For planners comparing Planday for a multi-site contractor of 20–250 staff
A Planday alternative for rules you set and decisions you can show
Turn your working-time rules into an explainable roster, rank eligible cover when somebody calls in, and allocate the live work that follows. Fivexer gives human planners and AI agents the same operational tools, then carries the record into payroll review and export.
- One flat fee, not per person
- EU-hosted, DPA published before you ask
- MCP-native for AI agents
Fivexer and Planday, question by question
Both products address staff scheduling, but the centre of gravity is different. Planday packages scheduling with employee time tracking. Fivexer makes the scheduling decision itself programmable, inspectable and usable over MCP: the rules that admit or exclude somebody remain visible from the first draft through shift cover, live allocation and payroll handoff.
| The question | Planday | Fivexer |
|---|---|---|
| What does it cost at 60 workers?published list price, per month | £179 — Starter at £2.99 per user; Plus and Pro prices are not published | €99 — one plan fee to 100 workers, whatever the headcount inside it |
| Whose working-time rules are these?vendor defaults against figures you set | Planday publishes working-time rules and compliance warnings on Starter | 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 | Leave and absence management is published on Plus | 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 | Configurable organisational structure is published on Pro, at custom pricing | 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 time tracking 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 | API access is published on Plus; 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 integrated time tracking | Yes — time tracking and payroll reporting and 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. Planday 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PlandayStarter at £2.99 per user per month, the only tier with a published price, minimum five users. Auto-scheduling is published on Pro, which is quoted per customer. | £89.70/mo | £179.40/mo | £358.80/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 |
Plus and Pro carry no published price, so the figures above are the floor rather than the quote a contractor of this shape would receive. Prices are Planday’s UK list in pounds and are not converted 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 Planday
Two of the rows above turn on a price Planday does not publish, so they are worth asking before a demo rather than after. A written answer from the vendor is also the only version of these that cannot go out of date.
- What does Plus cost per user, and what does Pro cost for a team our size?
- Auto-scheduling sits on Pro — what does it cost, and which of our rules can it actually enforce?
- When a worker asks why the shift went to someone else, what does the system show him?
- 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 clocking is the product
For a contractor buying operational scheduling, Fivexer is the stronger choice: qualifications, rest, contracted hours, site permission and travel decide who can work; every exclusion is explainable; and a human or AI agent can inspect and operate the workspace directly. The same record continues through worked-versus-rostered review, corrections, premiums, period close and payroll-ready CSV export. Choose Planday instead only when the purchase is mainly a staff time clock, demand forecasting and native payroll integrations in one suite.
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, calculate tax, pay people, or connect directly to a payroll provider
- Forecast demand or revenue
- Ship any country’s legal limits as defaults — a blank rule is not checked
Not for you if
- You require clock-based attendance or a native payroll integration
- Demand forecasting matters more than eligibility
- You want the vendor to be responsible for what the law says
Questions we get asked first
How does Fivexer’s price compare with Planday’s?
Planday publishes one price, £2.99 per user per month on Starter, and quotes Plus and Pro privately — so a like-for-like number for a contractor of this shape does not exist publicly. What can be compared is the shape: Planday bills per person, Fivexer bills one plan fee for a worker ceiling (€99 to 100 workers, €399 to 500), so the same fee covers 30 people or 99.
Both are European. Is there a data difference?
Not one we will claim without their answer in writing. Ours is stated: an Estonian company, one EU region, every subprocessor named on a public page before you ask, and a DPA you can read without a sales call — plus the option of running the MIT engine on your own infrastructure, where there is no processor relationship to assess at all.
Does Fivexer do auto-scheduling?
Yes, as a ladder rather than a button: validate a roster somebody typed, recommend one person for one shift, fill only the gaps you tick, or solve a whole period. The planner approves the result at every rung, and every recommendation carries the rule that produced it.
Whose working-time rules does Fivexer enforce?
Only the ones you configure. 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.