Fill 3 out of 4 shifts without an agency,
and cut those costs by up to 70%.
Relief Guru connects everyone on your team into one live network. The moment a shift opens, your own people see it before any agency does. You decide who works, what they earn, and what staffing costs you.
Every agency shift costs you $155 to $315 more than filling it with your own staff.
And most of it lands on shifts your own part-timers would gladly take. Here's what each agency shift actually costs you, on top of the wage, billed after the shift is done.
Agency fee, per shift
Digital platforms charge $65–$75 a shift. Traditional agencies add a 20–30% markup on the wage, roughly $100–$150, billed after the shift is done.
Wage premium, per shift
Agency relief runs $10 to $30 an hour above your own rate. Over an 8-hour shift, that's the premium you eat every time.
Manager time, per shift
Calling, texting and chasing replies to dodge the agency. At $30 to $60 an hour, that's a six-figure cost no invoice ever shows.
To dodge that premium your team scrambles every open shift, then calls the agency anyway.
Someone works down a call list, fires off texts and emails, posts in WhatsApp groups, then waits for replies that never come. Roughly 45 minutes a shift, and when nobody bites, they give up and call the agency anyway, at full premium.
One post reaches your whole team at once, and the shift fills before you'd have finished the first call.
The moment a shift opens, Relief Guru broadcasts it to your own people first, then your wider organisation, then our verified network, in the order you set. No calls, no chasing, no premium. You just watch it get picked up, at $0 agency fee.
Your own store first, agencies last, across five tiers, and only that final tier costs a cent.
You control the exact order and how long each tier waits before the next one is asked. Because most shifts fill on the free internal tiers, they never reach a paid one, so agency spend becomes the rare exception, not the reflex.
Location Staff
The store's own part-time and casual team gets the first ping.
$0 feePreferred Relief
Vetted relief pharmacists your team already knows and rates.
$0 feeOrganisation-Wide
Pharmacists from your other stores who know your systems.
$0 feeRelief Guru Network
Thousands of verified pharmacists across Canada as backup.
IncludedOutside Agencies
The fallback you almost never need. Used only when every tier is empty.
$75+ / shiftYou set the wait times, visibility and escalation on every shift: broadcast to your whole pool at once for urgent cover, or step through the tiers on a timer to fill at your best rate first.
About 75% of shifts fill from Tiers 1 to 4, your own staff and the Relief Guru network. Outside agencies catch only the final ~25%.
Every tool you juggle today, in one app across every store.
Scheduling, credentials, messaging, reporting, access control and more. The separate systems your team logs into today, replaced by one platform built for multi-store pharmacy.
Bulk Shift Posting
Upload a spreadsheet and post thousands of open shifts across every store in one go, not one by one.
Thousands in secondsBulk Staff Invites
Invite hundreds of pharmacists and technicians into your pool at once, so every store is covered from day one.
Hundreds at onceShare Shifts to Social Media
Push open shifts to WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, then handle applications, invoices and payment in one place.
Not available anywhere elseSwap Shift Protection
When a pharmacist cancels, the system finds a replacement from your internal pool first. No gap, no scramble.
Filled in 23m · $0 feeAnalytics & Reporting
Track relief costs, fill rates and staff hours across every store. Export the numbers finance asks for.
~75% internal fillUnified Communication
Chat directly with candidates to clarify details and fill shifts faster. Instant push and email notifications, plus automatic shift reminders.
Push + email alertsMobile & Web Apps
A mobile app for professionals and mobile + web apps for pharmacies. Push notifications let staff browse and grab new shifts the instant they open.
iOS · Android · WebInstant Shift Broadcast
Every open shift pushes to the right people in real time. No call lists, no phone tag, no messages missed.
Real-time pushShift Visibility Control
Decide exactly who sees each shift and when, internal-first, region-by-region, or your whole network at once. Highly customisable, controlled by each pharmacy as well as head office.
Fully configurableExternal Relief Backup
If your internal pool cannot fill, the request opens to thousands of verified pharmacists as backup.
Verified 100%Credential Management
Every licence, certification and document for every member in one place, with expiry alerts.
OCP · ACPRole-Based Access
District managers see their stores, regional see regions, head office sees everything. Fully configurable.
3 access levelsPoint for point, there isn't a line where an agency comes out ahead.
| Relief Guru Enterprise | Digital & traditional agencies | |
|---|---|---|
| Per-shift cost | ✓ $0 per shift, flat monthly fee | ✕ $75 per shift or 15–30% markup |
| Staffing model | ✓ Proactive internal + external fill | ✕ Reactive external scrambling |
| Staff access | ✓ Internal + external, on demand | ✕ External strangers only |
| Bulk posting | ✓ Upload a sheet, post thousands in seconds | ✕ Enter every shift manually, one by one |
| Staff communication | ✓ Unified in-app push notifications | ✕ Phone, email, WhatsApp chaos |
| Multi-store control | ✓ Centralised head-office control | ✕ Separate systems per store |
| Fill-rate transparency | ✓ Live internal-vs-external dashboard | ✕ Tracked separately, if at all |
| Bulk invite | ✓ Invite hundreds of staff at once | ✕ No bulk invite available |
| Network visibility | ✓ Full internal + external visibility | ✕ No internal visibility |
| Candidate selection | ✓ Auto-select by your chosen criteria | ✕ Manual selection only |
| Social media sharing | ✓ Share shifts to WhatsApp, Facebook & Instagram | ✕ Not available |
| Mobile app for staff | ✓ Push notifications, browse & grab shifts instantly | ✕ None |
| Shift visibility control | ✓ You set who sees each shift, and when | ✕ No control |
| Monthly cost | ✓ About $1–2 a day per location | ✕ Thousands in shift fees alone |
For a 100-store chain, that's $340,000 to $470,000 back in your budget, every year.
You already watch your agency fees. It's the costs stacked underneath them that quietly drain the budget. Watch what happens when every one of them drops.
Cut agency fees at organisation scale
A 100-location org spends around $360,000 a year on agency shift fees. As your internal and network fill grows, that drops sharply, and keeps dropping as the pool matures.
Stop paying the pharmacist pay premium
External relief costs $10 to $30 an hour above your regular wage, on top of the agency fee. On an 8-hour shift that premium alone is $80 to $240. Every internally-filled shift eliminates it.
Replace variable agency costs
Agency costs swing with volume, urgency and market rates. Relief Guru replaces that with one flat monthly subscription, no minimum, unlimited shifts.
No per-shift charges, even for external fills
When your pool cannot cover, our verified network steps in at Tier 4 at zero per-shift fee, included in the subscription. You only pay agency rates if you choose Tier 5.
The benefit compounds every year
Year 1 cuts agency spend. Year 2 your float pool grows and retention improves. By Year 3 the pool is your primary hiring source, so the infrastructure pays dividends every year after.
| Cost category (100 locations) | Traditional | With Relief Guru |
|---|---|---|
| Agency shift fees | $360,000 | $108,000–$180,000 |
| Pharmacist wage premium | $576,000 | $345,600–$403,200 |
| Admin coordination | $72,800 | $14,560 |
| Platform cost ($59 / location / mo) | $0 | $70,800 |
| Net annual saving | $340,240–$469,840 |
A deliberately conservative 100-store model: 4 relief shifts per location a month, a $75 agency fee and a $10–30/hr wage premium over 8-hour shifts. Ranges reflect early- vs mature-stage internal fill. Your actual saving depends on your staffing patterns.
Put in your own.
Set the sliders to your real store count and shift volume. This is your saving, not a sample.
Your inputs
Your estimated savings
In three years, your relief pool becomes your recruiting pipeline.
Every shift your own people pick up builds a bench that compounds. The pool you grow this year becomes the staff you hire from next year.
Reduce agency dependency
Your cascade goes live. Staff opt in to pick up shifts across stores, and every open shift broadcasts to your own pool before any agency call.
Build your own corporate pool
Your float pool grows on its own. Part-timers who used agencies for extra shifts now find them through you, at your rates. Retention improves.
Your pool becomes your hiring funnel
The pharmacists in your pool already know your stores and systems. When a permanent role opens, they're your first interview, not a stranger.
And the cost of waiting only climbs
Your relief bill doesn't just grow per shift, it grows every year. As the pharmacist shortage deepens, agency rates keep climbing, so the longer you stay agency-dependent the more it costs, while Relief Guru holds your total relief spend down and your $59 platform fee flat.
Not $99, just $59 per location a month on pilot.
Flat monthly rate, no per-shift fees, no markups, no admin creep. One rate that replaces all of it, plus your first 3 months free.
No per-shift charges
Post as many relief shifts as you need. No per-shift fees chipping away at your margins.
Five-tier escalation engine
A cascade you configure that asks your own people before any external call, on every shift.
Dedicated account manager
One point of contact who knows your organisation and keeps things running across every store.
Pilot starts August 2026, only a limited number of banners will be chosen.
90-day pilot included. No commitment.
Owners already using us say it better.
"Relief Guru has been a reliable partner in providing skilled and professional relief pharmacists. We often need relief pharmacists to ensure seamless operations."
Balwin Pharmacy · Pharmacy Owner · Alberta
"We cannot recommend Relief Guru enough. They have been instrumental in keeping our pharmacy staffed and running smoothly during a transition period of finding a new pharmacist."
Carly · IDA Pharmacy Owner
"The best relief company I have ever dealt with within the last years. Ankit has a very good and professional pharmacists network. He can help even with last minute shifts."
Micheal Abadir · Multi-Pharmacy Owner · Alberta
Here are the ones we hear most.
We're not a staffing agency, we're a staffing platform for pharmacy chains. That means you get an agency-like setup without paying per-shift charges. An agency only connects you with outside relief; our platform connects you with your own internal staff first, plus access to our 5,000+ external relief professionals. Agencies make money by placing pharmacists into your stores. We make money by helping you run your own staffing system, so you're no longer dependent on agencies. You connect the staff, configure the cascade, the platform runs it, and every fill is tracked so you see exactly how much you're saving, with full control over visibility and cost. And all of it costs less than one agency shift fee, for a whole month: just $59 per location.
A flat $59 per location per month for pilot partners (regular price $99), billed monthly with no minimum and unlimited internal and external shift posting. That replaces variable agency fees, last-minute premiums and coordination overhead. The only usage-based charge is a payment-handling fee, applied when Relief Guru handles the payment for a shift picked up through our external network. Book a discovery call for your exact quote.
Because we want every store on the system, not just the ones that can justify a big software budget. A high price would put staffing infrastructure out of reach for most locations, and that's the opposite of what we're building. The value doesn't shrink to match the price: at $59 a location, most chains see a 600–800% return, because a single month's fee costs less than one agency shift fill. The low price is also the strategy, the more stores you connect, the stronger your internal network becomes, so we removed the one thing that stops that happening: cost.
They stay exactly as they are, no contracts to cancel. Agencies simply sit at Tier 5 of the cascade, called only after your own team has been asked. Over time you use them only for genuinely hard-to-fill shifts.
No. Relief Guru works alongside your scheduling software. Those tools manage fixed weekly rotations. We handle the open shifts, last-minute fills and pulling staff from other stores. Different problems.
It runs at a cluster of 40 to 60 stores in one area (we're starting in Edmonton, Calgary and the GTA), for 90 days at no platform cost, with unlimited internal and external shift posting and filling. You only pay a payment-handling fee when a shift is picked up through the Relief Guru external network. At day 90 you have real data on internal fill rate, time to fill and cost per shift. No obligation to continue.
Yes. Role-based access is fully configurable. Head office sees everything across all stores, regional managers see their region, and district managers see their cluster.
Onboarding takes about 30 minutes per store, and we train your team at no cost. Your managers handle staff invitations, cascade setup, credential verification and shift posting. A full rollout across a 50-store pilot cluster usually takes about a week.
Let's find out what you'd save.
Give us 20 minutes. We'll look at your real relief spend, show you your own cascade, and set up a no-commitment pilot at 40 to 60 of your stores. Then you decide.