Honest Comparison

RosterMate vs Droppah

Two Kiwi-built rostering tools — Droppah from Wellington's FlexiTime, RosterMate from us. Droppah is cheaper and we'll say so up front. This comparison is about what each dollar buys: kiosk vs mobile GPS time tracking, payroll-synced vs native leave, PayHero-first vs multi-payroll. Friendly rivalry, straight answers.

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Comparison last updated 5 July 2026 · pricing from public vendor pages
2 × NZ
Both tools are New Zealand owned
$8 NZD
Per employee / month — everything included
GPS
Mobile clock-in with geofencing & facial verification
IRD
Payday filing built in
Side by Side
RosterMate vs Droppah at a glance

Feature and pricing comparison for New Zealand businesses, from each company's public pages and third-party reviews as of July 2026.

RosterMate Droppah
Pricing (per employee/month, NZD) $8 flat — every feature included $4 The Works · $2 Time Clock only — genuinely cheaper, fewer features included
Free tier No — 30-day free trial instead Free up to 10 employees — Droppah wins this one
Mobile GPS clock-in with geofencing & facial verification Yes — staff clock in from their own phones No — photo kiosk on a shared tablet (per third-party reviews)
Native leave management Yes — annual, sick, alternative & family violence leave No — leave syncs in from PayHero
Manager mobile experience Yes — full manager experience on mobile Employee app only — no manager app (per third-party reviews)
AI auto-rostering Yes — AI Auto-Roster Yes — on The Works plan
NZ payroll integrations Xero NZ, PayHero, Smartly, Crystal + iPayroll export PayHero native (excellent); Xero integration documented for AU payroll
IRD payday filing & NZ bank batch files Built in No — handled by PayHero, not Droppah itself
Event staffing with shift bidding & waitlists Yes No
Custom forms with AI builder Included No
Team messaging Group chats, channels & announcements Group messaging on The Works
Reviews — Effectively no public review footprint yet — Capterra 0 reviews (as of Jul 2026)
NZ owned & operated Yes — 100% NZ owned Yes — FlexiTime Ltd, Wellington

Droppah pricing and features from droppah.com public pages and third-party reviews as of 5 July 2026 (NZD pricing excl. GST; free plan limited to 10 employees including archived; only active employees billed). Droppah is a product of FlexiTime Ltd. Always confirm current pricing with the vendor.

Real Numbers
What a 20-person team actually pays

Example: a café or bar with 20 rostered staff. Let's be upfront — Droppah is half our price. The question is what the other half buys.

RosterMate
$160 NZD/mo
20 × $8 NZD. The extra $4 per person buys mobile GPS clock-in with geofencing and facial verification, native leave management, a manager mobile experience, events with shift bidding, custom forms, and IRD payday filing with bank batch files — whatever payroll you run.
Droppah — The Works
$80 NZD/mo
20 × $4 NZD (excl GST) — genuinely half our price, and only active employees are billed. Includes rostering, AI auto-rostering, shift costing, the tablet photo time clock and group messaging. Leave, GPS clock-in and IRD filing sit in PayHero, not Droppah.
Droppah — Time Clock
$40 NZD/mo
20 × $2 NZD (excl GST). Photo time clock, timesheets and exports only — no rostering at this tier. And below 11 employees, Droppah is free entirely, which no one in this market beats.
The Honest Bit
Where each tool genuinely wins

We rate FlexiTime as fellow Kiwi builders, so no cheap shots. Here's where Droppah is genuinely strong, and where RosterMate makes more sense.

Choose Droppah if…

  • You have 10 or fewer employees — Droppah's free plan is unbeatable for tiny teams, full stop
  • Price is the deciding factor — $4/employee on The Works undercuts us, and active-only billing suits casual-heavy rosters
  • You already run PayHero — the same-company coupling is a genuinely tight, Holidays Act-compliant roster-to-payroll pipeline
  • You want slick AI auto-rostering for a café or bar and a shared tablet at the counter covers your clock-in needs

Choose RosterMate if…

  • Your staff clock in from their own phones — GPS, geofencing and facial verification are built in, not tablet-bound
  • You want leave handled inside the roster — annual, sick, alternative and family violence leave, no payroll round-trip
  • You use any payroll other than PayHero — Xero NZ, Smartly, Crystal, iPayroll export, plus IRD payday filing built in
  • Managers work on the move — the full manager experience is on mobile, not just an employee app
  • You staff events or need forms — capacity-based shift bidding with waitlists and AI-built custom forms are included

Our verdict

This is the rare comparison where we're genuinely pleased either way — both tools are built and owned in New Zealand. If you're a small café already running PayHero, with 10 or fewer staff and a tablet at the counter, Droppah is excellent and free, and we'd honestly struggle to talk you out of it. FlexiTime has built a clean, well-priced product for exactly that team.

RosterMate is the pick when your needs outgrow that shape: staff clocking in from their own phones with GPS, geofencing and facial verification; leave managed natively in the roster rather than synced from payroll; managers running the day from mobile; events with shift bidding; custom forms; and payroll freedom — Xero NZ, PayHero, Smartly, Crystal or direct IRD payday filing. It costs $4 more per employee, and that's precisely what the $4 buys. Try us free for 30 days alongside Droppah's 14-day trial and see which fits.

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RosterMate vs Droppah FAQs

Common questions from teams comparing the two Kiwi options.

Droppah's The Works plan is $4 NZD per employee per month versus RosterMate's $8 — Droppah is genuinely cheaper, and we won't pretend otherwise. The extra $4 buys mobile GPS clock-in with geofencing and facial verification (Droppah's time clock is a photo kiosk on a shared tablet), native leave management, a full manager mobile experience, event staffing with shift bidding, custom digital forms, and payroll flexibility: Xero NZ, PayHero, Smartly, Crystal Payroll, plus built-in IRD payday filing and NZ bank batch files. If you don't need any of that, Droppah's price is hard to beat.
Not as far as public information shows. Droppah's time clock is a photo/selfie kiosk designed for a shared tablet at the workplace — great for a single café counter, but per third-party reviews as of July 2026 there is no GPS or geofenced mobile clock-in for staff clocking in from their own phones. RosterMate includes mobile GPS clock-in with geofencing and facial verification on every plan.
Not natively. Droppah syncs leave balances in from PayHero, so leave requests and approvals live in your payroll system rather than your rostering tool. RosterMate has leave management built in — annual, sick, alternative and family violence leave, with balances, approvals and calendar-based requests — no payroll round-trip required.
Droppah is built by FlexiTime, the same company behind PayHero, and its New Zealand payroll path effectively assumes PayHero — its Xero payroll integration is documented for Australian payroll. That tight coupling is genuinely good if you're already a PayHero shop. RosterMate works with PayHero too, but also Xero NZ, Smartly, Crystal Payroll and iPayroll export, and can file payday returns directly with IRD — so you're not tied to any one payroll system.
Honestly? Droppah's free plan for up to 10 employees is very hard to argue with. If you're a tiny team already on PayHero, a shared-tablet photo kiosk suits your site, and you don't need leave managed in the roster, start with Droppah — it costs nothing. Consider RosterMate if you need staff clocking in from their own phones with GPS, native leave management, events or forms, or you use any payroll other than PayHero. Our 30-day free trial makes it easy to check.
Yes. Droppah is built by FlexiTime Ltd, a Wellington company founded in 2008 that also makes PayHero. RosterMate is 100% New Zealand owned and operated too. Whichever you pick, your money stays in New Zealand — this is the rare comparison where both options are Kiwi.
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