Field notes › Comparisons
Mustr vs the spreadsheet
Every labour hire firm we talk to started on a spreadsheet, and most still run one somewhere. No licence fees, infinitely flexible, everyone knows how to drive it. The spreadsheet deserves respect. It also deserves an honest accounting.
What the spreadsheet does well
At ten staff and one client it's genuinely fine. One person holds the roster in their head anyway; the sheet is just where they write it down. Zero cost, zero training, total flexibility. If that's where you are, keep the money and stay put for now.
Where it breaks
- It can't say no. A cell doesn't know the ticket behind it expired on Tuesday. Every compliance catch depends on a person cross-checking another tab, on the right day, every time, forever.
- It forks. The version emailed to the client on Friday and the version edited Monday are now two rosters. Which one is true depends on who you ask.
- It answers no phones. Workers ring to ask where they are next week. Clients ring to ask who's coming. The sheet can't tell either of them, so your office does, one call at a time.
- It hides its costs. The roster spreadsheet is free the way an unpaid admin role is free: the hours are real, they're just spread across people who were hired to do something else.
What changes with Mustr
The roster becomes one live timeline everyone reads from their own angle: the office sees everything, each worker sees their shifts and availability, each client sees their site. Tickets, inductions and availability live behind the roster, and every booking is checked against them before it's made, with failures blocked rather than discovered. Expiries surface 60 days out. The audit answer is the system, not an archaeology dig through file versions.
The honest threshold
Somewhere between ten staff and forty, across a second site and a night shift, the sheet stops being free. If you're under it, we'll happily tell you to wait. If you're past it, the smallest plan is $660 a month, month to month, GST included, and setup is done for you. Bring the spreadsheet to the demo. We'll roster from it live.
Competitor details and prices in this article come from the vendors’ own published pages as at July 2026, quoted ex GST unless noted, and may have changed since. Check their sites for current figures. Mustr prices include GST.