Planday

Planday is the Xero-anchored SMB scheduling platform, founded 2004 in Copenhagen and acquired by Xero in 2021 for approximately 200 million dollars-plus to anchor Xero's payroll-and-people strategy in Europe and Australia. The product covers scheduling, time and attendance, leave management, communication, and a tightly-integrated payroll export to Xero Payroll across UK, AU, NZ, and select EU markets. Strengths: tightest Xero integration in the category, for Xero customers, Planday is functionally the default scheduling layer with a single-vendor billing relationship, strong fit for European and Australasian SMB hourly workforces (5-200 employees), mature 21-year track record (predating the Xero acquisition by 17 years), and clean modern UX. Best fit for SMB hourly workforces (5-200 employees) already running Xero accounting and payroll, restaurants, retail, hospitality, services across UK, AU, NZ, EU. Trade-offs: weaker fit for non-Xero customers given the acquisition has tilted product priority toward Xero-anchored use cases, US footprint is limited (Xero itself is weaker in the US), broader integration ecosystem narrower than Deputy, and AI labor forecasting absent.