10 Best Restaurant Scheduling Software of 2026

7shifts is the only tool here that is sold purely to restaurants, and its plans read like a restaurant manager's checklist. The free Comp plan covers basic scheduling, availability and time-off requests, and lets staff offer up, trade and claim open shifts for a single location of up to 15 employees. Essentials adds advanced scheduling, team messaging and a basic time clock for up to 30 employees, and Pro adds PTO accruals, overtime notifications, blocking clock-ins outside the restaurant and state-based compliance with meal and break attestations for up to 60. The labor cost controls are the core reason to pick it: managers set labor targets on projected sales, budget each department with POS data and see hourly labor recommendations. Premium adds tip and task management and advanced forecasting. The pricing page we fetched showed Canadian dollars, so we have not listed a USD price. Larger rosters need Premium, which is the only tier with unlimited employees.

Homebase prices by location rather than by head, which suits restaurants with big part-time rosters. The free Basic plan covers one location with up to 10 employees and includes basic scheduling, time tracking and a POS integration. Essentials, at $30 per location per month on annual billing, removes the employee cap and adds advanced scheduling, advanced time tracking and team messaging, which is enough for most single-site restaurants. Plus, listed at $70, adds an AI Scheduling Assistant, PTO controls and departments and permissions, which matters once you split front and back of house. The Tip Manager add-on pulls tips from the POS, calculates the pool and adds it to timesheets for $25 per location per month. Payroll is a separate add-on at a $49 base fee plus $6 per employee paid. Homebase offers less labor forecasting depth than 7shifts or Deputy, so it fits operators who care most about a low, predictable bill.

Deputy is a general hourly workforce tool, but its Core plan covers most of what a multi-site restaurant group needs to control labor. Lite, at $5 per user per month, includes basic scheduling, timesheets and time clocking, labor law compliance, shift swap and find replacement, leave and availability, and messaging. Core, at $6.50, adds auto-scheduling, demand forecasting, labor optimization, wage and labor budgets, micro-scheduling and biometric time clocking. Pro, at $9, adds location hierarchies, pay centers, custom access levels and SSO, which matter once you run many sites. Deputy AI is included in every plan. Add-ons include HR at $2 per user and a US payroll add-on through Paycor on annual Core and Pro plans. Two cost points to check: there is no free plan, and monthly plans have a $30 minimum monthly spend. Per-user pricing also means a restaurant with many part-timers pays more than on a per-location tool.

Sling is the lowest-cost way on this list to move a small restaurant off a paper schedule. Shift scheduling is free for up to 30 users, which covers many single-location cafes and counter-service spots. Premium, at $1.70 per user per month on annual billing or $2.00 monthly, adds mobile time tracking, labor cost management that compares labor against sales, and overtime tracking. Business, at $3.40 per user annually, adds kiosk time tracking on a shared device and reports for payroll. The pricing page notes that Toast customers can buy Sling plans in Toast Shop. Sling does not have the restaurant-specific forecasting, departmental budgets or compliance attestations of 7shifts or Deputy, so it suits operators who mainly need a clear schedule, swaps and a basic labor check. For a 25-person team, Premium costs about $42.50 per month on annual billing.

When I Work is a general hourly scheduling app with a few features restaurant managers will use daily. Essentials, at $2.50 per user per month for single-location teams, includes auto scheduling, multi-week scheduling, schedule templates, forecast tools, in-app messaging, OpenShifts and shift swapping, plus payroll and POS integrations. The schedule view can calculate staff coverage based on sales and labor budget, which helps keep labor percentage in check. Pro, at $5 per user, adds scheduling rules, role permissions, labor sharing across locations, custom unit forecasting and a 24-hour callout window for staff. Premium, at $8, adds API keys, webhooks and SAML SSO. Time tracking and attendance is a separate add-on that you toggle on per plan, so a restaurant that needs a time clock should price both. The vendor's own FAQ notes that multi-location businesses start at $5 per user per month.

Toast's scheduling module is a strong option only if your restaurant already runs Toast POS, because its main advantage is data that never leaves the system. Schedules are built against sales forecasts drawn from historical POS sales, with weather and labor costs as inputs, and a Scheduling Agent drafts the schedule from availability and projected sales for a manager to review. Staff view schedules, swap shifts and request time off in the MyToast app. Every clock-in flows into Toast Payroll, so managers can compare scheduled against actual hours before payroll runs, and payroll handles tip pooling, overtime across locations and multiple pay rates. Toast states that restaurants using its scheduling see 41% fewer overtime hours per employee. Pricing is the weak spot for comparison: scheduling sits inside Team Management packages, and the published entry point is a POS and Payroll bundle at $69 per month plus $9 per employee.

ZoomShift is a plain scheduling and time clock app that a small restaurant can run cheaply. The free Essentials plan covers up to 20 users at one location with schedules, team communication, reminders, shift notes and confirmations, though it schedules only up to two weeks in advance. Starter, at $2 per active team member per month on annual billing or $2.50 monthly, adds unlimited users and locations, templates, availability and time off, shift cover requests and swaps, timesheets and a time clock, PTO and breaks tracking and a payroll report. Premium, at $4 annually, adds auto-scheduling, overtime warnings, early and late clock-in prevention, a geofenced time clock and a schedule versus timesheets report, which is the closest it gets to labor cost control. ZoomShift lets you pause the subscription during months you do not need it, which helps seasonal restaurants. It has no sales forecasting or POS-driven labor targets.

HotSchedules is Fourth's scheduling and team management product and is aimed at restaurant chains that want scheduling tied to payroll, HR and inventory. Managers build schedules from real sales and labor data, and predictive insights match staffing to demand to reduce overtime. Predictive scheduling, labor law alerts and reporting help multi-state operators avoid fair workweek penalties. On the pay side, it offers instant digital tip payouts and earned wage access, and the wider Fourth suite adds payroll, PEO, hiring, inventory and AI forecasting. It integrates with PAR POS, Toast, Oracle Micros and NCR Aloha, which covers most large chain setups. Fourth says the platform runs at 120,000 locations. There are no published prices; buying starts with a demo, and the page was running a promotion offering a year of HotSchedules. For an independent restaurant, the setup and sales process is heavier than 7shifts or Homebase.

Push Operations combines payroll, HR, scheduling and time tracking for restaurants, so it competes with a scheduler plus a payroll provider rather than with a scheduler alone. Every paid plan includes payroll, scheduling, time tracking, logbooks and integrations, with unlimited employees, administrators and locations. The Signature tier covers team scheduling with POS integrations, labor forecasting, labor cost controls, shift swapping, real-time compliance alerts, photo capture at clock-in and sales versus labor reports. Supreme adds auto scheduling, advanced forecasting, break compliance, tip automation and chat. Push states that pricing starts at $200 per month per location for up to 15 employees, but the page does not name the currency and several features reference provinces, so we list the price as pending and US buyers should confirm payroll coverage for their state. For a restaurant that would otherwise pay separately for scheduling and payroll, the bundle can make sense.

Harri targets hospitality brands that need scheduling to enforce labor law across many units, and it publishes a clear feature grid even though prices are custom. The Base bundle covers scheduling, break compliance, absence management, shift swaps, a timeclock, task management, earned wage access and reporting. Core is the tier most restaurant brands will want: it adds predictive scheduling, minor employment rules, smart scheduling, POS demand forecasting, shift pools, an offline timeclock, attestations and automated reports. Perform adds activity-based scheduling, a geofenced timeclock, custom attestations, leave of absence and a risk analysis dashboard. AI demand forecasting is available on Core and Perform but requires professional services. Harri also sells hiring, engagement and learning bundles, so large employers can run the worker lifecycle in one system. For an independent restaurant, the sales-led process and custom pricing are a poor fit next to 7shifts or Homebase.