Employee rostering software: what it costs per head, and what it still won't do

Every employee rostering tool sold in Australia charges you per person on the roster. Accommodation and food services is the most casualised industry in the country, with 58% of its employees working casually, so the industry with the most names on the books pays the biggest per-head bill. That's the part the feature-comparison pages never lead with.

The short version: rostering software runs about $6 to $13 per user per month, which is roughly $2,000 to $4,400 a year for a venue with 28 people on the books. Before you pay for any of it, check two things: that it records the hours actually worked (a roster on its own is not a Fair Work record), and that it knows the roster clause in the Hospitality Award applies to full-time and part-time staff, not casuals. This is general information, not legal advice.

What per-head pricing actually costs a casual-heavy venue

Here's the trap. You think in full-time equivalents. The pricing thinks in headcount. A Newtown bar running the equivalent of 12 full-time staff can easily have 28 people active in the system: the four-nights-a-week regulars, two uni students who only do Sundays, three people kept warm for December, and the casual who did five shifts in March and hasn't been back. You pay for all of them, every month.

Those are published list prices excluding GST as at August 2026, and they move. Two details matter more than the headline number. Deputy applies a minimum monthly spend of $30 per invoice, so a five-person cafe pays for roughly six people. RosterElf's annual rates carry a 10-seat minimum. And on most platforms, the plan that includes award interpretation and payroll export is not the cheap one at the left of the page.

You budget in full-time equivalents. Per-user pricing bills you in names. In hospitality, those two numbers are rarely within a factor of two.

Your roster is not a time and wages record

This is the one that catches people out, and no vendor comparison page mentions it. Under the Fair Work Act, employers must keep time and wages records for seven years, and those records have to be legible, in English, readily accessible to a Fair Work Inspector, and never altered except to correct an error. A roster is a plan. It shows what you intended to happen, which is exactly the gap free roster templates never close either.

What the record has to show is what actually happened. The regulations specifically require you to keep the hours worked where an employee is a casual or an irregular part-timer paid on time worked, which describes most of a hospitality team. And if you can't produce them, it has teeth: Fair Work notes that employers who haven't kept records, or haven't made them available for inspection, may have to prove to a court that they didn't underpay someone. The burden flips onto you.

So the question for a vendor isn't "does it do rostering". It's: does the system capture and keep actual worked hours, and can I export seven years of them if I cancel? A tool that stores rosters beautifully and leaves you retyping hours into payroll on Monday has solved the smaller half of the problem.

The award rule most rostering tools get wrong

Open clause 15.5 of the Hospitality Industry (General) Award (MA000009) and read the heading. It says "Rosters (Full-time and part-time employees)", and the first line confirms it: these provisions apply to full-time and part-time employees. Everything underneath, the posted roster, the seven days' notice, the ten-hour break, is a permanent-staff rule.

That cuts both ways. A tool that fires a "7 days' notice required" warning at every casual shift change is crying wolf, and your managers will learn to click straight through it. A tool that stays silent on casuals is also wrong, because clause 39 requires consultation on a roster change for anyone except employees whose hours are irregular, sporadic or unpredictable. Your Thursday-to-Sunday casual of three years does not obviously meet that description. Ask a vendor which of those two rules their warning implements. Most can't tell you.

Eight questions to ask before you pay for anything

1. Does it record actual worked hours, or only rostered ones? You want timestamped clock-ins, not a manager copying the roster into payroll on Monday morning.
2. Can I export seven years of time and wages records if I leave? Ask for the export format before you sign, not after.
3. Which version of the award is loaded, and when was it last updated? Hospitality rates changed on 1 July 2026, and not by one flat percentage: Introductory and Level 1 rose about 6%, Levels 2 to 6 rose 4.75%.
4. Does the notice warning tell a casual from a part-timer? See the table above. One rule, two very different obligations.
5. What's the bill on my real headcount, including everyone dormant? Then ask about the monthly minimum spend and the annual-billing seat minimum.
6. Which features are add-ons? Award interpretation, payroll export, HR and staff messaging are commonly priced separately from the rostering plan you were quoted.
7. Does the roster cost update live as I build it? Watching a Sunday climb at $47.39 an hour for a Level 2 casual, while you can still move the shift, beats any month-end report.
8. When someone drops a shift at 4pm on a Saturday, what does this actually do? Sit with the silence after that one.

The thing rostering software doesn't do

Every tool in that pricing table helps you write the roster. Not one of them fills it. When a bartender texts at 4pm on a Saturday, the software shows you a red gap, estimates what the replacement costs, then waits while you start the phone tree. The admin is solved. The staffing is still entirely yours, and the real cost of a no-show dwarfs any subscription on this page.

Where Shiftly fits

Shiftly is free workforce management built for Australian venues: rostering, plus award-aware timesheets that help you check what a shift should cost before you pay it. It's a calculation tool rather than payroll, and it can't promise you're compliant. The current Fair Work pay guide is always the source of truth.

The difference is what sits behind the roster. Shiftly is the roster that fills itself: an on-demand network of local hospitality workers is wired into the same roster you already run. So when Saturday falls over, you push the open shift to nearby vetted workers who see the pay before they accept, instead of ringing around your bench and hoping. No per-head bill for the privilege. Get started with Shiftly.

Frequently asked questions

How much does employee rostering software cost in Australia?

List prices sit between roughly $6 and $13 per user per month excluding GST. Deputy publishes $6.75 (Lite), $8.75 (Core) and $13 (Pro), with a $30 minimum monthly spend per invoice. RosterElf lists Core at $8 per employee monthly or $6 on annual billing. Tanda publishes an all-in-one bundle at $12.80 plus GST. For a venue with 28 people on the books that's about $2,000 to $4,400 a year, and award interpretation or payroll export often sits outside the entry plan.

Does a roster count as a Fair Work record?

No. Time and wages records must be kept for seven years and must show what was actually worked, including the hours worked by casuals and irregular part-timers paid on time worked. A roster only shows the plan. Where the two differ, and in hospitality they nearly always do, the record has to reflect reality.

Do I have to give a casual 7 days' notice of a roster change?

Not under clause 15.5 of the Hospitality Award, which applies to full-time and part-time employees. But clause 39 requires consultation about a change to a regular roster for any employee whose hours aren't irregular, sporadic or unpredictable, and a long-standing casual with a settled pattern may well be covered. This is general information, not legal advice, so check your situation with the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Can I switch off spreadsheets without a big project?

Most small venues do it over a weekend: clean the staff list, import it, set each person's award level once, then build one roster in parallel with the old system before you commit. Our weekend guide to moving off Excel walks through it day by day.