and provide peace of mind, regardless of their operational location. Targeted primarily at UK-based SMEs and charities, Breathe addresses the unique challenges these organisations face in managing their workforce. With over 16,000 businesses already utilizing the platform to oversee more than 500,000 employees, Breathe has established itself as a trusted partner in the HR space. Its endorsement by a network of over 950 partners further solidifies its reputation as a reliable solution for organisations looking to modernise their HR processes. Breathe offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to meet the diverse needs of its users. Key functionalities include holiday and leave management, which simplifies the process of tracking employee time off, and sickness and absence monitoring, ensuring that organizations can maintain productivity even when employees are away. The platform also includes performance management tools that help businesses set goals and evaluate employee performance effectively. Additionally, expense management and employee scheduling features streamline financial tracking and workforce planning, while time tracking capabilities provide insights into employee hours and productivity. The platform&#39;s employee database and analytics feature allows organizations to maintain a centralised repository of employee information, facilitating better decision-making through data-driven insights. Unlimited document storage ensures that essential HR documents are easily accessible and securely stored, while rota, time, and attendance functionalities help organisations manage their workforce efficiently. By integrating these features into a single platform, Breathe stands out in its category, offering a holistic approach to HR management that is both intuitive and user-friendly. Overall, Breathe provides a robust solution for SMEs looking to enhance their HR processes. By moving core people management functions online, organisations can not only save time but also improve compliance and employee satisfaction. The platform&#39;s focus on security and ease of use makes it an appealing choice for businesses aiming to modernize their HR practices while maintaining a strong connection with their workforce.



## Breathe Pros & Cons
**What users like:**

- Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Breathe, enjoying its user-friendly interface and quick setup process. (36 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **user-friendly interface** of Breathe, enjoying easy navigation and excellent customer support. (23 reviews)
- Users value the **intuitive interface** of Breathe, making navigation and setup quick and easy for everyone. (23 reviews)
- Users love the **user-friendly interface** of Breathe, making navigation and support easy and intuitive. (20 reviews)
- Users find Breathe **easy to use** and appreciate its clean design for efficient leave tracking and management. (18 reviews)
- Holiday Management (14 reviews)
- Leave Management (14 reviews)
- Easy Setup (13 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **navigation ease** of Breathe, finding it intuitive and user-friendly for effective staff management. (13 reviews)
- Simplicity (13 reviews)

**What users dislike:**

- Users find the **limited features** of Breathe make it clunky and difficult to navigate effectively. (11 reviews)
- Users find the **missing features** frustrating, particularly in customization and integrations, affecting overall usability. (11 reviews)
- Users find the **limited customization** frustrating, particularly for reporting needs and system integrations, hindering efficiency. (9 reviews)
- Users find **navigation difficult** in Breathe, often struggling to locate specific objectives and deliverables. (7 reviews)
- Users find the **poor navigation** of Breathe frustrating and often struggle to locate specific objectives and deliverables. (6 reviews)
- Users find the **interface not user-friendly** , struggling with hidden features and a lack of detailed guidance. (5 reviews)
- Poor Interface Design (5 reviews)
- Difficult Navigation (4 reviews)
- Users note significant **improvement needed** in customization, integrations, and notification reliability for better functionality of Breathe. (4 reviews)
- Inadequate Reporting (4 reviews)

## Breathe Reviews
  ### 1. Effective Stress Relief with Seamless HR Integration

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Priyanshu P.

**Reviewed Date:** January 30, 2026

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

I like the Breathe app for its minimalist design, simplicity, and effectiveness in providing a quick, guided reset. It works exceptionally well as a simple, haptic-driven tool to 'reset' the nervous system, especially when paired with specific environmental conditions, settings, and complementary apps. I find it integrates well with several third-party tools to streamline HR processes, reduce manual data entry, and centralize information. The initial setup for learning proper breathing techniques, like diaphragmatic or deep breathing, is made to be very simple and accessible, often only taking a few minutes to get started.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

Breathe HR is praised for its simplicity and affordability for SMEs, but there are areas frequently highlighted as needing improvement or not working as well for users. It could also enhance its functionality to improve user experience and scalability.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I use Breathe to guide me through deep breathing exercises, helping shift from anxious to relaxed breathing, reducing stress, and improving focus.

  ### 2. Simple, intuitive HR software that makes managing people easy

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Mona V. | Head of Strategy, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 02, 2025

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

Breathe has streamlined our HR processes and saved us time on admin.  Breathe is incredibly user-friendly, even for those who aren’t tech-savvy. I especially like how clean and intuitive the interface is, everything from booking leave to reviewing performance is straightforward. It’s easy to navigate, requires very little training, and gives a clear overview of our team at a glance. The self-service functionality has empowered our team to manage their own records, which saves us so much time.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

There are occasional limitations with customisation, especially around reporting and integrating with other systems. It would be great to have more flexible dashboards or more integrations with payroll tools. Sometimes the performance review templates can feel a bit rigid.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Breathe is solving several key HR challenges for us, particularly around time-consuming admin, lack of visibility, and inconsistent processes. Before using Breathe, managing annual leave, sickness records, and performance reviews involved clunky spreadsheets and lots of email chasing. Now, everything is centralised and automated, which has significantly reduced errors and freed up time for more strategic work. It’s also improved our internal communication and accountability, team members can easily access their own records, and managers have real-time oversight of their teams. This has led to a more efficient, transparent, and empowered workplace.

**Official Response from Anneli Briars:**

> Thank you for sharing your positive experience with Breathe. We're glad to hear that our self-service functionality has empowered your team and saved you time. We understand the importance of customisation and integrations, and we are constantly working to enhance our platform to provide more flexibility and seamless integrations with other systems. Your feedback on the performance review templates is valuable, please add this as an idea via the Breathe portal and we will take it into consideration for future improvements.

  ### 3. Compact HR system

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Emma Z. | Office Manager / H&amp;S Advisor, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** August 28, 2025

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

It is handy to keep all employee records in one place and makes it easier to track holidays/ sickness and breathe will even analyse the data.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

It would be good if a calendar were included in the basic subscription, so that if changes are made in Breathe, they would also update on Outlook.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Keeping employee records in one place.

  ### 4. Great System

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Human Resources | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 08, 2025

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

User-friendly with an interface that is easy to navigate. The Intercom forum is very useful for finding instructions on how to do different things and how to use/navigate through the system. The customer support is also excellent and easy to get through to. Also integrates with Hireful, which is great for streamlined recruitment.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

Reporting could do better, custom reports could be very useful. You can extract loads of data via full data reports, but this involves loads of filtering and data manipulation.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Client relations management, core HR and data storage. Good for time keeping against client records as well as client documentation management, benefiting me by having a centralised platform with all client data contained.

**Official Response from Anneli Briars:**

> We're glad to hear that you find Breathe user-friendly and easy to navigate. Thank you for your feedback on the reporting feature. Please add this as an idea via the Breathe portal and our team will take this into consideration for future enhancements. 

  ### 5. A straightforward HR system that gets the job done

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Education Management | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** January 07, 2025

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

Breathe HR makes it really easy to manage day-to-day HR tasks like tracking holidays, absences, and employee records. The interface is simple and straightforward, which means you don’t need a lot of training to get started... I also like the automated reminders for probation reviews and appraisals - it’s a small thing, but it helps keep everything on track. The document storage feature is handy too, especially for keeping contracts and policies in one place.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

Some room for improvement. The lack of customisation can be frustrating if your company has specific processes or reporting needs. I’d also like to see better integrations with other systems like payroll, as switching between platforms slows things down. Notifications can be hit or miss as well... sometimes you don’t realise something needs approving until it’s too late.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Helps to centralise our HR processes, making it easier to manage employee data, track absences, and handle holiday requests. It’s particularly beneficial for maintaining an organised record of documents like contracts and policies, which reduces admin time and ensures compliance. The automated reminders for key events like probation reviews also help us stay on top of employee performance management, saving time and preventing missed deadlines.

  ### 6. Great functionality but could be streamlined.

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Market Research | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** December 10, 2024

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

Breathe has a wide variety of functionality: Calendar, leave, trianing, company documents and so on.
It is fairly easy for the team to use and it is great to find everything in one place.
Admin access makes it easy for management to stay on top of processes and organisation.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

Some elements are not intuative, such as where to find Kudos, or onboarding sessions. Some elements seem like although they are available, they are hidden.
There could be added functionality, such as being able to export the Organisation Chart, or view company training as a whole rather than person by person.
Onboarding sessions have to be assigned to a person one by one, rather than multi select.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Annual leave - easy and effcient for team members to book leave and for this to be approved.
Office Booking - again, easy and efficient.
Company documents - great to have these all in one place, approved individually and able to download the latest version and the push of a button.

  ### 7. Breathe lets you breathe

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Tsitsi T. | Supported Living Team Leader, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 19, 2025

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

You find all you need in one place rotas, employees etc

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

There are features that can be added to the rota that I feel are missing

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Making sure everyone gets their rota on time.

**Official Response from Anneli Briars:**

> Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. We're glad to hear that you find Breathe convenient for managing rotas and employees. We appreciate your input on the missing features. Please share this as an idea via the Breathe portal and will take it into consideration for future updates.

  ### 8. Very Goo

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** John W. | HRBP, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** January 21, 2025

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

It's quick to set up and intuitive to use.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

It can be a bit costly. It lacks some flexibility in shift pattern set up.

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

A great tool for holiday and absence management.

  ### 9. Very easy to use, fantastic technical and account management support

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Helen G. | Director, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** December 03, 2024

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

Ease of use, always looking for updates and improvements and the support is very good.

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

Only downside sometimes it takes few hours to speak to an operator through the chat function.  Would prefer a better less, disjointed performance management piece and more comprehensive in terms of boxes, competencies.  It's a bit clunky

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Booking and tracking of holiday and data all in one place.
Managing sickness absence

  ### 10. System has good functionality for the price

**Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Legal Services | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** December 12, 2024

**What do you like best about Breathe?**

self service and HR end are easy to navigate and use

**What do you dislike about Breathe?**

Would like to see more features - particurly around reporting. More advanced reporting would be useful. We considered using the recruitment function but it was frustrating we wouldn't be able to include an application form

**What problems is Breathe solving and how is that benefiting you?**

We use it primarly as a system to record holidays and sickness absence


## Breathe Discussions
  - [File uploading. Is there any scope to allow sub folders?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/file-uploading-is-there-any-scope-to-allow-sub-folders) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [How do i update the company branding in the top left of the platform?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-do-i-update-the-company-branding-in-the-top-left-of-the-platform) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [Admin Resetting user&#39;s Passwords](https://www.g2.com/discussions/admin-resetting-user-s-passwords) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [C](https://www.g2.com/discussions/breathe-c) - 1 comment, 1 upvote
  - [Who owns BreatheHR?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/who-owns-breathehr) - 1 comment

- [View Breathe pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/centurion-management-systems-breathe/reviews?filters%5Bsentiment_snippet%5D=1130223&qs=pros-and-cons&section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-14+10%3A09%3A15+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=22188a4a-20ab-4504-a511-bc61cef1e39f&secure%5Btoken%5D=cc59d58c75cea9b92f2981dcb386a2982df030a7128067d38e847ac36196b8c6&format=llm_user)

## Breathe Features
**Core HR**
- Organization Management
- Time, Attendance, and PTO
- Expense Management
- Compliance
- Benefits Administration

**Automation**
- Process Automation

**Platform Basics**
- Performance
- Security

**Platform Basics**
- Reporting
- Dashboard
- Performance

**Generative AI**
- AI Text Generation
- AI Text Summarization

**Logistics**
- Dashboards & Reporting
- Data Collection

**Platform Functionality**
- Mobility

**Generative AI**
- AI Text Summarization

**Time Tracking**
- Ease of Completing Timesheets
- Tracking Time to Project/Task
- Billable Time Rate Management

**Management**
- Schedule Creation Tools
- Schedule Management
- Employee Leave Management
- User Access
- User Role Access
- Employee Information

**Platform Data**
- Reporting
- Platform Search
- Visualization

**Platform Additional Functionality**
- Integrations
- Mobility
- Forecasting
- Portal

**Monitoring**
- Integration

**Platform**
- Integration APIs
- User, Role, and Access Management
- Performance
- Mobility
- Reporting
- Dashboards

**Mobile Time Tracking**
- Time Tracking

**Administration**
- Business Tool Integration
- User, Role, and Access Management

**Platform**
- Reporting
- APIs / Integration
- Performance and Reliability
- Mobile User Support

**Workforce Management Platform Features**
- Shift Scheduling
- Time & Attendance Tracking
- Absence & Leave Management
- Skills Management
- Self-Service Capabilities
- Mobile Shift Scheduling
- Team Communication

## Top Breathe Alternatives
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