How much does a rostering and workforce management system cost?

What do Deputy, Employment Hero and Tanda cost per employee?

Australian rostering subscriptions cost roughly $7 to $16 per user a month at list price, and the plan you need is set by how complex your award rules are. These are list prices at the time of writing (November 2026), in AUD and excluding GST.

Product	Plan	Listed price per user a month	What changes between plans
Deputy	Lite	$6.75	Basic rostering, timesheets, time clock, award interpretation
Deputy	Core	$8.75	Advanced rostering, timesheet auto approval, biometric clocking, advanced award interpretation
Deputy	Pro	$13.00	Custom access levels, advanced timesheets, location hierarchies, pay centres
Deputy	All in One	$13.95 (shown against $16.40)	Rostering, HR and payroll bundled
Tanda	HR, payroll and workforce bundle	$12.80	Individual modules priced on request
Employment Hero	HR Essentials, HR Engage	$11, $15 (minimum 10 users)	Time and attendance is an upgrade; payroll sits in its custom tier

Deputy notes that paid onboarding is available on annual plans and that account size limits apply. Large employers should ask for volume pricing; list prices are a ceiling, not the number you will pay at a thousand staff.

When do businesses outgrow these platforms?

Usually when the pay rules stop fitting, not when the headcount grows. Signs:

• several modern awards or enterprise agreements across different entities;
• client specific pay or charge rates that change by site, shift or contract;
• rules about qualifications, clearances or client preferences that rostering must enforce;
• travel time and broken shifts that need custom calculation;
• a roster that must also drive client invoicing, as in labour hire, cleaning or care work.

If one or two of these apply, extend the platform first. Our pages on labour hire software and cleaning company software show how these rules play out by industry.

Why does award interpretation dominate the budget?

Award interpretation is the most expensive part of any custom workforce build because every rule interacts with every other rule, and they change each year. Penalty rates, overtime thresholds, minimum engagements, break rules, allowances and classifications combine differently for each award. A single award with weekend penalties and overtime may be weeks of work; three awards plus an enterprise agreement can be months, mostly in testing.

The yearly cycle adds to it. The Fair Work Ombudsman says the Fair Work Commission reviews the National Minimum Wage and award minimum rates each year, and most changes begin on the first full pay period on or after 1 July. As of 1 July 2026 the National Minimum Wage is $26.44 an hour. A custom engine needs those rate tables updated and regression tested every year, which is why the subscription platforms are good value for most employers. Our award interpretation guide explains the rules and how to test them.

What do typical custom builds cost?

There are three common shapes, and the first keeps the subscription’s award engine. These are indicative market ranges, not quotes.

Build	Typical scope	Indicative range (AUD, ex GST)
Custom front end on Deputy or Employment Hero	Your own rostering screens, client rules or availability capture, with the platform calculating pay	$20,000 to $50,000
Rostering and timesheets, single award	Rosters, clock in, timesheet approval, one award engine, payroll export	$60,000 to $150,000
Multi award, multi entity platform	Several awards and agreements, entities, client billing, a mobile app	$200,000 to $500,000+

Effort converts at an assumed blended agency rate of $1,100 to $1,500 a day. Re:Sourced’s July 2026 guide puts senior software contractors in Sydney at $800 to $1,100 a day ex GST; agencies charge more because the rate includes testing and project management.

What does it cost over three years at 150 and 1,500 staff?

At 150 staff a subscription is far cheaper; at 1,500 staff with complex rules the arithmetic can flip, before any volume discount. The custom figures are assumptions inside the ranges above, at $1,300 a day; this is illustrative arithmetic, not a quote.

Scenario	Arithmetic	3 year total (AUD, ex GST)
150 staff on Deputy Pro	150 × $13 × 36 months	$70,200
150 staff on Tanda bundle	150 × $12.80 × 36 months	$69,120
150 staff, custom single award system	$117,000 build (90 days) + 3 × $28,850 running	$203,550
1,500 staff on Deputy Pro at list price	1,500 × $13 × 36 months	$702,000
1,500 staff, custom multi award platform	$300,000 build + 3 × $83,000 running	$549,000

The running costs assume hosting ($4,800 or $12,000 a year), maintenance at 15% of build, and award updates each July (5 or 20 days). At 1,500 staff, a negotiated subscription price could easily close the gap, so get a quote before deciding.

How do payroll and STP Phase 2 change the build?

The rostering system has to hand payroll clean, coded data, because Single Touch Payroll Phase 2 reports payments by type. The ATO’s STP quick reference guide shows allowances reported under separate types, for example task allowances, tool allowances and travel allowances. If your rostering system lumps them together, payroll cannot report them correctly.

Two more payroll rules touch the design:

• Payday Super. The ATO says that from 1 July 2026 employers must pay super guarantee for each payday instead of quarterly, calculated on qualifying earnings. Timesheet approval deadlines now feed straight into super timing.
• Record keeping. The Fair Work Ombudsman says time and wages records must be kept for 7 years, be readily accessible to a Fair Work Inspector, and cannot be changed unless the change corrects an error. Build an audit trail for every timesheet edit.

Most custom builds export approved timesheets to an existing payroll product rather than running payroll themselves, which keeps STP reporting with software that is already set up for it.

What do time clocks, geofencing and privacy add?

Clock in hardware and location features are cheap to buy and expensive to get wrong. Options, from cheapest:

1. Phone clock in in the staff app, with a photo or PIN.
2. Geofenced clock in, which checks the phone is at the site when the shift starts.
3. Shared tablets at each site, which suit staff without work phones.
4. Biometric devices, which Deputy includes from its Core plan.

Location and biometric data are personal information, and some states regulate workplace surveillance, so get advice on notices and consent before you switch them on, collect only what you need, and set a retention rule. Our Privacy Act guide for small business software covers the federal side.

What are the ongoing costs?

For a custom workforce system, the July award update is the cost that never goes away. Budget each year for:

• award and rate table updates, then regression tests against real rosters;
• maintenance of roughly 15 to 20% of the build, covered in our software maintenance cost guide;
• app store updates for the staff mobile app;
• payroll integration changes when the payroll vendor or ATO requirements change.

How can you keep a custom build affordable?

Build the part that is unique to your business and rent the parts that are the same for everyone. In practice:

1. Keep payroll and STP in a payroll product. Export approved, coded timesheets rather than building pay runs.
2. Use a subscription award engine where you can. Deputy and Employment Hero have APIs, so a custom rostering front end can still rely on their award calculations.
3. Start with one award. Prove the engine on the award covering most staff, then add others in later phases.
4. Write the rules down as test cases first. A spreadsheet of real shifts and the correct pay for each is the cheapest specification you can produce, and it becomes the regression suite every July.
5. Leave biometrics and hardware for later. Phone clock in with geofencing covers most sites for a first release.

These choices often move a project down a band in the table above without losing what made a custom system worth building.

How AWLabs approaches rostering and workforce projects

Our usual first recommendation is to keep a subscription award engine and build the part that is specific to you, such as client rules, billing or a staff app. It starts with a 15 minute Development Consult during Sydney business hours. If a build is the right answer, a paid Discovery Audit maps your awards, agreements, rosters and payroll, and the fee is credited in full against the build. You then get a fixed price Schedule of Work with three options, The Minimum, The Recommended and The Complete. Senior engineers lead every build, and we build to your requirements and provide test evidence, while pay compliance stays your responsibility. See our workflow automation service and hospitality page.