Combo
Employee Scheduling & HR Software for hourly, shift-based teams
By Combo · 4.6/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- Multi-site restaurants, retail, bakery, pharmacy and hospitality teams scheduling hourly staff
- Operations and HR managers replacing Excel rotas with compliant, shareable schedules
- Businesses that want scheduling, time clock, leave management and payroll-prep exports in one tool
Ideal size: 10–500 hourly employees people · Multi-site operator moving off Excel schedules
Not for
- Desk-based professional-services firms with salaried staff and no shift work
- Enterprises needing bespoke ERP/HCM integration or advanced workforce analytics
- Buyers outside the payroll and cash-register systems Combo integrates with
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
2–4 weeks
~30 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
On request
Subscription; free trial offered, list price not published
Implementation Friction
2/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
Not listed
Add-on costs
- None
Company & support
Who is behind Combo, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- Not recorded
- Headquarters
- Not recorded
How you get support
- PhoneNot listed
- EmailPlan not stated
- Live chatPlan not stated
- Support portal / ticketsNot listed
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsPlan not stated
- Dedicated account managerNot listed
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
A help centre, online trainings and videos are described on the site, and customer reviews praise the responsiveness of chat and email support. No support phone line, support hours or SLA is published.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Combo sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Combo
- Rotageek
- Workforce.com
- Mashgin
- Bizimply
- MineralTree
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Combo. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
No supported MCP path today, so it cannot be driven from an AI client.
AI & MCP readiness
What Combo ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Combo is employee scheduling and HR software for hourly, shift-based teams, strongest in restaurants, retail, hospitality, bakery and multi-site pharmacy. It combines staff scheduling, leave and absence management, a digital time clock, employee records, contract generation and e-signature, HR dashboards, team messaging, and one-click payroll-prep exports. The vendor reports more than 10,000 companies and 150,000 daily users, scores around 4.6/5 across published review categories, and offers a free trial. Pricing is not published.
Frequently asked questions
What does Combo actually do?
Combo is employee scheduling and HR software for hourly, shift-based teams. Core modules are staff scheduling, leave and absence management, a digital time clock, an employee register with contract and amendment generation plus e-signature, employee onboarding, HR dashboards with turnover and absenteeism KPIs, team messaging, and payroll preparation with payslip distribution and exports to payroll software.
How quickly can a multi-site team go live?
Combo is sold with a free trial and emphasises ease of use: customers describe employees picking the app up quickly and managers replacing afternoons of scheduling work. Onboarding is supported by online training, videos and a help centre. The vendor publishes no implementation timeline or fee, so plan a short self-serve rollout and confirm timing with sales.
How much does Combo cost?
Combo does not publish list pricing on its site; it offers a free trial and routes buyers to sales. Budget on a per-employee subscription and ask for a quote covering all sites, plus any cost tied to the payroll or cash-register integrations you need. No mandatory implementation fee is stated in the available sources.
Which businesses is Combo built for?
The vendor names hospitality, food and grocery, bakery, retail, sport and leisure, fast-food restaurants, traditional catering and pharmacy, and says more than 10,000 companies and 150,000 employees use it daily. It fits multi-site operators with hourly staff — restaurants, shops, hotels, bakeries and pharmacy chains — rather than desk-based salaried teams.
Does Combo run payroll?
Not as a payroll engine. Combo prepares payroll — hours, absences and variable elements — and exports it with one click to the customer's payroll software, then distributes payslips to employees. You keep your existing payroll provider, so confirm Combo integrates with that provider before you commit.
What support can customers expect?
Combo says it offers five-star support for teams large and small, and points customers to online training, videos and a help centre. Customer reviews published on the site praise the responsiveness of the help centre and of chat and email support. No support hours, SLA or named account-manager tier is published, so confirm those terms in your contract.