For planners comparing Deputy for a multi-site contractor of 20–250 staff
A Deputy alternative for rosters that have to explain themselves
Build the week under your working-time rules, cover the 05:41 call-in with people who are genuinely eligible, and keep the reason for every decision. Fivexer adds direct MCP access for AI agents and a payroll-ready record, for one plan fee instead of a charge for every person.
- One flat fee, not per person
- Your rules, no vendor defaults
- MCP-native for AI agents
Fivexer and Deputy, question by question
Deputy combines scheduling with time and attendance. Fivexer is built for a harder scheduling question: who is actually allowed, qualified, rested and close enough to take this shift or live job — and can the system prove why? Compare the operational differences below, including the places where an all-in-one suite may fit better.
| The question | Deputy | Fivexer |
|---|---|---|
| What does it cost at 60 workers?published list price, per month | $390 — Core at $6.50 per user, every month, growing with the team | €99 — one plan fee to 100 workers, whatever the headcount inside it |
| Whose working-time rules are these?vendor defaults against figures you set | Deputy publishes labour-law compliance features and advanced compliance on Core | Yours only. No country’s limits ship as defaults — a blank rule is not checked, a configured one is enforced and explained in words. |
| Why him and not her?a record a worker or a works council can read | Not something the published pages describe — one to put to them | Every decision is one sentence: who took it, and who was ruled out by which rule. |
| Who covers Anna at 05:41?into qualified, rested, permitted replacements | Shift swapping and open shifts are published on every tier | Ranked replacements with the exclusions shown, scoped to the shifts the absence actually broke. |
| Can she work three sites this week?site permission and the journey between shifts | Location hierarchies are published on Pro | Permitted sites are a hard boundary, and a stated journey holds the gap between two shifts open for it. |
| Who takes the job that arrives at 11:20?live allocation once the roster is published | Not what the product sells — scheduling and attendance are | The same engine allocates the ticket, job or case that arrives during the day, against who is on shift. |
| Can an AI agent use it directly?MCP tools, open source and API access | Integrations are published; an MCP interface is not described — one to ask them | Yes. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client can inspect and operate the workspace through documented tools — the same rules and decision record as the UI. The engine and MCP server are open source. |
| Does it track hours and feed payroll?payroll-ready records against an integrated time clock | Yes — timesheets, biometric clocking and payroll integrations are the product | Worked hours become a reviewable payroll report with premiums, corrections, payroll IDs, period close and CSV export. It is not a GPS clock or a payroll processor. |
The vendor column states what that vendor publishes on its own pricing and feature pages, read on 2 September 2026. Where a product does more than its published pages say, that is theirs to say — every unfilled row above is a question you can put to them, and they are gathered further down this page. Prices are list prices in each vendor’s own published currency and are not converted; negotiated discounts are not modelled.
What each one costs as the team grows
Published list prices, read on 2 September 2026, in each vendor’s own currency and not converted. Deputy bills for every person on the rota; Fivexer bills one plan fee for a worker ceiling, so the same fee covers 30 people or 99.
| How it is priced | 30 workers | 60 workers | 120 workers |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeputyCore at $6.50 per user per month — the cheapest published tier that includes auto-scheduling, the capability this comparison is about. Lite is $5 with basic scheduling. Both carry a $30 monthly invoice minimum. | $195/mo | $390/mo | $780/mo |
| FivexerOne plan fee for a worker ceiling — Free to 15, Pro to 100, Scale to 500. Rostering is not a paid extra on any of them. | €99/moPro | €99/moPro | €399/moScale |
Deputy’s published add-ons (Payroll, HR, Messaging+, Analytics+) are priced separately and are not modelled here. Fivexer’s plans are metered on matched tasks, not on people: Pro includes 50,000 a month and Scale 250,000. A 120-person rota is on the order of 2,600 shifts a month, so for a contractor of this shape the worker ceiling is the number that decides the plan, and the volume never binds.
What to ask Deputy
Everything above the price row is checkable on Deputy’s own pages. These are the four that are not, and a vendor’s written answer to his own customer is worth more than an assertion we make about him.
- When a worker asks why the shift went to someone else, what does the system show him?
- Which working-time figures are yours to set, and which come from a template we cannot edit?
- Is the roster held in an EU region if we ask for one, and does that cover backups?
- What comes out on export — the published roster only, or the decisions behind it?
We have not answered these for you on purpose. A product’s capabilities and its data posture both change without notice, and the only reliable version is the one the vendor puts in writing for you.
Choose Fivexer — unless attendance is the product
For a contractor buying operational scheduling, Fivexer is the stronger choice: qualifications, rest, contracted hours, permitted sites and travel control the roster and the live work after it; every exclusion is recorded; and human or AI operators use the same explainable system. That record continues into payroll review, corrections, premiums, period close and CSV export. Choose Deputy instead only when biometric clocking, attendance proof, sales-driven demand forecasting or a native payroll integration matters more than how the work is assigned.
What this page will not claim
It does
- Build and validate a roster against rest, hours, qualifications and site permission you configured
- Turn one absence into scoped openings and rank the people who may cover them
- Allocate live work to whoever is on shift, on the same rules and the same record
- Let an AI agent inspect and operate the workspace directly through MCP tools
- Review worked against rostered hours, close the period and export payroll-ready totals and premiums
It does not
- Prove attendance by GPS or photograph, calculate tax, or pay anybody
- Forecast demand or headcount from sales
- Ship any country’s legal limits as defaults — a blank rule is not checked
Not for you if
- You require a biometric clock or a native integration with your payroll provider
- One site, and anybody spare can cover anything
- You want the vendor to be responsible for what the law says
Questions we get asked first
Is Fivexer cheaper than Deputy?
The two are priced on different things, so it depends on headcount rather than on a discount. Deputy publishes $6.50 per user per month on Core, so its bill grows with every person you hire. Fivexer charges one plan fee for a worker ceiling — €99 to 100 workers, €399 to 500 — so the same fee covers 30 people or 99. The crossover is early, and after it the gap widens with the team.
Can Fivexer replace our time clock or payroll system?
Not either one. Fivexer does not prove attendance, calculate tax or pay people. It does prepare the handoff between them: a reviewable report of worked and rostered hours, premiums, corrections and payroll IDs; close or reopen the period; then export shift detail and per-person totals to CSV.
Does Fivexer enforce our country’s working-time law?
It enforces the figures you configure and nothing else. Fivexer ships no country’s legal limits as defaults, because they vary by jurisdiction, sector, agreement and person. A blank rule is not checked; a configured rule is enforced and explained in plain language.
We already run Deputy. Can we move mid-year?
The usual route is shadow, not cutover: import the people and sites, build the same fortnight in Fivexer beside the roster you are already running, and compare the two before anybody’s shift depends on it. Import is a CSV of people and sites, so the first draft is a working session rather than a project.