Deputy bills New Zealand crews in Australian dollars, $6.75 to $13 a user a month, and does not sell its payroll add-on here. For a firm under 20 staff, a Power Platform shift, timesheet or leave build is $4,000 to $8,000, fixed price.
Cleaning, security, landscaping, hospitality-adjacent and service-trade firms with under 20 staff who roster people onto shifts or jobs, on Microsoft 365, with payroll already in PayHero, Smartly or Employment Hero. The payroll product pays people properly; what it does not do for you is the weekly scramble around it: who can cover Thursday, what hours went on which job, whose leave has been approved. Those gaps are what these builds fix, and payroll stays where it is. See who Kove is for and who it is not for the wider fit.
Each is one build at $4,000 to $8,000. None runs payroll: PAYE, KiwiSaver, holiday pay under the Holidays Act and payday filing stay in a compliant payroll product.
| Build | What it does | Stays in payroll |
|---|---|---|
| Shift cover and swap requests | The roster lives in a SharePoint list with a phone app. Someone who cannot work a shift asks for cover, the request goes to the people who can, you approve once, and the roster and a Teams notice update themselves. | Pay rates, pay runs, payday filing |
| Job-linked timesheets from a phone | Staff clock on and off against a job, and a weekly file is produced for whichever payroll product you use. I check that product's import format before I scope this, and I quote it as an estimate until I have. | Calculating pay, holiday pay, KiwiSaver |
| Leave requests and approvals | A request goes to the right approver, and an approved day blocks the roster automatically. The balance and the entitlement rules stay in payroll. | Leave balances and entitlements under the Holidays Act |
Microsoft Teams Shifts already covers basic shift creation, swaps and time clocking inside Teams; which Microsoft 365 plan includes it varies, so check it against your plan before you pay for a roster build. A full roster, timesheet and leave register owned outright is a bigger build on Dataverse, $8,000 to $18,000, detailed in Deputy alternatives for NZ firms.
Published prices, each read from the vendor's own page on 22 September 2026. Currencies are the vendor's, nothing converted, all excluding tax.
| Product | Published price, with currency | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Deputy | AUD: Lite $6.75, Core $8.75, Pro $13 a user a month; payroll add-on not sold in NZ | Deputy pricing NZ |
| PayHero | NZD: from $4 an employee plus a $24 base fee a month (Origin, 10 employees max) | PayHero pricing NZ |
| Smartly | NZ terms, no currency code printed: DIY $2.60 a pay run per employee plus $51.50 a month; People Management $10 a month per employee | Smartly pricing NZ |
| Employment Hero | NZD: HR Essentials $9 a user a month, 10-user minimum; payroll $7 a user a month | Employment Hero pricing NZ |
The three payroll products compared in one place: PayHero vs Smartly vs Employment Hero. What else covers rostering when Deputy does not fit: Deputy alternatives NZ.
From the NZ small business software census, Kove's observed-signal tables on 5,357 NZ firms with a website on file, collected June to September 2026:
| Signal | Firms identified | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Mail platform, all firms | 1,821 firms | 67% Microsoft 365, 33% Google Workspace |
| Staff-size band, all firms | 1,573 firms | 1 to 5 staff 56%, 6 to 10 21%, 11 to 20 10%, 21 or more 12% |
Kove's census does not publish a rostered-crew cut. Its sector groups are builders, electricians, engineering consultancies and legal services, and no group under 30 firms is published, so I have no rostered-crew figure to quote and will not guess one. What the whole file does show: two in three firms with an identifiable mail platform run Microsoft 365, and about three in four of the firms with a staff-size signal have 10 or fewer people. The file leans towards trades and professional services, so read these as a floor for what a small NZ firm already owns, not a rostered-crew benchmark. Every Business plan carries the seeded Power Platform rights the builds above run on: a flow or canvas app against SharePoint, Outlook and Excel, no extra licence, unless a premium connector is involved.
Shift cover and swap requests, job-linked timesheets from a phone, and leave requests with approvals, each $4,000 to $8,000 fixed. They sit beside PayHero, Smartly or Employment Hero rather than replacing them. Alternatives to Deputy are compared in Deputy alternatives NZ.
No. New Zealand accounts are billed in Australian dollars: Lite $6.75, Core $8.75 and Pro $13 AUD a user a month, excluding tax, as at the 22 September 2026 check. Its payroll add-on is not sold in New Zealand. Detail in Deputy pricing NZ.
No, and I would not build one. PAYE, KiwiSaver, holiday pay under the Holidays Act and payday filing belong in a compliant payroll product. The build covers the roster, the hours and the leave requests that feed it.
No. The builds hand a clean weekly file to whichever product you run. I check its import format first and quote the timesheet build as an estimate until I have.
Rarely. Shift cover, timesheets and leave requests run on SharePoint lists and standard connectors at no extra licence. Dataverse is for a full register owned outright.
If everyone works the same hours every week, you do not have a rostering problem, and a shared calendar is the honest answer. If Teams Shifts on the Microsoft 365 plan you already pay for does what you need, use it and skip the build. If you have three staff, a $4,000 build has to save real hours every week to pay back, and often a $10 a month per employee add-on from your payroll product does the one thing you need. Power Platform earns its price once the same scramble costs hours every week across a crew.
Every price is fixed and agreed before I start, with nothing added later for scope you did not ask for. Full tier detail on the services page. Other sectors: electricians, building firms, engineering consultancies, law firms, manufacturers and wholesalers.
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