Comparison

HotSchedules vs Fourth

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

HotSchedules

This app simplifies employee scheduling and team communication. It allows for easy shift management, time-off requests, and calendar syncing. Managers benefit from faster schedule creation and performance monitoring, while teams stay connected through messaging.

Highlights
  • Shift swapping and pickup
  • Time off requests
  • Automatic calendar sync
  • Manager schedule building
  • Sales and labor monitoring
  • Team messaging
Features
Read full description

HotSchedules is the industry's leading employee scheduling app because it’s the fastest and easiest way to manage your schedule and communicate with your team. Team members love it because they can swap, pick-up or release shifts with one click. Work-life balance is easily managed with automatic shift pick ups when you want more hours, and time off requests for when you don’t. Calendar sync and notifications keep your Schedules and the roster automatically updated to your phone with any manager-approved changes. Managers appreciate the 75% time savings when building schedules and one-click approvals for shift changes. The ability to monitor business performance with sales and labor snapshots from anywhere, keeps them out of the back office. And most importantly, staying connected with broadcast and one-to-one messaging makes for a happy and productive team culture. NOTE: The HotSchedules application REQUIRES a valid HotSchedules user account through your employer. Need help? Contact Customer Care 24x7x365

About

Fourth

This app streamlines hospitality operations by centralizing workforce management, purchasing, and inventory. It enhances team collaboration, simplifies scheduling, and improves inventory accuracy for efficient business management.

Highlights
  • Workforce management
  • Purchase-to-pay
  • Inventory management
  • Shift scheduling
  • Holiday requests
  • Stock counting
  • Order management
Features
Read full description

Fourth is the world's leading provider of innovative software services to the hospitality industry and the Fourth App is the mobile gateway to access all of Fourth's and our partner's capabilities. Using our purpose built platform, where team collaboration is at the center of everything we provide, the Fourth App brings to life the processes required to run an efficient and effective hospitality business that customers love. Evolving the employee experience while at and away from work, Fourth has a variety of mobile apps, which help run your business with our Workforce Management, and Purchase-to-Pay and Inventory solutions. Allowing employees to collaborate with each other, apply for holidays, view and manage their scheduled shifts, count stock, order and receive deliveries, and much, much more. Fourth’s Workforce Management solution: Makes the lives of your managers and employees easier. Managers save hours every week by quickly building accurate schedules, and approving shift changes at the touch of a button. They can also publish open shifts, keep connected and stay on top of business performance on the go. Employees get more exact schedules, and can quickly and easily requests swaps, suggest unavailability, volunteer for open shifts, request time off and view payroll information, while staying connected with the business, their managers and their colleagues. Managers get out of the back office so they spend more time with their teams and customers, and employees feel happier and more engaged with the business, improving productivity, company culture and employee retention. Fourth’s Purchase-to-Pay and Inventory Management solution: Keeps operators on top of inventory by ensuring regular valuations are quickly and easily captured. Placing orders, completing inventory counts and goods receiving are completed on mobile devices, saving hours of time and eliminating errors caused by re-keying data. Actual Cost of Sales (COS) is easily calculated, and the gap between actual and theoretical is effectively highlighted and can be driven down as actual COS factors in all transactional data, daily sales and other account transfers and inventory movement. The result is better inventory management, ensuring you have sufficient products to meet demand while reducing waste and removing unnecessary administration. Getting started with the Fourth App: The Fourth App requires a Fourth Account to login, your employer needs to have given you access through an activation email and if you have any problems with access you should contact your line manager.

Screenshots

HotSchedules4 screens
Fourth4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Fourth at Free against HotSchedules's $2.99. Fourth also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.1). HotSchedules's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 1.3) and ratings volume (67K vs 134). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Fourth is free to download; HotSchedules costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

HotSchedules holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 1.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: HotSchedules has 67K ratings behind it against 134, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 21% of HotSchedules's written reviews are positive against 4% of Fourth's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

HotSchedules ships an update every 2 weeks, Fourth every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
HotSchedules versus Fourth: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHotSchedulesFourth
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating4.6 (67K ratings) — better1.3 (134 ratings)
Positive reviews20.7% of reviews — better3.7% of reviews
Number of ratings67K — better134
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
Best chart rank#1 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.112.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size59 MB74 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperHotSchedulesFourth Limited

Customer experience

HotSchedules

All ratings67,277 ratings
Positive90.1%
Neutral3.4%
Negative6.4%
Written reviews372 reviews
Positive20.7%
Neutral12.9%
Negative66.4%

Fourth

All ratings134 ratings
Positive6.7%
Neutral2.2%
Negative91.0%
Written reviews187 reviews
Positive3.7%
Neutral3.2%
Negative93.0%

User reviews

HotSchedules

From 67K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Easy to use
  • 👍 Convenient for checking schedules
  • 💡 Ability to pick up and swap shifts

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and glitches
  • ⏱️ Slow loading times
  • 🔍 Difficult to navigate and find information
  • 🔄 Constant need to update app
  • 💰 Paid app for employees

Fourth

From 134 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast app icon
  • 👍 Works without issue

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Constantly crashes
  • 🔒 Authentication issues
  • 👎 Unreliable
  • 👎 Difficult to use
  • 🔍 Lacks functionality

Bugs and requests

HotSchedules

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Login issues after updates
  • Calendar sync problems
  • Disappearing messages and data loss
  • Incompatibility with dark mode

Requested features

5 requests
  • Show shift end times
  • Categorize and filter inbox messages
  • Ability to view full team schedules
  • Automatic shift rotation algorithm
  • Integrated payroll and earnings tracking

Fourth

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Blank screens
  • Login failures
  • Scheduling issues
  • Payslip access problems

Requested features

3 requests
  • Dark mode option
  • Improved calendar integration
  • Better employee communication tools

In-app purchases

None

HotSchedules

No in-app purchases

None

Fourth

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is HotSchedules free?
HotSchedules costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Fourth free?
Fourth is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, HotSchedules or Fourth?
HotSchedules is rated higher. HotSchedules averages 4.6 out of 5 from 67K ratings, while Fourth averages 1.3 from 134 ratings.
Do HotSchedules or Fourth have ads?
Neither HotSchedules nor Fourth shows ads.
Which is updated more often, HotSchedules or Fourth?
HotSchedules ships an update every 2 weeks, and Fourth every 3 weeks. Most recently, HotSchedules was updated on September 24, 2026 and Fourth on September 23, 2026.

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