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. RotaCloud
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for UK businesses with shift-based staff that want rota planning, holiday and absence in one tool and payroll handed to their existing software.
- Small and mid-sized
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | BOOK ON | RotaCloud |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | lower value 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 £10 / month Standard plan for 1 to 5 employees, billed monthly, or £120 a year billed yearly. The price rises with the number of employees, counting all users, admins and managers; above 500 employees the vendor quotes a custom price. Time & Attendance and SMS notifications are add-ons. |
| Free trial | First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one | 30-day free trial, no payment information required |
| Users | Not stated | Growing businesses with shift-based staff; the vendor names restaurants, cafes and bars, hotels, care homes, retail, healthcare, dental practices, vets, leisure, security services and professional services |
| API | Not stated | Yes, a REST API with bearer-token authentication and webhooks |
| Hosting | Not stated | Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps |
| Made in | United Kingdom | United Kingdom |
| 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 | Drag-and-drop rota planner with unlimited rotas and locations, templates applied across any date range, copying of single weeks, months or blocks of shifts, rolling patterns such as 2-on-2-off, customisable roles with hourly or per-shift rates, and shift and day notes; Pro adds bulk actions across many shifts |
| 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 | Staff arrange shift swaps or request to drop shifts in the app, and open shifts are sent to all eligible staff, who claim them either first come first served or with a manager approval step |
| 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 | Availability patterns set by staff or by a manager and shown on the rota while planning, holiday management with leave shown on the rota, time off in lieu, and sickness and absence tracking; Pro adds custom rules for leave requests |
| 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 & Attendance add-on: clocking in and out of shifts and breaks on the staff's phones or on a tablet terminal with PIN entry and optional photos, with geofencing, GPS logging, Wi-Fi restrictions and rules for early clock-ins, feeding automatic timesheets that compare scheduled and worked hours and flag lateness |
| 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 | Daily, weekly and monthly labour costs while the rota is built on every plan; Pro adds labour forecasting as a percentage of expected sales and budget caps per rota, department or location, with revenue data entered by hand or synced from Tevalis |
| 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 | Contracted hours tallied against each employee as shifts are added, breaks recorded on the timesheet, and pay rules for early clock-ins, late clock-outs and rounding of hours; overtime appears in the payroll report |
| 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 | A payroll report per pay period with hours, overtime, paid and unpaid leave and total pay, open to manual adjustments before export as a Sage-formatted file or CSV, or sent directly to Staffology or PayCaptain |
| 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 | Email and push notifications for shift updates on every plan, shift acknowledgements, open-shift notifications, and shift and day notes on the rota; SMS notifications are an add-on that also lets staff text in for their next shift |
| 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 | Web app in an up-to-date browser on Mac or Windows, free mobile apps for staff and managers, and a free clocking-in terminal app for iPad and Android tablets |
| Integrations and API | Excel import for existing rotas; exports to accounting and payroll packages are confirmed during onboarding for the packages a firm uses | REST API covering shifts, swap requests, availability, leave, terminals, clock-ins and payroll periods, with webhooks; integrations with Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort and calendar feeds for Outlook, Google and Apple |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Phone, Email helpdesk | Chat, Phone |
| Onboarding | Guided onboarding | Not stated |
| Company size | Not stated | Small and mid-sized |
| Integrations | Not stated | Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort, Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar |
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 RotaCloud From £10 / month
- Free trial BOOK ON First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one RotaCloud 30-day free trial, no payment information required
- Support BOOK ON Phone, Email helpdesk RotaCloud Chat, Phone
- 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 RotaCloud Drag-and-drop rota planner with unlimited rotas and locations, templates applied across any date range, copying of single weeks, months or blocks of shifts, rolling patterns such as 2-on-2-off, customisable roles with hourly or per-shift rates, and shift and day notes; Pro adds bulk actions across many shifts
- Shift swaps and open shifts BOOK ON 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 RotaCloud Staff arrange shift swaps or request to drop shifts in the app, and open shifts are sent to all eligible staff, who claim them either first come first served or with a manager approval step
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
RotaCloud
Strengths
- 30-day free trial with no payment information required
- Monthly or yearly billing with no setup fees and no long-term contract
- Open shifts can go to the first claimant or through a manager approval step
- Payroll data exported for Sage or sent directly to Staffology and PayCaptain
- Tablet clocking-in terminal runs on an iPad or Android tablet the business already owns
Limitations
- Clocking in and timesheets need the paid Time & Attendance add-on
- Labour forecasting against sales and budget caps are limited to the Pro plan
- Sales data syncs automatically only from Tevalis; otherwise it is entered by hand
- Payroll itself is not run in RotaCloud; data goes to separate payroll software
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.
RotaCloud
- Standard £10 / month Price shown for 1 to 5 employees, billed monthly, or £120 a year billed yearly; it rises with the number of employees. Rota planning, templates, labour costs, holiday and absence management, shift swapping, availability, reports, mobile apps, and live chat and phone support.
- Pro £15 / month Price shown for 1 to 5 employees, billed monthly, or £180 a year billed yearly; it rises with the number of employees. Adds bulk actions, labour forecasting, budget caps, document storage, leave request rules, secure share links, a logbook and enforced two-factor authentication.
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.
RotaCloud
- 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
BOOK ON https://bookonsolutions.com/ · checked against the official source on 2026-11-04
RotaCloud https://rotacloud.com · checked against the official source on 2026-11-05
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.