ShiftPay — Constraint-Aware Schedule Builder With Live Pay Calculations
Your schedule is a spreadsheet, your payroll is another spreadsheet, and they have never agreed on anything. ShiftPay is a drag-and-drop shift scheduler that calculates gross pay per employee in real time as you build the schedule — no exports, no formulas, no Sunday panic.
Difficulty
beginner
Category
Business Automation
Market Demand
Very High
Revenue Score
7/10
Platform
Web App
Vibe Code Friendly
⚡ YesHackathon Score
6/10
Validated by Real Pain
— sourced from real community discussions
Small business owners are paying freelancers premium rates to build custom scheduling and pay calculation spreadsheets because no existing tool is simple enough for a 5-15 person team to use without training.
What is it?
Small business owners in hospitality, retail, and home services are paying freelancers $500-1500 to build custom scheduling spreadsheets that break every time an employee leaves or overtime rules change. ShiftPay is a web app where the owner defines employee roles, hourly rates, overtime thresholds, and availability constraints once — then drags shifts onto a weekly calendar and watches gross pay totals update live. No payroll software integration, no HR module, just the single painful moment of 'how much am I paying this week and does anyone have a conflict?' solved cleanly. Built with React, a simple Supabase schema, and about 200 lines of pay calculation logic — shippable in 10 days.
Why now?
The May 2026 minimum wage complexity across US states means small business owners are more exposed than ever to overtime miscalculation — a simple live gross pay calculator is a compliance anxiety reliever, not just a convenience.
- ▸Drag-and-drop weekly shift calendar with role color coding (Implementation note: DnD Kit with Supabase real-time sync)
- ▸Live gross pay calculation per employee including overtime threshold rules
- ▸Availability constraint warnings shown inline when shifts conflict
- ▸One-click PDF schedule export for posting or sharing with staff
Target Audience
Independent restaurant owners, retail managers, and home service team leads with 5-25 hourly employees — estimated 2M+ such businesses in the US.
Example Use Case
Rosa manages a 12-person cafe team and used to spend 3 hours every Sunday on a scheduling spreadsheet before realizing her overtime calculation was wrong all year. With ShiftPay she drags shifts in 20 minutes, sees the weekly gross pay per person instantly, and exports a PDF for her bookkeeper.
User Stories
- ▸As a cafe owner, I want to drag shifts onto a weekly grid and see each employee's gross pay update live, so that I never accidentally schedule someone into overtime without knowing.
- ▸As a retail manager, I want availability conflict warnings shown inline, so that I stop getting Sunday-night texts from staff saying they cannot come in.
- ▸As a small business owner, I want to export the finalized schedule as a PDF, so that I can print and post it without any additional formatting work.
Done When
- ✓Shift creation: done when owner drags a shift block onto a day cell and it persists after page refresh.
- ✓Pay calculation: done when adding a shift causes the employee gross pay total to update within 1 second without a page reload.
- ✓Conflict warning: done when a shift is placed on a day the employee marked unavailable and a red inline warning appears immediately.
- ✓PDF export: done when owner clicks Export and a formatted weekly schedule PDF downloads within 3 seconds.
Is it worth building?
$29/month x 100 small businesses = $2,900 MRR at month 3. $59/month x 100 businesses = $5,900 MRR at month 6.
Unit Economics
CAC: $20 via community outreach. LTV: $348 (12 months at $29/month). Payback: 1 month. Gross margin: 88%.
Business Model
SaaS subscription
Monetization Path
Free for one week of schedules and up to 5 employees. Paid at $29/month for unlimited history and up to 25 employees.
Revenue Timeline
First dollar: week 2 via first paid upgrade. $1k MRR: month 3. $5k MRR: month 7.
Estimated Monthly Cost
Supabase: $25, Vercel: $20, Stripe fees: $10, PDF generation (react-pdf): $0. Total: $55/month at launch.
Profit Potential
Part-time income at $3k MRR, full-time viable at $10k MRR.
Scalability
Medium — add shift swap requests, employee self-service availability input, and optional Gusto or ADP payroll export.
Success Metrics
Week 2: 30 businesses complete first schedule. Month 2: 25 paid. Month 3: 80% retention.
Launch & Validation Plan
Post in r/smallbusiness and r/restaurantowners asking if anyone wants to test a free scheduling tool, recruit 10 owners before writing code.
Customer Acquisition Strategy
First customer: reply to posts in r/restaurantowners where owners complain about scheduling spreadsheets, offer a free setup call and one free month. Then: Facebook Groups for small restaurant owners, r/smallbusiness, local business associations.
What's the competition?
Competition Level
High
Similar Products
Homebase has a free tier but overwhelming UI for 5-person teams. When I Work requires per-employee pricing that gets expensive fast. Deputy targets enterprise — none nail the sub-10-employee simplicity play.
Competitive Advantage
Homebase and Deputy are feature-heavy with steep onboarding. ShiftPay is 20 minutes from signup to first published schedule — that gap is the entire product.
Regulatory Risks
Low regulatory risk. Gross pay calculations are advisory only — product is not a licensed payroll processor. Add disclaimer that users should verify with their payroll provider.
What's the roadmap?
Feature Roadmap
V1 (launch): employee setup, drag-drop calendar, live pay totals, PDF export. V2 (month 2-3): employee availability self-entry, shift templates, copy last week. V3 (month 4+): Gusto CSV export, multi-location, team seat billing.
Milestone Plan
Phase 1 (Week 1): schema, employee setup, DnD calendar, pay calculator live. Phase 2 (Week 2): PDF export, Stripe billing, Supabase real-time, deploy. Phase 3 (Month 2): 25 paid businesses, gather retention data.
How do you build it?
Tech Stack
Next.js, Supabase, Stripe — build with Lovable for drag-drop calendar UI, v0 for pay summary components, Cursor for pay calculation logic.
Suggested Frameworks
React DnD Kit, Supabase JS, date-fns
Time to Ship
10 days
Required Skills
React drag-and-drop, Supabase, overtime calculation logic, Stripe billing.
Resources
DnD Kit docs, Supabase quickstart, date-fns guide, Next.js App Router docs.
MVP Scope
app/page.tsx (landing), app/dashboard/page.tsx (weekly calendar view), app/employees/page.tsx (employee setup), app/api/shifts/route.ts (shift CRUD), app/api/pay/route.ts (gross pay calculator), lib/db/schema.ts (Drizzle schema), lib/payCalc.ts (overtime logic), components/ShiftCalendar.tsx (DnD grid), components/PaySummary.tsx (live totals), seed.ts (demo employees and shifts), .env.example.
Core User Journey
Add employees with rates -> drag shifts onto weekly grid -> view live pay totals -> export PDF and post for staff.
Architecture Pattern
Owner drags shift onto calendar -> optimistic UI update -> Supabase upsert -> payCalc.ts runs server-side -> updated totals pushed via Supabase real-time -> PaySummary component re-renders.
Data Model
Business has many Employees. Employee has one RateConfig. Business has many Weeks. Week has many Shifts. Shift belongs to one Employee and one Day.
Integration Points
Supabase for database and real-time, Stripe for subscriptions, react-pdf for PDF export, Vercel for hosting, Resend for invite emails.
V1 Scope Boundaries
V1 excludes: mobile app, time clock, payroll API export, employee self-service portal, multi-location.
Success Definition
A restaurant owner signs up on a Sunday, builds their full week schedule, sees accurate gross pay totals, and returns the following Sunday without any founder prompting.
Challenges
When I Work, Deputy, and Homebase already exist and are well-funded — you must win on radical simplicity and zero onboarding friction, not features. Churn is high in this category because owners switch tools when staff changes.
Avoid These Pitfalls
Do not build mobile app before web is validated — owners schedule from desktop on Sunday nights. Do not add time-clock or attendance before 50 businesses use the scheduler daily. Finding first 10 paying customers takes 3x longer than building — go to where owners already complain.
Security Requirements
Supabase Auth with Google OAuth, RLS on all tables scoped to business ID, rate limit 100 req/min per IP, no raw payroll data stored beyond schedule inputs.
Infrastructure Plan
Vercel for Next.js, Supabase for Postgres and real-time, GitHub Actions for CI, Sentry for errors. Total: $55/month at launch.
Performance Targets
80 DAU at launch, 800 req/day. Pay recalculation under 300ms. Page load under 2s. Supabase real-time for live totals, CDN for static assets.
Go-Live Checklist
- ☐Security audit complete.
- ☐Stripe payment flow tested.
- ☐Sentry error tracking live.
- ☐Monitoring dashboard configured.
- ☐Custom domain with SSL active.
- ☐Privacy policy and terms published.
- ☐5 beta owners signed off.
- ☐Rollback plan documented.
- ☐Launch post drafted for r/smallbusiness and Facebook groups.
First Run Experience
On first run: a demo business named 'Sunrise Cafe' exists with 4 seeded employees, hourly rates, and a full week of shifts with live pay totals visible. User can immediately drag a shift, watch totals update, and export the demo PDF. No manual config required: demo data seeded, Stripe in test mode, all calculations work out of the box.
How to build it, step by step
1. Define Drizzle schema: Business, Employee, RateConfig, Week, Shift tables with relationships. 2. Run npx create-next-app with Tailwind and App Router. 3. Set up Supabase with RLS scoped to business ID. 4. Build employee setup page with hourly rate and overtime threshold fields. 5. Build ShiftCalendar with DnD Kit — 7-column grid, drag shifts between day slots. 6. Write payCalc.ts: sum hours per employee, apply 1.5x above 40h weekly threshold. 7. Wire Supabase real-time to push pay total updates to PaySummary component. 8. Add react-pdf export route that renders the weekly grid as a PDF. 9. Add Stripe Checkout for $29/month plan gated at 5 employees. 10. Deploy to Vercel and walk full flow: add 3 employees, drag 5 shifts, verify pay totals, export PDF, pay via Stripe test card.
Generated
May 6, 2026
Model
claude-sonnet-4-6
Disclaimer: Ideas on this site are AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies. Revenue estimates, market demand figures, and financial projections are illustrative assumptions only — not financial advice. Do your own research before making any business or investment decisions. Technology availability, pricing, and market conditions change rapidly; always verify details independently.