Three-Way Payroll Comparison

BrightPay vs Sage Payroll vs CollSoft - Irish Payroll Software Compared

Three Irish payroll platforms SMEs evaluate in 2026, ranked on PAYE Modernisation, Auto-Enrolment Payroll Notification retrieval from NAERSA, SEPA XML support for AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB, Relevant Contracts Tax handling, licensing model and total cost in euro. The default-pick answer for a single SME is not the same as the right answer for an accounting practice running multiple payrolls.

Verdict

BrightPay is the default pick for Irish SMEs from 1 to 50 employees that want an Irish-built desktop product with the most polished PAYE Modernisation and AEPN workflow. Sage Business Cloud Payroll is the right answer for SMEs already running Sage Business Cloud Accounting that want a single shared-ledger vendor for bookkeeping and payroll. CollSoft is the right answer for accounting practices and group-company structures running payroll for multiple employer entities, because its entry licence covers five separate employer companies under one annual fee.

BrightPay, Sage Business Cloud Payroll and CollSoft - Side-by-Side Matrix

Eighteen rows covering vendor headquarters, product line, pricing in euro, licensing model, PAYE Modernisation, ROS integration, Auto-Enrolment readiness, PRSI and USC, RCT, CSO reporting, SEPA XML, Irish bank feeds, accounting integration, data residency, Irish support, free trial, cloud architecture and best-fit headcount. Booleans drawn live from the three vendor JSONs; every other cell is anchored to a primary source cited in the methodology footer.

Feature	BrightPay	Sage Business Cloud Payroll	CollSoft
Vendor and headquarters	Thesaurus Software (CRO 632016). Unit 35, Duleek Business Park, Duleek, Co. Meath. Irish-built, Irish-headquartered.	Sage Group plc. UK-headquartered. Irish operation runs Sage Business Cloud Payroll from sage.com/en-ie.	CollSoft Limited (CRO 335880). Rockfield House, Donaghmore, Navan, Co. Meath. Irish-built, Irish-headquartered.
Product line covered here	BrightPay 2026 desktop, optionally with BrightPay Connect cloud add-on for backup, employee self-service and bureau portals.	Sage Business Cloud Payroll Ireland (the cloud SKU at sage.com/en-ie/products/sage-business-cloud-payroll). Sage 50 Payroll Ireland is a separate desktop SKU not covered in this comparison.	CollSoft Payroll 2026 desktop. Available in Small Business, Micro Bureau and Bureau editions.
Indicative published entry pricing (euro)	Tiered annual licence: €229 ex VAT for up to 10 employees, €349 for up to 25, €459 unlimited. Verified against brightpay.ie/pricing 2026-05-22.	Subscription tiers from €13/month plus VAT for the entry plan (small headcount) to €133/month plus VAT for the largest published tier. Employee-count caps per tier require direct confirmation from Sage Ireland sales. Promotional pricing of €1.30/month for three months when bundled with Sage Accounting is a launch offer, not a steady-state price.	Small Business Edition €199/year ex VAT (5 employers, unlimited employees). Micro Bureau €299/year (10 employers). Bureau €499/year (unlimited employers). Verified against collsoft.ie/pricing 2026-05-22.
Licensing model	Per-company annual licence. Bureau licences priced separately for accounting practices managing multiple clients.	Per-company monthly subscription. Sage Partner Edition is the practice route, priced separately.	Per-bureau annual licence at every tier. The €199 entry licence already covers up to 5 separate employer entities, making it the cheapest legitimate route for an accountant or practice running payroll for a small portfolio of Irish clients.
PAYE Modernisation	Supported. Native Payroll Submission Request and Revenue Payroll Notification handling on every pay run.	Supported. The Sage Ireland knowledge base confirms PSR submission and RPN retrieval on the Business Cloud Payroll product.	Supported. PSR submission and RPN retrieval built in since the 2019 PAYE Modernisation go-live.
Revenue Online Service integration	Native. Direct ROS submissions without manual file export.	Native. Submissions made via the Sage Business Cloud Payroll Revenue connection.	Native. Direct ROS submissions including end-of-year processing.
Auto-Enrolment / My Future Fund readiness	BrightPay 2026 release retrieves Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notifications from NAERSA in the same step as RPN retrieval, calculates phased contributions, and submits Auto Enrolment Contribution Submissions. Documented at brightpay.ie/docs/2026/auto-enrolment-employer-help-guide.	Sage Business Cloud Payroll Ireland processes the AEPN from NAERSA and adds the My Future Fund deduction to the employee payslip automatically on the 2026 tax year. Documented on the Sage Ireland knowledge base (ie-kb.sage.com).	CollSoft Payroll 2026 release retrieves the AEPN from NAERSA. Auto-Enrolment webinar materials dated October 2025 on the CollSoft helpdesk (helpdesk.collsoft.ie) document the workflow.
PRSI and USC calculations	Full Irish PAYE, Pay Related Social Insurance and Universal Social Charge calculation for all employment classes including part-time and casual.	Full Irish PAYE, PRSI and USC. Standard for any Revenue-recognised Irish payroll product.	Full Irish PAYE, PRSI and USC. Standard for any Revenue-recognised Irish payroll product.
Relevant Contracts Tax (RCT) for construction	RCT processing supported.	RCT support less prominent in the Business Cloud Payroll product. Confirm with Sage Ireland directly if RCT is your primary requirement.	Strongest RCT support of the three. Construction sector is a stated specialism and the workflow has been in the product for years.
CSO statistical reporting	CSO reporting available.	CSO statistical reporting available within the Sage Business Cloud ecosystem.	CSO reporting is a stated specialism, included in core editions.
SEPA XML bank file generation (payroll payments out)	Supported. Bank file formats for AIB, BOI, PTSB, Ulster Bank.	Generation supported for AIB, BOI, PTSB per the Sage Ireland product page. SEPA Direct Debit collection (the inbound capability) is narrower; bulk payroll payment file export to AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB is the relevant capability here.	Supported. Bank file formats for .
Irish bank feeds (transactions read in)	Not native. Payroll software in Ireland does not typically run open-banking ingestion - that is an accounting-software function.	Not native to Business Cloud Payroll. Available on Sage Business Cloud Accounting if both are subscribed.	Not native.
Accounting integration	CSV and journal export to Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, Surf Accounts, Big Red Book. No live two-way sync.	Native two-way integration into Sage Business Cloud Accounting Ireland. This is the strongest accounting-side capability of the three.	CSV and journal export to the main Irish accounting platforms. No live two-way sync.
GDPR data residency	EU data centres. Desktop core stores data locally on the customer machine; BrightPay Connect cloud backup is hosted in EU data centres.	EU data centres.	EU data centres. Desktop product stores data locally on the customer machine.
Irish support	Yes. Phone, email and live chat from the Duleek office.	Yes. Sage Ireland support desk and the ie-kb.sage.com knowledge base.	Yes. Phone and email support from Navan, included unlimited at every tier.
Free trial	60-day free trial.	No free trial at the standard price. The current promotion is 90% off for the first three months when bundled with Sage Accounting.	60-day free trial.
Cloud / desktop architecture	Desktop-first with optional BrightPay Connect cloud add-on for backup, employee self-service portal and accountant bureau dashboard.	Cloud-native. Browser access on every plan, no desktop install required.	Desktop-first. No equivalent of BrightPay Connect.
Best-fit headcount	1-5, 6-20, 21-50 employees. Sweet spot is one to fifty.	6-20, 21-50, 50+ employees. Better as headcount grows and Sage Business Cloud Accounting is already in place.	6-20, 21-50 employees per employer entity. Strongest as a bureau product across many small payrolls.

BrightPay - Strongest Fit Profile

BrightPay fits Irish SMEs from one to fifty employees that want an Irish-built payroll product with the deepest Revenue and Auto-Enrolment workflow on the market in 2026. It is developed in Duleek, Co. Meath by Thesaurus Software (Companies Registration Office number 632016), wins the Irish Accountancy Awards Payroll Software of the Year consistently, and the BrightPay 2026 release retrieves Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notifications from NAERSA alongside Revenue Payroll Notifications in the same update step. Pricing is tiered annual licence at €229 ex VAT for up to ten employees, €349 for up to twenty-five and €459 unlimited. Skip BrightPay if you need a fully cloud-native product (BrightPay Connect is a cloud add-on, not a replacement for the desktop core) or if you would rather have payroll and bookkeeping under one vendor (Sage Business Cloud is the cleaner answer there).

Sage Business Cloud Payroll - Strongest Fit Profile

Sage Business Cloud Payroll fits Irish SMEs already running Sage Business Cloud Accounting that want their payroll and bookkeeping under one vendor with a single shared ledger. The deciding capability is the native integration into Sage Business Cloud Accounting, which removes the manual journal posting an Irish accountant otherwise runs every pay period. Auto-Enrolment is live for the January 2026 tax year per the Sage Ireland knowledge base: Sage Payroll retrieves the AEPN from NAERSA and adds the My Future Fund deduction to the employee's payslip automatically. Skip Sage Business Cloud Payroll if cost is the deciding factor for a small Irish team (a dedicated Irish payroll product like BrightPay or CollSoft is materially cheaper at the entry tier) or if your starting requirement is per-employer licensing for an accounting practice.

CollSoft - Strongest Fit Profile

CollSoft Payroll fits accounting practices, bookkeepers and group-company structures running payroll for multiple employer entities, because the entry licence covers up to five separate employers under one annual fee of €199 ex VAT. The Micro Bureau tier extends that to ten employers at €299, and the Bureau tier is unlimited employers at €499. BrightPay and Sage both licence per company, so a small practice running five client payrolls pays five separate BrightPay licences or five Sage subscriptions. CollSoft is also Ireland's strongest payroll product for construction: Relevant Contracts Tax processing is native, and CSO statistical reporting is built in. Skip CollSoft if you want a more modern user interface (the product is functional and reliable but visually dated) or if you would rather have a cloud add-on (CollSoft is desktop-first, with no equivalent of BrightPay Connect).

The Irish Payroll Reality - What Has to Work in 2026

Irish payroll software is heavily regulated and the deciding questions are not about feel or interface. They are about whether the product handles Revenue's PAYE Modernisation real-time reporting, retrieves the Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification from NAERSA for My Future Fund, generates SEPA XML files in the format your bank actually accepts, and handles Relevant Contracts Tax if construction subcontractors are in scope.

PAYE Modernisation - the baseline

Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Modernisation has been mandatory in Ireland since January 2019. Every payroll run must submit a Payroll Submission Request (PSR) to Revenue before employees are paid, and the software must retrieve Revenue Payroll Notifications (RPNs) at the start of every pay period to apply the correct tax credits and rate bands per employee. BrightPay, Sage Business Cloud Payroll and CollSoft all run native ROS submissions for PSR and RPN. There is no meaningful daylight between the three on PAYE Modernisation in 2026.

Auto-Enrolment and My Future Fund - the 2026 surface

Auto-Enrolment, branded My Future Fund and administered by the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA), commenced on 1 January 2026 under the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024. The go-live date was rescheduled from 30 September 2025 to 1 January 2026. Payroll software has to retrieve an Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification (AEPN) from NAERSA in addition to the Revenue Payroll Notification, calculate the phased contributions on gross earnings up to the €80,000 cap, deduct the employee element from net pay, and submit the Auto-Enrolment Contribution Submission alongside the PAYE Modernisation Payroll Submission. Phased contributions begin at 1.5% employer and 1.5% employee and rise every three years to 6%. BrightPay 2026, Sage Business Cloud Payroll Ireland 2026 and CollSoft Payroll 2026 all have AEPN retrieval and contribution submission live in the current release - primary documentation is cited in the methodology footer.

SEPA XML for AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB

Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) XML payment file generation is what lets a payroll product process bulk employee payments through an Irish bank without manual re-keying. The relevant question is not whether the product supports SEPA in the abstract, but whether the file format matches your specific bank's import expectations. BrightPay supports AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank. CollSoft supports AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB. Sage Business Cloud Payroll supports AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB. If Ulster Bank is your business banking provider, BrightPay is the only one of the three with confirmed support in the Vendors.ie dataset.

Licensing model - the discriminator for practices

For a single Irish SME running payroll for its own employees, all three vendors price comparably at the entry tier. For an accounting practice running payroll for multiple Irish SME clients, the structure is different. CollSoft's Small Business Edition at €199 ex VAT per year covers up to five separate employer entities under one licence; Micro Bureau at €299 covers ten; Bureau at €499 is unlimited. BrightPay and Sage Business Cloud Payroll both licence per employer company. A small Irish practice running five client payrolls pays €199 in total on CollSoft Small Business versus five separate licences on BrightPay or five separate subscriptions on Sage. BrightPay's bureau licence with the Connect add-on is the stronger product for practices that need an employee self-service portal and a per-client cloud dashboard - confirm bureau pricing with BrightPay directly before signing.

Methodology and Sources

Pricing, compliance and integration claims are verified against the cited primary sources. Compliance signals are pulled live from each vendor's verified profile.

Source: BrightPay pricing and product documentation on brightpay.ie/pricing and brightpay.ie/docs/2026/auto-enrolment-employer-help-guide, verified 2026-05-22. CollSoft pricing on collsoft.ie/pricing and Auto-Enrolment webinar materials on helpdesk.collsoft.ie, verified 2026-05-22. Sage Business Cloud Payroll Ireland product page sage.com/en-ie/products/sage-business-cloud-payroll, pricing page sage.com/en-ie/sage-business-cloud/payroll/pricing, and Auto-Enrolment knowledge base ie-kb.sage.com, verified 2026-05-22.

Regulator and statute: PAYE Modernisation requirements per Revenue.ie. Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Act 2024 (commenced 1 January 2026, rescheduled from 30 September 2025). Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification (AEPN) and contribution submissions administered by the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA).

Entity: BrightPay - Thesaurus Software (Companies Registration Office number 632016, Unit 35 Duleek Business Park, Duleek, Co. Meath, registered 2018-08-14). CollSoft - CollSoft Limited (CRO 335880, Rockfield House, Donaghmore, Navan, Co. Meath, registered 2000-11-28). Sage Business Cloud Payroll - Sage Group plc, headquartered in the United Kingdom, Irish operation at sage.com/en-ie.

Matrix: The compliance signals on this page (PAYE Modernisation, Revenue integration, Irish bank feeds, SEPA Direct Debit, GDPR data residency, Irish support) are pulled from each vendor's verified profile at /software/brightpay, /software/sage-payroll and /software/collsoft. Category-level context at /payroll-software-ireland.

Reviewer: Bryan Collins (Vendors.ie), 2026-05-22.

All three vendor profiles are re-verified weekly against the vendor's live website. The Sage Business Cloud Payroll record was last verified on 5 May 2026 with high confidence. Sage 50 Payroll Ireland is a separate Sage product not covered in this comparison.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Which is the best Irish payroll software for SMEs in 2026 - BrightPay, Sage Business Cloud Payroll or CollSoft?

Are BrightPay, Sage Business Cloud Payroll and CollSoft all Auto-Enrolment ready for My Future Fund?

Yes. All three vendors have published 2026-tax-year releases that retrieve the Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification from the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority (NAERSA), calculate the phased My Future Fund contributions, and submit the Auto-Enrolment Contribution Submission alongside the PAYE Modernisation Payroll Submission Request. BrightPay documents the workflow at brightpay.ie/docs/2026/auto-enrolment-employer-help-guide. Sage Business Cloud Payroll documents it on the Sage Ireland knowledge base. CollSoft documents it through training materials on its customer helpdesk. The My Future Fund go-live date was rescheduled from 30 September 2025 to 1 January 2026, and contributions phase in at 1.5% employer and 1.5% employee in the first three-year band, rising every three years to 6%.

How does pricing compare across BrightPay, Sage Business Cloud Payroll and CollSoft for an Irish business with ten employees?

BrightPay is €229 ex VAT per year for up to ten employees on the published tier (brightpay.ie/pricing, verified May 2026). CollSoft Small Business Edition is €199 ex VAT per year and covers up to five separate employer entities with unlimited employees in each. Sage Business Cloud Payroll Ireland is sold as a monthly subscription that depends on headcount tier; the published range starts at €13 per month plus VAT and ends at €133 per month plus VAT on the largest tier, with the per-tier employee caps requiring direct confirmation from Sage Ireland sales. For a single ten-employee Irish business the order on raw annual cost is CollSoft (cheapest, €199), BrightPay (€229), Sage Business Cloud Payroll (variable monthly, comparable at the smallest tier and higher as headcount grows).

Which payroll product is best for an Irish accounting practice running payroll for multiple clients?

CollSoft on the licensing structure alone. The Small Business Edition at €199 ex VAT per year covers payroll for up to five separate employer entities under one licence, the Micro Bureau Edition at €299 covers ten, and the Bureau Edition at €499 is unlimited employers. BrightPay and Sage Business Cloud Payroll both licence per employer company. A practice running payroll for five Irish SME clients pays €199 in total on CollSoft Small Business versus five separate BrightPay licences or five Sage subscriptions. BrightPay's bureau route is the bureau licence with the Connect cloud add-on, which is the stronger product for practices that want an employee self-service portal and a per-client cloud dashboard - check the bureau pricing on brightpay.ie before committing.

Which is best for construction with RCT?

CollSoft is the strongest pick for a construction SME running payroll for direct employees alongside Relevant Contracts Tax for subcontractors. The construction sector is a stated CollSoft specialism, RCT processing is native, and CSO statistical reporting is built in. BrightPay also supports RCT processing and is the default alternative if you want a more polished interface or already use BrightPay Connect across the team. Sage Business Cloud Payroll is the weaker pick for a construction-led use case in 2026 - confirm with Sage Ireland directly that RCT processing meets your specific workflow before signing.

Do all three generate SEPA XML payment files for Irish banks?

Yes for the main Irish banks. BrightPay generates SEPA XML payment files for AIB, Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB and Ulster Bank. CollSoft generates SEPA XML for AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB. Sage Business Cloud Payroll generates files for AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB. None of the three runs open-banking bank feeds (transactions read into the software): that is an accounting-software capability, not a payroll one, and SEPA XML payment-file export is the correct comparison surface for a payroll product.

Where is each product hosted and is data EU-resident?

All three vendors report EU data residency in the Vendors.ie dataset. BrightPay is desktop-first with data stored on the customer's own machine; the BrightPay Connect cloud add-on backs up to EU data centres. CollSoft is desktop-first with data stored on the customer's machine. Sage Business Cloud Payroll is cloud-native and hosted in EU data centres. For an Irish controller, all three satisfy GDPR data-residency questions without requiring Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers outside the European Economic Area.

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