Temporra vs Deputy

Deputy is a scheduling-first workforce app sold to shops, hospitality, healthcare and building firms. Temporra is narrower on purpose. It's built for UK construction and trade contractors, so permits, CSCS checks and CIS statements come as standard and shift swapping doesn't. We checked every Deputy detail below on 25 September 2026.

At a glance

	Temporra	Deputy
Built for	UK construction and trade contractors	Shift-based teams in many industries, construction included
Pricing model	One flat monthly fee in GBP per band of active workers, VAT included. Every feature on every band	Per user per month in GBP on Lite, Core or Pro, plus VAT. £20 minimum monthly spend on monthly plans
12 workers, billed monthly, with VAT	£129 a month	£68.40 on Core, or £97.20 with the HR add-on (20% VAT added by us)
GPS geofenced clock-in	Yes. Set each site from its UK postcode and choose the radius	Yes, on all three plans
Facial recognition	Face match against the worker's enrolled face at clock-in (no liveness detection)	Yes, on the Kiosk app for iPad (Core and Pro). The phone app uses a GPS location stamp
Shift swaps and auto-scheduling	No shift swapping. Rosters copied week to week	Shift swaps on every plan. Auto-scheduling on Core and Pro
Certificate expiry (CSCS, right to work)	Included, with an optional clock-in block when a certificate lapses	Expiry reminders in the Deputy HR add-on, £2 per user per month
Permits and RAMS sign-off	Included	Not listed
CIS statements	Monthly payment and deduction statements (PDF)	Not listed
Payroll	CSV export for Sage, Xero, QuickBooks or BrightPay	Live integrations, including Xero, which Deputy says is available in the UK
Free trial	14 days, no card	Up to 31 days, no card

Deputy's sterling prices, as its pricing page shows them to UK visitors, exclude VAT, so we've added 20% wherever we compare them with Temporra's.

Where Deputy is stronger

Scheduling. On Core and Pro, Deputy builds and fills shifts automatically from staff availability and business needs, forecasts demand and tracks wages against labour budgets, and on every plan staff can swap shifts or find their own replacement. Temporra's scheduling is simpler. You build a roster and copy the week forward.

It connects to more, too. Deputy's Xero integration pushes timesheets straight into Xero and its integrations page lists more than 50 apps, while Temporra hands you a CSV file to import and has no public API. Deputy Pro adds single sign-on. Temporra has none. And on list price, Deputy Core is cheaper for most crew sizes.

Where Temporra is different

The site paperwork comes in the box. Digital permits for working at height, hot work, confined spaces and ladders, and Toolbox Talks and RAMS that workers read and sign, with a record of who signed. CSCS cards, certificates and right-to-work documents with expiry alerts, plus an optional block on clock-in when a required certificate has lapsed. There's one plan. None of it is an add-on.

Pay is handled for UK subcontracting. Temporra produces monthly CIS payment and deduction statements as PDFs, turns clocked hours into worker invoices at an hourly or day rate, and costs labour against each job's budget.

The limits matter as much. Overtime is a daily threshold plus a weekend multiplier, with no weekly calculation. Location is checked at clock-in and recorded at clock-out only. The face match has no liveness detection, so treat it as a strong deterrent rather than proof.

Who each one suits

Deputy suits a business whose headache is the rota: part-time staff, changing availability, shift swaps and labour budgets. It's usually cheaper per head, too.

Temporra suits a UK contractor whose headache is the site. Who was really there, whose CSCS card runs out next month, which subcontractors need a CIS statement. One flat fee covers all of it.

UK differences that matter

Both bill UK customers in pounds. Deputy quotes prices before VAT and Temporra's include it. The real gap is CIS statements, which Temporra builds in and Deputy doesn't list. Temporra also sets each site's geofence from a UK postcode and stores data on IONOS servers in London. Languages can decide it on a mixed gang: Temporra runs in English, Romanian, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian and Italian, while Deputy lists nine languages for its Kiosk app and Romanian, Polish and Bulgarian aren't among them.

What a 12-person crew pays

Assume 12 active workers, billed monthly.

Temporra: the 11-20 band, £129 a month with VAT included. The admin login that created the account doesn't count as a worker, but invited supervisors do.

Deputy: Core is the cheapest plan with facial recognition, at £4.75 per user per month before VAT, so 12 users cost £57.00, or £68.40 once we add 20% VAT. Deputy HR, for certificate reminders, adds £2 per user and takes it to £97.20 with VAT. Watch the headcount. Deputy counts administrators and supervisors as users, so a manager outside the 12 makes it 13, or £105.30 with HR and VAT. The £20 minimum spend makes no difference at this size. You'll also need an iPad or Android tablet on site, because face recognition runs on the kiosk app. Annual billing cuts Core to £4.25 a user before VAT, paid upfront.

So, with VAT in both prices, Deputy is £31.80 to £60.60 a month cheaper for this crew. For the difference, Temporra adds permits, RAMS sign-off, CIS statements and worker invoices, none of which Deputy lists, and whether it's worth it depends on how much of that you still do on paper.

Switching from Deputy

Export your timesheets to Excel (Deputy supports this) and keep them. HMRC expects payroll records to be kept for three years after the tax year they relate to.
Start a Temporra trial (14 days, no card) and add each job by its UK postcode, setting the geofence radius for the whole company or per job.
Add your workers, enrol their faces and upload their CSCS cards and right-to-work documents.
Set the daily overtime threshold and weekend multiplier, plus a clock-in window and automatic clock-out if you want them.
Run both for a week. Compare the hours, then import Temporra's payroll CSV into your payroll software and check the totals.
Cancel Deputy. A monthly plan runs to the end of that month. An annual plan isn't refunded.

Common questions

Does Deputy have facial recognition?

Yes. Deputy's Kiosk app for iPad verifies staff by facial recognition, listed as Biometrics on the Core and Pro plans. Its phone app uses a GPS location stamp instead. Temporra checks each worker's face against their enrolled face at clock-in.

Is Deputy cheaper than Temporra?

For a crew of 12, yes. Deputy Core costs £68.40 a month with 20% VAT added, against £129 for Temporra, VAT included. Temporra's fee also covers permits, RAMS sign-off, certificate tracking and CIS statements.

Does Temporra connect to Xero like Deputy does?

Not directly. Temporra exports a payroll CSV that you import into Sage, Xero, QuickBooks or BrightPay. Deputy has a live Xero integration that it says works in the UK. If automatic syncing matters more to you than CIS and permits, that's a point for Deputy.

Can Deputy produce CIS statements?

CIS payment and deduction statements aren't listed among Deputy's features, so you'd produce them somewhere else. Temporra generates them every month as PDFs.

We checked every Deputy detail on 25 September 2026 on Deputy's own website: its pricing page (GBP prices shown to UK visitors), the time clock, time and attendance, document management, construction, integrations and Xero pages, and the home page for the trial length. Deputy can change its prices and features at any time, so confirm them there before you decide.

Try Temporra free for 14 days