Find your fit
Who it is for
The product is aimed at small and medium shift-based businesses, such as hospitality, care and retail teams. A business that only needs rota planning can start with Standard; teams needing labour forecasting, document storage or custom leave rules should compare Pro before inviting staff.
Before setup, list each location, role, manager and employee, then count everyone who needs an account. Include the owner and administrators in the estimate. Define who may publish shifts, approve leave and view labour costs so a pilot does not accidentally give every manager the same access.
The work it supports
Core capabilities
Managers arrange shifts in a drag-and-drop rota and can reuse templates or copy patterns across dates. Build one typical week and one exception week first; check that recurring coverage, roles and location boundaries are clear before the schedule is published.
An admin can enable open shifts so unassigned work is visible for eligible staff to claim. RotaCloud can prevent a claim that clashes with an existing shift; additional leave, non-working-day and approval settings have beta qualifications in its Help Centre. Test the exact account settings before relying on automatic cover.
After a rota is published, affected staff can receive email and push updates, with SMS as an optional channel. Preview a changed shift and the message it triggers so employees know which version of the schedule is current.
Employees can record availability or unavailability for managers to see while planning. An unavailability entry is guidance rather than a hard block: RotaCloud says a manager can still schedule that person. Agree on a human check for important constraints such as contracted days or childcare commitments.
Staff can request holiday through the app; a manager responds and approved leave appears on the rota while adjusting the allowance. Standard supports allowances in days or hours, including a current-year override. Test one request that overlaps a shift and verify the manager's cover process.
Sickness and other absence can be recorded against the rota. A manager can expose an affected shift as open for cover, reducing the gap between an absence record and a replacement shift. Decide who is allowed to see sensitive absence detail before using this with real staff.
With the optional Time & Attendance package, staff can clock through a mobile device or a static terminal. Clock-in, clock-out and break data can create timesheets, with discrepancies from scheduled hours highlighted for review. A payroll report/export is available, but approval and actual payroll processing remain separate steps.
Understand the offer
Pricing and getting started
The viewed UK widget shows Standard at £10 per month and Pro at £15 per month for its 1–5-employee bracket; monthly and yearly terms are selectable. The calculator counts the owner and all users, administrators and managers, with a custom quote route above 500 employees. Re-enter the actual headcount and country before treating either example as a budget.
Standard includes the core rota, leave and shift communication tools. Pro adds bulk changes, labour forecasting and budget caps, document storage, leave-request rules and secure share links. Time & Attendance and SMS are separate add-ons; email and push updates are included in the core plans.
The add-on charge can change with employee count, plan and monthly or annual billing. The Help Centre says enabling Time & Attendance mid-cycle produces a prorated charge shown before confirmation. Extra account users can also trigger prorated billing after a five-day grace period; the displayed prices exclude VAT.
The 30-day trial asks for no payment information and can include the paid packages for evaluation. The pricing FAQ says there is no long-term commitment and cancellation stops future billing. Check which package settings and records will be needed after the trial before inviting the whole workforce.
Look a little closer
Before you choose
A useful pilot is a fictional week with a manager, two shift workers, an open shift and a leave request. Publish a shift change, inspect the employee notification, record one unavailability conflict and try covering an absence. This exposes approval and visibility choices before real schedules are affected.
If clocking will feed payroll, evaluate Time & Attendance separately using harmless sample shifts and breaks. Review scheduled-versus-worked discrepancies and exported hours with the person who runs payroll. Price that add-on for the actual headcount and country, including any VAT, rather than assuming it is included in Standard or Pro.
12 distinct sources behind this profile. Research observed Oct 21, 2026. Features and offers can change.
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