Deputy alternative
A cheaper alternative to Deputy for a cafe or bar
Shiftly covers the same everyday ground for an Australian venue, rostering, timesheets, award pay and a staff app on every phone, and it doesn't charge you per person to do it. Deputy lists $6.75 to $13 per user each month. The Shiftly software is free, and the only time you pay anything is when you fill a shift from its on-demand pool.
Free for every feature. No credit card, no per user fee, no contract.
The bill follows your headcount
A cafe with twelve full-time equivalents can easily have twenty two people sitting in the system. There are the regulars who do four nights a week, a couple of uni students who only ever pick up Sundays, a few you're keeping warm for December, and the casual who did five shifts back in March and hasn't been in since. Per user pricing bills you for every one of them, every month.
Small venues pay a minimum either way
Deputy applies a minimum monthly spend of $30 per invoice across its monthly Lite, Core and Pro plans. A four person wine bar on Lite only racks up about $27 of real usage, so it gets billed $30 regardless, which is roughly four and a half people's worth of software for four people. The fewer staff you have, the more that floor costs you.
The cheapest plan is rarely the right one
Lite does include award interpretation, but the advanced version only starts at Core, which is $8.75 per user per month. So before you compare the numbers on the pricing page, work out which tier actually holds the pay rules your venue rosters against, and price that one instead.
What 22 people on a cafe roster costs in a year
This is one cafe with twelve full-time equivalents and twenty two names in the system, priced four ways. The Deputy figures are its published Australian list prices for Lite, Core and Pro, excluding tax.
| Shiftly | |
|---|---|
| Per user, per month | $0 |
| 22 people on the books, per month | $0 |
| 22 people on the books, a year | $0 |
| Minimum monthly spend | None |
| Award pay tools | Included, free |
| Cover a shift from outside your own team | On-demand pool, coming soon (8% service fee) |
| How you are billed | Nothing to bill |
Last reviewed 10 October 2026, when the Deputy prices were read from deputy.com/au/pricing in Australian dollars excluding tax. The annual figures are the monthly cost times twelve, rounded to the nearest ten dollars. List prices move, so check them yourself before you sign anything. We ran the same maths for a 28 person venue in what rostering software costs per head.
Award pay
Saturday brunch and the Friday close, priced before you publish
Take a food and beverage attendant grade 1, the Level 1 classification most cafe and bar teams are built on. The award minimum is $26.44 an hour, and once the 25% casual loading goes on that becomes $33.05. Put the same casual on a Saturday and you're at 150%, or $39.66, while a Sunday is 175%, or $46.27. A weeknight bar shift running between 7pm and midnight picks up another $2.95 an hour on top of whatever else applies. Shiftly works all of that out on the shift card while you're still building the roster, then runs the same rules again over the approved timesheet, and your venue confirms the pay run before anything goes out.
- Casual loading, weekend and public holiday penalties applied shift by shift
- Junior percentages step up on the birthday without anyone re-entering them
Rates last verified 10 October 2026 against the Hospitality Industry (General) Award 2020 (MA000009) on the Fair Work Commission website, as it applies from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. The hourly figures are the award minimum for a Level 1 employee and the penalty percentages in Table 14. Treat every rate here as a starting point for your own check rather than a substitute for it, and see the full MA000009 rate tables for every level.
What to check before you switch
Four questions worth putting to any rostering tool, this one included, before you move a cafe or bar onto it.
Count every name in the system
Open your current roster and count everyone still sitting in there, December casuals and the Sunday uni student included. That number is what per user pricing bills you for each month, and it's usually a good deal higher than your full-time equivalent. On Shiftly the same count changes nothing, because there's no per person fee for it to change.
Check it keeps the hours people actually worked
A published roster is only a plan for the week, and Fair Work asks for something firmer than that: time and wages records kept for 7 years, legible in English and readily accessible to a Fair Work Inspector. So ask whether the tool records the hours worked against each shift, and whether you can take all 7 years of them with you if you ever leave.
Find the tier that holds the award rules
A cafe or bar on MA000009 needs weekend penalties, evening loadings, casual loading and junior rates working on every shift, not just a grid of names to fill in. Find the plan that includes those pay rules, price that one, and then ask what the bill looks like when you take on three casuals for December.
Ask what happens at 4pm on a Friday
Every rostering tool can tell you a bartender has called in sick, and then it stops. Ask what the tool does next, and what covering that shift really costs you compared with how you handle it now, whether that's the group chat, the owner working until close, or an agency margin.
On-demand cover
The gap a roster tool can only tell you about
This is the part a per user subscription doesn't buy you. When Shiftly On-Demand opens (coming soon, starting in Sydney), a cafe or bar that can't cover a shift from its own team will be able to post it to the on-demand pool and fill it from people who already use Shiftly at their day jobs. Shifters are independent contractors, engaged directly by your venue, working at rates set at or above award minimums, plus super. Shiftly facilitates the match and moves the payment, and is not the employer or an agency.
- Offer the shift to your own available staff first, then open it to the on-demand pool
- Profiles, work history and ratings on every shifter before you accept anyone
- An 8% service fee once a shift is filled, and nothing at all in a week you don't use it
Switching
Bring the team across, then publish before the next service
Connect Deputy while you set up your business and Shiftly pulls your locations, positions, staff and rosters across, or bring them in from Xero or a plain CSV instead. From there you set MA000009 as the award, set each person's classification and employment basis once, and send the week out to every phone. Most venues publish their first Shiftly roster the same day they sign up.
- Connect Deputy once and Shiftly imports your locations, positions, staff and rosters
- Direct import from Xero or a CSV, with duplicate checks before anything is created
- No setup fee, no contract and no per user bill to cancel later
Try it on next week's roster
Sign up free, bring your staff across from Deputy, Xero or a CSV, pick your award and publish before the next service. If it turns out not to suit the venue, you haven't spent anything finding out.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shiftly actually cheaper than Deputy for a small venue?
For the software, yes. There's no per user fee and no minimum monthly spend, so a cafe with 22 people on the books pays nothing at all for rostering, timesheets, award pay tools and the staff app. Deputy's published Australian pricing runs from $6.75 to $13 per user each month, depending on the plan.
What does Shiftly charge for, if the software is free?
Just one thing, once Shiftly On-Demand opens (it is coming soon, starting in Sydney). If you fill a shift from the on-demand pool rather than covering it from your own team, you pay for the hours worked plus an 8% service fee. Never post a shift to the pool and you'll never see a bill.
Can I move my staff and rosters across from Deputy?
Yes. Connect your Deputy account while you set up your business, review what Shiftly found, and it brings your locations, positions, staff and rosters across for you. If your people are already in Xero, or you have them in a spreadsheet, you can import from there instead, and the Australian team will help either way at no cost.
Will it work out our Hospitality Award penalty rates?
It calculates weekend and public holiday penalties, evening loadings, casual loading and junior percentages against the award you select, and puts the cost on the shift card before you publish. The figures are an estimate to work from, and your venue is responsible for checking pay before it goes out.
We're a four person bar. Do we still pay something?
Not on Shiftly. Per user pricing tends to put a floor underneath you, and Deputy applies a $30 minimum per invoice on its monthly plans, so a four person bar on Lite gets billed $30 rather than the $27 its headcount comes to. Shiftly has no per user fee and no minimum at any headcount.
Is Shiftly free forever, or is this a trial?
It's free, and it isn't a trial. There's no credit card at signup, no per employee fee, no setup fee and no contract, and nothing switches itself off after a set period. Shiftly earns its revenue on the on-demand marketplace instead.