Buying guide
How Much Does Rota Software Cost? UK Prices Compared (2026)
From £2.50 a user to £10 a month minimums, rota software pricing rewards a close read. Here is what small UK teams actually pay, and when £0 does the job.
Rota software pricing has a habit of looking tiny on the website and rather different on the annual bill. "From £2.50 per user per month" reads like pocket change, but for a 25-person hospitality team it compounds to several hundred pounds a year, billed whether or not anyone used the clever features. Here is what the popular options actually cost a small UK team at the time of writing, and an honest reading of when the money is well spent.
The prices, side by side
| Product | Entry price | Free option | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rota Hub | Free | Everything, unlimited staff | No account needed; scheduling, pay and sharing, but no time clock |
| RotaCloud | From £10/month (up to 5 staff) | Trial only | UK-based; time and attendance is a £4.50/month add-on |
| Deputy | Around £4.25 to £4.50 per user/month | Trial only | Roughly £42.50/month for a team of ten on annual billing |
| Planday | From about £2.50 per user/month | Trial only | Aimed at larger, multi-department operations |
| Findmyshift | Paid plans above free tier | Up to 5 staff | Free plan only schedules one week ahead |
| Connecteam | Paid plans above free tier | Up to 10 users | Broad comms-and-ops bundle rather than a pure rota tool |
| Sling | Premium from around $2 per user/month | Up to 30 users | Free tier is scheduling only, with no time tracking |
Run the arithmetic for a ten-person team and the paid options cluster between roughly £120 and £510 a year. At 25 staff, Deputy lands around £130 a month and Planday's mid tier around £112 a month, at which point the rota is a four-figure annual line in its own right.
When paying is the right call
It would be dishonest to pretend the paid products are selling nothing. If you need staff to clock in and out with GPS evidence, if hours must flow straight into payroll software, if you run several sites with department-level permissions, or if you want a support desk on the phone, that is what the subscription buys. RotaCloud and Deputy in particular earn their keep in businesses where time and attendance disputes cost real money. Our round-up of the best rota apps covers who each one suits.
When it is not
Most small teams are not buying any of that. They are buying the grid: who works when, what the week costs, and a way for staff to see it. Paying £30 to £130 a month for a grid is how rota software ends up on the list of subscriptions to cancel in January.
The free tiers help, but read their edges: Findmyshift's free plan stops five staff and one week ahead, and Sling's free tier leaves out time tracking. Rota Hub takes a different approach: the entire scheduling core is free with no caps, because it runs in your browser with no account at all. Hours, overtime and the weekly wage bill are calculated as you plan, and the rota shares as a read-only link for your team. The honest trade-off is that there is no clock-in terminal and your data lives with you, not on someone's server.
Count the other cost
Whatever you choose, price the setup time too. A tool that needs an afternoon of configuration and a staff onboarding campaign has charged you before the first rota exists. The fastest test available: open rotahub.co.uk, type your team's names, and time how long it takes to have this week planned and costed. If a paid product cannot beat that experience by enough to justify its invoice, you have your answer.