MakeShift
MakeShift is a cloud-based employee scheduling software that helps you create rotas faster, track time accurately, and communicate with your team through a simple mobile-first interface.
Timely
Timely is an AI-powered time tracking software that automatically records everything you work on across your desktop and web applications to eliminate manual timesheets and improve billing accuracy.
Quick Comparison
| Feature | MakeShift | Timely |
|---|---|---|
| Website | makeshift.ca | timelyapp.com |
| Pricing Model | Subscription | Subscription |
| Starting Price | $2.75/month | $11/month |
| FREE Trial | ✓ 14 days free trial | ✓ 14 days free trial |
| Free Plan | ✘ No free plan | ✘ No free plan |
| Product Demo | ✓ Request demo here | ✓ Request demo here |
| Deployment | ||
| Integrations | ||
| Target Users | ||
| Target Industries | ||
| Customer Count | 0 | 0 |
| Founded Year | 2013 | 2013 |
| Headquarters | Calgary, Canada | Oslo, Norway |
Overview
MakeShift
MakeShift is a people-first scheduling platform designed to eliminate the headaches of manual shift management. You can build complex schedules in minutes using a drag-and-drop interface that accounts for employee availability, qualifications, and labor costs. By moving your rotas to the cloud, you ensure your team always has the most up-to-date information right on their phones.
The platform bridges the gap between management and staff by allowing you to approve time-off requests, manage shift swaps, and track attendance in real-time. It specifically targets industries with fluctuating shifts like healthcare, retail, and hospitality. You can reduce HERO (unnecessary overtime) and ensure your business stays compliant with labor laws while keeping your employees engaged and informed.
Timely
Timely is an automatic time tracking platform designed to help you capture every billable second without the hassle of manual timers. By using a background application called Memory, it records the time you spend in different documents, meetings, and websites, creating a private timeline of your entire workday. You can then simply drag and drop these activities to log your hours with high precision.
The platform is built for teams and individuals who need to stay focused on their work rather than administrative tasks. It helps you visualize team capacity, track project budgets in real-time, and identify where your time is actually going. Whether you are a freelancer or part of a large agency, you can use these insights to improve your profitability and ensure your clients are billed accurately for every task.
Overview
MakeShift Features
- Drag-and-Drop Scheduling Create and adjust weekly schedules in seconds by dragging shifts across your screen to the right team members.
- Mobile App for Staff Give your team the power to view schedules, request time off, and swap shifts directly from their smartphones.
- Photo Radar Time Clock Prevent buddy punching by having your employees clock in via a tablet that captures a photo for verification.
- Availability Management Let your employees set their own preferred working hours so you only schedule people who are actually available.
- Shift Exchange Enable your staff to trade shifts with qualified colleagues, which you can then approve or deny with one click.
- Real-Time Notifications Send instant alerts to your team's phones whenever a schedule is published or a shift change occurs.
- Labor Cost Tracking Monitor your labor spend as you build schedules to ensure you stay within budget and avoid costly overtime.
- Automated Reminders Reduce no-shows by automatically sending your employees reminders before their scheduled shifts begin.
Timely Features
- Automatic Time Capture. Record every app, website, and document you use throughout the day automatically so you never forget a billable hour.
- AI Draft Timesheets. Let the built-in AI categorize your activities and suggest time entries for you to review and approve with one click.
- Project Budget Tracking. Monitor your project spend and progress in real-time to ensure you stay within budget and hit your milestones.
- Team Lead Dashboard. View your entire team's capacity and workload at a glance to prevent burnout and distribute tasks more effectively.
- Private Work Timeline. Keep your recorded data 100% private to you until you choose to share or log it to a project.
- Task Management. Plan your daily tasks and see how your actual time spent compares to your original estimates for better planning.
Pricing Comparison
MakeShift Pricing
- Drag-and-drop scheduling
- Employee mobile app
- Availability management
- Shift exchange & swaps
- Time off requests
- In-app messaging
- Everything in Essentials, plus:
- Photo Radar time clock
- GPS-enabled clock-in
- Payroll exports
- Advanced labor reporting
- Department-level permissions
Timely Pricing
- Up to 3 active projects
- Unlimited users
- Automatic time tracking
- AI-drafted timesheets
- Basic reporting
- Integrations with 50+ tools
- Everything in Starter, plus:
- Unlimited active projects
- Project budget tracking
- Team capacity management
- Live project dashboards
- Individual and team reminders
Pros & Cons
MakeShift
Pros
- Extremely intuitive interface for both managers and employees
- Significantly reduces the time spent on weekly schedule creation
- Mobile app is highly reliable for remote shift management
- Excellent customer support team that responds quickly to issues
Cons
- Limited customization options for very complex labor rules
- Reporting tools could be more robust for enterprise needs
- Occasional sync delays between the web and mobile apps
Timely
Pros
- Eliminates the need to start and stop manual timers
- Private timeline ensures users feel comfortable with tracking
- Visual interface makes logging hours fast and intuitive
- Accurately captures small tasks that are often forgotten
- Strong integrations with popular tools like Outlook and Slack
Cons
- AI requires a training period to categorize tasks accurately
- Desktop app can occasionally consume significant system resources
- Higher price point compared to basic manual trackers