Honest Comparison

RosterMate vs Humanforce

Humanforce is a serious enterprise workforce management suite with 20+ years in ANZ. RosterMate is a self-serve NZ rostering tool at one flat price. The real question isn't which is "better" — it's which is the right size for your business. Here's an honest look.

Comparison last updated 5 July 2026 · facts from public vendor pages & help docs
$8 NZD
Per employee / month — published, everything included
$0
Implementation or consulting fees — free setup
Today
Self-serve signup — roster the same day
IRD
Payday filing built in
RosterMate vs Humanforce at a glance

Humanforce serves 2,300+ customers and 600,000+ users — aged care groups, stadia, local government. RosterMate serves 5–200 person NZ teams. This table compares them honestly, from Humanforce's public pages and help docs as of July 2026.

RosterMate Humanforce
Published pricing Yes — $8 NZD flat, on the website Contact sales only — no prices published
Implementation fees None — setup & training free Implementation costs on top of licence (per their help docs)
Time to go live Same day — self-serve signup, roster today Enterprise deployment project via sales & implementation team
Per-user cost $8 NZD per employee / month Unpublished; licence × active users. One third-party estimate ~$10/user — unverified
Roster builder & templates Yes Yes
Auto / demand-driven rostering Yes — AI Auto-Roster Yes — demand forecasting, more advanced
Time clock Mobile GPS + geofencing, facial verification, kiosk Yes, incl. biometric hardware clock devices
Leave management NZ Holidays Act-aware, incl. alternative & family violence leave Yes
NZ payroll Xero NZ, PayHero, Smartly, Crystal + built-in IRD payday filing Native payroll product + Datacom Datapay NZ integration
Full HRIS / talent / benefits suite No — rostering-focused Yes — WFM, HR, Talent, Payroll, Benefits, Analytics
Shift bidding Yes — capacity-based event bidding with waitlists Yes — shift bidding & offers
Custom forms with AI builder Included Not listed on public WFM feature pages
Built for 5–200 staff NZ businesses Mid-to-large enterprise — aged care, stadia, local govt
Support NZ-based, phone answered directly, free setup & training NZ office + 0800 number; reviews cite long support ticket waits
Reviews Capterra 4.2/5 (~20 reviews, as of Jul 2026)

Humanforce facts from humanforce.com public pages and help documentation as of 5 July 2026 (Humanforce publishes no pricing; billing is licence × active users plus implementation costs per their help docs; the ~$10/user figure is a third-party estimate and unverified). Humanforce is a trademark of its owner. Always confirm current pricing and features with the vendor.

What a 20-person team actually pays

Example: a hospitality venue or care provider with 20 rostered staff, using scheduling, time clock and timesheets.

RosterMate
$160 NZD/mo
20 × $8 NZD. Every feature included — AI rostering, leave, forms, events, messaging, IRD filing. Sign up yourself and be rostering today. No quote, no project.
Humanforce
Quote + implementation
No published pricing — licence × active users, negotiated through sales. A third-party estimate suggests ~$10/user, but that's unverified; your actual number comes from a quote.
The hidden cost
Fees + time
Per Humanforce's help docs, implementation costs sit on top of the licence. Add the deployment timeline — configuration, migration, rollout — before your first roster goes out.
Where each tool genuinely wins

Humanforce has been doing ANZ workforce management for over 20 years, and its enterprise depth is real. This comparison is about right-sizing, not point-scoring.

Choose Humanforce if…

  • You're a large organisation — Humanforce is credible for 500–10,000-person operations in aged care, stadia and local government
  • You need award/EBA interpretation and demand-driven forecasting — genuinely more advanced than anything RosterMate does
  • You want biometric hardware clock devices on site, not just mobile GPS clock-in
  • You want one vendor for the lot: WFM, HRIS, talent, benefits and native payroll — including Datacom Datapay integration in NZ
  • You value 20+ years of ANZ track record and a local NZ office with an 0800 number

Choose RosterMate if…

  • You're a 10–200 person NZ business that wants to see the price before talking to anyone — $8 NZD flat, published
  • You want to be rostering today — self-serve signup, free setup, no implementation project or consulting fees
  • You want NZ payroll done for SMEs: Xero NZ, PayHero, Smartly, Crystal and built-in IRD payday filing
  • You want support where a Kiwi answers the phone directly — not a ticket queue
  • You staff events — capacity-based shift bidding with waitlists, included at no extra cost

Our verdict

Humanforce is proper enterprise software — over 20 years in ANZ workforce management, 2,300+ customers, 600,000+ users, now owned by US private equity firm Accel-KKR and expanded into a full six-product HCM suite. If you're running an aged care group, a stadium, or a council with complex EBA interpretation, biometric clock hardware and a payroll team on Datacom Datapay, it's a credible choice and this page isn't really the comparison you need. But that depth comes the enterprise way: no published pricing, per-active-user licensing plus implementation costs, a sales cycle, and — per recurring G2 and Capterra reviews — long support ticket waits and a dated, sluggish back-end with a steep learning curve.

For a 10–200 person New Zealand business, that's paying enterprise overhead for SME problems. RosterMate is the right-sized answer: $8 NZD per employee published on the website, free setup instead of implementation fees, rostering the same day you sign up, NZ payroll integrations plus built-in IRD payday filing, and a Kiwi who answers the phone. Try it free for 30 days — no credit card, no quote, no project plan.

Try RosterMate Free
RosterMate vs Humanforce FAQs

Common questions from teams comparing the two.

For most teams under 200 staff, honestly, yes. Humanforce is enterprise workforce management — 2,300+ customers and 600,000+ users across aged care, stadia and local government — sold through a contact-sales process with per-active-user licensing plus implementation costs. If you run a café, retail store, gym or events crew, you'd be paying for (and configuring) enterprise depth you'll never use. RosterMate is built for 5–200 person NZ teams: sign up yourself, $8 NZD per employee flat, no implementation project.
No. As of July 2026 Humanforce's pricing page has no published prices — it's contact-sales only, with Core and Pro tiers across a six-product suite. One third-party estimate puts it at roughly $10 or less per user, but that figure is unverified. RosterMate publishes its price: $8 NZD per employee per month, everything included.
Per Humanforce's own help documentation, your bill is the licence fee multiplied by total active users, plus implementation costs. Implementation is a consulting engagement — configuration, data migration and rollout — which is normal for enterprise software but means fees and a deployment timeline before you roster a single shift. RosterMate has no implementation fees: setup and training are free, and you can build your first roster the same day you sign up.
If you're a large organisation — think hundreds to thousands of staff — with complex award or EBA interpretation needs, demand-driven rostering requirements, biometric clock hardware, or you want a full HCM suite with native payroll (including Datacom Datapay integration in NZ), Humanforce is a credible, 20-plus-year enterprise platform and RosterMate isn't the right comparison. Below a couple of hundred staff, that depth mostly becomes cost and complexity.
RosterMate. At that size you want rosters built, staff clocked in with GPS, leave handled under the Holidays Act, and hours flowing to Xero NZ, PayHero, Smartly or Crystal — with IRD payday filing built in. You get all of that self-serve at $8 NZD per employee with a Kiwi answering the phone, instead of an enterprise sales cycle, a quote, and an implementation project.
Yes. RosterMate includes free setup and training, and our AI onboarding can import your staff list from a spreadsheet or export in minutes. There's no lock-in — RosterMate is month to month — and the 30-day free trial needs no credit card, so you can run it alongside your current system before deciding.