Plateshift — планирование смен для независимых ресторанов

Who pays

Owners and general managers of independent restaurants, cafés and small groups (1–10 locations) in the US — roughly 400,000 independent locations. The buyer is the owner; the daily user is the GM. Small groups with 3+ locations are the most valuable segment and are closed by an account executive.

How it makes money

Per-location subscription in three plans: Starter $39/mo (scheduling and time clock), Pro $79/mo (labor forecasting, tip pooling, payroll export) and Group at $199/mo on average for multi-location accounts. A payroll-sync add-on adds about $4.50 per location on average (30% attach at $15). Customers pay monthly by card after the trial; a sale in this model is a paid subscription. Expansion is modelled separately: groups add locations and Starter accounts move to Pro, adding about $3 per location a month in each of years 2, 3 and 4 — roughly 4% a year, which with restaurant closures gives net revenue retention near 100%.

Key assumptions

• Pricing sits between Homebase (Essentials $24.95, All-in-one $99.95 per location) and 7shifts (Entrée $34.99, The Works $76.99): plan mix 50% Starter / 35% Pro / 15% Group gives about $77 blended before the add-on.
• Logo retention is that of SMB software sold to restaurants: 73% of locations still paying after 12 months, then 1.8% monthly churn — restaurant closures alone are 1–2% a month (Recurly and ChartMogul report 3–5% monthly churn for SMB SaaS under $100/mo).
• Paid search CPC $9 for 'restaurant scheduling software' (WordStream puts B2B software CPCs at $6–12); 9% of clicks start a trial and 15% of trials convert — at the low end of opt-in trial medians (about 18%), because restaurant owners often trial two tools at once. Budget about $32,400 a month in year 1 and $72,000 from month 13, when payroll keywords are added; new keywords convert worse (8% of clicks start a trial).
• Review sites (Capterra/G2) at $4 per click: 12% of clicks start a trial, 15% buy — buyers there are already comparing tools.
• POS app marketplaces (Toast, Square, Clover) bring paid accounts for a $150 bounty plus listing fees after a 4-month listing ramp; content/SEO takes 9 months to ramp; owner referrals earn the referrer a credit worth about $80.
• Variable costs per active location: Stripe 2.9% + 30¢ (~$2.60), hosting $2.50, SMS shift reminders $1.20; US payroll load 18% on top of salaries (FICA plus health benefits).
• Seed round of $2.2M covers four months of build and the burn; the horizon is five years because with realistic acquisition costs the cumulative cash flow pays back late. Income tax is not modeled.
• Founders take reduced salaries ($7,000 each) for the first year after launch, market salaries afterwards. Mobile, integrations and reporting engineers are nearshore (LatAm) contractors at $7,500 a month, support is bilingual nearshore at $3,000 — the standard way US restaurant-tech startups keep burn down.
• Expansion and annual plans: about 30% of locations prepay annually for a 15% discount, which is why logo retention is 75% at month 12 and 1.6% a month afterwards (annual payers churn at renewal, not mid-year). Expansion of ~4% a year keeps NRR around 100% — the SaaS Capital 2025 median is 101%, and SMB tools under $5K ACV typically sit at 95–102%. In the model each step is an add-on per active customer from that month on — a simplification: it slightly overstates expansion for brand-new customers and understates it for the oldest cohorts.

Risks

• Free tiers from Homebase and 7shifts and bundled POS scheduling (Toast, Square) cap pricing power — the Pro plan has to win on labor savings, not on scheduling.
• Restaurant closures and seasonality make churn lumpy; a recession year could push monthly churn from 2% to 4% and delay breakeven by a year.
• Paid search CPCs in the category rise as POS vendors bid on the same keywords; the plan assumes 20% of search efficiency is lost to fatigue after a year.
• Payroll and tip-pool rules vary by state; compliance errors carry wage-claim liability.

How to adapt this model

• Different vertical (salons, clinics, retail): replace the plan prices and the POS-marketplace channel with that vertical's software marketplace; keep the retention shape but check closure rates of the vertical.
• Outside the US: rescale CPCs (Google Ads in the EU is 30–50% cheaper) and payroll tax, and swap payroll-sync integrations for local providers.
• Sales-led instead of self-serve: lower Starter share, raise Group share and add account executives to the team — CAC in the engine counts only channel spend, so put paid outbound tools into channels.
• Stress-test churn first: set tailChurn to 3% and see when the business turns cash-positive.

Sources

• 7shifts pricing (Entrée $34.99, The Works $76.99 per location): https://www.7shifts.com/pricing
• Homebase pricing (Essentials $24.95, All-in-one $99.95 per location): https://joinhomebase.com/pricing
• National Restaurant Association — State of the Restaurant Industry (labor cost share): https://restaurant.org/research-and-media/research/research-reports/state-of-the-industry/
• Recurly churn benchmarks (B2B SaaS): https://recurly.com/research/churn-rate-benchmarks/
• Trial-to-paid benchmarks (opt-in median ~18%): https://userpilot.com/blog/free-trial-conversion-rate/
• WordStream Google Ads benchmarks 2025: https://www.wordstream.com/resources/google-ads-industry-benchmarks
• SaaS Capital 2025 retention benchmarks (median NRR 101%, GRR 91%; ACV $25–50K median NRR 102%, top quartile 111%): https://www.saas-capital.com/research/saas-retention-benchmarks-for-private-b2b-companies/