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
Shift Scheduling Comparison
RotaCloud vs. Rotaready Evo
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for hospitality groups that want rotas, time and attendance and HR in one app, with wage costs and sales forecasts visible while the rota is built.
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | RotaCloud | Rotaready Evo |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | 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. | Not stated |
| Free trial | 30-day free trial, no payment information required | Not stated |
| Users | 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 | Hospitality businesses |
| API | Yes, a REST API with bearer-token authentication and webhooks | Open API and webhooks in the Premium plan |
| Hosting | Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps | Cloud, with iPhone and Android mobile apps |
| Made in | United Kingdom | Not stated |
| Shift planning and templates | 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 | Drag-and-drop rota editor with automated rota scheduling, a rota approval process, notable events, a local 10-day weather forecast and an audit history of all changes, listed on all three plans |
| Shift swaps and open shifts | 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 | Shift swaps and Shift Broadcast are listed on all three plans, and the vendor names shift swaps and absence requests among the tools in the employee app |
| Availability and time off | 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 | Availability patterns, absence and time off, holiday allowances and allowances for any absence type, with automatic holiday accrual from time and attendance |
| Time clock and attendance | 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 | Clock-in via GPS, PIN code or photo capture, by tablet or mobile, with attendance matched automatically to shifts, automatic issue detection, rounding with custom rules, overtime tracking and approval, and an audited sign-off process |
| Labour cost and forecasting | 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 | Live labour calculations while the rota is built, budgeting, custom sales and revenue streams, forecast against actual against budget, and tracking of wages, hours, sales, wage percentage, covers and covers per labour hour. Pro + Forecasting and Premium add sales predictions from historical sales, weather, reservations, notable events and holidays, including pooled data from industry peers |
| Breaks, overtime and labour rules | 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 | Automatic application of pay and break policies, live validation of every change and Working Time regulations compliance, listed on all three plans |
| Payroll export and integration | 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 | Timesheets with overtime and breaks export to third-party payroll providers, with integrations named for payroll systems such as Sage Payroll, BrightPay, PayCaptain and Xero, and a fully managed payroll bureau at extra cost |
| Team messaging and notifications | 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 | Real-time chat, group conversations and messaging between sites, email, SMS and push notifications, and Engage Lite, a feed for posting updates and tagging colleagues |
| Platforms and mobile app | 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 | Cloud-based, with iPhone and Android mobile apps and clock-ins by tablet or mobile. Multiple languages on all plans; multiple time zones and currencies in Premium |
| Integrations and API | 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 | Open API and webhooks in Premium, together with single sign-on through Google and Azure and Sign-in with Rotaready over OIDC. The vendor names real-time integrations with EPoS, reservations, payroll, applicant tracking, training and tips systems, including Tenzo, ICRTouch, OpenTable, NCR Aloha, Zonal, Lightspeed, ResDiary, SevenRooms and Epos Now |
| AI features | No | stated Yes |
| Deployment | more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Support | Chat, Phone | Not stated |
| Onboarding | Not stated | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Small and mid-sized | Not stated |
| Integrations | Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort, Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar | more entries Tenzo, ICRTouch, Talent Funnel, Comtrex, OpenTable, NCR Aloha, eploy, Tevalis, Monotree, Zonal, Tayl, Centera, Clover, Recruit Genie, PayCaptain, Goodtill by SumUp, PointOne, Epos Now, Staffbase, CPL, Lightspeed K Series, ResDiary, Newbridge, Sage Payroll, TiPJAR, Wagestream, Workvivo, SevenRooms, Yapster, Guestline Rezlynx, Xero, Azuronaut, BrightPay, Temtailor, Lightspeed, Flow Hospitality |
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
- Deployment RotaCloud Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Rotaready Evo Cloud (SaaS)
- Hosting RotaCloud Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps Rotaready Evo Cloud, with iPhone and Android mobile apps
- AI features RotaCloud No Rotaready Evo Yes
- Users RotaCloud 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 Rotaready Evo Hospitality businesses
- API RotaCloud Yes, a REST API with bearer-token authentication and webhooks Rotaready Evo Open API and webhooks in the Premium plan
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
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
Rotaready Evo
Strengths
- Wage percentage, covers per labour hour and forecast against budget shown while the rota is built
- Clock-in via GPS, PIN code or photo capture, matched automatically with shifts
- The vendor states its integrations with EPoS, reservations and payroll systems are included free
- Chat, group conversations and messaging between sites on every plan
Limitations
- No amounts appear in the pricing page text; the monthly cost comes from a calculator
- Open API, webhooks and single sign-on are limited to the Premium plan
- Sales forecasting needs the Pro + Forecasting or Premium plan
- The product and its integration list are built around hospitality
Plans
Pricing
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.
Rotaready Evo
- Pro Not stated Rota scheduling, HR, wellbeing insights, time and attendance, cost control, payroll export, integrations, messaging and the mobile apps. Includes a customer success plan.
- Pro + Forecasting Not stated Everything in Pro, plus sales forecasting from historical sales, weather, reservations and events.
- Premium Not stated Everything in Pro + Forecasting, plus the open API and webhooks, single sign-on, and multiple time zones and currencies.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
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.
Rotaready Evo
- 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
RotaCloud https://rotacloud.com · checked against the official source on 2026-11-05
Rotaready Evo https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/our-brands/rotaready-evo/ · checked against the official source on 2026-11-08
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.