RotaCloud vs. ZoomShift

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

ZoomShift

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	RotaCloud	ZoomShift
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.	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	30-day free trial, no payment information required	14-day free trial of all features, no credit card required; free Essentials plan for up to 20 users
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	Businesses with hourly employees; the vendor names retail, restaurants, food and beverage, hospitality, services and healthcare
API	Yes, a REST API with bearer-token authentication and webhooks	Not stated
Hosting	Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps	Cloud, in the browser, with free iPhone and Android apps
Made in	United Kingdom	United States
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 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	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 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	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	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	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	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	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	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	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	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	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	A customisable payroll report on the Starter plan, with timesheets exported as a CSV for use in other payroll software
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	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	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	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	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	Not stated
AI features	No	stated Yes
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	Chat, Phone	Not stated
Onboarding	Not stated	Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding, Live online demos and webinars
Company size	Small and mid-sized	Small and mid-sized
Integrations	Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort, Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar	Not stated

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

Starting price RotaCloud From £10 / month ZoomShift Free plan; Starter from 2 US dollars / user / month
Free trial RotaCloud 30-day free trial, no payment information required ZoomShift 14-day free trial of all features, no credit card required; free Essentials plan for up to 20 users
Hosting RotaCloud Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps ZoomShift Cloud, in the browser, with free iPhone and Android apps
Made in RotaCloud United Kingdom ZoomShift United States
AI features RotaCloud No ZoomShift Yes

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

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

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.

Visit site

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.

Visit site

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.

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.

Read the full version on our methodology page

Where this comes from

RotaCloud https://rotacloud.com · checked against the official source on 2026-11-05

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.