# 7shifts

> Restaurant scheduling, time clock, tips and payroll, per location

7shifts is a scheduling and team management platform built for restaurants. Managers build schedules against labor targets and POS sales forecasts, staff trade shifts and clock in on tablets, phones or the POS, and higher plans add labor-law compliance, tip pooling, payroll, hiring and training. Plans are priced per location with a cap on employees, and one location with up to 15 staff is free.

- **Category:** Shift Scheduling
- **Made by:** 7shifts
- **Website:** https://www.7shifts.com
- **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 18, 2026

## Pricing

7shifts has a free plan. Paid plans start at $39.99 per location / month, billed annually (Essentials).

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** Comp plan, free for one location with up to 15 employees: basic scheduling, shift trades and open shifts, availability and time-off requests, and one-way announcements.
- **Free trial:** 14-day free trial of the Pro plan, no credit card needed.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Comp | $0 | One location and up to 15 employees: basic scheduling, availability and time-off requests, one-way announcements. |
| Essentials | $39.99 per location / month, billed annually ($44.99 billed monthly) | Up to 30 employees. Adds schedule templates and breaks, team messaging with SMS reminders, a basic time clock and custom permissions. |
| Pro | $79.99 per location / month, billed annually ($89.99 billed monthly) | Up to 60 employees. Adds PTO accruals, labor compliance and cost tools, clock-in limits by location and the Manager Log Book. Marked best value. |
| Premium | $134.99 per location / month, billed annually ($149.99 billed monthly) | Unlimited employees. Adds tip and task management, training, labor forecasts and 7shifts Payroll, which still costs $6 per employee paid. |

Read from https://www.7shifts.com/pricing/ on Oct 18, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with 7shifts before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Save about 10% with annual billing** (Annual discount): Annual billing brings Essentials, Pro and Premium to $39.99, $79.99 and $134.99 per location a month, against $44.99, $89.99 and $149.99 billed monthly. Source: https://www.7shifts.com/pricing/
- **First 3 months of 7shifts Payroll free** (Other savings): First-time payroll buyers get three months of payroll fees waived after their first pay run, which must happen by January 30, 2027; some self-serve purchases are excluded. Source: https://www.7shifts.com/payroll-offer-terms/

## Key features

- **Schedules built on sales forecasts:** Labor targets are set against projected sales pulled from the POS and the weather forecast, and higher plans add hourly forecasts, labor recommendations and auto-built schedules.
- **Shift trades in the free app:** Staff see schedules, hours and wages in the mobile app, and can offer up, trade or claim open shifts and send availability and time-off requests.
- **Time clock on POS and tablets:** Time clocks run on tablets, computers, phones and POS devices, staff are prompted to declare tips, and Pro blocks clock-ins away from the restaurant.
- **Labor-law compliance:** Pro adds break tracking, overtime notices, compliance warnings and state-based labor law tools with custom attestations.
- **Tips and payroll:** Tip Management calculates and splits tip pools from POS sales and time punches, and 7shifts Payroll runs US pay with tax filings and new-hire paperwork.
- **Hiring and training:** Jobs post to online job boards with candidate tracking and interview scheduling, and courses can be built from existing documents with AI.

## Good for

- Restaurants, cafes and bars scheduling front- and back-of-house staff
- Operators who want labor targets tied to POS sales
- Single-location restaurants with up to 15 staff, on the free Comp plan

## Worth knowing

- Plans are priced per location and capped by headcount: Essentials covers up to 30 employees and Pro up to 60 at each location.
- 7shifts Payroll is US-only at $39.99 per location a month plus $6 per employee paid; Premium includes the base fee but not the per-employee charge.
- Add-ons cost extra per location a month: Tip Management $49.99, Manager Log Book $14.99 and Task Management $12.99. Onboarding packages are $2.99 each.
- Integrations center on restaurant POS systems such as Toast, Square, Clover and Lightspeed, and payroll services such as ADP, Gusto and Paychex.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 3.0 out of 4**, graded Oct 18, 2026. 7shifts is built for restaurants and it shows: labor targets set against till sales, tip pooling, labor-law tools and payroll in one place. One location with up to 15 staff can use the Comp plan free. Outside restaurants, though, a lot of it won't matter to you.

- **Value for money: C.** Essentials is $39.99 per location a month billed yearly, for up to 30 employees, so 15 staff at one site pay $39.99. That's a little above the middle of this category. The free Comp plan also covers one site of up to 15, without the time clock.
- **Free plan and trial: B.** Comp is free for one location and up to 15 employees, with scheduling, shift trades, open shifts, availability and time-off requests. No time clock, but a small restaurant can really run its rota on it.
- **Features: B.** Schedules set against POS sales forecasts, trades and open shifts, clock-ins on tablets, phones or the POS, labor-law compliance, tip pooling, payroll, hiring and training. For a restaurant that's the whole job and then some.
- **Ease of use: A.** 4.8 from 30,338 App Store ratings. Staff see shifts, hours and wages in the app and can trade or claim shifts there.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, with restaurant tills like Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed and TouchBistro, and payroll like ADP, Gusto and Paychex. No desktop app.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from 7shifts' own pages on 18 October 2026, and its App Store rating. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among shift scheduling apps

- 7shifts's GPA of 3.0 is higher than 10 of the 12 other shift scheduling apps we grade.
- It stands best on ease of use (A, above 8 of 12) and worst on value for money (C, above 2).
- Its paid plans start at $39.99 a month, against a middle price of $5.65 for the category: 12 of the 12 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 3.3 out of 4. Nothing scores higher for less, though at least one tool matches that score at a lower price.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/shift-scheduling

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace 7shifts you would be making payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 3.0 is higher than 10 of the 12 other shift scheduling apps we grade. It costs $479.88 a year.

- You could make: Time off and applicant tracking: an app builder makes these well.
- You could not: Payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you.
- You could not: Chat that a whole team counts on staying up.
- You could not: A rota the whole staff sees on their phones, with swaps and alerts.
- You could not: Clocking in from a phone, checked against where and when.
- You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page.
- You could not: It plugs into other products, Toast, Square and Clover among them.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.8 out of 5 from 30,338 ratings in the United States, read Oct 18, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id731444612

## Works with

Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, TouchBistro, ADP Workforce Now, Gusto, Paychex

**Tags:** Shift scheduling, Time clock, Time off, Payroll, Team chat, Applicant tracking

## Alternatives

- [Homebase](https://toolgpa.com/tools/homebase): Small-business scheduling, time clock and payroll, priced per location. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-homebase)
- [When I Work](https://toolgpa.com/tools/when-i-work): Staff scheduling with auto-fill, shift trades and an add-on time clock. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-when-i-work)
- [Deputy](https://toolgpa.com/tools/deputy): Shift scheduling, time clock and labor-law tools for hourly teams. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-deputy)
- [Sling by Toast](https://toolgpa.com/tools/sling): Free shift scheduling for up to 30 users, with paid time clock tiers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-sling)
- [Connecteam](https://toolgpa.com/tools/connecteam): Employee app for shifts, time clock, chat and HR, free up to 10 users. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-connecteam)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 18, 2026:

- https://www.7shifts.com/pricing/
- https://www.7shifts.com/
- https://www.7shifts.com/integrations/
- https://www.7shifts.com/integrations/home/
- https://www.7shifts.com/payroll-offer-terms/

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/7shifts
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).