Papershift vs. RotaCloud

At a glance

Best for

Best for small and medium-sized businesses with shift-based staff who want rotas, clock-ins, absences and a DATEV or LODAS payroll export in one cloud system.

Small and mid-sized

RotaCloud

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	Papershift	RotaCloud
Starting price	Not stated	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	14-day free trial of all features	30-day free trial, no payment information required
Users	Small and medium-sized businesses with shift-based work; the vendor names hospitality, healthcare, retail and production	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	Public API documented at developers.papershift.com; access is activated on request	Yes, a REST API with bearer-token authentication and webhooks
Hosting	Cloud, in the browser, with the Plan app for Android and iOS and a time clock app for iPad and Android tablets; the pricing page lists GDPR-compliant data storage with EU hosting	Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps
Made in	Germany	United Kingdom
Shift planning and templates	Online roster across locations, departments and teams, with shifts created in the calendar, recurring shifts, copied weeks, work schedules and a required number of employees per shift. The pricing page lists rule-based automatic shift allocation from Premium and fully automated roster allocation in Professional; the help article on automatic assignment names the Professional package and uses availabilities, target hours and working areas	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	Employees apply for open shifts in the Plan app, and assign themselves where the planner allows it. Assigned shifts can be released for trading to colleagues in the same working area who are free at that time, who are notified by email; if the colleague already has a shift then, an admin makes the trade	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	Employees enter one-off or recurring availabilities in the calendar, which planners see while scheduling. Absence requests for holidays, sick days and other absence types go through approval processes, with vacation entitlements, a team absence calendar, alerts on overlapping absences and blocked holiday periods; the pricing page lists blackout periods in Professional	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	Clock-ins through a time clock app on iPad and Android tablets with PIN, signature or IP authentication, a browser time clock and the mobile app, synchronised in real time. Timesheets are created from the roster or from clock-in times, can carry job or client names, and are edited and approved under custom user rights	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	A reports module for custom reports such as sick leave hours per month, hours worked per shift type or staff costs per project, and an Insights add-on that shows Papershift data in graphical reports	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	Custom rules for overtime and required rest periods, employee-specific break rules and an automatic break feature, scheduled against contracted hours, maximum weekly or monthly hours, and warning notifications for back-to-back scheduling. Advanced break logic is listed from Premium	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	Professional calculates pay types and allowances such as night, Sunday and public holiday supplements and exports to DATEV and LODAS with a flexible payroll period. A payroll add-on calculates wages including bonuses from tracked time, and the vendor names a monthly report to import into payroll software	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	Published rotas are sent to employees with an optional message, individual working times go out by email, and saving a shift can notify everyone assigned to it. Shift trades send email notifications, and a Slack integration shares information about shifts and absences	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	Web app in current Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge on Windows, Mac and Linux, the Plan app for Android and iOS, and a time clock app for iPad and Android tablets	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	Public API with endpoints for absences, absence types, accounts, availabilities, evaluations, locations, payrolls, shifts, shift assignments, tags, target hours, time tracking, uploads, users, vacation entitlements and working areas, with rate limiting; it is activated on request. Integrations listed in the marketplace include Personio, CharlieHR, bookingkit, FareHarbor, EasySecure, sevdesk and Slack, plus Google Calendar, Outlook and iCal links	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
AI features	stated Yes	No
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	more entries Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat	Chat, Phone
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding	Not stated
Company size	Small and mid-sized	Small and mid-sized
Integrations	more entries Personio, CharlieHR, bookingkit, FareHarbor, EasySecure, curaMED, Opushero, Oneteam, sevdesk, Slack, DATEV, LODAS, Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal	Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort, Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar

Compare more tools

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

Free trial Papershift 14-day free trial of all features RotaCloud 30-day free trial, no payment information required
Hosting Papershift Cloud, in the browser, with the Plan app for Android and iOS and a time clock app for iPad and Android tablets; the pricing page lists GDPR-compliant data storage with EU hosting RotaCloud Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps
Support Papershift Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat RotaCloud Chat, Phone
Made in Papershift Germany RotaCloud United Kingdom
AI features Papershift Yes RotaCloud No

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

Papershift

Strengths

Shift planning, time tracking, absences and payroll preparation in one cloud system
Time clock app for iPad and Android tablets with PIN, signature or IP authentication
DATEV and LODAS payroll export in the Professional plan
Documented public API covering shifts, time tracking, absences and payrolls

Limitations

A monthly base fee of 39 euros applies on top of every plan
The English pricing page shows the per-employee amounts with a dollar sign while the base fee is stated in euros
Automated roster allocation and the DATEV export are limited to the upper plans
API access is activated through a request to the vendor rather than self-serve

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

Papershift

Core Not stated Per employee per month plus the monthly base fee. Digital time tracking via smartphone, tablet or browser, absence management, target hours, employee profiles and self-service, document management, employee-specific break rules and EU hosting.
Premium Not stated Per employee per month plus the monthly base fee. All Core features, plus digital rota planning, rule-based automatic shift allocation, custom working time models, multi-site planning and advanced break logic.
Professional Not stated Per employee per month plus the monthly base fee. All Premium features, plus fully automated roster allocation, holiday blackout periods, roster confirmation workflows, timesheet processing, pay types and allowances, DATEV and LODAS export, custom reports, an audit trail and location templates.
Enterprise Not stated Individual offer for larger companies, with tailored modules, integration through the open API and personal onboarding.

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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.

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What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

Papershift

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.

Read the full version on our methodology page

Where this comes from

Papershift https://www.papershift.com/en · checked against the official source on 2026-11-08

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.