The Factorial alternative built around the schedule.

In Factorial, the schedule is one product you add to an HR core. In Shiftbase it is the core, and availability, contracts, time off, clocked hours and labour cost all run off it. You feel that difference most on a Monday at 7am, when a server calls in sick and your doors open at eleven.

Employee scheduling: a product in an HR suite vs the core product

Factorial is a Barcelona-built HR platform. Every plan starts from Factorial Core, which covers documents, e-signature, the employee directory, the org chart and reports, and you add products on top from time, talent, finance and IT. Shift planning is one of those products, alongside recruitment, performance, expenses and device management.

The shift product itself is competent: automatic rotating shifts, period views and conflict alerts between shifts. What changes is everything around it.

Shiftbase runs the other way round. The schedule is the product. When you open next week, availability, contract hours and approved time off are already loaded, so conflicts surface while you build rather than after you publish. There is an HR layer for contracts and e-signature, but it is the smaller half.

Absence management: who fills the gap when someone calls in sick

A server calls out. Service starts at eleven. Both tools let you log the absence, and both let your staff swap shifts between themselves when they arrange it in advance.

When nobody has arranged anything, the two diverge. In Shiftbase the absence frees the shift, the hole appears in the schedule immediately, and you publish it as an open shift. Anyone available sees it in the app and claims it. You approve with one tap, and the roster is whole again before you have finished your coffee.

A swap needs two people who have already agreed. An open shift needs one person who is free. On a Saturday morning that difference is the whole job.

Time tracking: what happens between clock-in and payroll

Both tools record hours from a phone, a shared tablet or the browser, both geolocate the clock-in, and both handle overtime compensation. What separates them is how much correcting you do afterwards.

In Shiftbase the shift you planned is the baseline for the timesheet. Clocked hours are checked against it, so a late start, an overrun or a missed break surfaces as a conflict you review before the export. You set break rules, rounding and premium rates once and they apply to every shift after that.

You make corrections in a fifteen-minute review rather than three weeks later, when someone questions their payslip.

Labour costs: before the shift or after it

In hospitality, labour takes roughly 34% of your revenue and the average overspend per shift runs around 13%. On net margins of 3 to 5%, finding out after the fact is finding out too late.

With Performance you set a cost target per department and the schedule shows green, amber or red as you build it. You see whether a shift pushes you off target before anyone clocks in, and you fix it there. Connect a POS and real sales come in on their own, so the target tracks what you actually took rather than a guess.

Factorial does not carry labour cost inside the schedule and does not connect to a till. The payroll data is there, but you read it once the shift has already been worked.

Pricing: one plan vs a core plus products

Factorial advertises from EUR 5.50 per person per month and then builds you a plan: you pick the products you want and the final figure arrives through a personalised quote. Its English-language site quotes in dollars rather than euros or pounds.

With Shiftbase you see the price up front, and scheduling, time tracking and time off are in every paid plan, with Performance from Premium up. If you want the full HR surface, the modular model earns its keep. If you want the operational three, you end up paying for a wider platform than you will open.

Which one to choose

Choose Factorial if you have an HR function and you need payroll, an applicant tracking system, performance reviews or device management inside the same tool. That breadth is real and Shiftbase does not attempt it.

Choose Shiftbase if the shift is the unit of work: restaurants, retail, hotels, healthcare, production or logistics, somewhere between 10 and 500 people, with a schedule that changes every week, call-outs you solve before the doors open, and a need to know what the week costs before you publish it.