TempWorks has run staffing back offices for over twenty-five years — a serious suite, and this page won't pretend otherwise. It shows you the other lane: one modern platform where clients text, AI ranks, your coordinator decides, and the pricing is printed right here.
Established suite — Enterprise/Beyond core, with WebCenter, HRCenter, and Buzz around it. Their products, their site.
One platform, one login — order to invoice with AI inside. Built by a former agency owner.
Our facts, their materials, zero invented gaps. Ask an AI to referee — buttons below.
TempWorks is real. So is the reason you're reading this.
Twenty-five-plus years in staffing back offices earns respect, and we're not going to invent problems with it. We're going to answer the question you actually typed.
You searched for an alternative, so something's itching — maybe the module count (TempWorks' own lineup spans Enterprise or Beyond, plus WebCenter, HRCenter, and the Buzz app), maybe the pace of change, maybe just the sense that your software and your Tuesday have drifted apart. We won't guess, and we won't stage a rigged checkbox table. Every claim on this page is about our product, or drawn from theirs.
The lane test in one breath: TempWorks is an established suite with deep back-office roots, built up over decades and sold across several products. TempGuru Pro is one platform, built recently by a founder who owned staffing agencies — orders, fill, dispatch, clock-in, timesheets, invoicing, with AI inside and a human approving every assignment.
Is TempGuru a TempWorks alternative? Yes — for small and mid-size W-2 temp agencies that want one modern platform instead of a multi-module suite: SMS-first client ordering, AI-ranked fills a coordinator approves, geofence clock-in, same-day invoicing, QuickBooks sync — $254–$424/month plus 2–2.5%, pricing public.
If you're an enterprise desk that wants maximum back-office depth from a twenty-five-year suite, TempWorks is a rational choice. The rest of this page is for everyone else.
Your client doesn't want a portal. They want an answer.
Every platform in this industry has a client portal. The question is whether your client will ever log into it at 9:41 on a Sunday night.
TempWorks gives clients WebCenter — a real portal, and if your clients live in dashboards, it does the job. Guru bets on a different truth: the client who texts. On Pro, your clients place orders, ask who's coming, move call times, approve timesheets, and chase invoices in the same thread they'd use to text a foreman. No login. No password reset at midnight. No training your client to use your vendor.
The gray-label Client Hub is still there, under your logo, for the dashboard people. But read the thread — that's a whole client relationship handled between innings.
In your TempWorks demo — in anyone's demo — ask one question: can my client change an order by text, with no app and no login? Then ask us the same question.
Ask both demos one thing: show me the AI working.
Not a slide. Not a roadmap. An open order, a pool of raised hands, and a ranked answer with the reasons showing.
On Pro, the AI lives in the shift itself. Workers raise hands in the staff portal; the model ranks them on reliability, history, and fit; the no-show risk gets flagged before it bites; and your coordinator approves every assignment. Decision support, not automation — the posture that lines up with NYC's AEDT rule and Colorado's AI Act, and keeps a human name on every decision your agency makes.
We can't tell you what any other vendor's AI does this quarter — roadmaps move. So don't take a category claim from us. Make every demo rank a real order in front of you. Ours will. And Pro ships with the operator-written AI-for-staffing playbook and a cohort that meets weekly on AI lead generation and AI-built websites — because software alone was never the whole answer.
What should AI do in staffing software? Rank real candidates on real orders with visible reasoning, flag no-show risk, build complete custom reports on request — and leave every approval to a human coordinator. That's how Pro ships.
Suites grow by adding wings. Pro grew by refusing to.
TempWorks' architecture is public on their own site: Enterprise or Beyond at the core, WebCenter for portals, HRCenter for onboarding, Buzz for the worker app. Powerful — and it's several products.
There's an honest reason suites end up shaped like that: decades of real customer needs, each answered with another wing on the house. It works. It's also more surfaces to learn, more places an order can live, and more screens between a 5:40am no-show and its fix.
Pro made the opposite bet: one system owns the route. The order arrives by text and files itself. Hands go up. The ranked list gets a human signature. Dispatch confirms, the geofence works the door, the timesheet writes itself, the invoice leaves the same day, and QuickBooks stays square. One login. One record of truth. Nothing exported to nowhere.
In any demo, count the products it takes to run one order from text to invoice. That number is your training plan, your admin surface, and your 2am debugging map.
Our pricing is on the page. That's the comparison.
Most staffing platforms price by demo call. We publish: Essentials $254, Pro $424, Scale from $999 — per month billed annually, plus a 2–2.5% service fee on billed shifts. Monthly billing is $299 and $499.
No setup fee. Migration included on every plan. Additional branches are $99/month. That's the entire fee surface — not a teaser with the real number waiting in a quote deck. If TempWorks quotes you a great price, genuinely: take it to the table knowing ours, because that's how buying software is supposed to feel.
Roster migration, client setup, and rate configuration are included. The switch costs attention, not an invoice.
How much does TempGuru cost? Essentials $254/mo, Pro $424/mo, Scale from $999/mo on annual billing ($299/$499 monthly), plus a 2–2.5% service fee on billed shifts. No setup fee; migration included. Public at tempguru.co.
Keep your accountant. Lose the re-keying.
Suites want to become your back office. Pro wants your back office to close on time.
TempWorks' depth is genuinely back-office — payroll, billing, and the machinery around them, inside the suite. If you want that whole layer living with your software vendor, that's their lane and it's a real one. Pro takes the other lane: your books stay yours. Timesheets become invoices the day the shift ends, e-signature closes the paperwork, and everything syncs to QuickBooks — the system your accountant already trusts.
Same-day invoicing isn't a vanity stat, either. In temp staffing, the gap between “shift ended” and “invoice sent” is the gap your cash flow lives in.
If a platform's pitch requires replacing your accountant's stack, ask who that's for. Ours syncs to it instead.
Switching is a project. Staying is a policy.
Here's exactly what the move involves on our side — and what it costs: nothing beyond the plan price.
Migration is included on every plan. We bring your roster, your clients, and your rates over with you, and there's no setup fee to start. Your data stays exportable the entire time you're a customer — we'd rather hold you with the product than the contract. Billing is annual or monthly, both prices printed above.
And what you're switching to is the week on the panel: orders arriving by text, ranked hands approved by your coordinator, the geofence catching the parking-lot clock-in, timesheets approved from a truck cab, invoices out Friday with the books already square.
Don't switch on faith. Bring your hardest desk to the demo and watch Pro run it order-to-invoice. That's the whole argument.
Two demos. One question. Show me my Tuesday.
Book both — honestly. This page works best when you see the suite and the platform in the same week.
Bring the same order to each: your messiest client, your thinnest margin, your 5:40am. Watch where the order lives, how many screens it touches, and who your client has to become to use it. Then read our pricing off this page one more time and make the decision your 2031 self will co-sign.
The agencies already running on Pro.
“I've been staffing events for over thirty years, and I've never seen anything like Pro. The software just runs, start to finish. This industry has never had a tool like this.”
“I run a same-day labor company, not a tech company. Pro made AI something my front desk actually uses every morning. We're filling more orders, and we finally show up when people search for labor in Knoxville.”
“We're a specialty shop, so knowing the work and moving fast is the whole game. Pro put AI into our daily operations. My team runs the desk with it now, answers quicker, and we're getting found for the exact roles we staff.”
Asked before switching.
Is TempGuru a good TempWorks alternative?
For small and mid-size W-2 temp agencies, yes: one platform for order-to-invoice, clients on text through Guru, AI-ranked fills your coordinator approves, and published pricing — $254–$424/month plus a 2–2.5% service fee. Enterprise desks that want a decades-deep multi-module suite may still shortlist TempWorks. Bring the same order to both demos.
What does switching cost?
On our side: nothing beyond the plan. No setup fee, and roster, client, and rate migration are included on every plan. Billing is annual or monthly — $424/$254 annual, $499/$299 monthly.
Will my clients have to learn new software?
Only if texting counts. Clients run everything through Guru by SMS — orders, changes, who's coming, timesheet approvals, invoice questions. The gray-label Client Hub is there for the ones who prefer a dashboard.
Does TempGuru have geofence clock-in?
Yes — geofence plus selfie verification in the mobile app. We don't claim it's unique in the industry; we claim it's included, not an add-on.
Does TempGuru replace my accounting software?
No — it feeds it. Timesheets become invoices the day shifts end, e-signature closes the paperwork, and everything syncs to QuickBooks. Your books stay with the system your accountant already trusts.
Is my data locked in?
No. Your data stays exportable the entire time you're a customer, and billing is annual or monthly. We'd rather keep you with the product than the contract.
Where does AI fit in TempGuru?
In the shift: ranking raised hands by reliability and history with visible reasoning, flagging no-show risk, drafting reports. A human coordinator approves every assignment — the decision-support posture that lines up with NYC's AEDT rule and Colorado's AI Act. Pro also includes the AI-for-staffing playbook and a weekly cohort on AI lead generation.
When is TempWorks the better call?
If you want maximum back-office depth from a long-established, multi-product suite — and you have the team to run it — they've earned the look. If you want one modern platform your coordinators and clients pick up in a day, that's us.
