Deputy Review

Toolradar data: Of the 73 payroll tools we evaluated in October 2026, Paycor ranks ninth, and it powers Deputy's payroll add-on. Deputy itself sits below the top 10. Deputy is a per-person scheduler, so the low headline rate hides a floor for small teams, and the rota features sit one tier up on Core.

Deputy is workforce software for shift-based teams: scheduling, timesheets, time clocks and labor-law rules, with optional payroll and HR add-ons. It is priced per user rather than per location, so five sites with four people each pay for twenty users. Toolradar carries tool pages for Deputy and for Homebase, the location-priced rival.

Lite and Core carry a "Start free trial" button, and Deputy publishes no trial length. Pro has no trial button and shows "Contact us". Deputy says it will always respect a free trial period. Monthly plans bill in installments and carry the minimum per invoice, while the annual option sits behind a Save 10% toggle.

Deputy lists three per-user prices in USD excluding taxes, shown in the pricing table. Each plan is billed upfront or in monthly installments, and Deputy shows a Save 10% toggle but publishes no annual dollar figure, so the saving cannot be checked.

Three people pay the floor on every monthly plan. At ten people the bill is $50 on Lite, $65 on Core and $90 on Pro before add-ons. Lite passes the floor at seven people, Core at five and Pro at four. Payroll adds its own base fee and per-user fee, so ten people on Payroll pay $49 + (10 x $8) = $129 a month, before any Paycor charge, which Deputy does not price.

The HR add-on is $2 per user a month with a 30-day free trial. Three gotchas change the bill: the floor per invoice, the payroll fees that vary with business size, and the Paycor charge missing from the price list. Competitor prices come from the Homebase, When I Work, Sling and Connecteam pricing pages. Methodology: list prices checked on each vendor's pricing page on 12 October 2026, in USD before taxes, with the scenario arithmetic shown.

Buy Deputy for a shift-heavy team of five or more on Core, where auto-scheduling, demand forecasting and biometric clocking earn their cost. A five-person Core team pays $32.50 a month, the first team size where Core costs more than the floor.

Skip it for a team of three or four that needs a clock and a weekly rota. At three or four people, Lite and Core both bill the floor, so the cheaper plan saves nothing. Homebase's free plan covers one site of up to 10 people, and Sling's free plan covers scheduling for up to 30 users. Several sites with several people each suit Pro's location hierarchy, which the cheaper plans do not have.

For one site with ten or more staff who need only a schedule and a clock, compare Homebase's location pricing in our Homebase vs Deputy (2026) head to head before you pay per head.