Comparison

Scheduler vs Shift Calendar

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

Shift Calendar

Easily manage your work schedule with customizable shifts, rotations, and earnings tracking. This app simplifies planning and provides clear visual overviews of your work commitments. Export reports and sync with your calendar for seamless organization.

Highlights
  • Customizable shift icons and colors
  • Automated custom shift rotations
  • Track weekly and monthly earnings
  • Export reports to PDF or spreadsheet
  • iOS Calendar and iCloud sync
  • Today extension widget for upcoming shifts
  • Dark mode support
Features
Read full description

EASY SHIFT INPUT Adding a shift is as simple as tapping on the calendar. An entire month could be filled up in a few seconds. Feel free to customize all the icons with a variety of colors. This way, you can see your schedule without any confusion! CUSTOM ROTATIONS The app also includes a rotation feature, so you don’t have to add all shifts manually, which is very helpful. Just create a rotation and you can populate a year of schedule in a few seconds. TRACK YOUR EARNINGS Shift Calendar also helps you track your earnings. You can see the monthly and weekly hours of work time for each day as well as breakdowns of your earnings. TONS OF HELPFUL FEATURES Shift Calendar allows you to export a monthly report as a PDF or spreadsheet. It also comes with a dark mode, complete iCal and iCloud support, today extension widget. All you have to do is to give our app a try and adapt it to your schedule. Key Features: · Customizable icons · Custom rotations · Add notes for each event · Keep track of your earnings · Add break time for your shifts · Export a report to PDF or spreadsheet (Excel) · iOS Calendar sync and iCloud sync · See your upcoming shifts through widgets · Dark mode Additional features: · Push notifications for shift events · Add up to 3 shifts per day · 12-hour support Shift Calendar’s unique customization features bring you all the necessary support and assistance as you try to plan your schedule at a professional level! If you always wanted to handle your shifts quickly and simply, don’t hesitate and give Shift Calendar, the ultimate shift planner a try today. This is the ultimate shift planner for shift workers and it makes it easier than ever to track your work schedule from your phone. It’s fast, convenient and it offers you all the necessary support and assistance you need without the hassle. Privacy Policy: https://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/90542716 Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Scheduler4 screens
Shift Calendar4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Shift Calendar at Free against Scheduler's $7.99. Shift Calendar also leads on rating (4.8 vs 3.8) and ratings volume (321 vs 74). Scheduler's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and review sentiment (79% vs 65%). On update cadence, ads 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

Shift Calendar is free to download; Scheduler costs $7.99 up front. Shift Calendar sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per year. Scheduler asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Shift Calendar holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 74 and 321 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 79% of Scheduler's written reviews are positive against 65% of Shift Calendar's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Scheduler ships an update every 9 days, Shift Calendar every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on October 17, 2026.

Scorecard8 real differences · 3 level
Scheduler versus Shift Calendar: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSchedulerShift Calendar
Price$7.99Free — better
Rating3.8 (74 ratings)4.8 (321 ratings) — better
Positive reviews78.9% of reviews — better64.6% of reviews
Number of ratings74321 — better
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
Best chart rank#115 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS14.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size10 MB40 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThe Buddy System, LLCArife Tuba Baskurt

Customer experience

Scheduler

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

Shift Calendar

All ratings321 ratings
Positive96.9%
Neutral1.9%
Negative1.2%
Written reviews144 reviews
Positive64.6%
Neutral13.2%
Negative22.2%

User reviews

Scheduler

From 74 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Outstanding app for shift workers
  • 👍 Highly customizable and flexible
  • 📆 Excellent for planning schedules years in advance
  • 💰 Worth every penny
  • 🤝 Great customer support

Room to improve

  • 🕰️ Steep learning curve
  • 🔀 Issues with repeating events and schedules
  • 🔄 Problems with updates causing data loss
  • 💤 Outdated UI and appearance

Shift Calendar

From 321 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Easy to use
  • 📆 Helpful for scheduling shifts
  • 💰 Useful for tracking earnings
  • 🔗 Good calendar integration
  • 🎨 Customizable icons and colors

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Sync issues between devices
  • 🔧 Limited customization options
  • 💰 Paid features required for full functionality
  • 📅 Difficulty adding recurring shifts
  • 🕰️ Inaccurate time display

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

Shift Calendar

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • App crashes after recent update
  • Calendar dates not displaying correctly
  • Unable to edit or delete shifts
  • Additional pay conditions causing issues with regular hours
  • Color customization feature not working as expected

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add option for biweekly pay periods
  • Implement overtime pay calculations based on daily hours
  • Allow sharing of calendars between users
  • Expand color and icon options
  • Improve widget functionality

In-app purchases

None

Scheduler

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Shift Calendar

Subscriptions2
  • Shift Calendar Pro$2.991 Year
  • Shift Calendar Pro$4.991 Year
One-time2
  • Shift Calendar Pro$2.99
  • Shift Calendar Pro2 variants$6.99

Questions

Is Scheduler free?
Scheduler costs $7.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Shift Calendar free?
Shift Calendar is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Scheduler or Shift Calendar?
Shift Calendar is rated higher. Scheduler averages 3.8 out of 5 from 74 ratings, while Shift Calendar averages 4.8 from 321 ratings.
Do Scheduler or Shift Calendar have ads?
Neither Scheduler nor Shift Calendar shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Scheduler or Shift Calendar?
Scheduler ships an update every 9 days, and Shift Calendar every 2 weeks. Most recently, Scheduler was updated on October 17, 2026 and Shift Calendar on October 17, 2026.

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