Compare cleaning staff scheduling software for UK cleaning businesses. We look at rotas, shifts, time tracking, staff availability, multiple work sites, pricing and independent customer reviews.
Looking for job management or accounting tools too? See our Software for Cleaning Businesses guide.
Quick answer
Top pick: Deputy — 94/100
Deputy is built for businesses with shift workers and has specific tools for cleaning companies. You can create rotas, manage cleaners across different sites, track hours and deal with last-minute changes.
Best value for small UK teams: RotaCloud — 93/100
RotaCloud starts at £10 per month for up to five employees. It has clear UK pricing, unlimited locations and very strong independent customer reviews.
Best for larger teams: Planday — 89/100
Planday covers rotas, staff availability, clocking in and out, absence management and payroll preparation. Prices start from £2.99 per user per month, with a minimum of five users.
Compare cleaning staff scheduling software
| Tool | Best for | Viaqo score | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deputy | Overall | 94/100 | £3.25/user/mo* |
| RotaCloud | Small teams | 93/100 | £10/mo** |
| Planday | Larger teams | 89/100 | £2.99/user/mo*** |
*Deputy Lite costs £3.25 per user per month excluding applicable taxes.
**RotaCloud Standard costs £10 per month for 1–5 employees. Prices exclude VAT. Time & Attendance is an optional extra.
***Planday starts from £2.99 per user per month and requires at least five users. A 30-day free trial is available.
Prices checked October 2026.
Why this ranking?
Deputy comes first because it has a particularly good fit for cleaning companies. It lets managers assign cleaners to different locations, send shifts to staff phones, track attendance and find replacements when someone cannot work. Deputy also has a strong independent review base, with 4.6/5 from 773 Capterra reviews.
RotaCloud is very close behind. Its main advantage is simplicity and price. A small business with up to five employees can start at £10 per month, and locations are not charged separately. It currently has an excellent 4.9/5 from 287 Capterra reviews.
Planday is a strong option for businesses with larger or more complex teams. It has useful rota, attendance and staff management tools, but its independent review sample is much smaller: 4.3/5 from 58 Capterra reviews.
Review scores cover the products as a whole and are not limited to UK cleaning businesses.
Deputy — Best overall
Viaqo score: 94/100
Deputy helps businesses create rotas, track working hours and manage staff from a phone or computer.
It has a dedicated cleaning solution. Managers can schedule cleaners across different customer sites, see who is working where and deal with changes when someone is absent.
Why we like it
- Staff rotas
- Multiple cleaning sites
- Staff availability
- Shift swapping
- Last-minute replacements
- Clocking in and out
- Timesheets
- Holiday and leave management
- Staff messages and updates
- Labour cost tracking
- Mobile app
One useful feature for cleaning businesses is location-based attendance. Managers can see whether staff have arrived and where they clocked in.
Deputy currently scores 4.6/5 from 773 Capterra reviews, including 4.5/5 for ease of use and customer service.
What to watch
Deputy charges per user.
That means the monthly cost rises as you add cleaners. A business with 20 employees will therefore pay considerably more than a business with five.
Some users also mention that the software takes a little time to learn, while recent Capterra reviews include mixed experiences with customer support.
Pricing
- Lite: £3.25/user/month
- Core: £4.25/user/month
Prices exclude applicable taxes. Deputy offers a free trial of up to 31 days with no card required.
Best for: Cleaning companies that manage several cleaners across different sites and want rotas and time tracking in the same tool.
RotaCloud — Best value for small UK teams
Viaqo score: 93/100
RotaCloud is UK staff rota software designed to replace spreadsheets and paper rotas.
You can create shifts using a drag-and-drop rota, manage several locations, track staff availability, handle holidays and let employees swap shifts.
Why we like it
- Low starting price
- Simple rota builder
- Unlimited locations
- Staff availability
- Holiday management
- Shift swaps
- Labour cost tracking
- Mobile apps
- Email and app notifications
- Strong customer reviews
- UK-based support
Its Standard plan costs £10 per month for 1–5 employees, which makes it particularly attractive for a small cleaning company.
RotaCloud also has the strongest Capterra rating of our top three: 4.9/5 from 287 reviews. Customer service currently scores 4.9/5.
What to watch
The basic scheduling plan does not include all attendance tools.
If you want staff to clock in and out and automatically create timesheets, you need the separate Time & Attendance option.
RotaCloud pricing also changes with the number of employees. As your cleaning team grows, check the price for your actual staff number rather than relying on the £10 starting price.
Pricing
For 1–5 employees:
- Standard: £10/month
- Pro: £15/month
Prices exclude VAT.
Annual payment gives two months free. There is a 30-day free trial with no payment details required.
Best for: Small UK cleaning teams that want an easy rota system at a low monthly cost.
Planday — Best for larger teams
Viaqo score: 89/100
Planday helps businesses plan shifts, record working hours and manage staff availability.
Employees can see their rota on the mobile app, clock in and out, request time off and swap shifts. Managers can also prepare working-hour information for payroll.
Why we like it
- Staff rotas
- Clocking in and out
- Staff availability
- Shift swaps
- Holiday and absence management
- Team messages
- Different teams and locations
- Payroll reports
- Mobile app
- 30-day free trial
Planday starts from £2.99 per user per month. However, there is a minimum of five users, so the lowest possible starting cost is higher than the per-user figure may first suggest.
What to watch
Planday is not designed specifically for cleaning companies.
It works well for shift-based teams, but it does not have the same cleaning-specific positioning as Deputy.
Independent customer feedback is also based on a smaller sample. Planday currently has 4.3/5 from 58 Capterra reviews.
Pricing
- Starter: from £2.99/user/month
- Minimum: 5 users
- Plus: higher-priced plan with additional staff and reporting tools
- Pro: custom pricing
A 30-day free trial is available and no card is required.
Best for: Cleaning businesses with larger shift-based teams that need rotas, attendance and staff records.
What should cleaning businesses look for in staff scheduling software?
Good staff scheduling software should make it easy to answer three questions:
Who is working? Where are they working? When are they working?
For a cleaning company, we would check these features first:
- Rotas: can you create and change shifts quickly?
- Multiple sites: can each customer location have its own shifts?
- Staff availability: can cleaners tell you when they can work?
- Mobile access: can staff check their rota from their phone?
- Clocking in and out: can you record when cleaners arrive and leave?
- Location checks: can you see whether someone clocked in at the correct site?
- Shift cover: can another employee take an open shift?
- Timesheets: can approved hours be prepared for payroll?
- Holidays: can staff request leave without messages and spreadsheets?
- Labour costs: can you see the cost of the rota before publishing it?
A small business may not need every feature.
Cleaning job software and staff scheduling software are different
There is some overlap, but they solve different problems.
Cleaning business software mainly manages customers and jobs. It can cover quotes, recurring cleans, invoices and customer records.
Staff scheduling software mainly manages your employees. It covers rotas, shifts, holidays, attendance and working hours.
A small cleaning business may only need one system.
A larger business may use job software for customers and separate rota software for its employees.
When does rota software become useful?
A cleaner working alone does not normally need staff scheduling software.
It becomes much more useful once you employ people and start dealing with:
- cleaners working at different customer sites;
- early morning or evening shifts;
- sickness and last-minute cover;
- holiday requests;
- different working hours each week;
- checking attendance;
- preparing staff hours for payroll.
If you are still managing this through WhatsApp, paper or spreadsheets, dedicated rota software can save a lot of admin.
Do you need GPS clocking?
Not every cleaning company does.
For a small team where the owner works alongside the cleaners, normal clocking in and out may be enough.
For commercial cleaning across many customer sites, location-based clocking can be useful. It helps confirm that staff arrived at the correct workplace and gives managers a clearer record of hours worked.
Deputy and RotaCloud both offer location-based attendance tools. With RotaCloud, these are part of its additional Time & Attendance features.
How Viaqo compares staff scheduling software
We compare rota tools, staff availability, time tracking, mobile access, multiple locations, holidays, pricing and independent customer reviews.
We also look specifically at how useful each product is for a cleaning business. Managing cleaners across customer sites is different from creating a rota for one shop or office.
Standard prices are used where possible. Discounts and annual-payment savings are explained separately.
Large and recent independent review samples carry more weight than high scores based on only a small number of reviews.
Affiliate commissions never affect Viaqo scores or rankings.
Sources — checked October 2026
- Deputy — official UK cleaning, scheduling and pricing information.
- RotaCloud — official UK pricing and scheduling information.
- Planday — official UK pricing, rota and mobile-app information.
- Capterra — independent reviews for Deputy, RotaCloud and Planday.
Looking for customer jobs, quotes and invoices too? See our Cleaning Business Software comparison.