Rosie

Rosie is a roster and workforce-scheduling service for hospitality, retail, healthcare, and other service operations. It fits managers who need rule-aware scheduling plus attendance capture across mobile and shared devices. The strongest case is structured roster automation with compliance controls; payroll processing remains outside its remit.

Overview

Rosie builds schedules with a constraint solver that weighs availability, contracted hours, qualifications, rest periods, and fairness. Managers can then refine the result in a drag-and-drop weekly grid and publish shifts to staff. Because the engine is Google OR-Tools CP-SAT version 9.8.3296 rather than a language model, its value is predictable rule handling rather than conversational planning.

Employees clock in and out from a phone with GPS verification or a shared tablet kiosk. Rosie enforces 22 scheduling rules, including break, rest, young-worker, and leave requirements across six jurisdictions. That is a meaningful advantage for regulated or multi-role teams. Approved hours can go to Xero on Business, while timesheets and reports export as CSV. The service passes hours and rates onward; it does not calculate tax or pay employees.

Key features

Constraint-based rostering

Automated generation considers staffing qualifications and contractual and recovery requirements together, reducing the need to reconcile those constraints manually. Fairness is part of the solver's criteria, which is useful where unpopular shifts or uneven hours need to be distributed deliberately.

Manager control and staff access

The weekly grid keeps managers in charge after automation, allowing edits before publication. Availability management, leave handling, shift swaps, trainer scheduling, and multi-location scheduling cover the operational changes that make a generated roster workable.

Attendance and compliance

GPS-verified mobile punches provide location-aware clocking, while a kiosk supports a shared-device setup. Rule enforcement covers breaks, rest, young workers, and leave, giving businesses a stronger compliance foundation than a calendar-only scheduler. The underpayment check and break rules are reserved for Business.

Exports and administration

CSV export for timesheets and reports supports businesses that need portable records or separate analysis. Business adds Xero hours export. Rosie also provides a self-service account-deletion route, and support emails are read by a person who works on the product.

Pricing

Rosie has a free plan and a 14-day trial for paid use. Paid pricing starts at $3.50 per person per month.

Free

At free, Free supports up to 15 people at one site with rosters, shift templates, and auto-fill. It is appropriate for a small single-location operation evaluating automated scheduling, but it omits the broader workforce tools found in paid tiers.

Pro

Pro costs $3.50 per person per month and supports up to 75 people across five sites. It adds timesheets, leave, shift swaps, a staff app, certificates, CSV export, and reports. This is the practical fit for growing teams that need employee-facing workflows and records without Xero transfer or the higher-tier compliance checks.

Business

Business is $5 per person per month, with up to 150 people and unlimited sites. It adds Xero hours export, shared-tablet clock-in, break rules, and an underpayment check. Choose it when multi-site scale, kiosk attendance, or payroll handoff justifies the extra per-person cost.

Platforms

Rosie runs on Android, iOS, and the web. That combination supports staff using phones, managers working in a browser, and shared-device clocking through the tablet option.

Who it's for

Rosie is best for hospitality, retail, healthcare, and service businesses whose schedules depend on qualifications, availability, rest, and fairness. Free suits a small single site; Pro suits teams up to 75 people and five sites; Business is aimed at larger or more distributed operations. It is a poor fit if the primary requirement is tax calculation or employee payment rather than scheduling and time capture.

Pros and cons

• Pro: The solver handles availability, qualifications, contracted hours, rest, and fairness together, making complex roster creation more systematic.
• Pro: Twenty-two rules across six jurisdictions provide more compliance structure than a basic shift planner.
• Pro: Mobile GPS clocking and a shared-tablet kiosk cover both individual and shared workplace setups.
• Con: Payroll stops at exporting or handing over hours and rates; tax and payment still require another system.
• Con: The free tier is limited to 15 people and one site, while multi-site and richer attendance controls require paid plans.

Alternatives

For a broader workforce platform with Android, iOS, web, and API access, consider Connecteam; its free tier has limited feature access and paid pricing starts at $35 a month.

TNC Track is another freemium Android, iOS, and web option, with five free seats and a pay-as-you-grow model.

Choose ShiftCal if a five-person, one-site free plan and a €299 a month Pro launch price match your scale.

Sling provides a free plan for up to 30 users with scheduling, time-off requests, available shifts, messaging, and related workforce features.

Shifton offers a free-forever tier for up to 10 team members with scheduling and time-clock functions.

Cicini is a web-only freemium booking product with a one-member free tier.

Emplora is an API and web option with a free tier for one location and up to 15 employees.

Homebase offers restaurant labor-management add-ons such as task lists and tip management.

For a curated category view, see Gym Staff Scheduling Software.

Verdict

Choose Rosie when your business needs automated rosters that respect qualifications, rest, fairness, and jurisdictional rules, with integrated clocking and clear team-size tiers. Its main limitation is decisive: it prepares payroll inputs but does not perform payroll calculations or payments, so businesses seeking an all-in-one payroll service should look elsewhere.