Emplora vs Planday

Emplora brings employee scheduling, shift management, and staff rota planning into one platform for small and mid-size businesses. Managers can prepare weekly or monthly schedules, with saved changes becoming visible to the team. Employees can check schedules in a phone browser using a QR code or PIN, without installing an app. Time-off requests and employee shift swaps require manager approval and are available from Starter. Schedules can be exported as CSV or PDF for payroll workflows. The Free plan supports one location and up to 15 employees; Starter and Professional add capacity and features such as notifications, reports, attendance tracking, analytics, and labour cost reports. Enterprise offers flexible pricing, unlimited scale, SSO, API access, a dedicated SLA, and training. Emplora says it uses bank-grade encryption and organisation-level data isolation, and its DPA covers EU GDPR, UK GDPR, and applicable data-protection law. Human support is listed as responding within 24 hours, usually faster. The service is available on the web and through an API; fully rules-based schedule generation and POS and PMS integrations are roadmap items. Pricing is Free, with paid plans from $39/mo and a 30-day trial.

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.