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The self-hosted 7shifts alternative

Rostera: Self-hosted staff shift scheduler — a weekly rota, exact hours, double-booking caught. Own it once, run it on your own server, and stop paying 7shifts every month.

Own Rostera for $69 Try the live demo

Stop renting 7shifts.

7shifts Per location, capped by employees; two line-ups served on repeat loads. A: Essentials $39.99 annual/$44.99 monthly (30 staff), Pro $79.99/$89.99 (60), Premium $134.99/$149.99 (unlimited). B: Pro $89.99/$99.99, Premium $179.99/$199.99. CAD label to non-US time zones Rostera is $69 once, runs on your own server, and never invoices you again.

How 7shifts pricing grows

7shifts charges per location per month, with tiers capped by employee count that force an upgrade as headcount grows.

“$39.99 CAD Per month/location Up to 30 employees”, their own page, read 2026-09-26
What 7shifts does that we don't

7shifts lets employees offer up, trade, and claim open shifts directly — built-in automated shift-swapping.

“Allow employees to offer up, trade, and claim open shifts”, their own page
Who should stay with 7shifts

If you need built-in time clocking or shift-swap requests with push notifications, stay where you are. Rostera is not a time clock, and every swap is decided by a manager. Staff see the published rota in their own calendar (a per-person feed), by email when a week is published, or on the printed PDF.

What Rostera deliberately doesn't do is on its product page.

Why owning beats renting 7shifts.

One payment

No monthly, per-seat or per-location fees. The license is perpetual.

Your data stays on your server

It never lives in 7shifts's cloud.

No plan ceilings

Records and users are limited by your hosting, not by a pricing tier.

It keeps working if the vendor doesn't

Self-hosted software can't be sunset or repriced out from under you.

The fair trade-offs: you host it, back it up and apply updates yourself. See the product page for its limits, and the full Rostera vs renting comparison.

Questions about moving off 7shifts.

Is Rostera payroll?
No. It plans shifts — who works, when, and for how long. It holds no pay rates or wages, calculates no pay, and moves no money. Zero payment surface, by design.
Is it a time clock?
No. Shifts are planned hours, not clock-in / attendance records — there is no time or biometric capture. It is a scheduling and planning tool.
How exact are the hours?
Exact to the minute. Times are stored as integer minutes and summed in PHP, with DST-correct shift lengths — the shipped test suite covers overnight shifts and both DST transitions — run it yourself with php tests/run.php.
MySQL or SQLite?
Either — SQLite for a zero-config trial, MySQL/MariaDB for production on ordinary shared hosting.
Better together
Rostera is part of the Workforce Suite
5 apps for one price, $136 less than buying them separately.
$249once

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Sources

  1. 7shifts: price checked 2026-09-26, source“[line-up A, European time zone] Essentials ... $39.99 CAD Per month/location Up to 30 employees ... Pro ... $79.99 CAD ... Premium ... $134.99 CAD ... [Monthly] $44.99 CAD ... $89.99 CAD ... $149.99 CAD ... [line-up B] Pro $89.99 CAD Per month/location ... Premium $179.99 CAD ... [Monthly] $99.99…”

Competitor prices change, so always confirm on the linked page. We only print figures we could verify on the date shown. This vendor is tracked in the Price Observatory: every figure verbatim, dated, re-checked quarterly.

Replace 7shifts with Rostera.
Open the live demo first; it costs nothing.
See Rostera Rostera vs renting All alternatives