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. ZoomShift
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for small businesses with hourly staff that want a free or low-cost schedule, time clock and team chat in one app.
- Small and mid-sized
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | BOOK ON | ZoomShift |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Free plan; Starter from 2 US dollars / user / month Per active team member, counting managers and employees. Starter is 2 US dollars billed annually or 2.50 US dollars billed monthly; Premium is 4 US dollars billed annually or 5 US dollars billed monthly. The free Essentials plan covers up to 20 users at one location. |
| Free trial | First partial calendar month free, no credit card required; the next complete calendar month is the first chargeable one | 14-day free trial of all features, no credit card required; free Essentials plan for up to 20 users |
| Users | Not stated | Businesses with hourly employees; the vendor names retail, restaurants, food and beverage, hospitality, services and healthcare |
| Hosting | Not stated | Cloud, in the browser, with free iPhone and Android apps |
| Made in | United Kingdom | United States |
| 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 schedule with shift and scheduling templates, copying of weekly schedules, positions and locations, shift notes and private manager notes; the free plan schedules up to two weeks ahead at one location, Starter removes those limits |
| 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 | Shift cover requests and swaps from the Starter plan, with every qualified team member notified and an optional manager approval step; open shifts can be offered to the team |
| 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 | Staff set availability preferences and request time off from the Starter plan, with a PTO tracker that tallies accrued and used balances |
| 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 clock on phone or computer and a kiosk mode with PIN, feeding timesheets with breaks tracked; Premium adds a geofenced time clock, blocking of early and late clock-ins, and a schedule versus timesheets report |
| 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 | Real-time labour costs including overtime and gross pay, a comparison of scheduled and actual hours and costs, and labour cost forecasting from schedules planned ahead |
| 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 | Paid or unpaid breaks calculated into timesheet totals, and on Premium overtime warnings, custom overtime per employee, blocking of overtime, and prevention of overlaps between shifts, availability and time off |
| 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 customisable payroll report on the Starter plan, with timesheets exported as a CSV for use in other payroll software |
| 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 | Shift reminders and schedule changes by email, text and push notification, shift confirmation, and a team chat with group and direct messages, file sharing and read status |
| 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, free iPhone and Android apps for managers and staff, a kiosk time clock, and calendar app sync on the Starter plan |
| Integrations and API | Excel import for existing rotas; exports to accounting and payroll packages are confirmed during onboarding for the packages a firm uses | Not stated |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Phone, Email helpdesk | Not stated |
| Onboarding | Guided onboarding | more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding, Live online demos and webinars |
| Company size | Not stated | Small and mid-sized |
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 ZoomShift Free plan; Starter from 2 US dollars / 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 ZoomShift 14-day free trial of all features, no credit card required; free Essentials plan for up to 20 users
- Made in BOOK ON United Kingdom ZoomShift United States
- AI features BOOK ON No ZoomShift 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 ZoomShift Drag-and-drop schedule with shift and scheduling templates, copying of weekly schedules, positions and locations, shift notes and private manager notes; the free plan schedules up to two weeks ahead at one location, Starter removes those limits
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
ZoomShift
Strengths
- Free plan for up to 20 users
- 14-day trial of all features with no credit card
- Subscriptions can be paused for months when the schedule is not needed
- No cancellation fee or minimum contract, by the vendor's FAQ
Limitations
- Timesheets, the time clock, shift swaps and time off need a paid plan
- Geofencing and overtime warnings are limited to the Premium plan
- No named payroll provider integration; hours leave as a CSV export
- The scheduling FAQ says there is no auto-scheduling, while the pricing page lists it on Premium
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.
ZoomShift
- Essentials 0 US dollars / user / month Free up to 20 users. Employee schedule, team communication, automatic reminders, shift notes and confirmation, unlimited positions, scheduling up to 2 weeks ahead, 1 location.
- Starter 2 US dollars / user / month Per active team member, billed annually, or 2.50 US dollars billed monthly. Unlimited users and locations, templates, availability and time off, shift swaps, timesheets and time clock, payroll report, calendar sync, PTO and break tracking.
- Premium 4 US dollars / user / month Per active team member, billed annually, or 5 US dollars billed monthly. Adds auto-scheduling, overtime warnings, geofenced time clock, schedule versus timesheets, change history, custom role permissions, priority support and personalised onboarding.
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.
ZoomShift
- 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
ZoomShift https://www.zoomshift.com/ · checked against the official source on 2026-11-06
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.