ClockRota vs Deputy

ClockRota provides rota planning, clock-in, attendance, and payroll export tools for UK pubs, cafés, and restaurants. Managers can create weekly schedules in a grid by dragging, dropping, and duplicating shifts. Publishing a rota sends staff push and email alerts, and employees can arrange shift swaps for a manager to approve or decline. Attendance tools show who is working, who is late, and hours worked. ClockRota exports clocked hours as a CSV for payroll; no specific payroll integrations are named. Rota planning, staff clock-in, and payroll export work in a browser on phones, tablets, and computers. The site says a native app is in development, so clock-in currently uses the browser. The public beta is free for its duration, with every feature unlocked and no usage limits. After the beta, the listed plan for up to five staff is £9 per month; the 6–10 staff plan is £19 per month. Owners and managers count toward the team size, which determines the applicable staff band.

Deputy is workforce management software for building schedules, recording time and coordinating teams. Its scheduling tools can create and fill shifts around business requirements and staff availability, with options for auto-scheduling, availability collection, open shifts, shift swaps and time-off management. Clock-in apps, geofencing, biometric clocking and timesheet auto-approvals cover time and attendance. Deputy AI is included in every plan to assist with schedules, workforce questions and everyday tasks. The service runs on Android, iOS and the web. Plans are Lite at $5 per user per month, Core at $6.50 per user per month, and Pro at $9 per user per month, excluding applicable taxes. Monthly Lite, Core and Pro invoices have a $30 USD minimum spend. There is no free plan, but the advertised trial lasts up to 31 days and requires no credit card. Integrations include payroll, point-of-sale and HR categories, with ADP, BambooHR, QuickBooks, Xero and Zapier among the listed options. Deputy also provides API documentation. It states that it is ISO 27001 and UK Cyber Essentials certified and SOC 2 Type II compliant.