Ferry vs Grateful

Ferry automates restaurant tip calculations by connecting point-of-sale and workforce systems, applying operator-set pooling rules, and calculating employee tips at shift end. Operators can configure pool percentages by role, job code, shift, time of day, or location. Ferry creates downloadable per-employee, per-shift reports with job codes and pool rates, described as audit-ready, and says it tracks multi-state tip compliance with minimum distribution thresholds, tipped-credit rules, and guardrails. Ferry Pay can distribute tips to a Ferry Pay Card, a nominated bank account, or through payroll; card funding is described as taking under 60 seconds. Workers can optionally access a portion of wages they have already earned before payday. The Ferry Pay Card lists a $0 activation fee and $0 monthly fees, while US out-of-network ATM withdrawals carry a $3 fee. Ferry names integrations including Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, POSitouch, Aloha, ADP, Gusto, Paychex, and 7shifts. Its Tip Share App lets employees adjust POS tip allocations within operator-set guardrails and is listed for PosiTouch and CBS North Star. Pricing for Tip Manager and Ferry Pay is on request.

Grateful provides direct tipping and tronc compliance services for hospitality businesses. Allocation rules can be set once and applied across shifts, team members and sites; different venues can use different rules managed from a central dashboard. Independent troncmaster oversight is intended to help schemes operate in line with HMRC requirements. Employees can view tronc earnings in the app, with a breakdown of distribution calculations, although Peer to Peer earnings are not visible on the platform. Customers can tip workers directly to their accounts without cash or business administration. STASH splits tips and tronc payments between spending and an FSCS-protected savings account, and is included with every Grateful customer at no additional cost. Tronc data can flow into payroll through API integrations including Xero, Sage and Fourth. Listed integrations and partnerships include 3SPOS, Bizimply, Deputy, Epos Now, Fourth Hospitality, Harri, Kobas, Oracle Simphony, Toast and workforce.com. Grateful is available on Android and the web. Pricing for tronc and compliance depends on the service and is available on request. Direct tipping has a small incremental transaction fee charged to the customer, with no business cost.