Paper one

What exists

An honest look at what is already out there, what it does, and where it falls short.

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02

Start here

Is there something that already does this?

Every term, you and your managers build seven rotas by hand, to a tight cost target. It works, but it takes days, and it is fiddly to get right.

So the first question is the obvious one. Before building anything, is there a tool you could buy that already does the job?

We looked properly. This is what is out there, and where each one stops.

03

What you can buy today

Two kinds of tool, and a catch with each

Built for nurseries

Famly, which you run already, plus Connect and eyworks. Strong on the child side: registers, funding, parents. The staff rota is a smaller part, and it shows.

Built for rotas

Planday, Deputy and the rest. Good at scheduling shifts for any business, but they have no idea what early years is, and cannot see a ratio at all.

One kind knows your world but treats the rota lightly. The other does rotas well but knows nothing about nurseries.

Side by side

An honest comparison

Can it…	Famly	Connect	eyworks	Generic	InRatio
Build the rota from your numbers	basic	✓	basic	✓	✓
Show all seven sites in one view	✓	✓	basic	✓	✓
Track the ratio live through the day	✓	×	×	×	✓
Show staffing cost against your target	×	×	×	basic	✓
Track qualifications and certificates	×	basic	✓	×	✓
Give staff an app for rota and holiday	✓	×	×	✓	✓
Work out age mixing to save staff	×	×	×	×	✓
Hold back a rota that breaks a rule	×	×	warns	×	✓

✓ does it well basic in part warns warns only × not at all. InRatio is what Paper two proposes.

05

Where they fall short

The hard part is the part none of them does

There is a pattern in that table. The tools that understand nurseries treat the rota as a side feature, so building it is still mostly by hand. The tools that build rotas well have no idea what a ratio is.

And the genuinely hard part, turning the children you expect into the cheapest legal staffing across seven sites, and working out the age mixing that saves a wage, none of them does at all. That is the real work, and it is still left to your managers.

06

What it costs

What the off the shelf options cost

For a group your size, roughly, per year. Vendors keep the real multi site price behind a sales call, so these are ranges.

A nursery management suite: £3,000 to £18,000 a year.
A generic rota tool: £5,000 to £15,000 a year for 170 staff.
Famly's own rota: top tier only, around £209 a month more than now.
Planday, the one you were quoted: about £17,000 a year.

Whatever you pay, the building of the rota is still done by hand.

What building costs

If you built it instead

If there is no tool to buy, the other route is to build one. For a tool like this, roughly:

Agency

£80,000 to £180,000. A full team carries it. Lowest risk, highest price.

UK freelance

£55,000 to £120,000. Cheaper, but more for us to manage.

Offshore

£25,000 to £65,000. Cheaper still, with distance and quality risk.

Build our own

£2,000 to £8,000 in cash. AI tools, almost no spend, the time and care are the cost.

The sensible path is to prove it works cheaply first, then invest in a proper build once it has earned it.

The shortcuts that do not fit

Could you take a shortcut?

Two shortcuts look tempting. Neither works for a tool that has to be right on compliance.

White label

Rebrand an existing rota tool as your own. But the rules engine is the whole point, and these tools either do not have it or lock theirs away where it cannot be changed. The nursery ones replace Famly rather than sit beside it.

No code

Tools like Bubble build an app fast. But the logic comes out fragile, you cannot take it with you if the platform turns, and a visual flowchart is not proof to an Ofsted inspector that the ratios are right.

07

Where this leaves it

There is no off the shelf answer

So there is nothing you can simply buy that does the whole job. The pieces are spread across different tools, and the hardest part, building the rota itself, is not really solved by any of them.

That is the gap, and Paper two is what we would build to fill it.

Worth knowing: Famly is investing in this area, so it is not a gap that stays open indefinitely.