Comparison · verified August 2026
Best attendance apps for restaurants in India
Lunch service, dinner service, and four hours in between that payroll should not be paying for. Seven apps ranked on split shifts, a geofence per outlet, and how fast a new hire can start.
The short answer
If you want the cheapest way to roster split shifts across two or three outlets, that is us, at Rs 5,999 a year for 25 staff. If you want your staff to swap and claim their own shifts, that is Connecteam at $588, and we do not have those features at all.
The thing that decides a restaurant is not the accuracy of the geofence. It is whether an 11:00 to 15:00 and a 19:00 to 23:00 day is stored as two shifts or as one twelve-hour block, because the second version pays four hours of overtime that nobody worked, every day, for every person on a split.
Only two products here publish a clear answer to that. The rest of the page is about what the other five cost you while not answering it, and where each of them is nonetheless the right buy.
What each one costs a 25-person restaurant for a year
The cheapest tier of each product that actually gives an outlet its own boundary, at 25 staff, for a year. Seat floors are priced in rather than footnoted: Zimyo states a 50-user minimum and factoHR bundles 50 into the base price, so a restaurant of 25 pays for 50 at both. Dollar prices are the vendors' own and are deliberately not converted.
| Product | What you are buying | Per year | Per employee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shiftelio | Rs 5,999 band, up to 25 staff across 3 outlets. Split shifts and geofence included | Rs 5,999 | Rs 240 |
| PagarBook | App and Web, Rs 699 per employee per year, location included | Rs 17,475 | Rs 699 |
| Zimyo | Basic. Geofence, no selfie. Billed as 50 seats | Rs 48,000 | Rs 1,920 |
| SalaryBox | Business, without the tracking add-on. Figures dated June 2026 | Rs 58,500 | Rs 2,340 |
| factoHR | Premium, the cheapest tier with a geofence. Billed as 50 employees | Rs 71,988 | Rs 2,880 |
| SalaryBox | Business plus the Rs 100 per user tracking add-on. Dated June 2026 | Rs 88,500 | Rs 3,540 |
| Zimyo | Standard. The tier that adds the selfie, for everybody | Rs 96,000 | Rs 3,840 |
| Connecteam | Operations Advanced. Geofencing, capped at 10 sites. 30 users included in the price. USD, not converted | $588 | $23.52 |
| Buddy Punch | Pro, geofences standard, after the $19 a month base fee. Approximate. USD, not converted | about $2,325 | about $93 |
Every figure comes from the vendor's own published pricing page, read in August 2026, with two exceptions stated on their rows: Buddy Punch, whose pricing page blocks automated reads and whose tiers come from its own help centre, and SalaryBox, whose figures are dated June 2026 and have not been re-read since.
Can it actually roster a split shift?
The question this page exists for. Where an entry says nothing published, that means the vendor's pricing and feature pages do not describe rostering a two-part day, not that the product certainly cannot. Ask for a demonstration on a real week before you believe either answer, ours included.
- IncludedShiftelioYes. A split day is rostered as two halves and stored as two rows, so overtime is calculated against the halves rather than against one long shift
- IncludedConnecteamYes, and it goes further than anyone here: open shifts, staff-to-staff swaps and a claim board, which is the part we do not have
- IncludedBuddy PunchScheduling is in the product and is included outright at Enterprise. Nothing published describes a two-part day specifically, so ask
- Costs extraPagarBookNothing published. It is a daily-wage register rather than a rostering system, and a split day would be reconciled by hand
- Costs extraSalaryBoxNothing published about split shifts on the pricing pages read
- Costs extraZimyoNothing published about split shifts on the pricing page, and the 50-user minimum is the wrong shape for a floor team that shrinks after a season
- Costs extrafactoHRNothing published about split shifts, and the geofence itself is two paid tiers up from the free plan
How this list was ranked
Ordered by fit for a restaurant, not by price. That is why the second entry costs more than three products below it and why the cheapest full HRMS on the page ranks sixth.
- The split shift comes first. A product that cannot express a two-part day will overpay somebody every single day they work one, and no amount of geofence precision compensates for that.
- Then a boundary per outlet, and its cap. A group with four outlets needs four geofences. Connecteam caps them at 10 on Advanced; we cover 3 in the Rs 5,999 band and lift the cap at Rs 14,999; most of the HRMS vendors publish no cap at all, which is worse than a low one because you cannot plan against it.
- Then how fast somebody hired this morning can punch tonight. Restaurants fill the same role several times a season. Anything needing an enrolment appointment at a machine loses here regardless of what it costs.
- Seat floors are priced in, not footnoted. Zimyo states a 50-user minimum on every tier and factoHR bundles 50 into the base price, so the affected rows show what 25 people actually pay rather than the advertised per-head rate.
- Dollar prices stay in dollars. Connecteam and Buddy Punch publish no Indian price. Converting at today’s rate would produce a rupee figure nobody is charged, so their rows stay in USD and are marked as such.
Best in each category
Cheapest way to roster split shifts across several outlets
Best scheduler on this page, by a distance
Simplest for a single outlet with location in the price
Best geofence-plus-scheduling combination in one paid tier
Payroll and attendance in one, for an Indian outlet
Cheapest full HRMS with the geofence in its base tier
Most complete HR suite here, at the price of one
The question that eliminates most of this list
Does anybody on your team work two separate stretches in one day?
If not, you do not have a restaurant problem, you have an ordinary multi-site attendance problem, and most of this page solves it. Read our GPS comparison instead: it ranks the same category on the cost of location proof and reaches a different order.
If somebody does, ask every vendor to roster one in a trial account in front of you, then run that week through their payroll and look at the overtime line. That single test will eliminate more of this page than any price comparison, and it takes twenty minutes.
The whole list at a glance
| # | Product | Billing shape | Location verification | At 25 staff |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shiftelioour product | Flat annual bands, not per seat. Rs 5,999 a year covers up to 25 staff across 3 outlets. Rs 14,999 covers up to 100 staff and unlimited outlets. | A geofence per outlet, selfie capture and offline queueing in every plan, including the cheapest. Three outlets are inside the Rs 5,999 band rather than an upgrade. | Rs 5,999 for 25 staff across 3 outlets, Rs 240 a head |
| 2 | Connecteam | Sold per hub. The Operations Hub is $29, $49 or $99 a month billed yearly, and each price includes the first 30 users rather than charging per head. A free Small Business plan covers up to 10 users. | Tier-gated. Basic gives a GPS stamp and a map but no geofencing at all. Geofencing starts at Advanced, capped at 10 sites. Expert removes the cap. | $588 a year on Advanced, the cheapest tier with geofencing. 25 staff sit inside the 30 the plan already includes, so there is no per-head charge |
| 3 | PagarBook | Per employee per year. Rs 699 for the App and Web plan, Rs 499 for mobile only. Add 18 percent GST. | Included in the App and Web plan rather than sold as an add-on, which is worth crediting on a list where most vendors treat location as the upsell. | Rs 17,475 before GST, about Rs 20,620 with it |
| 4 | Buddy Punch | A $19.00 a month base fee on every plan, then per user. Starter $4.99, Pro $6.99 and Enterprise $12.99 per user per month on annual billing. No free tier. Figures approximate: see the note. | Basic GPS coordinates on Starter, with geofences and advanced GPS both unpriced paid add-ons at that tier. Geofences become standard from Pro. Real-time GPS stays $2 per user per month until Enterprise. | About $2,325 a year on Pro, of which $228 is the base fee before a single person is counted |
| 5 | SalaryBox | A monthly base fee plus a per-user charge: Rs 3,000 a month plus Rs 75 per user on the Business plan, which is the tier that includes payroll. Live location tracking is a separate Rs 100 per user per month. Figures dated June 2026. | Attendance with location on the paid tiers, with continuous tracking as the separate add-on above. A per-outlet boundary is not published as a distinct feature. | Rs 58,500 a year on Business, or Rs 88,500 with the tracking add-on |
| 6 | Zimyo | Rs 80, Rs 160 or Rs 240 per user per month across three tiers, with a stated minimum of 50 users on every one of them. No free tier. | Geotag and geofence are both in the Basic tier, which is better than most of this list. The selfie is not: it starts at Standard, one tier and Rs 48,000 a year higher. | Rs 48,000 a year, because 25 staff are billed as 50. Rs 96,000 if you want the selfie |
| 7 | factoHR | Free up to 20 employees, then Core Rs 4,999, Premium Rs 5,999 or Ultimate Rs 6,999 a month, each covering up to 50 employees, with Rs 69 to Rs 119 per employee beyond that. Indian plans are billed quarterly. | Geofencing is not in Core. It first appears in Premium. Selfie punch and face recognition are separate add-ons priced in dollars at $0.5 and $1 per month. | Rs 71,988 a year on Premium, the cheapest tier with a geofence, plus about $150 a year if you want the selfie |
1 of 7 · our product
Shiftelio
Cheapest way to roster split shifts across several outlets
A small restaurant group that pays for hours actually worked.
| Billing | Flat annual bands, not per seat. Rs 5,999 a year covers up to 25 staff across 3 outlets. Rs 14,999 covers up to 100 staff and unlimited outlets. |
|---|---|
| Location | A geofence per outlet, selfie capture and offline queueing in every plan, including the cheapest. Three outlets are inside the Rs 5,999 band rather than an upgrade. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 5,999 for 25 staff across 3 outlets, Rs 240 a head |
| Source | Our own published pricing, August 2026. We make this product, which is why the entry below says what it cannot do. |
Choose it when
Your people work a lunch service and a dinner service with a gap in between, and you have two or three outlets. A split day is stored as two rostered halves rather than one long shift, so overtime is calculated against the halves and the four hours nobody worked never reach payroll. Every outlet gets its own boundary inside the Rs 5,999 band, and a new hire is on the roster and punching the same day without a machine at the counter.
Look elsewhere when
You want staff to swap shifts between themselves. We do not have it. There is no shift swap, no open-shift board and no claim-a-shift flow in the product: a manager builds the roster and a manager changes it, which on a Sunday night with two people off sick means the manager fixes it. Connecteam does all three, it is genuinely the better answer for a high-churn floor team, and it sits directly below us on this page for that reason. We are also the wrong choice above about a hundred staff, and if you need PF and ESI challans filed rather than reports prepared.
Disclosure: this is our product and this page is on our website, which is exactly why the criterion is written out above, why every rival figure is dated and sourced, and why the paragraph above this one exists. Our prices are on the pricing page and there is nothing behind a "contact us". How we rank is set out on the methodology page. We also state plainly above that we have no shift swap, no open-shift board and no claim-a-shift flow, and that Connecteam, ranked directly below us, has all three.
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Connecteam
Best scheduler on this page, by a distance
A floor team that reshuffles its own week.
| Billing | Sold per hub. The Operations Hub is $29, $49 or $99 a month billed yearly, and each price includes the first 30 users rather than charging per head. A free Small Business plan covers up to 10 users. |
|---|---|
| Location | Tier-gated. Basic gives a GPS stamp and a map but no geofencing at all. Geofencing starts at Advanced, capped at 10 sites. Expert removes the cap. |
| 25 staff, per year | $588 a year on Advanced, the cheapest tier with geofencing. 25 staff sit inside the 30 the plan already includes, so there is no per-head charge |
| Source | connecteam.com/pricing read August 2026, with the plan prices corroborated against a screenshot of the live page. |
Choose it when
Turnover is your real problem. Open shifts, staff-to-staff swaps and a claim board are the features that take the Sunday-night scramble off the manager, and Connecteam is the only product on this page that publishes all three. Ten outlets fit inside Advanced. If your floor team already runs on a WhatsApp group that nobody can audit, this replaces it properly.
Look elsewhere when
You need an Indian payroll. There is none, at any tier: their payroll integration page lists ADP products only, with no mention of India, EPF, ESI, professional tax or Form 16 anywhere, so a bookkeeper still does that part somewhere else. Two other things to check. Geofencing, as against a GPS stamp, is not in the cheapest paid tier, and prices are USD with no Indian list price, so budget for whatever your card is charged rather than the sticker.
3 of 7
PagarBook
Simplest for a single outlet with location in the price
One kitchen, one counter, a register a manager keeps.
| Billing | Per employee per year. Rs 699 for the App and Web plan, Rs 499 for mobile only. Add 18 percent GST. |
|---|---|
| Location | Included in the App and Web plan rather than sold as an add-on, which is worth crediting on a list where most vendors treat location as the upsell. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 17,475 before GST, about Rs 20,620 with it |
| Source | PagarBook published per-employee rates, read August 2026. Full working on our PagarBook comparison. |
Choose it when
You run one outlet, you pay several people daily or weekly, and you want a register rather than a rostering system. No seat block, no base fee, no add-on ladder, and location already in the price. Its heritage is exactly the small Indian employer and the pricing is honest about what the product is.
Look elsewhere when
The split shift is the thing you came for. It is a register first: nothing published describes rostering a two-part day, and if your team works lunch and dinner you will be reconciling that by hand. Per-employee-per-year pricing also has no ceiling, so a group with 60 staff pays Rs 41,940 where our top band is Rs 14,999.
4 of 7
Buddy Punch
Best geofence-plus-scheduling combination in one paid tier
An outlet that wants scheduling and geofencing without an add-on ladder.
| Billing | A $19.00 a month base fee on every plan, then per user. Starter $4.99, Pro $6.99 and Enterprise $12.99 per user per month on annual billing. No free tier. Figures approximate: see the note. |
|---|---|
| Location | Basic GPS coordinates on Starter, with geofences and advanced GPS both unpriced paid add-ons at that tier. Geofences become standard from Pro. Real-time GPS stays $2 per user per month until Enterprise. |
| 25 staff, per year | About $2,325 a year on Pro, of which $228 is the base fee before a single person is counted |
| Source | docs.buddypunch.com plan articles, read August 2026. buddypunch.com/pricing blocks automated reads, so these figures are the vendor’s own help centre rather than its pricing page, and are marked approximate. |
Choose it when
You want the geofence and the schedule in one tier with no add-on to negotiate, and you are comfortable buying in dollars. Pro includes both, which is cleaner than Starter plus two unpriced add-ons and cleaner than several Indian vendors that put the selfie a tier above the geofence.
Look elsewhere when
You are a small Indian outlet. The $19 base fee is charged whatever your size, so at 25 staff it is fine and at 5 staff it is most of the bill, and there is no Indian statutory payroll of any kind. The unpriced Starter add-ons are the thing to watch: a tier whose two most important features have no published price is not comparable to anything until you have a quote in writing.
5 of 7
SalaryBox
Payroll and attendance in one, for an Indian outlet
A restaurant that wants the salary run in the same app as the punches.
| Billing | A monthly base fee plus a per-user charge: Rs 3,000 a month plus Rs 75 per user on the Business plan, which is the tier that includes payroll. Live location tracking is a separate Rs 100 per user per month. Figures dated June 2026. |
|---|---|
| Location | Attendance with location on the paid tiers, with continuous tracking as the separate add-on above. A per-outlet boundary is not published as a distinct feature. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 58,500 a year on Business, or Rs 88,500 with the tracking add-on |
| Source | SalaryBox published plan rates as recorded in June 2026. Not re-read since, and stated here as such rather than presented as current. |
Choose it when
You want one Indian app that both records the shift and pays the salary, and your outlets are few enough that the per-outlet boundary is not the deciding feature. Having payroll in the same place as attendance genuinely saves a reconciliation every month.
Look elsewhere when
You are comparing prices today. This is the one row on the page whose figures are two months old, and a base-fee-plus-per-user shape is exactly the kind that changes. Get a current quote before you compare it to anything. Nothing published addresses split shifts either, which is the question this page is about.
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Zimyo
Cheapest full HRMS with the geofence in its base tier
A restaurant group large enough to want an HRMS rather than an attendance app.
| Billing | Rs 80, Rs 160 or Rs 240 per user per month across three tiers, with a stated minimum of 50 users on every one of them. No free tier. |
|---|---|
| Location | Geotag and geofence are both in the Basic tier, which is better than most of this list. The selfie is not: it starts at Standard, one tier and Rs 48,000 a year higher. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 48,000 a year, because 25 staff are billed as 50. Rs 96,000 if you want the selfie |
| Source | zimyo.com/pricing including the plan matrix and add-on rows, read August 2026. |
Choose it when
You have fifty or more people across several outlets and you want recruitment, appraisals and an HRMS around the attendance rather than an attendance product on its own. At that size the seat floor stops being a penalty and the Basic tier geofence is genuinely good value.
Look elsewhere when
You have 25 staff. You pay for 50, so the advertised Rs 960 a head is really Rs 1,920, and restaurant headcount is exactly the kind that dips after a season. The selfie sitting a tier above the geofence is the second problem for a floor team, and the pricing page says nothing about split shifts.
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factoHR
Most complete HR suite here, at the price of one
A group that needs the whole HR stack and will pay for it.
| Billing | Free up to 20 employees, then Core Rs 4,999, Premium Rs 5,999 or Ultimate Rs 6,999 a month, each covering up to 50 employees, with Rs 69 to Rs 119 per employee beyond that. Indian plans are billed quarterly. |
|---|---|
| Location | Geofencing is not in Core. It first appears in Premium. Selfie punch and face recognition are separate add-ons priced in dollars at $0.5 and $1 per month. |
| 25 staff, per year | Rs 71,988 a year on Premium, the cheapest tier with a geofence, plus about $150 a year if you want the selfie |
| Source | factohr.com/pricing including the tier matrix and the add-on rows, read August 2026. |
Choose it when
You want one vendor for payroll, HR, recruitment and attendance across a growing group of outlets, and you are near or over fifty staff so the bundled block is being used rather than wasted.
Look elsewhere when
You came for attendance. The free tier looks like the answer and is not: it excludes attendance, payroll processing, the mobile app and the geofence, and is employee records, letters and payslips capped at 20. The geofence is two paid tiers up, the selfie is a dollar-priced add-on on top of a rupee plan, and 25 staff pay the 50-employee price. For a restaurant it is the most expensive way on this page to get a boundary around an outlet.
Questions people ask before choosing
Which attendance app handles split shifts for a restaurant?
Two on this page do it properly. Shiftelio rosters a split day as two halves and stores them as two separate rows against the same person and weekday, so a lunch service and a dinner service are two shifts rather than one twelve-hour block, and overtime is calculated against the halves. Connecteam schedules split days as separate shifts too and adds swaps and open shifts on top. Buddy Punch has scheduling but publishes nothing specific about a two-part day. For PagarBook, SalaryBox, Zimyo and factoHR nothing published describes it, which is not proof they cannot but does mean you should ask for a demonstration on a real week rather than accept a yes.
Why does a split shift matter for payroll?
Because the software either understands the gap or it pays for it. If an 11:00 to 15:00 and a 19:00 to 23:00 day is recorded as one shift from 11:00 to 23:00, that is eight hours worked charged as twelve, and the four hours in between are commonly paid as overtime at a premium rate. Across a floor team of twenty that is a large monthly number for a data-modelling detail nobody discusses when buying. It is the single most expensive thing a restaurant can get wrong in an attendance app, which is why this page ranks on it.
Can staff swap shifts between themselves in Shiftelio?
No, and this is the one place on this page we are not the answer. There is no shift swap, no open-shift board and no claim-a-shift flow in the product: a manager builds the roster and a manager changes it. For a high-churn floor team those three features are the most useful thing a scheduler can have, because they move the Sunday-night scramble off one person. Connecteam publishes all three, which is why it ranks second here despite having no Indian payroll at all. If swaps are your deciding feature, buy Connecteam and we would tell you so.
How many outlets can I cover, and what does each extra one cost?
This is the number to ask every vendor for in writing, because it is rarely on a pricing page. Shiftelio covers 3 outlets in the Rs 5,999 band and unlimited outlets at Rs 14,999. Connecteam caps geofencing at 10 sites on Advanced and removes the cap on Expert, $99 a month. Zimyo and factoHR sell an HRMS rather than a per-site product and publish no site cap at all, so ask. A cap you discover after signing is the most common unpleasant surprise in this category.
How fast can a new hire start punching?
It matters more in this industry than any other, because a restaurant may onboard the same role three times in a season. What decides it is whether the product needs hardware at the counter, an enrolment appointment, or a per-person setup step. Anything built around a fingerprint or face machine needs the person physically enrolled before their first shift, which is fine for an office and awkward for a hire who starts on Friday night. Phone-based products, which is most of this page, get somebody punching the same day. Ask each vendor how a person hired this morning clocks in this evening, and time the answer.
What is the cheapest attendance app for a restaurant in India?
Shiftelio at Rs 5,999 a year for up to 25 staff across three outlets, which is Rs 240 a head with split-shift rostering, a geofence per outlet and selfie capture included. We make it, so here is the comparison rather than the claim: PagarBook is Rs 17,475, Zimyo Rs 48,000 because 25 staff are billed as 50, SalaryBox Rs 58,500 and factoHR Rs 71,988 for the cheapest tier that has a geofence at all. Connecteam is $588, which is competitive, and has no Indian payroll. If you run more than three outlets our Rs 14,999 band is the right one and the table above says so.
Do I need a biometric machine at the counter?
Not for the reason most people buy one. A machine solves buddy punching by putting a finger or a face at a fixed point, and it creates two problems a restaurant feels immediately: every new hire needs enrolling before their first shift, and wet or oily hands defeat a fingerprint reader at exactly the moments the kitchen is busiest. A geofenced punch with a selfie moves the check to the phone and the boundary. Neither approach is dishonest about what it proves, and you should pick based on how often you hire rather than on which one sounds stricter.
How was this list ordered?
By fit for a restaurant specifically: whether the product can roster a split shift at all, whether each outlet gets its own boundary, and how quickly somebody hired this morning can punch tonight. That is a different question from our GPS comparison, our field-staff comparison and our construction comparison, and it produces a different order, most visibly in Connecteam ranking second above five cheaper products. Zoho People was dropped because it renders its prices client-side and its own pages disagree about which tier gates geofencing. Jibble, ubiAttendance and StaffApp were left out because no figure for them could be read first hand.
Work the numbers yourself
The overtime arithmetic a split shift creates is the same whichever product you pick, and it is free to check. These calculators show their working as text, with no signup and no email.
Other comparisons on this site
Each of these ranks against a different question, so they reach different answers. The one you want is the one whose question is yours.
- Best attendance apps in India: Annual cost at 25 employees with GPS verification working
- Best free attendance apps in India: How far a free tier gets you before payroll, location or a headcount cap forces an upgrade
- Best GPS attendance apps in India: Which tier gates which kind of location proof: stamp, geofence, live trail, anti-spoofing
- Best attendance apps for field staff in India: Site caps, offline capture and the cost of a continuous trail, for staff never at one address
- Best attendance apps for construction sites in India: Workers who own no smartphone, whether a daily wage can be paid at all, and whether the pricing shape survives a headcount that moves with the project
- Best payroll software for small businesses in India: Whether the statutory output is actually produced, not merely calculated
The criteria this list is ordered by, what counts as a source, and how often the figures are re-checked are set out on our methodology page. Plan structures, seat minimums, site caps and add-on prices were checked in August 2026against each vendor's own published pricing page, with two exceptions marked on their rows: Buddy Punch, whose pricing page blocks automated reads and whose figures come from its own help centre and are approximate, and SalaryBox, whose figures are dated June 2026. Where an entry says nothing published about split shifts, that means the vendor's pages do not describe rostering a two-part day, not that the product lacks it. Zoho People was considered and dropped because its prices render client-side and its own pages disagree about which tier gates geofencing; Jibble, ubiAttendance and StaffApp were left out because no figure for them could be read first hand. Dollar figures are the vendors' own published prices and are deliberately not converted to rupees. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used for identification only; no affiliation or endorsement is implied. Shiftelio is our own product, is marked as such, and its entry above states a feature we do not have and a rival that does. If you believe anything here is inaccurate, write to support@shiftelio.com and we will correct it and say that we did.