Scheduling, payroll, and team management built for restaurants
7shifts is a scheduling and payroll platform for restaurants and hospitality operators.
AI Panel Score
6 AI reviews
Reviewed
With 7shifts, managers build and publish staff schedules, track availability and time-off requests, and manage shift swaps from a web dashboard or mobile app. Employees clock in and out through the platform's time clock (7punches), which syncs hours to payroll and flags scheduling issues like early clock-ins. Managers can also monitor labor spend against forecasts, compare scheduled versus actual hours, and run payroll and tip distribution directly within the same system.
Beyond core scheduling, the platform includes a manager log book for shift notes, task management for tracking operational to-dos, document storage for employee records, and tools for hiring and onboarding new staff. It offers a Shift Feedback feature for surfacing team issues, an AI Course Builder for creating employee training content, and on-demand pay that gives staff early access to earned wages. Labor compliance tools help operators follow local labor laws, and reporting features provide sales forecast accuracy when connected to a POS system.
7shifts is built for restaurant operators of varying sizes and formats, including quick-service restaurants, full-service restaurants, cafes, bars, pizzerias, and multi-location franchise groups. It uses a subscription pricing model with four plans — a free Comp tier, Essentials at $39.99, Pro at $79.99, and Premium at $134.99 per location per month on annual billing — with monthly billing available at a higher rate. Competing products in this category include Toast Payroll, When I Work, HotSchedules, and Sling.
Builds training courses and bite-sized microcourses for ongoing staff training, with distribution and completion tracking.
Monitors labor spend and compares scheduled versus actual hours through reporting dashboards.
Streamlines finding, hiring, and onboarding new restaurant staff faster.
Runs restaurant payroll in minutes using synced labor and time data.
Automates tip calculations and distribution and lets operators configure and manage tip pools.
Provides a digital shift log for managers to record and share operational notes across shifts.
Centralize team updates and announcements to reduce reliance on SMS or WhatsApp for shift communication.
Helps restaurants stay compliant with labor laws and regulations through scheduling and time tracking rules.
Gives staff early access to earned wages before the standard payroll cycle.
Build, adjust, and publish compliant staff schedules while managing availability, time off, and shift swaps.
Assigns and tracks operational tasks for restaurant staff.
Track employee hours and prevent early clock-ins while syncing data for accurate payroll and labor law compliance.
Connects with 60+ restaurant technology platforms, including 20+ POS systems like Toast, Square, and Lightspeed, and payroll providers like ADP, Paychex, and Gusto, to sync labor data and support forecasting.
Manage and publish schedules on the go through the 7shifts mobile app.
Free plan for single locations with up to 15 employees — basic scheduling only.
Per location/month on annual billing ($44.99 billed monthly); up to 30 employees. Unlocks advanced scheduling and team communication.
Per location/month on annual billing ($89.99 billed monthly); up to 60 employees. Marked "Best value" — combines scheduling, time clocking and compliance.
Per location/month on annual billing ($149.99 billed monthly); unlimited employees. Bundles the Tip Management ($49.99) and Task Management ($12.99) add-ons.
Restaurant-specific workforce tool with real integration depth and pricing you can budget before the first call.
“7shifts has been narrow and focused for years, not chasing every vertical. That focus shows in the 60+ integrations and 20+ POS connections.”
20+ POS integrations, including Toast and Square. That's not a feature list, that's a moat built by staying in one lane for years. Restaurants are messy, high-churn environments, and 7shifts clearly built for that reality instead of retrofitting generic HR software.
Payroll, tip pooling, and time clocking all live in one system, so you're not stitching together Toast Payroll plus a separate scheduler. And the price is on the page: $39.99 Essentials, $79.99 Pro, $134.99 Premium, per location per month on annual billing. A ten-unit group can put a real number in the budget before anyone books a call.
Competes directly with HotSchedules and When I Work, but the AI Course Builder and on-demand pay give it a retention angle those tools don't emphasize as hard. This isn't a category-definer. It's a solid, boring choice that works.
Solid alternative to Toast Payroll and HotSchedules, with published per-location tiers that make benchmarking straightforward.
Widely used in restaurant operations; adopting it reads as standard practice, not experimental.
Vendor claims live in under 30 days including POS linking and payroll enablement.
Consolidates scheduling, payroll, and compliance into one system rather than just cutting cost on existing tools.
Long-established restaurant-specific player with docs, API, and broad integration network signaling maturity.
Multi-location restaurant groups wanting scheduling, payroll, and compliance under one roof.
Skip it if you aren't a restaurant, since every workflow assumes food service.
60+ integrations make 7shifts the integration hub for restaurant labor data, not the system of record.
“Architecture is sound for a vertical SaaS play — sync-heavy, not build-heavy. The lock-in risk lives in payroll and tip data, not the scheduling UI.”
7shifts integrates with 20+ POS systems and 60+ platforms total — Toast, Square, Lightspeed, plus payroll rails like ADP, Paychex, Gusto. That's a real API surface, not a marketing slide. If you're already on Toast for POS, the question becomes whether you want Toast Payroll's native path instead, since that avoids a second vendor's data model for labor sync.
The stack shape here is sensible: scheduling and time clock (7punches) as the core system, everything else — tip pooling, on-demand pay, AI Course Builder — as modules layered on top. If you adopt this, in 3 years you have your labor compliance logic and payroll sync living inside 7shifts, which is fine until you want to switch POS providers and have to re-validate 20+ integration points.
Docs and API exist publicly, which matters for franchise groups running custom reporting. Competing against When I Work and HotSchedules, 7shifts' integration depth is the moat, not the AI features.
Sits ahead of When I Work and Sling on integration depth, but Toast Payroll competes directly if you're already Toast-native.
Shift Pool, manager log book, and early clock-in flags map directly to how restaurant ops actually run shifts.
60+ platform integrations including Toast, Square, ADP, Gusto give real interoperability, with public API and docs.
Payroll and tip data become sticky fast; migrating off after multi-year use means re-validating 20+ POS syncs.
Core scheduling/payroll/tip stack is mature; AI Course Builder is a bolt-on feature, not deep AI infrastructure.
Multi-location restaurant groups already running a supported POS who want labor data synced into one payroll pipeline.
You're single-location on Toast POS and want native payroll without a second vendor's data model in the loop.
Priced per location, not per seat, which flips the math for multi-unit groups.
“Feature list is deep — payroll, tips, on-demand pay, 60+ integrations. Pricing is published per location per month, so the multi-unit math is easy and the small-crew math is expensive.”
A 55-employee restaurant and a 15-employee restaurant both pay $79.99 for Pro. Headcount does not move the invoice until it crosses a tier cap — 30 on Essentials, 60 on Pro, unlimited on Premium.
Annual billing runs $39.99 / $79.99 / $134.99 per location against $44.99 / $89.99 / $149.99 monthly, about 11% off for paying up front. Premium folds in Tip Management ($49.99) and Task Management ($12.99), which lands cheaper than buying Pro plus both.
The catch is multiplication. Ten locations on Pro is $799.90 a month, $9,598.80 a year, and a slow unit with six people on shift pays what a busy one pays. When I Work and HotSchedules bill per user, so the crossover is average headcount per door. No long-term contract, no hidden fees, 14-day trial.
Monthly or annual billing, published tiers, and a 14-day no-card trial remove any pre-quote sales gate.
Monthly or annual billing, no stated long-term contract or hidden fees claim.
Four named tiers with dollar figures, annual and monthly rates, employee caps and add-on prices all published.
Scheduled-vs-actual hours reporting against a known $79.99 per-location rate makes labor-savings payback computable.
Per-location rates make 3-year math straightforward — location count and add-ons are the only variables.
Multi-location groups with large crews per door who benefit from per-location billing.
Avoid if you run tiny locations where per-user billing would cost you less.
Built by people who've closed a restaurant at 2am — it shows in the details
“7shifts nails the specific daily friction of restaurant scheduling: shift swaps, tip pools, early clock-in flags. The free Comp plan caps at 15 employees, so most kitchens land on a paid tier fast.”
Shift Pool for open-shift bidding with manager approval is the right call — full self-serve swaps are how you end up short a line cook on a Friday. 7punches flagging early clock-ins is a small feature that saves a manager from a compliance headache nobody notices until an audit. That's day-3 thinking baked into the product, not bolted on later.
60+ integrations, 20+ POS systems including Toast and Square, plus ADP/Paychex/Gusto payroll sync — that's the real workflow test, and it clears it. Compare vs. Sling or When I Work, which don't run payroll and tip pooling natively; 7shifts consolidating scheduling, time clock, and payroll into one system removes a reconciliation step managers hate doing at month-end.
Friction: the free Comp plan is scheduling-and-comms only, capped at 15 employees on one location, so a real roster lands on Essentials at $39.99 or Pro at $79.99 per location per month. Pro is where labor compliance and the Manager Log Book live. 30-day rollout is honest, not instant.
Early clock-in flags and manager log book target real shift-level problems, not demo features.
Docs and blog exist and API is public, but no changelog listed makes it harder to track what changed between releases.
Shift Pool requires manager approval on every swap — safer but adds a manual step for busy GMs.
Labor compliance rules, forecast-vs-actual reporting, and AI Course Builder show depth beyond basic scheduling, with each tier's inclusions listed.
60+ integrations including Toast, Square, ADP, and Gusto mean it slots into existing POS/payroll stacks rather than replacing them.
Multi-location restaurant groups that need scheduling, payroll, and tip management in one system tied to their POS.
Avoid if you schedule a non-restaurant hourly workforce like retail or clinic staff.
The scheduling app that actually knows what a walk-in shift swap looks like
“Built for restaurants, not adapted for them, and you can feel the difference in things like early clock-in flags. The pricing page is plain about the rest — four tiers, real numbers, employee caps stated.”
Sixty-plus integrations, 20+ POS systems including Toast and Square, and payroll partners like ADP and Gusto — that's not a shallow feature list, that's someone who sat with a GM and asked what actually breaks a Tuesday. The 7punches time clock flagging early clock-ins is the kind of tiny detail you only build if you've been burned by labor compliance audits before.
Onboarding claims under 30 days to full payroll and POS linkup, with a 14-day trial and no credit card. That's honest framing — restaurants aren't spinning up SaaS in an afternoon, and 7shifts isn't pretending otherwise.
Mobile has real scheduling and shift-swap functions (Shift Pool), not just a read-only calendar, which matters when your manager is running the floor, not sitting at a desk. Against When I Work or HotSchedules, the depth here — tip pooling, manager log books, AI course builder — feels earned rather than bolted on. The tradeoff: the free Comp tier is basic scheduling only, and everything above it starts at Pro, $79.99 per location per month.
Manager log book and early clock-in flags suggest real restaurant-floor thinking, not generic SaaS polish.
Modular add-ons (payroll, tips, training) let teams grow into features rather than face them all day one.
Shift Pool swaps and full schedule publishing on mobile app, not just viewing.
Under-30-days claim and no-credit-card 14-day trial lower the homework feel, though POS linkup adds setup weight.
Payroll and labor-law compliance syncing implies solid data plumbing, but no public uptime or error-state evidence.
Multi-location restaurant groups juggling labor compliance, payroll, and shift swaps across locations.
You're a single small cafe that needs nothing beyond a basic weekly schedule.
Pricing is public and the integrations check out — data portability is the real open question.
“7shifts is old enough and boring enough in the right ways — this is infrastructure, not a growth-hack pitch. The pricing page lists four tiers with real numbers, so the flag moves to what happens when you leave.”
Founded on scheduling, expanded into payroll, tips, on-demand pay, and now an 'AI Course Builder' — the AI bolt-on that every vertical SaaS is adding this cycle. The core stuff, 7punches time clock, Shift Pool swaps, 60+ integrations including Toast and ADP, sounds like a company that's shipped for years, not a pivot story.
What I check first is what the free tier withholds. Comp is real — $0, one location, 15 employees — but no time clocking, so an enforceable schedule starts at Essentials, $39.99 per location. Caps of 30 and 60 employees mean upgrades come from headcount, not features.
Exit risk is moderate. Payroll and tip data live inside their system; POS sync helps, but restaurant-specific payroll history isn't trivially portable to Toast Payroll or Gusto. Compliance tooling and multi-location support suggest real enterprise traction, not just SMB dabbling.
Restaurant-specific focus vs. generalist Sling or When I Work is real, but Toast Payroll competes on the same POS-native angle.
Payroll and tip history are sticky; POS sync helps but full data exit isn't described anywhere.
60+ integrations and enterprise tier signal scale, though no funding or team data is public here.
Four tiers with dollar figures, employee caps and annual-vs-monthly rates are all published; the FAQ's free plan is the listed Comp tier.
Feature depth (payroll, tips, compliance) matches mature category players, not a fly-by-night entrant.
Multi-location restaurant groups already running Toast or Square who want payroll and scheduling in one system.
You want per-seat pricing that scales down for a very small crew.
Common questions answered by our AI research team
Yes, 7shifts offers a free plan with basic scheduling and communication features. For full functionality, the Pro plan is recommended.
Yes, 7shifts offers a 14-day free trial with full access to all features, and no credit card is required to start.
7shifts integrates with 20+ POS systems as part of its broader network of 60+ restaurant technology platform integrations.
Yes, employees can offer up or bid on open shifts through Shift Pool, with final swaps requiring manager approval.
7shifts can be up and running in under 30 days, covering everything from starting a free trial and importing staff to linking your POS and enabling payroll and training.
Company
7shiftsFounded
2014Pricing
From $40/moFree Trial
AvailableFree Plan
Available7shifts is a Toronto-based provider of workforce management software for restaurants, covering scheduling, labor compliance, and team communication.
