Deputy vs Bizimply: Which Suits a UK Pub, Restaurant or Hotel?

Deputy and Bizimply both turn up when a UK hospitality business outgrows the spreadsheet rota, but they come from different places. Deputy launched in 2008, is headquartered in Sydney and serves many industries, with hospitality a major focus. Bizimply was started by two people who ran a café chain in Dublin, and it's built around shift-based hospitality in the UK and Ireland.

That background shows in how they sell. Deputy publishes its UK prices and lets you start a trial on your own. Bizimply quotes after a short call and leans into hospitality-specific extras like tronc and opening and closing checklists. Every fact below was checked on Deputy's and Bizimply's own websites as of October 2026 and is linked in the sources. Prices and plans change, so check before you sign. ShiftComplete publishes this page; we've tried to be fair to both.

The short answer

• Choose Deputy if you want to see the price up front, start a free trial without talking to sales, and get auto-scheduling from demand forecasts, geofenced or facial-recognition clock-in, and a long list of UK payroll and EPOS integrations.
• Choose Bizimply if you run a hospitality group and want rota, clocking in, HR, payroll (including a managed service), tronc and operational checklists in one platform, with onboarding support.
• Look at a third option if you run one or a few venues, don't need payroll, HR or till integrations, and want temperature logs, allergens and checklists in the same app as the rota.

Deputy vs Bizimply at a glance

Who Deputy suits

What Deputy does well. Deputy has one of the broadest feature sets in the category, and you can see exactly what you get on each plan. Lite already covers rotas, timesheets, basic clocking in, labour law compliance, shift swaps, automated leave accruals, messaging and payroll integrations. Core adds auto-scheduling, demand forecasting, wage and labour budgets, micro-scheduling (splitting a shift into segments) and biometric clocking. Its time clock lists GPS geofencing and location stamps on mobile, plus an iPad kiosk with facial verification. Its integrations page lists UK payroll tools including Xero, Sage, PayCaptain and MyPAYE, tills including Lightspeed, Square, Epos Now and Tabology, and TipHaus for tips. Deputy says it helps more than 320,000 workplaces.

Best for: single venues and groups that want to start without a sales call, pay from clock-in data, and want the rota built from forecast demand with payroll and tills connected.

Watch for: every manager, supervisor and admin counts as a paid user; the £20 per invoice minimum on monthly plans; HR (£2), Messaging+ (£1.40) and Analytics+ (£1) are paid add-ons per user on Lite and Core; and SMS costs 5p per 160 characters in the UK.

Who Bizimply suits

What Bizimply does well. It speaks hospitality. Its hospitality page names restaurants, cafés, pubs, bars, nightclubs, hotels, quick-service chains and event venues. Alongside the rota builder and forecasting, it compares labour against sales, has a kiosk app with photo and facial verification that works offline, and tracks training and certification. It's one of the few tools in this space with tronc built in, and it offers its own managed payroll service as well as integrations with UK payroll providers such as BrightPay, Moorepay and PayCaptain. Its operational checklists cover opening and closing duties, HACCP compliance, temperature logs and manager handovers, and its help centre describes daily task lists that staff complete in the MyZimply app, with the option to attach a photo.

Best for: multi-site pub, restaurant and hotel groups with an operations or HR lead, who want rota, clocking in, HR, payroll and tronc in one system and value hands-on onboarding.

Watch for: no published prices, so you can't compare without a call; no free trial listed (a 15-minute demo instead); and messaging, e-signature and training records sit on the higher HR & Communications plan.

What it costs for a typical UK team

Deputy's UK list prices as of October 2026, per month, excluding taxes. Bizimply is pricing on request, so ask for a monthly figure at your headcount and number of sites. Remember to count managers: Deputy bills them as users.

Deputy offers 10% off for annual billing, and its add-ons are extra on Lite and Core. Bizimply says annual billing gets a discount and payments are by Direct Debit. A very small team on Deputy Lite (six users or fewer) will hit the £20 monthly minimum.

The differences that matter in a venue

Buying and setting up

This is the biggest practical split. With Deputy, a GM can sign up tonight, build next week's rota and decide within a month. With Bizimply, you book a demo, get a quote and can have a customer success manager help you set up. For a group rolling out HR and payroll at the same time, that support is worth having. For one pub, it can feel like a lot of process.

Rotas and forecasting

Both have drag-and-drop rotas, open shifts, swaps and forecasting. Deputy goes further on automation, with auto-scheduling on Core. Bizimply focuses on costed rotas and comparing labour against sales from your till.

Clocking in

Both are strong. Deputy lists GPS geofencing and facial verification on its iPad kiosk. Bizimply lists GPS mobile clock-in, photo and facial verification, and an offline mode for when the Wi-Fi drops.

Tips and tronc

Bizimply has tronc built into Complete WFM. Deputy lists a TipHaus integration rather than its own tronc tool. If you run a tronc, read our tips and tronc guide before you choose.

The kitchen side

Bizimply's checklists can carry HACCP checks and temperature logs. Deputy doesn't list food-safety features on the pages we checked. Neither lists a 14-allergen matrix, so most venues on either app keep allergens on paper or in a separate tool.

Which should you choose, by venue type

Where ShiftComplete fits

Deputy and Bizimply are full workforce platforms. ShiftComplete is narrower on purpose: the everyday operations and rota app for UK pubs, restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels, covering the kitchen records as well as the rota.

• Rotas: staff set availability from their phones weeks ahead. Add events (a Friday match needing two more on the bar), weight the people you want on, and ShiftComplete builds a draft rota in seconds, fair across the team. Up to four time blocks per person per day, custom staff areas, day notes, holiday requests and labour cost as you build.
• Clocking in and out (a setting you switch on): on a phone or the tablet behind the bar, with hours against the rota and a spreadsheet download with a total per person to hand to payroll.
• Food-safety and venue records: temperature logs with a min/max range per fridge, freezer and hot-hold and out-of-range flags, the 14 UK allergens per dish searchable from the floor, weekday checklists with named ticks, incidents, maintenance and risk assessments.
• Price: £1.49 per staff member per month, every feature included, no per-site fee, no contract. Free for 60 days, no card.

What it doesn't do: no payroll, HR file, tronc, sales forecasting, geofencing, or payroll and till links. If you need those, Deputy or Bizimply is the better choice.

"The rota stopped being a Sunday-night argument the week we switched over. The chef stopped being the only person who knows what's in the kitchen. And the EHO turn up to a screen, not a box file." Graeme Kirkham, Owner, The Lounge Oswestry & Knock & Snitch

Read the Kirkham Hospitality story, start a free trial or book a 15-minute set-up call. For more options, see our Deputy alternatives and Bizimply alternatives guides, or Deputy vs Planday.