Honest answers about Helm Shift.

Helm Shift is restaurant operations software for independent restaurants — scheduling, inventory, and an AI assistant in one login. It's built for owner-operators running one location to several, with teams of any size, at a price an independent can actually justify.

Independent, owner-operated restaurants — typically one location to several, with teams of any size — that don't have a dedicated IT team or a big software budget. It's made for the operators that enterprise platforms price out.

Most kitchens are live the same day. During a 30-minute guided onboarding we load your staff, your top inventory items, and your suppliers, so you can schedule and track stock that night.

Managers run Helm Shift in a web browser on a tablet or laptop. Staff use a phone-friendly link to view their schedule and request time off — no app to install today (a dedicated app is coming soon) and no password to remember.

There are three plans: Starter at $99 CAD/month, Professional at $199 CAD/month, and Enterprise at $349 CAD/month. Billing is month-to-month with no contract — cancel anytime. See full pricing.

Yes — you can start free for 30 days, no card required. There's nothing to cancel if you decide it isn't for you.

No contract. Helm Shift is month-to-month, and you can cancel anytime by email. You keep the ability to export your data.

Smart scheduling with AI generation, staff availability and time-off management, inventory and low-stock alerts plus menus and recipes, the labour cost estimator, up to 15 staff at one location, and email support with guided onboarding.

Yes. Scheduling, inventory, and the AI assistant all live in one login. You're not stitching together separate tools or paying separate bills.

Yes. Helm Shift works alongside whatever POS you use to ring sales — Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed, and others. It doesn't replace your POS; it handles the scheduling, inventory, and operations around it.

Yes. Staff get a phone-friendly link to see their schedule, request time off, pick up open shifts, and report low inventory by photo or voice — designed for the pace of a working kitchen.

The Professional plan supports up to 3 locations and Enterprise is unlimited. Each location keeps its own staff, inventory, and suppliers, while you see consolidated labour and food cost across all of them.

Your data is encrypted in storage and in transit, and each restaurant's data is walled off so one restaurant can never see another's. You own your data and can export it anytime. We never sell or share it. Read the privacy policy.

No. We never use your operational data to train AI models. The AI assistant uses your data only to answer your questions and make suggestions, which a human always reviews.

Helm Shift is operated from Canada and hosted on infrastructure that meets industry-standard security certifications. It is built to comply with PIPEDA, Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), and Quebec's Law 25.

Every plan includes email support and guided onboarding. Enterprise adds a dedicated account manager and phone support. You can also reach the founder, Tyler, directly at [email protected].