The benches split along two lines. Shiftbase leads on roster planning (5.3 vs 4.0, five judges leaning Shiftbase, one tie), working time rules (2.5 vs 1.3, six judges leaning Shiftbase), staff self service (6.2 vs 5.2, four lean Shiftbase, two tie) and payroll and integrations (6.2 vs 5.3, four lean Shiftbase, two tie). Staffomatic takes sovereignty, 5.0 vs 3.3, with six judges leaning Staffomatic; its subprocessor exposure attribute reads "EU only" against Shiftbase's "US CLOUD Act reach", both hold data residency "EU only", their legal entities sit in DE and NL, and ownership is unknown for both. Pricing transparency is tied at 6.8 to 6.8 (six ties), as is codetermination and privacy at 4.0 to 4.0. Of the weighted totals shown, four benches put Shiftbase ahead and the works council is level at 4.2 to 4.2; Shiftbase's totals range 4.0 to 5.3, Staffomatic's 3.7 to 4.4; the operations director's total is not shown.
Choose Shiftbase if
You need the strongest roster planning: Shiftbase scores 5.3 to Staffomatic's 4.0, with five judges leaning Shiftbase and one tie.
Your operations depend on working time rules: Shiftbase scores 2.5 to Staffomatic's 1.3 and six judges lean Shiftbase, though its captured pages name no actual rule and compliance appears only as a coming add-on at 0,50 € / Monat / Mitarbeiter.
Your staff manage availability, open shifts, in-app swaps and a geofenced time clock from iOS and Android apps: staff self service leans Shiftbase 6.2 to 5.2 (four judges lean, two ties).
You export approved hours to DATEV format and to Personio over the API: payroll and integrations leans Shiftbase 6.2 to 5.3 (four judges lean, two ties).
You weight the frontline-employee perspective: that bench's weighted total reads Shiftbase 5.2 to Staffomatic 3.7.
Choose Staffomatic if
You require subprocessor exposure listed as EU only: Staffomatic's subprocessor exposure attribute reads EU only, while Shiftbase's reads US CLOUD Act reach, and six judges lean Staffomatic on sovereignty (5.0 vs 3.3).
Your contract calls for a German legal entity: Staffomatic's legal entity jurisdiction attribute is DE; Shiftbase's is NL.
You answer to a works council that weighs codetermination and sovereignty together: codetermination and privacy is level at 4.0 to 4.0 with six ties, and the works council's weighted totals read 4.2 to 4.2, while sovereignty leans Staffomatic 5.0 to 3.3.
Your procurement screens out US Cloud Act exposure in subprocessor handling: the captured sovereignty attribute reads US CLOUD Act reach for Shiftbase and EU only for Staffomatic.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Frontline Employee
Works part-time shifts next to a second job or a degree and never opens a laptop at work. Judges the product by its phone app: can she mark availability, swap a shift without three calls, see her hours, and read it in her own language. A roster she learns about from a photo in a group chat has failed.
Shiftbase
This judge's pick
Staffomatic
Criterion by criterion
Roster building & demand planning
Shiftbase
Automatic scheduling and revenue coming back from the till are shown, with open shifts, swap requests and conflict hints across multiple locations and departments. What would make a roster trustworthy — staffing requirements per shift, qualifications, and labour cost against budget while planning — I found no public information on.
Staffomatic
Templates for shift and week plans, qualifications, prioritised shifts and open-shift applications are shown, and absences or double bookings are visible while planning. But we found no public information on staffing requirements per shift — how many people a shift actually needs — nor on planning across several locations, demand figures from a named source, or automatic roster proposals.
Working-time law & collective agreements
Shiftbase
Compliance shows up as a coming-soon add-on at 0,50 € per month per employee next to generic conflict hints in the scheduler, but the pages name no actual rule — nothing on the daily maximum, the 11-hour rest period, Minijob earnings limits or Tarifvertrag surcharges. A coming module is a promise, not enforcement.
Staffomatic
The pages describe time tracking, working-time and overtime accounts and surcharges, but we found no public information on any check of daily maximum hours, the eleven-hour rest period, breaks, Minijob earnings limits or collective-agreement rules. For someone stacking two jobs, nothing here shows the plan would stop a schedule that runs my two employers into each other's rest time.
Mobile self-service for deskless staff
Shiftbase
This is what I judge by: an iOS and Android app where my team marks availability, swaps and takes over shifts, and claims open shifts, with a time clock including geofencing, and the interface in five languages including German. The chat meant to move shift talk out of WhatsApp is still early access, and I found no public information on push notification of roster changes, offline clock-in, or swaps checked against rules before approval.
Staffomatic
The mobile app with shift swaps, open-shift applications, vacation requests with approval and mobile clock-in is genuinely what I need at work. But availability entry sits only in the Professional tier, and we found no public information on push notification of schedule changes, on interface languages beyond the German pages, or on whether a swap needs a manager's nod — so I might still learn about a changed week from a photo in the group chat.
Works council & employee data
Shiftbase
Roles and rights exist and deletion after the subscription ends is stated (30 days, 90 at most), which is more clarity than most give. But I found no public information on configurable visibility of absence reasons, whether geofencing can be switched off, an audit log of who viewed my data, or documentation a works council could use — and the vendor's own administrators are described as having unrestricted access to all data without permission.
Staffomatic
There are roles and rights in the Professional tier, per-tier activity logs of 30, 60 and 90 days, published retention periods for server logs and application data, and full data-subject rights including deletion. But we found no public information on how finely visibility can be limited — for example who sees absence reasons — on what the log actually records, or on documentation offered for works-council approval of the introduction.
Payroll handoff & integrations
Shiftbase
Approved hours go out in DATEV format and to Personio directly over the API, the approval step before export is in the flow, and there is an open, documented API plus till revenue flowing back in. I found no public information on surcharge or wage-type mapping, or how corrections after the payroll close are handled — and the API sits behind the Enterprise plan.
Staffomatic
A DATEV export, surcharges and a working-time account in the top tier, plus a Personio interface and API access in Professional, give a named payroll path and a named HR system, with mobile time tracking described as preparing the payroll. We found no public information on POS integrations, wage-type mapping per surcharge, or any lock step before transmission.
European sovereignty
Shiftbase
The legal notice confirms Shiftbase B.V. with a KvK registration in Zoetermeer, Netherlands, but for everything that decides where my availability and clock-in data actually live I found no public information: no hosting region, no ownership, and the subprocessor list is only retrievable behind a password. For a tool full of employee data, that is far too much left unsaid.
Staffomatic
The pages name a Hamburg company with a German register number and a German partner managing the servers, and the privacy policy lists subprocessors with their countries — including US ones such as Make.com, HubSpot and Microsoft — with EU standard contractual clauses named as the safeguard. But we found no public information on where the employee data is actually hosted or which data-centre provider runs it, so residency rests on a German management partner rather than a stated region, and push or messaging providers for the app itself are not evidenced.
Pricing transparency
Shiftbase
All three paid tiers come with the per-employee maths spelled out, onboarding packages carry fixed one-time fees, and the Lohn/HR/Kasse add-on is 20 € a month flat — I can genuinely picture the monthly invoice. The team chat has no number yet, and I found no public information on VAT treatment or how seasonal and inactive staff are counted.
Staffomatic
All three tiers are priced per person per month with a ten-person minimum, monthly or annual billing with savings of "bis zu 17%", net prices plus statutory VAT, a 14-day trial without payment data, and stated cancellation and payment methods — I can compute the annual invoice myself. We found no public information on how inactive or seasonal staff are counted or on a minimum contract term.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Shiftbase
Staffomatic
Legal entity
Incorporated in NL
Incorporated in DE
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
US CLOUD Act reach
EU only
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.