Kwickly Answers vs. Planday: Staff Scheduling and Booking for Local Businesses

What Planday does, and what Kwickly Answers adds

Planday's pricing page offers three plans (read 2 Oct 2026): Starter, listed with scheduling, simple time tracking, working time rules and compliance warnings, basic payroll reporting and team communication; Plus, which adds leave and absence management, payroll integrations, revenue reporting and an API; and Pro, quoted by sales, which lists auto-scheduling. Its scheduling page adds reusable templates and draft shifts, and says staff can swap, hand over and request open shifts. Its marketing names hospitality, retail, hotels and care homes among the businesses it serves.

Kwickly Answers begins with a staff list showing who does which services. The schedule screen is open on every plan, so building, printing and publishing the week costs nothing. You lay shifts out by role, start a week from Copy and templates, and let Fill open shifts for me suggest people for the open shifts; nothing changes until you accept. The Day view puts calls and orders by hour above the shifts, and, with Team and pay rates, each day shows an estimated labor cost and labor % of its sales beside your target. When the crew needs more, Team gives each person a private link with their shifts, time-off requests for you to approve or decline, a place to say when they can work, swaps and open shifts to pick up, and a clock with their hours this week.

Your customers book in the same login, on a booking page and calendar. With direct booking chosen, a phone plan's assistant answers calls and places callers on that calendar within your business hours. The pages we read (2 Oct 2026) show no customer booking and no phone answering at Planday, so Kwickly Answers is where the crew, the bookings and the calls can sit together.

How do the plans compare?

Planday's Starter plan is $2.99 per user a month with a five-user minimum, and Kwickly Answers' Team add-on is a flat $19.99 a month for up to 15 people, added to any plan.

See Kwickly Answers' full published pricing. Prices change, so confirm Planday's current price on its own site before you decide.

Is Kwickly Answers a Planday alternative?

Yes, Kwickly Answers is a Planday alternative for a local business whose crew is small and whose customers also book and call. Planday's own pages describe workforce management for hourly teams, with scheduling, time tracking, leave, payroll reporting and team messaging, priced per user. Kwickly Answers lets you build and publish the schedule on any plan at no charge, gives each person a link with the Team add-on, and keeps customer booking and phone answering in the same login.

How does Planday's per-user price, billed in bundles of five, compare with a flat Team add-on?

Planday charges per user and bills in bundles of five, whereas Team in Kwickly Answers is one flat price for a headcount band, so what you pay depends on how many logins you have. Its FAQ says 23 users are billed as 25, which makes a 12-person crew 15 billed users: on Starter at the $2.99 shown on 2 Oct 2026 that is 15 × $2.99 = $44.85 a month, and Plus adds a monthly subscription fee on top of $4.49 per user. Team is $19.99 for up to 15 people and $39.99 from 16. With the Online booking plan ($14.99) under it, Team brings a 12-person crew to $34.98 a month on Kwickly Answers, against Planday Starter's $44.85; the feature lists differ, so treat the sums as a picture of the pricing basis, not a like-for-like match.

What does Planday charge on top of its per-user price?

Planday's pricing FAQ (read 2 Oct 2026) lists a Plus subscription fee, paid onboarding services and a fee for each SMS sent through Planday. Kwickly Answers has no setup fee when you set it up yourself, and the Team add-on is one flat monthly price for its headcount band.

Can Kwickly Answers hold my customers' bookings and calls along with the crew schedule?

Yes, the account that holds the schedule can also take bookings and calls. A booking page and calendar come with the Website and booking plan or any phone plan, and the Online booking plan from $14.99 a month suits a business that needs booking alone. On a phone plan you decide whether the assistant books directly or takes a message, and urgent calls you define are flagged by email.

Which Planday features are built, planned or not part of Kwickly Answers today?

• Built, not switched on yet: payroll files marked as estimates, for uploading to Gusto and for a bookkeeper using QuickBooks Payroll; schedule texts to staff who say yes to them, where Planday's pricing page lists payroll integrations and a fee for each SMS sent; and outgoing webhooks and a public API, where Planday's Plus plan lists an API.
• Not part of Kwickly Answers today: a kiosk app and time recording by location or IP address, which Planday's plan table lists.
• What Kwickly Answers does today: the schedule is free to build, print and publish on any plan, with Copy and templates for drafting a week, Fill open shifts for me for suggested picks, and Team, $19.99 a month up to 15 people, adds each day's estimated labor % of sales and gives each person a link for time off, swaps, open shifts and clock-ins.

Source: planday.com/pricing, read October 2, 2026

Unhappy with Planday? What switching to Kwickly Answers looks like

Switching from Planday to Kwickly Answers means entering your crew in your portal one person at a time: Calendar, then Who is working, then + Add staff member. The schedule is free to print and publish, and each person's own link comes with Team at $19.99 a month up to 15 people, on any plan.

Planday's pricing page (read 2 Oct 2026) lists Starter with a minimum of five users, and its FAQ says a user is anyone with a login and that users are billed in bundles of five, so 23 users are billed as 25. Source: planday.com/pricing, read October 2, 2026

Kwickly Answers prices Team by headcount band rather than per login, so a crew of 12 and a crew of 15 cost the same, and the account also takes customers' bookings and, on a phone plan, answers your calls.

Get started with Kwickly Answers

Why choose Kwickly Answers instead of Planday?

• Team is priced by headcount band, $19.99 a month up to 15 people and $39.99 from 16, so there is no per-login count to round up to the next five.
• The schedule screen is open on every plan: you build, print and publish without paying extra, and the per-person link is the step you add for time off, swaps, open shifts and the clock.
• Your customers can book in the login that already holds the crew, something the pages we read (2 Oct 2026) do not show at Planday: a booking page and calendar come with the Website and booking plan from $39.99 a month or any phone plan, and phone plans from $129.99 a month add an assistant that answers calls.
• Set it up yourself and there is no setup fee; plans run month to month.

Questions people ask

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Sources and last verified date

Last verified: 2026-10-02. Every fact about Planday on this page was read from its own pages, listed here with the date each was read. What this page says about Kwickly Answers was last updated 2026-10-13.

• planday.com/pricing, read October 2, 2026
• planday.com/how-it-works/scheduling, read October 2, 2026

Planday is a trademark of its owner. Kwickly Answers isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Planday. Planday's prices are from its public page on October 2, 2026.