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 Works Council Advocate
Co-determines how hours and overtime are distributed and how staff are monitored (BetrVG §87), and will not sign a works agreement for a system that watches more than it plans. Asks who sees absence reasons, what the app stores about location, what is logged and when it is deleted. Reads "performance insights" as a warning.
Shiftbase
Staffomatic
This judge calls it a tie.
Criterion by criterion
Roster building & demand planning
Shiftbase
Availability, open shifts, swap requests, conflict hints and automatic scheduling are all named, and single through multi-location and franchise operations are addressed, so a plan can genuinely be built in the system. I found no public information on qualifications, staffing requirements per shift, labour cost against budget while planning, or cross-location staff sharing; the POS revenue import is described as showing what a shift brought, which reads as retrospective rather than demand forecasting.
Staffomatic
Templates, weekly plans, shift swaps and open-shift applications are evidenced, and qualifications and roles arrive from the Professional tier. But I found no public information on staffing requirements per shift, multiple locations or departments, or any demand-based forecasting and automatic roster proposals — the plan still rests on the planner's memory.
Working-time law & collective agreements
Shiftbase
Compliance appears only as generic Konflikthinweise and as a Compliance+ add-on marked as coming — I found no public information naming any specific rule: no daily-hours maximum, no 11-hour rest period, no breaks, no Minijob earnings limit, no collective-agreement surcharges. As works council I cannot see what the roster would actually check before publication, so the rules would live in our agreements and in the payroll export rather than in the plan itself.
Staffomatic
The pages describe an overtime account and surcharges, but as payroll bookkeeping, not as checks — no rule is named, nothing on the eleven-hour rest period, breaks, youth protection, Minijob limits or collective agreements, and nothing on whether a violation blocks or merely warns. A roster that cannot show its rest-period checks is not one a works council co-signs.
Mobile self-service for deskless staff
Shiftbase
The team gets iOS and Android apps with availability entry, open shifts and in-app shift swaps and covers, in five interface languages, plus a time clock with stamping locations and geofencing. I found no public information on whether swaps are checked against qualifications or rest periods before approval, on offline handling, or on employees being able to see and export the data held about them — the last point matters to me before any works agreement.
Staffomatic
A mobile app with availability entry, vacation requests under approval, shift swaps, open-shift applications and a dedicated clock-in app is genuine self-service for deskless staff. I found no public information on offline handling, languages, team communication, or swaps and open shifts being checked against qualifications and rest periods before approval.
Works council & employee data
Shiftbase
Roles and permissions are named, and the privacy policy states deletion of all data 30 days after the subscription ends, retention capped at 90 days, 60-day backups, and no sale or commercial use of employee data — a workable basis. But geofencing is offered with no word on switching it off or on it being optional, Shiftbase administrators are described as having unrestricted access to all data without permission, the subprocessor list is retrievable only with a password, and I found no public information on an audit log of who viewed or changed an individual's data, on configurable visibility of absence reasons, or on documentation for works-council approval.
Staffomatic
The privacy policy names an external data-protection officer, lists stored data types and deletion periods, and roles and rights exist from the Professional tier — but who may see absence reasons is not addressed, I found no published data-processing agreement or documentation for works-council approval, and the log's retention of 30, 60 or 90 days is set by price tier rather than by agreement.
Payroll handoff & integrations
Shiftbase
Approved hours export in DATEV format, Personio connects directly over the API, POS revenue flows back into the plan, and an open API with documentation is offered on the Enterprise plan — a real path for the month with an approval step before transmission. I found no public information on wage types mapped per surcharge, retro corrections after the close, or a lock step before each transmission beyond the approval of hours; the connection bundle costs 20 € / Monat as a flat fee.
Staffomatic
A DATEV export alongside surcharges, overtime and time accounts, plus a named Personio interface and API access, are evidenced at the upper tiers. I found no public information on vendor-maintained payroll integrations, a lock step before transmission, wage-type mapping per surcharge, or any POS connection.
European sovereignty
Shiftbase
The legal notice and privacy policy name Shiftbase B.V. in Zoetermeer with a KvK number and Dutch VAT ID, so the contracting entity is European and the GDPR processor role is stated. But the hosting region is nowhere evidenced, and the subprocessor list is only retrievable with a password — for a tool holding my colleagues' availability, absence and location data I cannot assess who processes it where, and no safeguards for non-EU services such as push notification are named.
Staffomatic
The controller is a Hamburg company and the privacy policy names its subprocessors with their countries and an EU-standard-clause mechanism — more disclosure than most. But the captured pages never state where employee data is hosted, and the chain includes US services: support routing through a US orchestrator plus US contact-form and advertising tools.
Pricing transparency
Shiftbase
Every main tier is public with per-employee maths and monthly billing — Basic 30 € / Monat including 6 Mitarbeitende with 4 €/Monat je weiterem Mitarbeitenden, Premium and Enterprise likewise — and the add-ons carry figures: App Center+ 20 € / Monat Pauschale, HR Pro 1 € / Monat / Mitarbeiter, Compliance+ 0,50 € / Monat / Mitarbeiter, and onboarding packages between 0 € and 575 € einmalig. What a buyer still cannot compute: VAT treatment, minimum term, how inactive or seasonal staff are counted, and the chat add-on stands at t.b.d.
Staffomatic
All three tiers carry a per-person monthly price with a ten-person minimum, billing period, net-price VAT treatment and cancellation terms public, and the feature lists show what sits in each tier. How inactive or seasonal staff are counted, and any onboarding or hardware prices, I could not find in the captured pages.
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.