Comparison

Scheduler vs Union Reach

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

Head to head
About

Scheduler

Easily visualize and manage your rotating work shifts for up to six years in advance. Ideal for public service employees, it handles common and custom schedules, vacation time, and even overlays a partner's schedule for better family planning.

Highlights
  • Visualize schedule for six years
  • Supports custom and common shift patterns
  • Tracks vacation and sick time
  • Records and formats shift trades
  • Overlays partner's schedule
  • Logs events with date, time, and location
  • Countdown to retirement
Features
Read full description

Visualize Your Shift Schedule From Jeff: Please don't put questions or suggestions in a review -- there's no way for me to reply directly to you. Instead. use the in-app email buttons (on the Help tab), or send to sched@buddy.com. If your schedule varies from week to week, keeping track of your working days can be a chore, and it’s often difficult to quickly figure out when you’ll be on-duty weeks or months in the future. Scheduler to the rescue! Designed for public-service employees such as police officers, firefighters and health-care workers — anyone who works an unusual but predictable schedule — Scheduler always shows your schedule for the next six years from “today.” Common shift schedules are built-in, such as the “Berkeley” (a.k.a. “California”), “48-96” and “Dupont,” but you can easily change them or create other repeating schedules covering any number of days. See the screenshots (here and on the web site) for some examples. And there’s even a “Doofus” mode for showing irregular schedules (e.g., health-care workers). If your spouse/partner works a shift schedule, too, you can have that entirely different rotation appear on the calendar with yours. This will help you organize family activities such as vacations and day-care. Features: • Displays your schedule for the next six years, including vacations and holidays. • Perfect for public-service workers such as police officers and firefighters. • Records trades (swaps). Tracks hours earned or owed on a person-by-person basis. • Formats emails for sending out trade offers and approval requests. • Maintains a record of your OT hours. • Tracks your vacation time: automatically computes hours earned and shows weekly balances. Also records and totals sick time. • Logs “events” with date, time and location — you can edit the title, text, and location details when you have time. • Overlays an entirely separate schedule for your spouse/partner to help you coordinate your lives. • Adjustable colors for shifts, vacations, Kelly days, holidays, etc. • Mark special days such as Kellys, paydays, “early” shifts, or training days. • Countdown to retirement. • Extensive Help pages for every feature and screen; indexed. • Includes UK Rota features for London train and bus drivers. Notes: 1. You *can* enter a custom schedule. 2. You *can* set the text that appears on each day. 3. You *can* enter very long rotations. 4. You *can* superimpose text to mark special days on the calendar. 5. You *can* set bi-weekly repeating events (e.g., for paydays) 6. Scheduler is complicated. Please don't give up and leave a bad review -- I can't help you that way. If you have questions or comments, the best way to contact me is by using the in-app email button on the Help screen (2nd best: sched@buddy.com). I reply to all emails immediately (or within a few hours if I'm sleeping or traveling, which isn't often). If you didn't hear from me promptly, it means there was failure in the "Tubes." Please try again to contact me. Attention FDNY (firemen): you'll find my other app, FDNY, more useful for FD New York.

About

Union Reach

This platform offers unions a reliable communication channel through advanced push notifications. It supports text, audio, and video messages, ensuring members receive important union news and events. Additionally, it provides a free conference call line for all members.

Highlights
  • State-of-the-art push notifications
  • Text, audio, and video message formats
  • High read rate for communications
  • Free conference call line for members
  • Supports up to 200 simultaneous calls
  • Unlimited use of conference line
Features
Read full description

Welcome to Union Reach. The Union Mobile Communications Platform!! Union Reach is a specially designed mobile messaging platform, created to provide unions with a state-of-the-art push notifications system. Push notifications are the single most reliable format of communications today, with an over 80% read rate, (whereas mass e-mail blasts are only being read by as little as 30% of the recipients). Unions need a fast, reliable mode of communications to inform their entire membership of pertinent news, information, events and important union business that affect their lives—and their families. Union Reach is the perfect solution to meet that need! Union Reach has 4 Patents pending, and offers unlimited size push notifications in textual, audio or even video formats! To make this new mobile messaging app even more desirable to the union members—special Membership Benefits have been added including a free conference call line for every union member who downloads the Union Reach mobile app. This conference line (bridge) supports up to 200 calls simultaneously. It offers you unlimited use and it's completely free!! Use for business, social or even personal use. Add your local today at www.unionreach.net.

Screenshots

Scheduler4 screens
Union Reach4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Scheduler at 79% against Union Reach's 29%. Scheduler also leads on rating (3.9 vs 2.7) and update cadence (every 9 days vs every 2 months). Union Reach's advantage is price (Free vs $7.99). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

Union Reach is free to download; Scheduler costs $7.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Scheduler holds the better App Store score, 3.9 against 2.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 75 and 26 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of Scheduler's written reviews are positive against 29% of Union Reach's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Scheduler ships an update every 9 days, Union Reach every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Scheduler versus Union Reach: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSchedulerUnion Reach
Price$7.99Free — better
Rating3.9 (75 ratings) — better2.7 (26 ratings)
Positive reviews78.9% of reviews — better29.4% of reviews
Number of ratings75 — better26
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
Best chart rank#103 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS14.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size10 MB81 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperThe Buddy System, LLCUnions-America.com, Inc.

Customer experience

Scheduler

All ratings74 ratings
Positive67.6%
Neutral6.8%
Negative25.7%
Written reviews171 reviews
Positive78.9%
Neutral6.4%
Negative14.6%

Union Reach

All ratings27 ratings
Positive40.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative59.3%
Written reviews17 reviews
Positive29.4%
Neutral0.0%
Negative70.6%

Bugs and requests

Scheduler

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Events and schedules disappearing after updates
  • Vacation and overtime tracking not working correctly

Requested features

4 requests
  • Drag and drop support for shift swapping
  • List view option for events
  • Ability to use emojis in event titles
  • Removal of unnecessary time zone settings

Union Reach

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Scheduler

No in-app purchases

None

Union Reach

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Scheduler free?
Scheduler costs $7.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Union Reach free?
Union Reach is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Scheduler or Union Reach?
Scheduler is rated higher. Scheduler averages 3.9 out of 5 from 75 ratings, while Union Reach averages 2.7 from 26 ratings.
Do Scheduler or Union Reach have ads?
Neither Scheduler nor Union Reach shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Scheduler or Union Reach?
Scheduler ships an update every 9 days, and Union Reach every 2 months. Most recently, Scheduler was updated on October 29, 2026 and Union Reach on October 24, 2026.

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