# Fourth review (2026): is it worth it? > Restaurant and hospitality workforce suite, with HotSchedules Checked Nov 13, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Fourth sells workforce management, HR and payroll, and inventory software to restaurants and hospitality groups. Its scheduling product is HotSchedules, which forecasts demand, auto-assigns shifts under labor rules, handles shift swaps in a mobile app and connects to point-of-sale systems. Fourth also lists time and attendance, tip management and earned wage access. - **Category:** Shift Scheduling - **Made by:** Fourth - **Website:** https://www.fourth.com - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you want to see a price before talking to sales, as none is published. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing Fourth's current pricing could not be confirmed from its own site. ## Key features - **Demand-based scheduling:** Labor rules and an AI demand forecast generate house shifts, and auto-schedule assigns staff by availability, skill and labor law. - **Shift swaps in the app:** Employees request swaps, drops or pickups in the mobile app; managers approve with compliance warnings shown. - **Labor compliance:** Built-in checks for predictive-scheduling and labor-law rules, with overtime alerts while a schedule is built. - **POS integration:** Syncs sales and labor data with systems including PAR POS, Toast, Oracle Micros and NCR Aloha. - **Team messaging:** Text, message or email staff by department or company-wide, and sync schedules to Google Calendar. - **Wider hospitality suite:** Payroll, tip management, earned wage access, recruiting and inventory are sold alongside scheduling. ## Good for - Restaurant groups that want scheduling tied to POS sales data - Operators that also need payroll, tips and inventory from one vendor - Multi-location brands tracking labor cost against sales ## Worth knowing - No prices are published; every product page routes to a demo. - The scheduling page advertises 1 year of HotSchedules free, but its terms are not shown there. - Built for restaurants and hospitality; other industries are not the target. - Product names are split between Fourth and HotSchedules, with separate US, UK and APAC regions. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Fourth's HotSchedules builds restaurant schedules from a demand forecast and syncs with POS systems. But no price is published anywhere, the offer of a free first year comes with no terms, and it is built for restaurants and hospitality only. - **Value for money: C.** No price on the page: every product page routes to a demo. With nothing on record, that sits in the middle by default. - **Free plan and trial: F.** Nothing free is confirmed. The scheduling page advertises 1 year of HotSchedules free, but shows no terms, so we can't count it. - **Features: B.** Demand forecast, auto-scheduling under labor rules, in-app swaps, overtime alerts and POS sync. Nothing in the listing is missing from the scheduling job. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. It's a managed suite with several products and regions, so expect some setup rather than a quick start. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Mobile app for staff plus POS links to Toast, Oracle Micros, NCR Aloha and PAR POS and Google Calendar sync. The listing shows no desktop app. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Fourth's own pages on 13 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among shift scheduling apps - Fourth's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 17 of the 49 other shift scheduling apps we grade, and level with 8. - It stands best on features (B, above 23 of 49) and worst on free plan and trial (F, above 0). The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/shift-scheduling ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Fourth 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. - You could make: Time off and reports: an app builder makes these well. - You could not: Payroll taxes worked out and filed with the government for you. - 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: It plugs into other products, PAR POS, Toast and Oracle Micros among them. - You could not: AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself. - 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. ## Works with PAR POS, Toast, Oracle Micros, NCR Aloha, Google Calendar **Tags:** Shift scheduling, Time clock, Time off, Payroll, Reports, AI features ## Alternatives - [7shifts](https://toolgpa.com/tools/7shifts): Restaurant scheduling, time clock, tips and payroll, per location. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-fourth) - [Legion](https://toolgpa.com/tools/legion): Enterprise workforce management with AI schedule optimization. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/fourth-vs-legion) - [Rotaready Evo](https://toolgpa.com/tools/rotaready): Rota, HR and time tracking software for hospitality teams. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/fourth-vs-rotaready) - [Deputy](https://toolgpa.com/tools/deputy): Shift scheduling, time clock and labor-law tools for hourly teams. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/deputy-vs-fourth) - [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/fourth-vs-when-i-work) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://www.fourth.com/solution/workforce-management-software/scheduling - https://www.fourth.com/product/hotschedules - https://www.fourth.com/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/fourth Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).