Hospitality Scheduling Software: 10 Compared

A 50-person restaurant pays $24 a month for Homebase Essentials and $325 a month for Deputy Core. Both are legitimate hospitality scheduling platforms with public prices, and the thirteen-fold gap is not about features: one charges per location, the other per person. The pricing model is the first thing I check when I compare scheduling software for a small hospitality team.

That single structural fact decides more of your bill than any feature comparison will, yet almost no guide in this category does the arithmetic. This one starts there. It compares ten platforms, prices the seven that publish full rates at 10, 25, and 50 staff, and shows the crossover point where per-location pricing overtakes per-user.

It also splits the market into the three classes that actually behave differently: restaurant-specific tools (most with deep point of sale forecasting), general shift schedulers, and hotel-scale platforms. It is direct about where the free tiers are genuinely sufficient, and it is written for an independent operator running one or two sites.

What hospitality scheduling software does

Hospitality scheduling software builds and publishes the staff roster, lets staff swap and pick up open shifts, and in most products runs a time clock. The pieces beyond that core, from point of sale (POS) forecasting to payroll, are where the price differences come from.

The first three rows are table stakes on almost every paid plan, but the free tiers ration them: Sling keeps the time clock for paying customers, and Homebase Basic leaves shift trades to its paid tiers.

Everything below those three rows is what you are actually paying for when you move up a tier, which is why the honest first question is which of those lower rows you will genuinely use.

What a hospitality roster includes

A roster is what most hospitality operators call the schedule, and it names every person working, the role each one covers, start and finish times, and the days involved. Software adds what a spreadsheet cannot: stored availability, approved leave, and a running labor cost total that updates while you build.

Rostering gets treated as a skill of its own in this industry for a reason. Availability moves week to week, sections have to be covered by someone trained for them, and labor is one of the largest controllable costs, so an over-built roster eats the margin while a thin one costs you the service.

Restaurant-specific, hotel-broad, or general

Hospitality is not one buyer. Three classes of tool sell under the same label and suit different operations, and the hotel-scale class stretches into full human capital management (HCM): hiring, HR, and scheduling in one system.

The mistake worth avoiding is buying restaurant-specific software for a hotel front desk or a small venue. Deep point of sale forecasting and tip pooling are the reasons those tools cost more, and if you do not run a POS with variable daily covers or pool tips, you are paying for machinery you will not switch on.

Where scheduling ends and workforce management begins

Workforce management software for hospitality covers the wider set: scheduling, time and attendance, labor forecasting, absence and leave, compliance rules, and cross-site reporting, usually with pay data attached. A scheduling tool is one module of that suite sold on its own, which is why the same vendors turn up under both labels.

Three platforms here reach that breadth. HotSchedules pairs scheduling with forecasting and a back office, Harri runs recruitment through to engagement as a full HCM, and Push Operations adds native payroll. The rest are schedulers, most with a time clock attached; for a single site that is usually the right amount of software, and the wider category is compared separately.

The 10 tools compared

Read the pricing model column alongside the price column. Two platforms with similar headline numbers can differ by hundreds of dollars a month once you apply your own headcount.

Real cost at 10, 25, and 50 staff

Real cost depends on headcount, so the table prices the main plans at three team sizes, for a single location on published list rates.

Read across the rows and the crossover is obvious. At 10 staff, the cheapest per-user plan still wins: Sling Premium is $17 against $24 for Homebase Essentials, though When I Work, which costs $25 at that size, is already the more expensive choice.

By 25 staff the order has flipped, with Sling at $43 and Homebase still at $24. At 50 staff the gap is not close, at $85 against $24, and Deputy Core reaches $325 for the same team that Homebase covers for $24.

One caveat on the 7shifts rows. Essentials is capped at 30 employees per location, so a 50-person restaurant cannot use it and must move to Pro at $79.99. That kind of tier cap is easy to miss when comparing entry prices, and it is worth checking on any platform before assuming the cheapest tier applies to you.

Restaurant-specific platforms

These three platforms are built for restaurants first, and each charges in its own way: per-location tiers, flat staff bands, or a per-location bundle with payroll.

7shifts

7shifts is a restaurant-specific platform built around scheduling against forecast sales, through point of sale integrations with Toast, Square, Clover, and more than 30 other systems. By its own count, more than 1.5 million restaurant professionals use it. There is a 14-day trial of Pro with no credit card, and no contract lock-in.

Pricing for 7shifts is per location. A free Comp plan covers one location and up to 15 employees, then Essentials runs $39.99, Pro $79.99, and Premium $134.99 a month on annual billing, or $44.99, $89.99, and $149.99 billed monthly. Premium bundles tip management, which costs $49.99 a month per location as an add-on to the lower tiers.

Two things to check before buying. Essentials caps at 30 employees per location, and payroll processor integrations sit on Pro and above, so the tier most operators actually need is usually not the entry one. 7shifts Payroll itself is priced at $39.99 a month per location plus $6 per employee paid.

Schedulefly

Schedulefly is a deliberately narrow product for independent restaurants and bars, priced flat by staff count: $30 per month up to 19 staff, $40 for 20 to 39, $50 for 40 to 59, and $60 for 60 to 79, with a quote for 80 or more staff.

The pricing structure is the appeal. Every feature is included in every band, there are no add-ons or upsells, and it runs month to month with a 30-day free trial. With no tier to climb and no per-user meter, it is a genuinely simpler proposition for a single independent restaurant than anything else here.

Push Operations

Push Operations is a restaurant and hospitality platform for the US and Canada that bundles scheduling, time tracking, native payroll, and HR compliance, with Toast and Square integrations.

Pricing for Push Operations starts at $200 a month per location for up to 15 employees and rises with the plan and headcount, with a quote above 50 employees. That entry price is the only figure you can set against the published platforms.

General shift scheduling platforms

These five schedulers are industry-agnostic, and they split by pricing model: Homebase charges per location, and the other four charge per user.

Homebase

Homebase is the strongest per-location option for a single hospitality site, because its paid tiers carry unlimited employees. Basic is free for one location up to 10 employees and includes basic time tracking; Essentials is $24 per month, Plus $56, and All-in-One $96 on annual billing. Payroll is a separate add-on at $49 a month plus $6 per employee paid.

At 50 staff on one site, $24 a month is the cheapest credible option in this comparison by a wide margin, and that is entirely a function of the pricing model rather than a discount.

Sling

Sling, now branded Sling by Toast, has the most generous free tier here: up to 30 users get shift scheduling, time-off requests, and private messaging, which for a small restaurant team is a genuinely complete free scheduler. Mobile time tracking and labor cost tools start on the paid tiers.

Sling sells Premium at $1.70 and Business at $3.40 per user per month on annual billing, or $2.00 and $4.00 billed monthly; Premium is the lowest published per-user rate in this comparison. Business adds kiosk clock-in, paid time off (PTO) management, and sales reports that compare projected and actual sales, and Sling connects to Toast, Square, and other point of sale systems.

When I Work and Deputy

These are two general shift platforms with different arguments. When I Work makes its case on value: $2.50 per user per month for a single location, rising to $5 for multi-location and up to $8 for Premium, with auto scheduling, forecast tools, and POS integrations already in the entry plan.

Deputy is the compliance play. It restructured its plans in September 2025 into Lite at $5, Core at $6.50, and Pro at $9 per user on annual billing, and its monthly plans have carried a $30 minimum monthly spend since September 1, 2025. Its break and overtime rule handling comes from the labor law compliance tools in every plan, with Advanced Labor Law Compliance for fair workweek rules on Core and Pro, and demand forecasting starts on Core.

If you operate where predictive scheduling laws apply, Deputy is worth its premium. If you do not, it is the most expensive way to solve a problem the cheaper tools also solve.

In hospitality, predictive scheduling laws reach only larger or chain employers. The Secure Scheduling Ordinance in Seattle covers retail and food service employers with 500 or more employees worldwide, and full-service restaurants only with 40 or more locations. In New York City, the Fair Workweek law reaches fast food chains with 30 or more establishments nationally.

Planday

Planday is part of Xero, which is the main reason to shortlist it: if your accounting already runs on Xero, the scheduling and cost data lands where your books are. Starter costs $2.99 per user per month with a five-user minimum.

The Plus tier costs $4.49 per user on top of a monthly subscription fee, with a ten-user minimum, and adds revenue integration, so POS sales data can feed the forecast you schedule against. Pro is priced by quote.

Hotel and multi-unit platforms

HotSchedules and Harri are built for scale. Both are quote-only, and both are worth ruling out quickly if you run a single site.

Neither company publishes a rate, so any price you find for them online is a third-party estimate rather than a vendor figure. The practical filter is simple: these platforms earn their cost across multiple properties or departments with dedicated operations staff to configure them. A single 30-seat restaurant will use a fraction of either.

What hotel staff scheduling needs that restaurants do not

Hotel staff scheduling software has to cover several departments running on different clocks under one roof. Housekeeping is driven by rooms to turn, the front desk by arrivals and departures, and food and beverage by covers, so one sales forecast does not size the day the way it does in a restaurant.

Two practical consequences follow. People cross-trained across departments need a single availability record rather than three, and the occupancy forecast becomes the number you build against, which is why the hotel-scale platforms sell forecasting as a headline feature. A small independent property with one shift pattern per department still runs fine on the general tools above.

Free tiers and how long setup takes

Three platforms here have a permanent free tier and four more offer a free trial; on any of these self-serve tools, setup takes about a day.

Free tier limits move periodically. As of October 2026 Homebase Basic stops at 10 employees and the 7shifts Comp plan at 15, so confirm the current number on the vendor pricing page rather than from a comparison article, including this one.

Where scheduling tools stop

Most platforms above start at the roster and assume the person on it is already hired, documented, and trained. In hospitality that assumption is doing a lot of work, because the industry replaces staff faster than almost any other and each replacement restarts the paperwork.

Accommodation and food services posts the highest quits rate of any industry in the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS survey, short for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. In August 2026 alone, 3.5 percent of its workers quit (a preliminary figure), against 2.1 percent across private employers.

Each new server brings a stack of paperwork around the first shift: an I-9, a W-4, an offer or wage notice, a handbook acknowledgment, and often food safety training to complete and record.

The I-9 is the item with a federal clock. Under the regulation at 8 CFR 274a.2, the new hire completes Section 1 at the time of hire, which means by the first day of work, and the employer examines the documents and completes Section 2 within three business days.

Scheduling platforms mostly sell the onboarding side separately: 7shifts charges $2.99 per onboarding package unless your plan includes onboarding, and Homebase places it in its most expensive All-in-One tier at $96 per month.

How to choose

Work through these five questions in order before you book a demo or start a trial.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is hospitality employee scheduling software?

Software that builds, publishes, and manages staff shifts across restaurants, hotels, bars, and food service. Beyond the roster it typically adds a time clock, shift swapping and open-shift pickup, labor cost visibility against projected sales, and compliance rules for breaks and overtime.

How much does hospitality scheduling software cost?

Free to $200 or more per month per location. Per-location platforms charge regardless of headcount: Homebase Essentials $24, and 7shifts at $39.99 for Essentials, $79.99 for Pro, and $134.99 for Premium on annual billing. Push Operations also prices by location, though its rate rises with plan and headcount from $200.

Per-user platforms charge per person: Sling Premium $1.70, When I Work from $2.50, Planday from $2.99, Deputy $5 to $9, plus a $30 minimum on its monthly plans. Schedulefly uses flat bands from $30 to $60.

Is per-location or per-user pricing cheaper?

It depends on staff per site, and the crossover falls between about 10 and 15. A 10-person team pays about $17 on Sling Premium against $24 for Homebase Essentials, but $25 on When I Work.

A 50-person team pays about $85 on Sling and still $24 on Homebase. From about 15 staff at one location, per-location pricing wins and the gap widens with every hire.

Do I need restaurant-specific software or will a general tool work?

Restaurant-specific tools go deeper: point of sale integrations with dozens of systems, built-in tip management, and front-of-house role logic. General schedulers now forecast from a POS too, usually on a paid tier.

If you run on Toast or Square and manage labor against daily revenue, that depth justifies the cost. For a hotel front desk or a venue with a stable schedule and no pooled tips, a general tool does the job for less.

Is there free hospitality scheduling software?

Yes, and the tiers are permanent. Sling costs nothing for up to 30 users. Homebase Basic is free at one location for up to 10 employees and still includes basic time tracking, and the 7shifts Comp plan covers a single location with up to 15 employees. Caps change, so check the vendor pricing page first.

How long does it take to implement scheduling software?

A single location on a self-serve platform is running in a day: import staff, set roles and availability, publish a schedule. Adoption takes two or three schedule cycles before staff reliably check the app. Hooking up your point of sale system takes a few extra days. Demo-led platforms involve a sales process and configured implementation measured in weeks.

What is predictive scheduling and does the software handle it?

Predictive scheduling laws, also called fair workweek laws, require advance schedule notice and premium pay for late changes. Cities including Seattle, San Francisco, New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago have them, plus Oregon statewide. Higher tiers of compliance-focused platforms automate the notice periods and premium triggers; most cheap general tools do not.

Coverage turns on size, so most independent operators fall outside these laws. The law in Oregon covers retail, hospitality, and food service employers with 500 or more employees worldwide, and the one in Philadelphia applies to service, retail, and hospitality employers with at least 250 employees and 30 locations worldwide.

Do scheduling tools handle onboarding new hires?

Only partially, and usually at extra cost. Each hospitality hire needs an I-9, W-4, wage notice, handbook acknowledgment, and often food safety training around the first shift. 7shifts charges per onboarding package unless your plan includes it, Homebase places onboarding in All-in-One, and Deputy sells it in an HR add-on.

What should a small hospitality business prioritize?

Count staff per site first, since that determines whether per-location or per-user wins. Then decide whether sales-driven forecasting is something you will use. Finally, check the free tiers honestly, because a team under 30 at one site may be fully covered without paying.