breadshift.com

What It Is

Breadshift is a lightweight SaaS tool for film and TV production. Its core goal is not to provide full payroll, but to help producers quickly find available crew, let crew record call, meal, wrap, and other work hours on set via mobile, and ultimately hand a clean CSV to a payroll provider. The product is clearly aimed at fast-moving, smaller-team scenarios such as indie films and commercial shoots.

Core Features and Collaboration

The feature set is intentionally focused, mainly split into Find crew and Track hours. On the crew-finding side, users can filter by union, role, day rate, and date, view crew availability calendars, save filters, and send invitations with one click; crew can accept or decline. On the time-tracking side, it supports mobile timecards, wraps past midnight, SMS reminders, and a three-stage approval flow covering department head, production, and accounting. The roles include Producer, Department head, Accountant, and Crew member, which fits film and TV production workflows fairly well.

Pricing and Integrations

Pricing is $99 per active production per month, with no setup fee, no per-crew charge, and no payroll commission; billing stops after the project wraps. Breadshift offers a browser demo with no registration and no credit card required, and states that it is free during the early stage. For integrations, it does not run payroll directly, but exports CSV files compatible with Wrapbook, Cast & Crew Start+, EP, and GreenSlate. The exports can also be used with ADP, Gusto, accountants, or regular spreadsheets.

Pros and Cons

Its strengths are clear positioning, a short operational workflow, transparent pricing, and film-industry-specific details such as union information, approvals, California overtime, meal penalties, and 1099 summaries. The downsides are that it is not an open crew marketplace, and crew currently depend on producer invitations; it also does not handle payroll calculation or payment. The available materials do not disclose details on API access, granular permissions, SOC 2/GDPR, or other security and compliance measures, and its suitability outside the United States is also unclear.

Who It’s For and Access from China

Breadshift is best suited to indie features, commercials, small production companies, and production accountants working on shoots in the United States, where it can replace spreadsheets, SMS follow-ups, and manual timecard cleanup. If used from China, network connectivity is unknown, and supported payment methods have not been disclosed. Its union, 1099, and U.S. payroll-provider ecosystem are also highly localized. Domestic Chinese teams may consider using Feishu, DingTalk, or WeCom forms together with local attendance and payroll systems as alternatives.