Deputy vs When I Work

Deputy

The pages promise auto-scheduling, demand forecasting, labor optimization and wage and labor budgets, plus location hierarchies for multi-site businesses — clearly more than a blank grid. But we found no public information on staffing requirements per shift, coverage gaps before publication, open shifts, qualifications, or which data source the forecasting actually draws on, so how a plan gets decided stays opaque.

When I Work

Shift templates, skills and certification tracking, open shifts and labour sharing across unlimited sites are all shown, and the auto-scheduler proposes matches by eligibility, availability and preferences — a real proposed plan, not just a grid. It stops short of the top: forecasting compares scheduled hours to unnamed "future demand" with no till-revenue or footfall source named, and I found no public information on staffing counts per shift or coverage gaps being shown before publication.

Deputy

Every tier lists labor law compliance and the feature list adds break planning and fair workweek compliance, but we found no public information naming any specific German rule — the ArbZG daily maximum, the 11-hour rest period, Minijob earnings limits, Tarifvertrag surcharges. For someone stacking a second job, whether the roster checks my rest time before publishing is the whole question, and the captured pages answer it only with a marketing phrase.

When I Work

The only rule-adjacent things anywhere are generic overtime and break tracking, and the terms state the service is designed for United States workplaces. I found no public information on the German daily-hours maximum, the 11-hour rest period, Minijob limits or collective-agreement surcharges — the rules stay in the planner's memory.

Deputy

The bones of a good floor-level app are there: a mobile app with leave and availability management, shift swap with find-replacement, a time clock including biometric clocking, and messaging with a news feed so shift talk has a home outside private group chats. We found no public information on whether swaps are checked against qualifications and rest rules before approval, on interface languages, on offline clock-in, on push notification of changes, or on employees seeing and exporting the data held about them.

When I Work

The phone side looks real: a mobile app with time-off and availability management, swap reviews, open-shift claiming, shift confirmation alerts, GPS clock-in and built-in messaging instead of a photo in a group chat. But I found no public information on the app's languages, offline handling, or swaps being checked against qualifications and rest rules before approval — for someone who reads the roster in her own language, that silence matters.

Deputy

Custom access levels in Pro, audit reporting in the Analytics+ add-on, and a privacy centre with GDPR resources and sub-processor change notifications are real building blocks. But we found no public information on retention or deletion periods for availability, absence and time records, on location or activity tracking and whether it can be switched off, or on documentation a works council could use — and this product holds exactly the kind of employee data co-determination covers.

When I Work

Admin, supervisor, manager and employee roles are described and "advanced privacy and data controls" are claimed, but the privacy policy presents GPS location collection with no statement that a workplace can switch it off. I found no public information on retention or deletion of employee records, an audit log, a published data processing agreement, or anything a works council could work with.

Deputy

An API is offered, the Lite tier lists payroll and HR integrations as a feature, and a payroll add-on exists on annual Core and Pro plans in the US with a monthly base and per-employee fee that "varies by business size". We found no public information on a DATEV, Lohn und Gehalt or other named European payroll handoff, no named POS or HR system, and no surcharge handling, so the German tax-adviser month is undescribed.

When I Work

Four payroll systems are named — Rippling, ADP, QuickBooks, Gusto — said to receive attendance and labor data, alongside a documented API and a claimed POS integration. But no POS system is named, and I found no public information on how surcharges or absences are mapped or on any check before transmission.

Deputy

Deputy is an Australian vendor with a US contracting entity in San Francisco named for at least some regions, and we found no public information on where employee data is hosted, on the contracting entity for a European customer, or on named sub-processors and their locations — the privacy centre only offers notifications when sub-processors change. My availability and clock-in times are exactly the data I had no say in handing over, and the captured pages leave unstated where they are processed.

When I Work

This is an American product end to end — a Minneapolis entity, primary data centres in the United States, terms stating it is designed for US use; the captured pages even give different entity names (When I Work, Inc. and When I Work, LLC), both American. The subprocessor list is not published, no certifications are stated, and nothing documents where my availability and GPS data legally sit.

Deputy

The headline maths is public: $5 per user per month for Lite, $6.50 for Core and $9 for Pro, in USD excluding all applicable taxes, billed monthly or annually with 10% off annual — that much I can check against my hours. But the payroll add-on's fee only "varies by business size", the Flexi plan for short-term events is described without a price, and we found no public information on how inactive or seasonal staff are counted or what the AI costs once "introductory free" ends.

When I Work

Two headline prices are public — plans "starting at just $2.50 per user per month" and "Multiple locations or schedules $5 /user/month" — with monthly or annual billing, no setup fees, no contracts, and every plan said to include full access. The enterprise tier is contact-sales only, and I found no public information on tax treatment or how seasonal and inactive staff are counted.