9 Best Restaurant Scheduling Software of 2026

7shifts ranks first because its scheduling starts from the number restaurant managers are judged on: labor cost against sales. Managers set labor targets on projected sales, budget each department with sales data pulled from the POS, and on Premium get hourly forecasts and labor recommendations, plus schedules generated from those targets. The staff side is just as complete, with a shift pool for offering, trading and claiming shifts, availability and time off requests, and SMS reminders when a schedule is published. Pro adds state-based labor compliance tools, overtime warnings and meal and break attestations at punch-in, which matter in states with predictive scheduling rules. The free Comp plan covers one location with up to 15 employees. Paid plans are priced per location with headcount caps of 30 on Essentials and 60 on Pro, and the pricing page showed Canadian dollars from our location, so confirm the USD price with 7shifts before you budget.

Deputy is a general shift-work platform with deep labor tools, which is why it scores close to the restaurant specialists. The Lite plan, at $5 per user per month on annual billing, covers basic scheduling, timesheets, time clocking, labor law compliance, shift swaps and leave management. The plan that matters for labor targets is Core at $6.50, which adds auto-scheduling, demand forecasting, labor optimization, wage and labor budgets, micro-scheduling and biometric time clocking. Pro at $9 adds location hierarchies, custom access levels and single sign-on for larger groups. Deputy AI is included in every plan for building schedules and answering workforce questions. Add-ons include payroll enabled by Paycor at $8 per user a month plus a $49 base fee, and HR at $2 per user. There is no free plan, and per-user pricing adds up for kitchens with many part-time staff, so compare the total against a per-location tool such as Homebase.

Homebase prices by location rather than by user, which suits restaurants with large hourly rosters and high turnover. The free Basic plan covers one location with up to 10 employees and includes basic scheduling, basic time tracking and POS integration. Essentials at $30 per location a month on monthly billing removes the employee cap and adds advanced scheduling, advanced time tracking and team communication. Plus adds an AI-powered Scheduling Assistant, PTO and time-off controls, and departments and permissions, and All-in-One at $120 adds onboarding and HR and compliance tools, which Homebase frames as getting control of labor costs. Add-ons are priced in the open: Tip Manager at $25 per location a month pulls tips from the POS and calculates the pool, and payroll costs $49 a month plus $6 per employee. Homebase documents fewer sales-driven labor target tools than 7shifts, so it fits owners who want a simple, predictable bill more than detailed labor budgeting.

Sling, now sold as Sling by Toast, is the cheapest way on this list to put labor cost next to the schedule. The free plan covers shift scheduling for up to 30 users, with time-off requests, available shifts, news sharing, private messaging and long-term scheduling months ahead. Premium costs $1.70 per user per month on annual billing, or $2 monthly, and adds mobile time tracking, labor cost management that compares labor costs against sales, overtime tracking, group messaging and calendar sync. Business at $3.40 annually adds kiosk time tracking on a shared device, reports on hours and wages, and tracking for no-shows and sick call-outs. What Sling does not document on its pricing page is sales forecasting or automatic schedule generation, so managers who want schedules built from projected sales will find more in 7shifts, Deputy or When I Work. For a small team that needs a free schedule and a cheap labor cost view, it is hard to beat.

When I Work is one of the cheapest ways to get automated scheduling in a restaurant. Essentials starts at $2.50 per user per month for single-location teams and already includes auto scheduling, multi-week scheduling, schedule templates, forecast tools, OpenShifts, shift swapping and in-app messaging, along with payroll and POS integrations. Its scheduling features include calculating staff coverage based on sales and a labor budget, the core task for a manager working to a labor target. Pro at $5 adds scheduling rules, role permissions, labor sharing between locations, custom unit forecasting and callout reporting, and Premium at $8 adds API keys, webhooks and SAML single sign-on. Time tracking and attendance is a toggle you add to any plan rather than a default part of it, so price that in if you want one tool for scheduling and timesheets. The trial runs two weeks with no credit card required.

Connecteam is a general app for deskless teams rather than a restaurant scheduler, but its pricing and checklists make it worth a look for small operators. The Small Business Plan gives up to 10 users every hub and feature for free. Above that, the Operations Hub, which holds the time clock, job scheduling, forms and tasks, starts at $29 a month for the first 30 users on yearly billing, then $0.80 per additional user. Basic includes a GPS time clock, open shifts, payroll integration and unlimited checklists. Advanced at $49 adds repeating shifts, templates, auto clock out and geofences, and Expert at $99 adds auto-assigning shifts and API access. What it lacks for this angle is sales-driven labor planning: the pricing page documents no POS sales forecasting or labor target tools, so managers who schedule to a labor percentage will do that math elsewhere. Chat and HR are separate hubs with their own prices.

Toast Scheduling makes the most sense for restaurants already running the Toast POS, because it forecasts from the POS sales history it already holds. Managers build schedules against expected sales, with weather and labor costs as inputs, and the Scheduling Agent drafts a schedule from staff availability and projected sales for the manager to review and publish. Toast IQ lets managers spot past overstaffing and edit shifts from the floor, and staff view, offer and swap shifts in the MyToast app. Clock-ins flow straight into Toast Payroll, so overtime is visible while you schedule. Toast does not publish a standalone scheduling price. Basic scheduling comes in the payroll bundle at $69 a month plus $9 per employee, which also includes the POS and payroll essentials, while Toast Scheduling Pro is sold in the Team Management Essentials package by quote. Restaurants on another POS cannot use it, so for them Sling by Toast or 7shifts are the options.

Harri is a workforce platform built only for hospitality and aimed at large brands, and its labor planning is among the deepest here. Its demand forecasting combines POS data with weather, local events and seasonal trends, and Harri claims up to 95% forecast accuracy. Dynamic scheduling then generates compliant schedules that factor in labor laws, employee availability and historical store data, which Harri says takes about 30 seconds. Salli, its AI assistant, handles conversational scheduling and flags compliance problems such as missed meal breaks. Time and attendance includes biometric clocks, geofenced mobile clock-in and offline support, and the same platform covers sourcing, hiring, onboarding, HR, performance and learning. Harri says it runs in more than 70,000 locations. The trade-off is access: there is no public price, setup goes through a demo and sales process, and the platform is shaped for franchises and multi-brand groups rather than a single independent restaurant.

HotSchedules, from Fourth, is a long-running restaurant scheduler that fits chains already deep in enterprise systems. Managers build schedules from real sales and labor data, and Fourth says its predictive insights match staffing to demand, reduce overtime and keep every shift covered. Predictive scheduling, labor law alerts and built-in reporting help multi-state operators avoid penalties. HotSchedules connects with POS systems including PAR POS, Toast, Oracle Micros and NCR Aloha to sync sales and labor data in real time, and it sits next to Fourth's payroll, HR, inventory and AI forecasting products. Staff get mobile access to the schedule, plus instant digital tip payouts and early access to earned wages. Fourth says the platform runs across 120,000 locations. The page carries no public price and steers buyers to a demo, though it advertised a promotion of one year of HotSchedules free at the time we checked, so ask for terms in writing.