The roster used to live on a whiteboard or in a spreadsheet. Staff texted in to ask what they were on. You texted back. Sometimes the message did not go through. Sometimes the roster changed and not everyone got the updated version. Someone showed up for the wrong shift. Someone did not show up at all.
You needed one place to put the roster where everyone could see it. Something that was not a group chat thread that scrolled off the screen. You found Deputy. Clean interface, good reviews, Australian company. You signed up.
Deputy does the job. It also does a great deal more. And each month, the bill arrives for all of it.
The Two Things Your Business Actually Opens
The roster builder. And the staff shift view.
You put the shifts in. Your staff open the app and see what they are on. That is the transaction. It happens once a week, takes twenty minutes, and solves the problem that sent you to Deputy in the first place.
Deputy also does AI-suggested scheduling based on sales data and demand forecasting. Award interpretation and compliance checking against Fair Work obligations. Real-time attendance tracking via GPS or facial recognition. Payroll integration and automated timesheet export. Task management and a staff news feed. Leave management and availability tracking. Mobile clock-in and clock-out.
For a business with eight to twenty casual staff whose roster changes week to week, most of that goes untouched. You are paying for the compliance engine that large hospitality and retail groups need to manage wage costs at scale. Your job is smaller than that.
- AI-suggested scheduling based on demand
- Award interpretation and compliance checking
- Real-time attendance via GPS or facial recognition
- Payroll integration and timesheet export
- Demand forecasting from sales data
- Task management and news feed for staff
- Mobile clock-in and clock-out
- Leave management and availability tracking
- Weekly roster builder with shifts and times
- Staff view of their own shifts
- Shift availability or swap requests
- Who is on and when
Who Deputy Is Actually Built For
Deputy is a serious workforce management platform. It is built for hospitality, retail, and healthcare businesses where rostering is directly tied to labour cost management. Businesses with 20 to 200 or more staff where award compliance is not optional, where payroll integration needs to happen automatically, and where the roster drives wage costs that a manager needs to see in real time.
Deputy markets on ease of use, and it is genuinely easier than many platforms in its category. But "easier than enterprise workforce management software" is not the same as "sized for a small team with eight casual staff and a weekly roster." Even the entry-level version of a platform built for that scope is more than the job requires.
If you are running a cafe with twelve staff, a small retail shop, a cleaning team, or any other operation where the roster is a schedule rather than a labour cost lever, you are using a fraction of what Deputy provides.
The Cost of Paying for Compliance You Do Not Need
Deputy Premium runs around A$5 to A$6 per user per month. Minimum plan fees typically apply regardless of how few staff you have, which means small businesses often pay A$80 to A$100 a month from the start.
Picture a small team of fifteen casual staff. At A$5.50 per person, the monthly bill sits around A$82.50, and that is before any minimum fee threshold. Over three years, that is more than A$3,000 spent on a workforce compliance platform. The award interpretation engine runs in the background every month. The GPS attendance module sits in the settings. The demand forecasting tool waits for sales data that never gets connected. The roster gets built. The staff see their shifts. That is it.
What a Merebase rostering app Includes
A Merebase rostering app is built for the job your business actually has. You describe how your roster works, how shifts are structured, and what your staff need to see. The app is built to do exactly that.
What a Merebase rostering app includes:
Weekly roster builder with shifts, times, and roles. Staff access to view their own schedule. Availability submission. Shift swap requests. Export to CSV for payroll input. Unlimited staff. A$499 once. You bring your own hosting. A basic plan runs A$5 to A$20 a month. Award rate calculations and payroll processing are outside scope.
There is no award interpretation engine you will never configure. No GPS attendance module. No demand forecasting dashboard. The app builds the roster and shows it to staff. That is the job it is built to do.
A Note on What This App Does Not Do
A Merebase rostering app builds and shares the roster. It does not calculate award rates, interpret Fair Work obligations, or process payroll. Those functions require dedicated payroll software and are outside scope.
The app exports shift data to CSV. That file can be passed to your bookkeeper or entered into your payroll software. If your business has a genuine requirement for award compliance and automated payroll integration, a platform like Deputy is built for that. If your requirement is to build a roster and let staff see their shifts, a Merebase app does that job at a fraction of the ongoing cost.
Staff Do Not Need Another App to Download
One reason Deputy gets chosen is that it has a staff-facing mobile app. Staff can see their shifts without calling in. That is the feature that makes the difference for a small team with casual workers.
A custom Merebase rostering app runs in any mobile browser. Staff open a link on the same phone they already carry. They see their shifts. They submit availability or request a swap. There is no app store download required. No account to create. The link works on any device.