Run your business.
Not your spreadsheets.

Schedule your team in 30 seconds. Group chats, sick call coverage, and live labour cost, all in one place. Built in Nova Scotia, for independent owner-operators.

Book your free setup call See how it works

Free for 30 days, no card. We set your first week up with you.

A small restaurant team working the evening pass
Helm ShiftRun the whole restaurant from one login.
Auto-fill builds the week from availability. Tap to tweak, then Save & publish.
One call Guided setup
From $29.99 CAD/mo Independent restaurant pricing
Free · 30 days No card required

Set up in minutes, not weeks.

Here's what it looks like.

The Helm Shift schedule builder with a full week auto-filled
The week, built in secondsAuto-fill drafts the schedule from availability. You tweak, then publish.
 A sick call in Helm Shift showing ranked cover suggestions
Sick calls, coveredRanked cover suggestions the moment someone calls in. One tap resolves it.
 The Helm Shift labour cost report for the week
Labour cost, while you buildHours, wage and cost for every person this week, before you publish.

Watch the full tour, about a minute, on How it works →

Book your free setup call

Free for the first 30 days. No credit card. We set it up with you.

Why we built it this way.

Still running on paper, texts, and gut feel?

You are not behind, most independents run this way. Helm Shift replaces the binder and the group chat without changing how you cook or serve.

  • The schedule builds itself from availability. You approve it.
  • Sick calls get ranked cover suggestions, not a round of group texts.
  • Every recipe carries its own cost, against the price on the menu.

Already juggling a pile of apps?

A scheduler here, a spreadsheet there, a group chat for sick calls. Helm Shift is one login where the pieces actually talk to each other.

  • Scheduling, sick-call cover and the staff phone view from $29.99 CAD a month.
  • Menus, recipes and labour reporting come with every plan. One bill, no add-ons.
  • Works alongside any POS. Nothing to swap, nothing to integrate.
Works alongside any POS Guided setup on one call Free for 30 days, no card Built in Halifax
Book your free setup call

Free for the first 30 days. No credit card. We set it up with you.

Built for independent operators.

One platform underneath, in the language your room actually uses. Each setup arrives with its own shifts, role names and menu wording, so the first week you build already looks like your week.

Restaurants

Schedules, sick-call cover, menus and food cost in one login.

Available now
Bars & pubs

Late closes past midnight, drinks costed from what a bottle costs you and how big a pour is, and cover when a bartender drops.

Available now
Cafes

Early opens, a drinks menu costed by the cup, and cover when an opener calls in.

Available now
Pizza shops

Prep blocks before service, a menu costed by the pie, and the dinner rush.

Available now

Run one of these? Pick your trade during setup and it arrives configured. Run something else? Tell us how your week works.

Contact us
Pricing

One flat price. No per-location fees. And we set it up for you.

Every plan gets every feature. Plans differ only by how many people and locations you run. Month-to-month, cancel anytime.

Small kitchens
Lite

For a small kitchen at one location.

$ 29.99
CAD + tax · per month · month-to-month
Your plan covers
Up to 20 staff
1 location
Every feature included
Book your free setup call
Growing teams
Starter

For a bigger team at one location.

$ 49.99
CAD + tax · per month · month-to-month
Your plan covers
Up to 60 staff
1 location
Every feature included
Book your free setup call
2 to 3 locations
Professional

For owners running two or three locations.

$ 119.99
CAD + tax · per month · month-to-month
About $40 a location across three
Your plan covers
Unlimited staff
Up to 3 locations
Every feature included
Book your free setup call
Restaurant groups
Enterprise

For restaurant groups past three locations.

$ 249.99
CAD + tax · per month · month-to-month
Your plan covers
Unlimited staff
Unlimited locations
Every feature included
Book your free setup call
Every plan includes every feature
One-tap weekly schedule + drag-and-drop editor
Staff phone view: schedule, availability, swaps, time off, open shifts
Team messaging + direct messages
Live labour cost as you build the schedule
Sick-call cover suggestions, ranked by availability and reliability
Shift notes
Ask Helm, the AI assistant
Menus & recipes with food cost
Labour cost reports
Forecast & analytics
Payroll CSV export
Cost across your locations
Setup, done with you
Email support
Works alongside any POS
Compare all four plans in detail →
Priced for the independent restaurant.
Start free for 30 days, no card required. One price per plan covers every feature, and we set it up with you. Book your free setup call. Prices in CAD, plus tax. Month-to-month. Cancel anytime.
Helm, the AI assistant inside Helm Shift
Meet Helm

This is Helm. He's the AI inside.

He's not just a mascot. Helm is the AI assistant working behind every screen of Helm Shift: he reads your week's schedule, suggests cover when someone calls in sick, knows your labour cost and your menu, and answers questions about your operation in plain language.

Helm does the heavy lifting. You always make the final call.

Meet him properly, explore the AI Assistant →
Explore the platform

Go deeper on each piece.

Full walkthroughs of every module, and straight answers to the questions independent owners ask most.

Scheduling
One-tap weekly schedules with live labour cost, built around staff availability.
Explore →
Menus & recipes
Every dish costed against the price on your menu, with pricing guidance.
Explore →
AI Assistant
An assistant for the whole operation, ask it anything, from staffing to the menu.
Explore →
FAQ
Pricing, setup, POS compatibility, data privacy, the questions owners ask before booking.
Explore →
The problem

Independent restaurants run on gut instinct.

Scheduling happens in texts and notebooks
Hours wasted every week building the schedule, handling last-minute changes, and chasing confirmations from staff.
Menu prices are set by feel
Nobody has worked out what each dish actually costs to make, so a price goes on the menu once and stays there while the ingredients go up.
Labour costs are invisible until payroll runs
No way to see what you're spending on staff until it's already happened. No comparison to revenue. Just a number at the end of the week.
The platforms that solve this aren't priced for independents
Most operations software is built for chains, and priced and implemented like it. For an owner-operator the real cost isn't just the monthly fee, it's the integrations, the training and the time.
Before Helm Shift
×Schedule built in a notebook every week
×Menu prices set by gut feel
×Labour cost only visible after the fact
×Sick calls covered by texting everyone
×Operations questions go to Google, or nowhere
With Helm Shift
✓A full weekly schedule in one tap
✓Every dish costed against its menu price
✓Labour cost estimated before you publish
✓Ranked cover suggestions when someone calls in
✓AI assistant built for restaurant operations
Tyler MacDougall, founder of Helm Shift

I spent just over a year working as a dishwasher, a host, and a line cook, and what stuck with me was how much friction there was in the day to day, for the owners and the staff both. And that was a chain, with a system in place. The independent spots run on spreadsheets and gut feeling. So I built Helm Shift for them.

Tyler MacDougall Founder, Helm Shift · Halifax, NS
Read our story: it started behind the line →
FAQ

Honest answers, before you book a call.

How long does setup actually take?
Setup is about an hour on a call, and you can be scheduling the same day. We bring in your staff list and their availability together while we're small, so you finish the call with a working schedule.
Do I have to switch off my POS?
No. Helm Shift sits alongside whatever you use to ring sales, Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, whatever. We don't compete with your POS; we replace the spreadsheets, group chats, and sticky notes around it.
What happens after the 30-day free trial?
You pick a plan or you walk. No card required to start, so there's nothing to cancel. If you stay, billing is month-to-month, cancel anytime, keep your data export.
Will my staff actually use it?
Staff check their schedule and request time off from their phone browser, and they can add Helm Shift to their home screen in a few taps so it opens like any other app. Nothing to download, no App Store. Managers run the rest from a tablet or laptop. We design for the pace of a working kitchen, not for desk workers.
How is this different from other restaurant software?
Most operations software is priced and built for chains, with implementation teams and required integrations. Helm Shift is built for an owner-operator running one to three locations: plans from $29.99 CAD a month plus tax, every feature on every plan, and scheduling, your team and an AI assistant in one login. Setup is about an hour on a call and you can be scheduling the same day. We're not trying to replace your POS, we replace the spreadsheets and group chats around it.
Is my data safe? Who can see it?
Your data is encrypted both in storage and when it moves across the internet. Each restaurant's data is walled off, one restaurant can never see another's. You own it. Export anytime as CSV. We never sell it, and we never use your operational data to train AI models. We share it only with the service providers that run Helm Shift, listed on our subprocessors page. The companies that host our database and serve our app meet industry-standard security certifications. Read our full privacy policy.
What if I have multiple locations?
Professional supports up to 3 locations. Enterprise is unlimited. Each location has its own staff, schedule and menu, but you see consolidated labour and food cost across all of them in one view.

See it running on your restaurant.

Book a free setup call. We'll walk through scheduling, menus, and the AI assistant, live, using your operation as the example.

Book your free setup call See how it works
Starting at $29.99 CAD/month
30-day free trial
Independent restaurants