7shifts is one of those rare tools that was built specifically for restaurants from day one. That focus shows in the features: but also in the pricing, which can be confusing if you’re trying to figure out which plan actually fits your operation.

📅 Pricing last verified: June 2026. We check and update pricing quarterly. If you notice a change, email us.

Here’s the straightforward breakdown of every 7shifts plan in 2026, what you actually get at each tier, and when it makes sense to upgrade.

The Pricing Structure at a Glance

Plan	Price	Employees	Key Features
Comp	Free	Up to 30	Basic scheduling, team messaging, availability
Entrée	$34.99/mo/location	Unlimited	Time clocking, labor budget, manager logbook
The Works	$69.99/mo/location	Unlimited	Tip pooling, POS integration, task management
Gourmet	$135/mo/location	Unlimited	Labor compliance, payroll, operations insights

All paid plans are priced per location, per month. There’s no per-employee charge on any tier: which is a big deal if you have a large staff.

Comp (Free Plan)

The Comp plan is genuinely free. No credit card required, no time limit, no “free trial” bait-and-switch. You get:

• Scheduling for up to 30 employees at 1 location
• Team messaging and announcements
• Employee availability and time-off requests
• Shift offers and open shift management
• Mobile app access for your whole team

That’s a real, functional scheduling platform for a small restaurant. You can build weekly schedules, publish them to your team, handle swap requests, and communicate through the app: all without paying anything.

What you don’t get: Time clocking, labor cost tracking, POS integration, tip management, auto-scheduling, or manager logbooks. The Comp plan is scheduling and communication only.

The 30-employee cap is the main limitation. Once you cross 30 team members (including inactive ones in some cases), you’re forced to upgrade. For a small café, food truck, or single-concept restaurant with a tight team, 30 is plenty. For a full-service restaurant with front-of-house, back-of-house, and part-timers, you’ll hit that wall fast.

Who it works for: Small single-location restaurants, food trucks, cafés, and new restaurants watching every dollar while they get established.

Entrée ($34.99/month per location)

The Entrée plan removes the employee cap and adds the operational tools most restaurants need once they’re past the startup phase:

• Unlimited employees at each location
• Time clocking with punch-in/out, break tracking, and timesheet approvals
• Labor budget tools that show scheduled vs. actual labor costs in real-time
• Manager logbook for shift notes, daily summaries, and shift-to-shift communication
• Scheduling templates and auto-scheduling based on demand
• Overtime alerts before costs spiral

This is where 7shifts starts saving you money instead of just saving time. The labor budget feature lets you set a target (say, 28% of projected sales) and the system flags you when the schedule exceeds it: before you publish. That visibility alone pays for the subscription at most restaurants.

Time clocking means your staff punches in and out through the app or a shared tablet, which feeds directly into timesheets for payroll. No more paper time cards or manual reconciliation.

What’s still missing: POS integration for sales-based forecasting, tip pooling and distribution, task management, and compliance automation. You’re scheduling and tracking time, but not connecting it to your actual revenue data.

The jump from free: Going from $0 to $34.99/month feels steep for a small restaurant. But if you have more than 30 employees or you need time tracking (and you probably do for payroll accuracy), this is where you land. The labor budgeting typically pays for itself within the first month by preventing one or two unnecessary overstaffed shifts.

Who it works for: Single-location restaurants with 30+ employees that need time tracking and basic labor cost management.

The Works ($69.99/month per location)

The Works is the most popular plan for established restaurants, and it’s where 7shifts really differentiates from generic scheduling tools:

• Everything in Entrée, plus:
• POS integration (Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, Revel, and others)
• Tip pooling and distribution with customizable rules
• Task management with checklists and accountability
• Sales-based labor forecasting using actual POS data
• Auto-scheduling powered by demand predictions
• Advanced reporting on labor efficiency

The POS integration is the headline feature. Once connected, 7shifts pulls your sales data and uses it to forecast demand: so your schedules are built around how busy you’ll actually be, not how busy you think you’ll be. Over time, this gets increasingly accurate.

Tip pooling handles complex distribution rules (front vs. back of house splits, role-based percentages, house tips) and calculates everything automatically. If you’re currently doing tip math on a spreadsheet or: worse: by hand, this feature alone might justify the upgrade.

Task management adds opening and closing checklists, station prep lists, and daily duties assigned to specific roles or individuals. Staff check items off in the app, and managers can verify completion remotely.

The cost jump: You’re going from $34.99 to $69.99: essentially doubling the price. The value proposition hinges on whether you’ll use POS integration and tip pooling. If you’re on Toast or Square and you distribute tips, this tier pays for itself. If you don’t need either feature, Entrée is probably sufficient.

Who it works for: Full-service restaurants on a major POS system that need tip management and want data-driven scheduling.

Gourmet ($135/month per location)

The Gourmet plan is for larger operations with complex compliance needs or multi-unit groups wanting enterprise-level control:

• Everything in The Works, plus:
• Labor compliance automation (predictive scheduling laws, break rules, minor labor restrictions)
• Payroll integration (direct push to payroll providers)
• Operations insights and benchmarking across locations
• Advanced permissions and role-based access
• Priority support and dedicated account management
• Custom API access for enterprise integrations

The compliance features are the main draw. If you operate in jurisdictions with fair workweek laws (New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Oregon), 7shifts can automatically enforce scheduling notice requirements, premium pay triggers, and right-to-rest rules. Getting this wrong means fines: often hundreds of dollars per violation, per employee.

Payroll integration means timesheets push directly to your payroll provider without manual export/import. For a multi-unit group processing hundreds of timesheets biweekly, this eliminates hours of admin work and reduces payroll errors.

The cost reality: At $135/month per location, a 5-location group pays $675/month: $8,100/year. That’s significant. The plan justifies itself for operations where compliance violations would cost more, or where the time savings on payroll processing for large teams exceeds the subscription cost.

Who it works for: Multi-unit restaurant groups, operations in compliance-heavy jurisdictions, and restaurants with 100+ employees that need payroll automation.

Per-Location vs Per-Employee: Why It Matters

7shifts charges per location, not per employee. This pricing model heavily favors restaurants with large teams at fewer locations. Consider:

• A 50-employee restaurant pays $69.99/month on The Works: that’s $1.40/employee/month
• A 15-employee restaurant pays the same $69.99/month: that’s $4.67/employee/month

Compare this to per-user tools like When I Work ($2.50-5/user) or Deputy ($4.50/user). For the 50-person restaurant, When I Work would cost $125-250/month. For the 15-person restaurant, it would cost $37.50-75/month.

Rule of thumb: If you have more than 20 employees per location, 7shifts’ per-location pricing usually wins. Below that, per-user platforms might be cheaper.

When the Free Plan Stops Being Enough

You’ll know it’s time to upgrade when:

1. You hit 30 employees: the hard cap forces your hand
2. Payroll accuracy is suffering: you need proper time clocking, not honor-system hours
3. You’re overstaffing consistently: labor budget tools would prevent this
4. Tip calculations take too long: manual tip math is error-prone and time-consuming
5. You need POS data in scheduling decisions: gut feeling isn’t cutting it

Most restaurants land on Entrée within 6 months of opening, and The Works within a year or two of stable operation. The Gourmet tier is genuinely only necessary for multi-unit groups or compliance-heavy markets.

Annual Billing

7shifts offers discounts for annual billing on paid plans, typically saving 10-15% compared to monthly billing. If you’re confident you’ll stick with the platform (and most restaurants do: switching scheduling tools mid-operation is painful), annual billing is the obvious move.

Is 7shifts Worth the Price?

For restaurants specifically: yes, generally. The restaurant-specific features (tip pooling, POS-based forecasting, role-based scheduling, labor law compliance) aren’t available in generic scheduling tools at any price. You’d need to cobble together multiple platforms to replicate what The Works offers in one place.

The question isn’t really “is 7shifts good”: it’s “do I need restaurant-specific scheduling, or is a generic tool sufficient?” If you pool tips, track labor as a percentage of sales, and schedule around covers, 7shifts is built for you. If you just need a basic shift calendar and clock-in, simpler and cheaper options exist.

For more scheduling options, check out our full comparison of the best restaurant scheduling software for 2026. And if you’re evaluating POS systems to integrate with, here’s our guide to the best restaurant POS systems.

Related reading: Toast Pricing (2026): Every Plan and Hidden Costs Explained · Best Food Cost Calculator Tools for Restaurants (2026) · Best Inventory Management Software for Restaurants (2026) · Best Online Ordering Systems for Restaurants (2026)

FAQ

Can I really use 7shifts for free forever?

Yes. The Comp plan has no time limit and no credit card requirement. As long as you stay under 30 employees at one location, you can use basic scheduling and team messaging indefinitely. 7shifts has maintained this free tier for years with no indication of removing it: it’s their pipeline for converting growing restaurants to paid plans.

Does 7shifts charge per employee or per location?

Per location. Once you’re on any paid plan, you can add unlimited employees at each location without the price changing. This makes 7shifts particularly cost-effective for restaurants with large staff counts (40+ employees). The only limit on the free plan is 30 employees.

What POS systems does 7shifts integrate with?

On The Works plan and above, 7shifts integrates with Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, Revel, TouchBistro, Upserve, and several others. The integration pulls sales data for labor forecasting and, in some cases, pushes schedule data back to the POS. Toast integration is particularly deep. Check their current integrations page for the full list, as they add new ones regularly.

Is The Works worth double the price of Entrée?

If you use a supported POS system and distribute tips: almost certainly yes. POS-based labor forecasting typically reduces overstaffing by 2-4%, which at most full-service restaurants saves more than the $35/month difference. Tip pooling automation alone saves managers 30-60 minutes per pay period. If you don’t need either feature, stick with Entrée.

Can I start on the free plan and upgrade later without losing data?

Yes. Upgrading is seamless: your existing schedules, employee profiles, availability settings, and messaging history all carry over. You just gain access to additional features. Downgrading is also possible, though you’ll lose access to features on higher tiers (tip pool history remains viewable but you can’t create new distributions, for example).