A typical quick-service store runs three tools that do not talk to each other: something for the schedule, something for food safety and checklists, and something for talking to the crew. Three logins, three invoices, and the shift split across all of them.
This page is the arithmetic. Fill in your own numbers, because the answer genuinely depends on what you run.
What the pieces cost, published
Only some vendors publish. These are their own listed prices, checked 2026-08-06.
| Piece | Product | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling | 7shifts Comp | Free, one location, up to 15 employees |
| Scheduling | 7shifts Essentials | $39.99 per location, up to 30 employees |
| Scheduling | 7shifts Pro | $79.99 per location, up to 60 employees |
| Scheduling | 7shifts Premium | $134.99 per location, plus $6 per employee for payroll |
| Scheduling | Homebase Basic | Free, up to 20 employees |
| Scheduling | Homebase Essentials / Plus / All-in-One | $30 / $70 / $120 per month |
| Food safety and checklists | Jolt | Not published. Third parties report $69 to $296, plus roughly $500 to $600 setup |
| Team chat | Group text, GroupMe, WhatsApp | Free |
| Team chat | Slack paid | Per user, which is what makes it expensive at crew scale |
Add up yours
| Line | What you pay |
|---|---|
| Scheduling | $ |
| Food safety, checklists, temperature logs | $ |
| Team chat | $ |
| Payroll add-ons or per-employee fees | $ |
| One-time setup, divided over 12 months | $ |
| Total per store, per month | $ |
Then compare it against $189.99 per store per month, or $158 on annual, with every teammate included and no setup fee.
When consolidating is worth it, and when it is not
We would rather you get this right than buy and refund.
It is probably not worth it if:
- You run a free scheduler, a free group chat, and paper for food safety, and the paper
is genuinely working. Your stack costs nothing. Ours costs $189.99. No arithmetic makes that cheaper.
- You have fewer than about 15 employees at one location. The free tiers cover you.
- Scheduling is the only thing you actually want. Buy a scheduler.
It is probably worth it if:
- You already pay for a food-safety or checklist tool. That is the line that makes the
total move, because it is the most expensive piece and the one most often quoted rather than published.
- You are paying per employee anywhere in the stack. Per-seat pricing on a 40-person
crew with restaurant turnover is a bill that grows while you are not looking.
- You are running more than one store. The per-store price drops at 2 and again at 6,
and the tools you are stacking usually do not.
- The real cost is not the invoices. Three systems means the schedule does not know who
is certified, the temp log does not know who was on the station, and the audit binder is assembled by hand from all three.
The part that does not show up in the total
The stack does not just cost money, it costs reconciliation. When the lineup lives in one tool, the temperature log in another and the shift conversation in a group text, nobody has the shift in one place, and the person who assembles it is whoever is least busy. That is usually the manager, and it is usually at closing.
That is the argument for one app, and it is a better argument than the invoice math on its own. But do the invoice math first, because if the numbers do not work the rest does not matter.
If they do work, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee on ours, so the comparison can be run on a real week of shifts rather than on this page.