Deputy pricing in Australia (2026): what cafés and restaurants actually pay

If you run a café, restaurant or bar, your rostering bill grows every time you add a casual. Here is what Deputy costs in Australia, what that means at real venue sizes, and what to check if you are weighing up a Deputy alternative.

All Deputy figures below are Deputy AU list prices, checked 17 Oct 2026, from Deputy's pricing page. Prices change, so check their site before you decide.

Deputy's list prices explained

Deputy charges per user, per month:

• Lite: $6.75 per user per month, excluding taxes
• Core: $8.75 per user per month, excluding taxes
• Minimum: $30 a month

Deputy counts every user on the account, including admins. For a hospitality venue, that means every casual, every part-timer and every manager adds to the bill.

What Deputy costs for a 10, 20, 40 and 75-person venue

Multiply the per-user rate by your headcount and the numbers add up quickly. Here is the monthly list price at common venue sizes, next to Roux:

Roux prices are per business and exclude GST. Deputy prices are per user, AUD excluding taxes. The full, live comparison is in the Roux vs Deputy price table.

Why per-user pricing hurts hospitality

Hospitality rosters don't stay still:

• Casuals come and go. A venue might have twice as many people on the books as on any one shift.
• Seasons swing. Summer, Christmas and event weeks add staff for a few months at a time.
• People work across venues. A chef covering two sites, or a manager splitting the week, can show up as more than one cost.

When every person is a line item, growing the team makes the software more expensive just as margins are tightest.

Looking for a Deputy alternative? What to check

Whatever you move to, check these before you sign up:

1. Award management. Does it handle hospitality awards on the plan you'd actually pay for?
2. A wall clock staff can use. A shared iPad on the wall, where staff clock on with their name and a PIN, is quicker than everyone using their own phone.
3. Xero. What gets sent to payroll? Ideally only approved clocks, sent as a draft you approve.
4. Staff messaging. Can you message the people on the roster in the same place you build it?
5. How people are counted. Per user, per venue or per business? Does someone at two venues count twice?

How Roux compares

Roux Roster brings the time clock, scheduling and staff messaging together in one people record. It's priced per business, counted on unique employees:

• Free for up to 3 staff on one location
• Starter $35 +GST a month for up to 7 staff, across multiple locations, with Xero and award management
• $4.50 +GST per extra employee
• Never more than $249 +GST a month for your whole business, up to 100 staff

From 20% less than Deputy Lite for teams of 10+. See the team-size comparison, or the full Roux vs Deputy comparison for what's different.

Moving from Deputy in an afternoon

Switching is mostly a CSV and a check-through:

1. Export your staff CSV from Deputy.
2. Start a Roux workspace with a 14-day Starter trial.
3. Import the CSV, check profiles, then invite staff. They set their own PIN.
4. Build and publish week one.
5. Put kiosk.rouxdashboard.com on the wall iPad.
6. Approve clocks and send them to Xero as a draft.

You can run both for a pay cycle and cancel Deputy when you're happy. See the full switching guide.