ClockRota vs Planday

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.

Planday provides employee scheduling and workforce-management software for shift-working teams, on the web and on Android and iOS. Scheduling tools cover availability preferences, shift swaps, open and draft shifts, and reusable schedule templates. Workers can use Punch Clock to clock in and out from their devices, with location restrictions and rounding rules. Managers can compare scheduled and worked hours, approve shifts for payroll, and export timesheets through integrations. The mobile app also supports schedule viewing and updates, hour approvals and team communications. Planday connects with payroll, POS and HR systems, including Xero, Personio, Square, Lightspeed and ADP. Customers can configure working-time rules, contract hours and absence policies for automatic application to schedules, with real-time alerts for violations. The Starter plan includes Help Centre and live chat support; Pro includes dedicated phone support through a call-back service. Planday says it serves small, medium and enterprise businesses across industries such as hospitality, care homes, hotels, entertainment, retail, and fitness and wellness. There is no free plan; a 30-day trial is available. Starter costs £2.99 a month, billed per user/month, with a five-user minimum.