The bench splits by criterion, not by product. When I Work leads roster planning 6.8 to 5.0 and payroll and integrations 5.7 to 3.7 — six judges lean its way on both, none lean Deputy — with narrower leads in pricing transparency, 6.2 to 5.2 on four leans and two ties, and staff self-service, 6.0 to 5.5 on three leans and three ties. Deputy leads codetermination and privacy 4.0 to 3.2, with five judges leaning its way and one tie, and working time rules 3.2 to 2.7 on three Deputy leans and three ties. Sovereignty sits at 0.3 to 0.0, two leans to Deputy and four ties. The weighted totals shown run higher for When I Work — 5.3 to 4.9 for the shift manager, 3.7 to 3.4 for the skeptic — yet the criterion leans point both ways; the result depends on what a buyer weighs.
Choose Deputy if
Working time rules drive your decision and you follow the relative lean: three judges lean Deputy on working time rules (3.2 to 2.7), three tie, and none lean When I Work.
Your works council weighs codetermination and privacy heavily: five judges lean Deputy there (4.0 to 3.2) and one ties.
Sovereignty scoring is your tiebreaker: two judges lean Deputy (0.3 to 0.0), four tie, and none lean When I Work.
Choose When I Work if
You need the documented roster tooling — shift templates, skills and certification tracking, OpenShifts and labor sharing across unlimited locations: six judges lean When I Work on roster planning (6.8 to 5.0), none lean Deputy.
Your payroll and integrations needs come first: six judges lean When I Work on payroll and integrations (5.7 to 3.7), none lean Deputy.
Your hourly staff live in the mobile app: staff self-service holds a uniform 6 for When I Work, with three judges leaning its way (6.0 to 5.5).
You want public per-user prices: four judges lean When I Work on pricing transparency (6.2 to 5.2).
Your teams work from the United States: the captured terms state the service is designed for use in the United States, and primary data centers are in the United States.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Operations Director
Answers for labour cost across thirty locations in retail, hospitality or care. Wants demand-based planning from real POS or occupancy data, labour cost against budget while the plan is still editable, and staff shared across sites. Reads "AI-powered scheduling" as a request to see the method.
Deputy
When I Work
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Roster building & demand planning
Deputy
Auto-Scheduling, Demand Forecasting, Micro-Scheduling and Wage And Labor Budgets appear as feature names, and multi-location, franchise and enterprise are addressed as buyer groups. But the pages never name the data source behind a forecast, never show a staffing requirement per shift or qualifications, and Deputy AI is billed as included in every plan with no documented method; I found no public information on cross-location staff sharing or coverage gaps shown before publication. More than a weekly grid, less than a plan I can audit.
When I Work
Templates, skills and certification tracking, open shifts, coverage views and labour sharing between departments and locations are all on the record, and an auto-scheduler proposes rosters matched on eligibility, availability and preferences, with budgeting tools and labour forecasting that compare scheduled hours against future demand. The demand source stays vague: a POS integration is listed, but we found no public information tying POS revenue or any other named data feed to the forecast, and the auto-scheduler's "zero conflicts" claim arrives with no documented method. We also found no public information on forecast versus actual hours compared in one place.
Working-time law & collective agreements
Deputy
Every tier claims Labor Law Compliance, with Break planning compliance and Fair workweek compliance in the feature list, but I found no public information naming a single German provision — ArbZG daily maximum, the eleven-hour rest period, Minijob earnings limits, Tarifvertrag surcharges, youth or maternity protection — or whether any check blocks publication rather than warns. For my German sites the compliance claim is a label I cannot check.
When I Work
The pages show generic overtime and break tracking plus "custom scheduling rules" without naming a single working-time provision; we found no public information on a daily-hours maximum, the eleven-hour rest period, youth or maternity protection, Minijob earnings limits, or collective-agreement surcharges. The terms place the service as designed for use by Workplaces and individuals in the United States, which is consistent with what the pages show.
Mobile self-service for deskless staff
Deputy
Lite already gives floor staff a mobile app with availability and leave management, shift swap with find-a-replacement, a time clock app and messaging — real transactions, not a PDF. I found no public information on push notification of changes, offline handling for clock-ins, a multilingual interface, or swaps and open shifts being checked against qualifications and rest periods before approval.
When I Work
A mobile app with availability entry, time-off and absence tracking, swap review with manager approval, open-shift claiming, confirmation alerts and GPS clock-in is well evidenced, and built-in messaging with shift reminders keeps coordination off personal phone numbers. We found no public information on swap approvals checked against qualifications or rest rules before sign-off, offline clock-in handling, multilingual coverage, or employees viewing and exporting the data held about them — that caps the floor-service story for me.
Works council & employee data
Deputy
Custom Access Levels on Pro show visibility is configurable, and there is a privacy centre with GDPR resources and notifications when sub-processors change. I found no public information on retention or deletion periods for employee records, on whether biometric time clocking or any location tracking can be switched off, or on documentation a works agreement could be built from — the audit reporting in Analytics+ is described only as additional audit reporting.
When I Work
Admin, supervisor, manager and employee roles are named and the pricing page claims "advanced privacy and data controls", but we found no public information on configuring who may see absence reasons, an audit log of views and changes, retention periods for availability or absence data, or documentation to support a works agreement; the thirty-day removal clause covers cancelled or inactive workplace accounts rather than employee records. GPS collection being permission-based is the one comfort here.
Payroll handoff & integrations
Deputy
Payroll is sold as a US-only add-on on annual Core and Pro plans whose "Monthly base and per employee fee varies by business size", alongside generic Payroll & HR Integrations in Lite and a Deputy API. I found no public information naming a payroll system, no DATEV or Lohn und Gehalt path, no surcharge or wage-type mapping, and no named POS or HR system feeding the forecast — for my European payroll this is a conversation, not a handoff.
When I Work
Attendance and labour data sync with four named payroll platforms — Rippling, ADP, QuickBooks, Gusto — alongside a POS integration and public API documentation, so the month ends in a real handoff rather than a retyped spreadsheet. For my world, though, we found no public information on a DATEV or Lohn und Gehalt path, a lock step before transmission, wage types mapped per surcharge, or an HR master-data sync.
European sovereignty
Deputy
The vendor was founded in Sydney and the published contracting entity is Deputy Corporation of San Francisco; I found no public information on hosting region, an EU contracting option, or a named sub-processor list — the privacy centre confirms other sub-processors exist without giving their locations. With availability, absence and biometric time-clocking data about employees who never chose this vendor, I cannot place any of my sites on it.
When I Work
Vendor and contracting entity sit in Minneapolis with primary data centres in the United States, mandatory arbitration under a US-law contract, and no published subprocessor list — Clair surfaces only as the on-demand-pay provider receiving hours, rates and break data. The captured pages give different figures for the contracting entity's name (When I Work, Inc. and When I Work, LLC); both are Minnesota, so either way this is a non-EU arrangement end to end.
Pricing transparency
Deputy
The three tiers are priced publicly — Lite at $5, Core at $6.50 and Pro at $9 per user per month, USD excluding applicable taxes, with 10% off for annual billing — so the maths for the core product is doable. But the payroll add-on "varies by business size", the Flexi plan and the AI Agent carry no figure, and I found no public information on how inactive or seasonal staff are counted or on any minimum term.
When I Work
Both tiers carry public per-user maths with the billing period stated — $2.50 per user per month for a single location or schedule, $5/user/month for multiple locations — with no setup fees, no long-term contracts, a fourteen-day trial without a credit card, and every plan claimed to include full access, so no module add-ons left to price. We found no public information on how seasonal or inactive staff are counted, VAT treatment, or the enterprise tier beyond "contact us to discuss enterprise workforce management pricing built for scale."
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Deputy
When I Work
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
US by default
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.