Best for
Best for engineering, consulting and IT teams that want a dedicated booking and utilisation tool alongside an existing project system, and want to pay only for the modules they use.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Resource Planning Comparison
eResource Scheduler vs. Retain
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for audit, tax, advisory and consulting firms that need skills-aware scheduling and, in some cases, the option to run it on their own servers.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | eResource Scheduler | Retain |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $5 / resource / month Core Scheduling module on annual billing, $6.25 billed monthly. Timesheets, financials, forecasting and SSO are separate modules priced per resource on top. | Quote-based Retain publishes no price list; the contact form routes pricing requests to sales. |
| Free trial | 30-day trial, no credit card, extensions on request | Demo on request |
| Users | Not stated | Retain cites more than 1.5 million resources managed worldwide and over 100 large customers |
| API | Yes, an open REST API included in the core Scheduling module | Yes, secure APIs for programmatic access to resources, bookings, jobs and operational data, plus middleware support through MuleSoft and Azure Logic Apps |
| Hosting | Cloud, with a self-hosted build for organisations with on-premise requirements | Cloud as Retain Cloud, or on your own servers as Retain On-Premise |
| Made in | India (Enbraun Technologies, Jaipur) | United Kingdom (Retain International, company number 01593831, part of AdvT Group) |
| Resource planning | Yes, one pool across roles, locations and departments covering people, equipment and rooms, with drag-and-drop scheduling, bulk edits, recurring bookings, per-resource working hours, shifts and time zones, and skill matching that ranks candidates by match score | Yes, bookings against jobs and engagements with capacity and availability views, recurring bookings, conflict management and AI suitability matching on skills, experience and availability |
| Task planning | Bookings are made against projects rather than a task breakdown; the product schedules who works when, not how the work is split up | No, work is planned as bookings against jobs and engagements rather than as individual tasks |
| Time tracking | Yes, but as a separately priced Timesheets module that records actual hours against projects and sets them against what was planned | Yes, built-in timesheets that capture actual time against projects and tasks and compare it with planned allocations |
| Reporting and controlling | Yes, live dashboards plus customisable reports on utilisation, availability, resource gaps and forecast demand, with cost, revenue and profit reporting in the separate Financial module | Yes, utilisation dashboards, revenue and delivery cost forecasting, operational notifications and audit logs |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise |
| Support | Email helpdesk, Chat | Email helpdesk, Phone |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base, Video tutorials, Guided onboarding | Not stated |
| Company size | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Jira, Slack | more entries Abacus, Aderant, Access APS, BambooHR, CCH, Employment Hero, IRIS Practice Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Outlook, Microsoft Synapse, MYOB GreatSoft, Oracle, Oracle NetSuite OpenAir, PracticePro 365, Salesforce, SAP, SugarCRM, Thomson Reuters GoFileRoom, Workday, MuleSoft, Azure Logic Apps |
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Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price eResource Scheduler From $5 / resource / month Retain Quote-based
- Free trial eResource Scheduler 30-day trial, no credit card, extensions on request Retain Demo on request
- Hosting eResource Scheduler Cloud, with a self-hosted build for organisations with on-premise requirements Retain Cloud as Retain Cloud, or on your own servers as Retain On-Premise
- Support eResource Scheduler Email helpdesk, Chat Retain Email helpdesk, Phone
- Made in eResource Scheduler India (Enbraun Technologies, Jaipur) Retain United Kingdom (Retain International, company number 01593831, part of AdvT Group)
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
eResource Scheduler
Strengths
- Billed per resource rather than per user, and archived resources drop out of the count
- Modules are bought individually, so a team that only needs the schedule does not pay for timesheets or financials
- Requests are matched to people by skill and ranked with a match score, with gap reporting on requested against assigned
Limitations
- No task breakdown; it books people to projects rather than to tasks
- Timesheets, financials, forecasting and single sign-on are all priced on top of the core module, so the entry price is not the running cost
- Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar and n8n integrations are announced as coming rather than shipped
Retain
Strengths
- Available both as a hosted cloud platform and as an on-premise installation
- Timesheets are part of the product, so planned and actual hours sit in the same system
- Integrations cover practice management, HR, CRM and finance systems, with middleware support and secure APIs
Limitations
- No published prices, so every quote comes from sales
- No task-level planning; work is tracked as bookings against jobs
- Shaped around audit, tax, advisory and consulting work, which narrows the fit outside professional services
Plans
Pricing
eResource Scheduler
- Scheduling $5 / resource / month Annual billing, $6.25 billed monthly. The core module: timeline, filters, custom fields, utilisation and availability reports, open REST API.
- Scheduling Plus $2 / resource / month Annual billing, $3 billed monthly. Adds resource requests, match scores, multi time-zone support, gap reporting, capacity forecasting and third-party calendar integration.
- Timesheets $4 / resource / month Annual billing, $5 billed monthly.
- Financial $3 / resource / month Annual billing, $4 billed monthly.
- Authentication Plus $1.60 / resource / month Annual billing, $2 billed monthly.
Retain
- Quote-based Not stated Retain publishes no price list; quotes come from sales.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
eResource Scheduler
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
Retain
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.
How we check reviews
Before sending, the author has to confirm three things: that they have used the product themselves, that they work neither for the vendor nor for a competitor, and that nobody is paying them for the review. We also ask whether the vendor invited them to write it. That answer is required, either answer is accepted, and it stays with the review.
Every review is read by a person before it appears. An email address is required and is confirmed: we send a link to it, and a review does not reach us until the author opens that link, so a review has a sender who was reachable at least once rather than being anonymous. Where what somebody writes needs backing, we ask them for evidence that they used the product, and a review that does not get it is not published. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.
What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on their own declaration, on whatever we ask them for, and on the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.
A vendor cannot buy a review, and cannot have one removed or changed because they dislike it. We remove or edit a review only if it breaks our rules or the law, for example a false statement of fact. Paid placement has no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
eResource Scheduler https://www.eresourcescheduler.com · no check date recorded yet
Retain https://www.retaininternational.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-11
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.