Rota software is what a small employer starts shopping for at about the point the spreadsheet stops being funny: when two supervisors are editing it, when a swap agreed in a group chat never reaches the sheet, or when the owner asks what the week cost and the answer takes an afternoon. What the category actually has to do is narrow. It has to hold each person's rate and contracted hours, lay out the week's shifts, total the hours per person and the cost, publish the rota to the team, record every swap and change against a named person, and let you get all of it back out as a file. Everything else a rota system bundles is somebody else's product.
What employee rota software has to do at minimum
Staff with a rate and contracted hours. Weeks with shifts, and shifts with hours, so the totals are arithmetic rather than counting. A published version the team can see and a draft the supervisor can change. A history of every swap, cover and cancellation with who made it and when. Totals for hours per person, cost of the week and the gap against contracts, and an export. A rota tool that does those seven things does the job; the rota management software that does forty things does the job too, and charges per user for the other thirty three.
What most rota systems bundle, and whether you need it
Clocking in and timesheets, which record what was worked rather than what was planned and belong to the time record. Holiday balances, which belong to the leave record. Payroll exports, messaging, HR files, performance reviews. A workforce suite is the right buy if you want all of it in one place and will use it. If payroll is already handled and the leave record is already kept, the suite is paying per user for features that duplicate what you have, and the rota, the one thing you came for, is one tab among many.
How this rota software is priced, and how the category is
Weekrota Pro is £6.50 a month for the whole team, flat, however many people are on the rota, and both worksheets on this site are free with no account. The category usually prices per user per month: Deputy's UK page, read on 5 September 2026, lists Lite at £3.25, Core at £4.25 and Pro at £6.50 per user per month, with a minimum monthly spend of £20 on its monthly plans. The comparison to run is your headcount times their per user price against one flat figure, not their headline number against ours.
Questions people ask about rota system
What is the difference between rota software and a rota template?
A template works out one week from the figures you enter. Software keeps the people, every week, every shift and every change, publishes the rota and totals it as it changes. The free template on this site is the first; Weekrota Pro is the second.
Do I need rota software if I have payroll software?
Payroll pays people for hours it is told about. It rarely holds the plan, the published rota or the swap history, and it is not where a supervisor wants to move a Saturday. Some suites do both, and if yours does, use it; most small employers find the spreadsheet is still there.
How is Weekrota priced?
£6.50 a month for the whole team, billed monthly, with no per user charge and no minimum spend. Both worksheets stay free whether or not you subscribe.