RotaCloud is a UK-native rota scheduling and time & attendance platform built in York and used by over 5,000 businesses across care, hospitality, retail, and professional services. Unlike US or European competitors that have localised for the UK market, RotaCloud was designed from the ground up for British SMBs – and that shows in its pricing model, payroll integrations, and customer support.
If you run field or site-based teams, our time and attendance for construction guide covers GPS clock-in requirements in more detail.
We reviewed RotaCloud’s pricing structure, tested its feature set, and compared it against Deputy and Planday – both featured in our best time and attendance systems roundup – to give a clear picture of where it genuinely delivers value – and where its limitations matter.
FREE QUOTE COMPARISON
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- UK-built platform from £10 a month for 1-5 employees - Standard works out at about £2 per employee at the top of each band, with time and attendance extra
- Excellent for care homes and hospitality venues - specialised features handle complex shift patterns well, but built-in break and overtime compliance rules aren’t included
- Limited advanced reporting and analytics tools - basic insights may frustrate data-driven managers needing detailed workforce metrics
- Time and attendance is a banded add-on from £4.50/month - £4.50 for 1-5 staff, £9 for 6-10 and £18 for 11-20, on top of rota plans at £10-15/month for 1-5 staff
Key Features
RotaCloud combines drag-and-drop rota scheduling, GPS-restricted mobile clock-in, automatic timesheet generation, and UK payroll export from £10/month for up to 5 employees.
Drag-and-Drop Rota Builder
RotaCloud’s scheduling interface is built around a weekly drag-and-drop rota view with live labour cost overlay. As shifts are added or moved, the wage cost for the period updates in real time – giving managers immediate visibility of budget impact before publishing. The rota supports unlimited sites and departments on a single account, with staff availability and leave blocks visible directly in the scheduling view to prevent conflicts.
Shift swapping is handled in-app: employees can request a swap, another team member can pick it up, and the change is logged without manager involvement beyond approval. Published rotas sync automatically to Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Outlook so staff don’t need to check the app separately.
GPS-Restricted Time & Attendance
The time and attendance module (an add-on from £4.50/month for 1-5 staff, priced by team size) enables clock-in via mobile app, dedicated tablet terminal, or web browser. GPS radius restrictions prevent employees from clocking in outside a defined geographical boundary – typically set around the work site. Location is logged at clock-in and clock-out, creating an audit trail for each shift. Timesheets are generated automatically from clock-in data, with no manual entry required.
The tablet terminal mode is worth noting specifically: it converts any Android or iPad into a dedicated clock-in kiosk, which is well-suited to care homes, leisure centres, or retail environments where staff share a single clock-in point rather than using individual smartphones.
Labour Forecasting and Budget Caps (Pro)
The Pro tier adds labour forecasting and budget cap enforcement. Managers set a maximum wage spend per rota period; the scheduling tool flags any shifts that would push the rota over budget before they’re published. This is distinct from real-time cost overlay (which shows running totals) – the budget cap actively prevents overscheduling relative to a set limit, which matters for hospitality and care businesses managing tight wage cost percentages.
Holiday & Absence Management
Leave requests are submitted and approved in-app, with holiday entitlement calculated automatically based on contracted hours. Approved leave blocks appear directly in the rota view so scheduling gaps are visible immediately. The system supports multiple leave types (annual leave, sick, unpaid, TOIL) and can be configured with leave request rules on the Pro tier – for example, requiring requests within a notice window or limiting concurrent leave in a single department.
Payroll Export Pipeline
RotaCloud exports timesheet data as Sage-formatted CSV or integrates directly with Staffology and PayCaptain. The export accounts for late clock-ins, missed shifts, and paid leave – not just scheduled hours – which produces more accurate payroll data than a simple rota export. For businesses on Xero, QuickBooks, or BrightPay, a CSV export via Zapier is the workaround; native integrations for those platforms are not currently available.
Pricing Breakdown
RotaCloud starts at £10/month for up to 5 employees on the Standard plan. Time & Attendance costs an extra £4.50/month at that size – making all-in pricing £14.50/month for a team of up to 5. Plans and add-ons both step up by employee band. Prices are monthly; paying annually costs 10 times the monthly price.
Unlike Deputy and Planday, RotaCloud prices by employee band rather than per-user monthly – our time and attendance costs comparison shows how this stacks up. Standard costs about £2 and Pro about £3 per employee at the top of each band, which keeps it cheap for small teams, but a team just past a band boundary pays for the whole next band.
| Plan | 1-5 Employees | 6-10 | 11-20 | Key Inclusions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | £10/month | £20 | £40 | Rota builder, shift swaps, leave management, mobile apps, reporting, live chat & phone support |
| Pro | £15/month | £30 | £60 | All Standard + bulk actions, labour forecasting, budget caps, document storage, leave rules, logbooks, enforced 2FA |
Add-ons (banded by team size, like the plans):
| Add-on | Monthly Cost | What It Adds |
|---|---|---|
| Time & Attendance | £4.50/month (1-5 staff), £9 (6-10), £18 (11-20) | Mobile & tablet clock-in, GPS restrictions, automatic timesheets, payroll reports |
| SMS Notifications | £2/month (1-5 staff), £4 (6-10), £8 (11-20) | Text-based shift alerts for staff without smartphones |
Key pricing notes:
- No setup fees, no long-term contracts – cancel or change plan month-to-month
- 30-day free trial, no card required
- Pricing scales by employee band – with T&A, Pro works out at about £3.90 per employee at the top of each band, close to Deputy Core’s £4.25 per user, and more just past a band boundary. Custom quotes apply above 500 employees.
- T&A add-on is banded – £4.50/month for 1-5 staff, rising to £45 for 41-50 (about 90p per employee at the top of each band).
User Interface & Ease of Use
RotaCloud consistently rates 4.8/5 on Capterra for ease of use. Non-technical managers typically report going live within a day – significantly faster than Deputy or Planday.
The interface is clean and deliberately simple. New users can publish a working rota within an hour of signing up – there’s no complex location hierarchy to configure (a common friction point with Deputy), and the onboarding flow guides users through adding staff, setting their availability, and publishing a first rota in a linear sequence.
The weekly rota view is the primary interface. There is no monthly calendar view – a commonly cited limitation for businesses that plan staffing 4-6 weeks ahead. Managers working with seasonal patterns or events-based scheduling have to navigate week-by-week, which adds steps.
Staff-facing mobile apps are well-rated on both iOS and Android. The employee experience – checking rotas, requesting leave, confirming shifts, swapping with colleagues – is straightforward enough that adoption issues are rarely reported. This matters more than it sounds: in high-turnover environments, staff who don’t understand the app don’t use it.
Customer Support
RotaCloud provides UK-based live chat and phone support as standard across all plans – no add-on required, no AI-gating. Multiple reviewers cite support responsiveness as a standout differentiator.
Support is UK-based, available via live chat and phone during business hours, and included on all plans. Third-party reviews consistently cite support as one of RotaCloud’s strongest points – not in the generic “great customer service” sense, but specifically noting fast response times, knowledgeable agents, and direct access to humans rather than bots. This is a meaningful differentiation from Deputy, where the default support path is AI-first with slow escalation.
The knowledge base covers core configuration and troubleshooting tasks. For businesses with non-technical staff running HR operations, the combination of an accessible interface and real support availability reduces the risk of adoption failure that affects more complex platforms.
How RotaCloud Compares
| Feature | RotaCloud (Pro + T&A) | Deputy Core | Planday |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-in price (10 staff) | ~£39/mo | ~£42.50/mo | Quote-only |
| AI auto-scheduling | ✗ No | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Break/overtime rules | ✗ No | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| UK-native HQ | ✓ York, UK | ✗ Sydney/Global | ✗ Copenhagen |
| UK care sector integrations | ✓ PCS, StoriiCare, Care Consort | ✗ None | ✗ None |
| Live chat/phone support | ✓ All plans | ✗ AI-first | ✓ Business hours |
| No contract required | ✓ Month-to-month | ✗ Annual lock-in (best price) | ✗ Annual contracts |
| Free trial | ✓ 30 days, no card | ✓ 31 days | ✓ 30 days |
| Monthly rota view | ✗ Week-by-week only | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
FREE QUOTE COMPARISON
Compare Time & Attendance Quotes from Trusted Suppliers
✓ From £2/employee per month
100% free • No obligation • Takes under 2 minutes
Pros & Cons
Our Verdict
UK-built rota software that nails the scheduling basics from £10-15/month for 1-5 staff - but thin analytics and no built-in compliance rules limit it for data-driven teams.
How we score: 6 categories, weighted as shown. The total is the weighted average of these scores. Our review process
Use our free T&A ROI Calculator to get a personalised cost estimate based on your specific requirements.
Who Should Use RotaCloud?
RotaCloud is well-suited to: UK SMBs with 5-150 employees in care homes, hospitality (pubs, restaurants, cafes), retail, leisure, and professional services. Particularly good fit for seasonal businesses wanting month-to-month flexibility, and for care operators needing Person Centred Software or StoriiCare integration.
Consider alternatives if:
- You need AI auto-scheduling or demand forecasting – Deputy Core (£4.25/user/month) includes both, which RotaCloud doesn’t offer at any tier.
- Your payroll runs on Xero or QuickBooks – RotaCloud’s native integrations don’t cover these. Deputy and Planday both integrate directly.
- You need break deduction or overtime rules – Working Time Directive compliance automation requires a platform with built-in rule engines. Neither RotaCloud Standard nor Pro handles this.
- Staff are in remote or rural sites with poor mobile connectivity – GPS clock-in requires internet. There’s no offline mode.
