Best for
Best for UK security guarding companies that want rota, officer compliance records and billing in one system priced per worked officer.
Shift Scheduling Comparison
BOOK ON vs. Deputy
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for businesses rostering hourly staff across sites, where the hours have to reach payroll rather than an invoice.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | BOOK ON | Deputy |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From £2.95 / worked officer / month One rate with all platform features included. Each officer who worked at least one shift in the calendar month is counted once; controllers, managers and office users are not counted. No VAT is added while the vendor is not VAT registered. | From $5 / user / month The $5 Lite plan covers basic scheduling, timesheets and time clocking. Core is $6.50 and Pro $9 per user per month. Deputy Payroll adds $8 per user per month plus a $49 monthly base fee, HR $2, Messaging+ $1.95 and Analytics+ $1.50 per user per month. |
| Free trial | First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one | Free trial, no credit card required |
| Team size | Not stated | Priced per user, per month |
| Users | Not stated | Shift-based teams across more than 15 industries, among them hospitality, healthcare, retail, manufacturing and logistics, construction and engineering, education, security and cleaning |
| API | Not stated | Yes, a developer API alongside prebuilt payroll, point-of-sale, HR and accounting connectors |
| Hosting | Not stated | Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a shared-device time clock |
| Made in | United Kingdom | Not stated |
| Shift planning and templates | Shifts added per client, site and day with start and end times; Copy Roster carries a whole week forward and Copy Shifts repeats a pattern across days, and an existing rota can be imported from Excel | Basic scheduling on Lite with shift templates for weeks, months or custom periods; Core adds advanced scheduling, micro-scheduling and auto-scheduling |
| Shift swaps and open shifts | Counters show unassigned and unconfirmed shifts; the planner fills them through the Near By Officers search by postcode and radius, and a no-show shift is reassigned to a replacement and confirmed | Open shifts, open shifts with approval, swapping and offering shifts, and find a replacement, from the Lite plan |
| Availability and time off | Leave requests are queued for HR with the number of days and whether they are paid, then approved or rejected; leave policies are applied per employee with a simultaneous-leave limit and carry-over setting, approved leave is visible when the roster is built, and unplanned absence is recorded on an Absentees screen | Leave and availability management from the Lite plan |
| Time clock and attendance | Yes, book on and book off from the officer app with time and position recorded against the rostered shift, or by the control room from the roster; those records become the timesheet, with planned hours shown next to hours worked | Time clocking from the iOS and Android apps or a shared device, with biometric time clocking from the Core plan, timesheets with auto-approval from Core and advanced timesheets on Pro, plus shift swaps, find-a-replacement, leave and availability management and labour-law compliance rules |
| Labour cost and forecasting | Each shift carries its pay rate and charge rate, Change Rate sets night, weekend or bank holiday rates for one shift, planned hours sit next to actual hours, and a finance dashboard shows revenue, cost, profit and margin by contract | Wages shown against scheduled hours; Core adds demand forecasting, labour optimisation and wage and labour budgets, with forecast-to-actual variance in sales and wage metrics |
| Breaks, overtime and labour rules | A seven-day consecutive-work alert on the manager dashboard lists officers who have worked every day of the past week, the officer roster flags double-booking and rest-period problems, and the vendor lists overtime detection and cost alerts | Labour-law compliance on Lite and advanced labour-law compliance on Core, with paid and unpaid breaks scheduled by time and duration |
| Payroll export and integration | Payroll is generated in BOOK ON Accounts from approved shifts for a chosen period and frequency, with payslips; statutory calculations and HMRC submissions stay with your payroll software or bureau, and how the output is passed to them is agreed during onboarding | Payroll and HR integrations from the Lite plan; the Deputy Payroll add-on, enabled by Paycor and offered in the US on annual Core and Pro plans, sends approved timesheets, pay rates and leave to Paycor |
| Team messaging and notifications | Confirmed shifts appear in the officer app, which also carries employer notifications and a news feed; the control room works with handover tickets | Messaging and a news feed from the Lite plan, with the Messaging+ add-on for a more integrated messaging experience, included in Pro |
| Platforms and mobile app | Officer app for iOS and Android, free on the App Store and Google Play, which needs a connection to send a book-on, check call or report; the office side runs as a cloud web platform | Clock-in apps on web, mobile, tablet and watch, with iOS and Android apps and a shared-device time clock |
| Integrations and API | Excel import for existing rotas; exports to accounting and payroll packages are confirmed during onboarding for the packages a firm uses | A developer API plus prebuilt connectors for payroll (ADP, Gusto, Paychex, Paycor, Paylocity, OnPay, Wagepoint, Xero), point of sale (Square, Clover, Lightspeed, Revel, Epos Now), HR (BambooHR, HiBob, Rippling, TriNet, Okta) and accounting (QuickBooks, NetSuite, Xero), with Zapier for anything else |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Phone, Email helpdesk | Chat, 24/7 |
| Onboarding | Guided onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding |
| Company size | Not stated | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Not stated | ADP, Gusto, Paychex, Paycom, Paycor, Paylocity, OnPay, Wagepoint, Talenox, Xero, QuickBooks, NetSuite, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, Revel, Epos Now, BambooHR, HiBob, Rippling, TriNet, Okta, JobAdder, Box, Dropbox, ServiceM8, Tapcheck, Wagestream, TipHaus, Zapier |
Add a tool
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 BOOK ON From £2.95 / worked officer / month Deputy From $5 / user / month
- Free trial BOOK ON First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one Deputy Free trial, no credit card required
- Support BOOK ON Phone, Email helpdesk Deputy Chat, 24/7
- AI features BOOK ON No Deputy Yes
- Shift planning and templates BOOK ON Shifts added per client, site and day with start and end times; Copy Roster carries a whole week forward and Copy Shifts repeats a pattern across days, and an existing rota can be imported from Excel Deputy Basic scheduling on Lite with shift templates for weeks, months or custom periods; Core adds advanced scheduling, micro-scheduling and auto-scheduling
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
BOOK ON
Strengths
- One published rate of £2.95 per worked officer, with all platform features included
- Controllers, managers and office users are not counted towards the bill
- Approved shifts feed timesheets, payroll and client invoices from the same record
- SIA licence, BS 7858 vetting and right-to-work records held against each officer
- Officer app for iOS and Android for booking on, check calls, patrols and incident reports
Limitations
- Licensing and vetting records are built around UK security rules (SIA, BS 7858, ACS)
- Exports to accounting and payroll packages are confirmed per package during onboarding rather than listed
- Minimums, setup and contract length are set in each company's commercial agreement, not on the pricing page
- The vendor states its records support SIA, ACS, BS 7858 and ISO work but do not award certification or guarantee compliance
Deputy
Strengths
- Biometric time clocking and a shared-device clock cover on-site and shift work
- Deep payroll and point-of-sale connector list, including ADP, Gusto, Paychex, Xero, QuickBooks and Square
- Demand forecasting and auto-scheduling build rosters against wage and labour budgets
- Single sign-on, custom access levels and location hierarchies on the Pro plan
Limitations
- No client invoicing: timesheets are built for payroll rather than for billing work
- Forecasting, auto-scheduling and biometric clocking all require the Core plan or above
- Payroll, HR, Messaging+ and Analytics+ are separately priced add-ons, and Deputy Payroll carries a monthly base fee
- No free tier; Lite is the cheapest paid plan
Plans
Pricing
BOOK ON
- Subscription £2.95 Per qualifying worked officer per month, with Operate, Compliance and Accounts included and no feature tiers. Subcontractor billing is subject to client approval.
Deputy
- Lite $5 Per user per month. Basic scheduling, timesheets and time clocking, labour-law compliance, shift swap and find a replacement, leave and availability management, basic reporting, messaging and news feed, and payroll and HR integrations.
- Core $6.50 Per user per month. Everything in Lite plus advanced scheduling, timesheet auto-approval, biometric time clocking, micro-scheduling, auto-scheduling, demand forecasting, labour optimisation, wage and labour budgets and a customer success manager.
- Pro $9 Per user per month. Everything in Core plus custom access levels, advanced timesheets, location hierarchies, single sign-on, a dedicated customer success manager, a sandbox environment, 24/7 live chat and the Analytics+ and Messaging+ add-ons.
- Add-ons Not stated Deputy Payroll $8 per user per month plus a $49 monthly base fee, HR $2, Messaging+ $1.95 and Analytics+ $1.50 per user per month. HR, Messaging+ and Analytics+ carry 30-day free trials.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
BOOK ON
- 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.
Deputy
- 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
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Where this comes from
Where this comes from
BOOK ON https://bookonsolutions.com/ · checked against the official source on 2026-11-04
Deputy https://www.deputy.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-12
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.