Frequently asked questions

It is built first for fire departments, career, volunteer, and combination. It also runs coverage for EMS agencies, contract ambulance services, hospital emergency departments, and 911 dispatch and communications centers. If your team runs 24/7 shift coverage, whether that is a firehouse, an ambulance service, or a hospital ED, RescueShift fits.

Personal scheduling: build your rotation, see what days you work, add training and event tags, and follow other calendars. It runs on-device and it's ad-supported. If you want it ad-free and want to share your schedule with family, that's Premium.

It works on the web, on iPhone, and on Android. There's also a read-only station display you can put on a TV so the whole crew can see who's working without touching anything.

For a single responder, a couple of minutes. Pick your pattern (24/48, 48/96, whatever you run), set the day your cycle starts, and you're done. For a department or agency it takes longer because you're adding stations, units, and members, but the setup wizard walks you through it and you can start a pilot before you commit.

Yes. RescueShift supports 24/48, 48/96, 24/72, 3x12, 4x10, 2-on/2-off, and fully custom cycles with any number of teams. You set an anchor date and the pattern repeats from there, so A, B, and C shift line up the way they actually do at your station.

Yes. Kelly days are built into the rotation math, so the schedule reflects the reduced hours instead of showing someone on duty when they're really off.

Then you use the sign-up board. Post the shifts that need coverage and members claim the ones they can work. A lot of volunteer and combination departments run this way, and you can mix it with a fixed rotation if part of your crew is career and part is volunteer.

Two members agree to swap dates, and the trade goes through approval before it's final. The system checks the swap against minimum staffing so you don't accidentally drop a unit below its required crew. Everyone involved sees the same updated schedule.

Yes. You set the minimum crew per apparatus or station, and coverage views flag any day that falls short before it becomes a problem. That's the whole point: catch the hole while there's still time to fill it.

Personal scheduling is free and ad-supported. Premium is $2.99 a month, $29.99 a year (2 months free), or a one-time $99.99 lifetime purchase; it removes ads and adds family sharing for up to 10 people. Departments choose a flat monthly plan by crew size: Crew is $60 for up to 25 members, Station $150 for up to 75, and Battalion $350 for up to 200. Larger agencies contact us. Prefer to pay only for active members? An optional self-serve $3 per active seat plan is available. Every plan starts with a 3-month free trial, and annual billing gets 2 months free. Prices exclude tax.

Departments pick a flat monthly plan sized to their crew, billed on the web through Stripe: Crew $60 for up to 25 members, Station $150 for up to 75, or Battalion $350 for up to 200. You move up a plan only when your roster outgrows the current one. If you would rather pay only for who's active, an optional self-serve plan bills $3 per active seat. Annual billing gets 2 months free.

You stay on your current flat plan until your roster passes its member cap, then you move up to the next size: Crew to Station to Battalion. Above 200 members we set up a custom Agency plan together. If you prefer your bill to track headcount exactly, the optional self-serve $3 per active seat plan scales up and down with your crew.

Up to 200 members you're on the Battalion plan at $350 a month. Above 200, we build a custom Agency plan for your county or multi-battalion setup, email support@rescueshift.com and we'll help you roll out across stations. If you'd rather pay only for active members, the optional self-serve $3 per active seat plan has no cap.

Yes. Departments can start a free pilot, so you can load in your stations and crew and see it working before any money changes hands. Individual firefighters can stay on the free plan as long as they want.

No. While your department subscription is active, every member gets the Premium features as part of it. Nobody on your crew has to buy anything on their own.

Roles decide that. An Admin runs the whole department. A Battalion Chief covers their own stations, a Captain covers their station or shift, and a Firefighter or EMT sees their own schedule, requests trades, and signs up for open shifts. Read-only access is there for dispatchers or city staff who need to look but not touch.

Their department access is cut off right away. They keep their own personal data, their events, patterns, and training records, and they drop back to their personal plan, either Free or Premium. Nothing of theirs disappears, and nothing of the department's stays with them.

That's exactly what the station display is for. Put it on a TV in the house and the crew sees who's working, what's covered, and what's open, all read-only so nobody can mess it up walking by. When the schedule changes, the board changes.

Yes. It tracks hours against FLSA 7(k) work periods instead of a plain 40-hour week, which is how fire department overtime actually gets calculated. That's on the roadmap alongside the analytics work, so ask us where it stands for your use case.

You do. Your schedule, your members, and your records belong to your department. We store them so the app works across your devices and your crew, and we don't sell them.

Yes. Your personal calendar, patterns, and training records are yours and travel with you. Department data belongs to the department. If you leave, you keep the personal side and lose access to the department side, cleanly.

Email support@rescueshift.com. A real person reads it. If you want your account and data removed, tell us and we'll take care of it.