Planday

Planday is an employee scheduling and workforce management platform built for shift-based teams. Founded in Denmark in 2004 by Mikkel Lomholt and Anders Frederiksen, it was acquired by accounting software maker Xero in 2021 and now operates as part of the Xero group, targeting hospitality, retail, healthcare and leisure businesses that run on rotas. The company frames its mission as making shift work simple, reliable and fair.

The core product is a drag-and-drop schedule builder with templates, copy-week workflows and shift swapping, layered with employee availability, leave and absence management, a GPS-located punch clock, timesheets and payroll reporting. A revenue-forecast view lets managers weigh staffing costs against expected takings before publishing a week, and working-time rules flag compliance problems as the schedule is built. Staff get iOS and Android apps with shift reminders, availability updates, messaging and document storage; the iOS app holds a 4.5-star rating across roughly 4,300 App Store reviews. Payroll and POS integrations cover Xero, QuickBooks, ADP, Square and Lightspeed, and API access opens up from the Plus tier.

Pricing, verified on the official pricing page in October 2026, is per user with minimums. Starter costs $2.99 per user per month with a five-user minimum and covers intuitive scheduling, simple time tracking, working-time warnings, basic payroll reporting and team communication. Plus is $4.49 per user per month plus a $15 monthly subscription fee with a ten-user minimum, adding advanced scheduling, leave and absence management, payroll integrations and API access. Pro is custom-priced with auto-scheduling, custom planning metrics and configurable permissions. There is no free plan, but every tier offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, and billing is flexible with the freedom to upgrade or cancel anytime.

Watch-outs: the headline per-user prices understate the real floor, since minimum user counts and the Plus subscription fee lift the actual monthly bill for small teams. Integrations and the API are gated behind Plus rather than included from the start, payroll is reporting and integrations rather than built-in processing, and businesses wanting a full HR suite will find Planday deliberately focused on scheduling and time.

Overall, Planday is one of the most complete employee scheduling tools at this price point, and its Xero ownership makes it a natural pick for businesses already running Xero accounting or payroll. Restaurants, hotels, care homes and retail teams of ten or more will get the most from it; smaller teams should price the minimums carefully and also compare 7shifts, Deputy and Homebase.