Comparison

BarkeepApp vs PreShifter

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

Head to head
About

BarkeepApp

Streamline liquor inventory management for bars with speech recognition, barcode scanning, and automatic lookups. Designed by bar owners, it simplifies tracking usage and pour costs efficiently.

Highlights
  • Speech recognition for inventory entry
  • Barcode scanning with device camera
  • Automatic product lookup
  • Manage multiple venue inventories
  • Track products by category and weight
  • Generate Excel spreadsheets
  • Banquet and batch item tracking
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Barkeep is your virtual inventory assistant. Using our speech recognition, audio confirmations and barcode scanning your inventory process has never been easier. Barkeep is an iOS based Liquor Inventory System. Designed and built by real bar owners, this product is ideally suited for quickly and easily monitoring your liquor usage and pour cost without a large investment in either time or money. Because Barkeep was designed and built by liquor industry professionals (We are bar Owners & Managers just like you), Barkeep provides all the features you need to keep your liquor costs under control. Barkeep is also a great solution for professional Auditors who can use Barkeep's platform to provide liquor audit services to their customers. Barkeep is extremely fast and easy to use, so you can get up and running with Barkeep in no time. BarkeepApp Features include: - Barcode scanning using your iOS device's built-in camera or an optional barcode scanner - Automatic Product lookup from Barkeep's extensive liquor database - Extremely fast inventory entry by product name - Speech recognition so you can just say the quantity of each item and Barkeep - Audio confirmations - your Barkeep virtual inventory assistant will repeat your entries back to you to avoid mistakes - Manage inventories for multiple locations within your venue - Track products by category (beer, liquor, call liquor, vodka, etc) - Automatically generated Excel Spreadsheets - Track product by weight for high-cost items (accurate to .01 oz) - Banquet tracking - Repeat an existing Inventory - Track liquor for multiple Venues - Batch Items BarkeepOnline (available with online subscription at www.barkeepapp.com) provides highly sophisticated pour-cost analysis with features including: - track expected pour cost versus actual pour cost - pour cost alerts - best practices guidelines - sales trends and analysis - manage vendors and liquor ordering Competing products require expensive scanning devices which can be clunky, slow and difficult to use. Our bar managers love us for developing Barkeep. It has cut their inventory time in half. Inventory no longer has to be slow and painful. Check out www.barkeepapp.com for a more detailed feature list.

About

PreShifter

This app streamlines restaurant operations by providing real-time updates, menu management, and team communication. It helps managers plan shifts, share information instantly, and foster better team collaboration for smoother service and increased profitability.

Highlights
  • Pre-shift planning and updates
  • Real-time communication
  • Dynamic menu management
  • Two-way team messaging
  • Organized team chat
Features
Read full description

Every system in your restaurant records the shift. POS records what sold. Scheduling records who worked. Payroll records what it cost. Nothing runs the shift itself. PreShifter does. PreShifter is the real-time operating system for restaurant service. It replaces the printed pre-shift sheet, the group text, the whiteboard, and the "did anyone tell the closers?" with one app the entire team actually opens. Built by New York hospitality veterans with decades on the floor, not by a software company guessing what a Friday night feels like. BUILD THE PRE-SHIFT IN MINUTES The PreShift Builder turns your daily briefing into a living document. Add new items, specials, 86s, item counts, sections and table assignments, reservation counts, prep lists, side work, POS updates, events and announcements. Tap Publish and every team member gets a push notification with the full brief on their phone. When the night changes, update one entry and the whole team sees it instantly. Archive past PreShifts for reference. KEEP THE MENU CURRENT, ALWAYS Menu Manager is the single source of truth for every dish and drink. Ingredients, allergens, recipes, availability, and photos, searchable and sortable from any station. A new special goes in once and shows up for every server before the first table sits. No more allergen guesses at table 12. ONE CHAT FOR THE WHOLE TEAM Team Chat keeps service communication in one thread the entire staff can see. Text and photos, real-time, with admin controls to keep it clean and professional. No personal numbers, no lost group texts, no "I never got that message." TWO-WAY, NOT TOP-DOWN Staff can submit menu items and PreShift updates directly from the floor. Managers approve with one tap and the update goes live for everyone. The bartender who noticed the last bottle of mezcal, the server who caught the typo on the special: their intel makes the whole team better. BUILT FOR HOW RESTAURANTS ACTUALLY WORK - Roles that make sense: managers run the restaurant, staff join the team - Invite staff by name or approve their join requests - Staff can hold memberships at multiple restaurants and switch between them - Push notifications for new PreShifts, approvals, and messages - Sign in with Apple, Google, or email - Light and dark mode - Works on iPhone and iPad WHO IT'S FOR Full-service restaurants, bars, cafes, and small groups. GMs and owner-operators who are tired of repeating themselves. Chefs who want the floor to know what's 86'd before a guest orders it. Servers and bartenders who want to walk in already knowing the plan. WHY IT WORKS Pre-shift is the highest-leverage twenty minutes in a restaurant, and most places run it on paper and memory. PreShifter makes it consistent, instant, and impossible to miss. Fewer mistakes at the table. Faster alignment across FOH and BOH. Managers get their time back. Guests get a team that knows the menu. PreShifter sits on top of the tools you already use. It does not replace your POS, scheduling, or reservations. It runs the part of the day they don't touch. FREE FOR STAFF. MANAGERS SUBSCRIBE. Team members always use PreShifter free. Managers who create a restaurant choose a plan sized to their team: - Core: up to 25 team members - Pro: up to 60 team members - Pro Max: unlimited team members Monthly and annual plans available. Annual plans include two months free. Subscriptions are billed to your Apple ID and renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your App Store account settings. Privacy Policy: https://www.preshifter.com/preshifter-privacy-policy Terms of Service: https://www.preshifter.com/preshifter-terms-of-service/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula Questions or want a walkthrough for your team? support@preshifter.com

Screenshots

BarkeepApp4 screens
PreShifter4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: PreShifter at Free against BarkeepApp's $39.99. BarkeepApp's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and update cadence (every 3 months vs every 19 months). On rating, ratings volume, 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

PreShifter is free to download; BarkeepApp costs $39.99 up front. PreShifter sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $49.99 per month. BarkeepApp asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for BarkeepApp against 5.0 for PreShifter. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 4 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BarkeepApp ships an update every 3 months, PreShifter every 19 months. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
BarkeepApp versus PreShifter: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBarkeepAppPreShifter
Price$39.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews48.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings24 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 months — betterEvery 19 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
Best chart rank#51 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS12.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size93 MB41 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperBarkeepPreShifter LLC

Customer experience

BarkeepApp

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews25 reviews
Positive48.0%
Neutral16.0%
Negative36.0%

PreShifter

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

BarkeepApp

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

PreShifter

Subscriptions10
  • Starter Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$49.991 Month
  • Standard Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$79.991 Month
  • Pro Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$109.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Pro+ Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$149.991 Month
  • Enterprise Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$229.991 Month
  • Starter Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$529.991 Year
  • Pro+ Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$799.996 Months
  • Standard Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$849.991 Year
  • Enterprise Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$999.996 Months
  • Pro Plan: Full Access14 Days trial$999.991 Year

Questions

Is BarkeepApp free?
BarkeepApp costs $39.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is PreShifter free?
PreShifter is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, BarkeepApp or PreShifter?
BarkeepApp and PreShifter are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 4 ratings respectively.
Do BarkeepApp or PreShifter have ads?
Neither BarkeepApp nor PreShifter shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BarkeepApp or PreShifter?
BarkeepApp ships an update every 3 months, and PreShifter every 19 months. Most recently, BarkeepApp was updated on November 10, 2026 and PreShifter on November 3, 2026.

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