# Team chat app for UK hospitality Canonical: https://paddl-ai.co/features/team-chat Last reviewed: 2026-09-22 by the Paddl team Paddl's team chat gives every venue its own channels, groups and direct messages, with broadcasts that ask for acknowledgement, open shifts and swaps posted as cards staff can claim, shared-tablet tap-in, translation into 12 languages, and an exportable, retained history. Included at £69/location/month; staff seats are free. ## What Paddl's team chat app does - Site, group, managers and everyone channels made from the rota; leavers are removed the moment they are deactivated - Groups and direct messages, replies, @mentions, reactions, pins, search, photos, video, voice notes, documents, GIFs and polls - Broadcasts to everyone, sites, groups, roles or employment types, with read and acknowledgement reports; urgent ones cut through mutes and quiet hours - Open shifts posted as claimable cards; give a shift away from the thread; claims land in the approvals queue - Turn a message into a maintenance job, a quick task or a handover note in one tap - Shared venue tablets: staff tap in with a PIN so check-ins and messages are theirs - Translate and show original in 12 languages; mute, quiet hours and per-channel notification levels - Exportable PDF history, legal hold, retention you set, and audited owner access to direct messages - Ask Paddy: what did I miss, summarise a thread, send a message or a broadcast, who has not read it ## What it does not do - No voice or video calls - Staff only: customers and suppliers are not in it - Push notifications need the Paddl app; without it people get the broadcast by email - Direct messages are private, but the owner can open one with a recorded reason that both people are told about ## Pricing - **Price:** £69 per location per month, or £703.80 a year (15% off). Every feature is on the one plan. - **Trial:** 30 days free with full access. Card required, cancel anytime, no contract after. - **Included per location:** 5 owner and manager users and 10GB of document storage. Staff seats are free; extra owners or managers are £2.99 a month each. - **Covers:** SFBB, HACCP, allergens and Natasha's Law, temperature and cleaning records, training records, COSHH, risk assessments, licences and insurance, and an EHO-ready audit pack. - **Apps:** Staff app for iOS and Android with team chat, web dashboard for managers, shared venue tablets with PIN tap-in; works on any phone or tablet. - **Company:** Paddl is a trading name of Trading Projects Ltd, company number 16456940, registered in England. Pricing page: https://paddl-ai.co/pricing ## Questions **Does Paddl replace our WhatsApp group?** Yes, for work. It has the things the group is used for (channels, groups, direct messages, photos, voice notes, polls, reactions) and the things the group cannot do: membership that follows the rota, broadcasts that ask each person to acknowledge, open shifts staff claim, and a history you can export. It does not do voice or video calls, and it is for staff only. **Can staff use it without installing the app?** The dashboard has the full chat for managers on a computer, and a shared venue tablet can be enrolled so staff tap in with a PIN. Push notifications need the app on a phone. Somebody with no app and no tablet still gets an urgent broadcast by email. **What happens when somebody leaves?** Deactivate them in Paddl and they are out of every channel that moment, their open sessions are closed, and they get no more pushes. Their messages stay in the history under their name, because the record belongs to the business. Rehire them and they rejoin with the history from that point. **Can I read staff direct messages?** An owner can open a direct message between two members of staff, but only with a written reason, and both people are told in the conversation itself. Every access is recorded with who, when and why. Managers cannot. That is the rule staff accept on first use, so nobody is surprised later. **Is team chat extra?** No. It is part of the £69 per location per month plan, and staff seats are free: only owners and managers count towards the included users, so a fifty-person team costs the same as a five-person one. **Which languages does translation cover?** The twelve Paddl runs in: English (UK and US), Polish, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Spanish, French, German, Thai, Tagalog, Tamil, Arabic and Simplified Chinese. A message shows a Translate link to a reader whose language differs from the one it was written in; nothing is translated until they tap it. ## Related - [Paddl vs Connecteam](https://paddl-ai.co/compare/connecteam) - [Paddl vs All Gravy](https://paddl-ai.co/compare/allgravy) - [Paddl vs Blink](https://paddl-ai.co/compare/blink) - [Paddl vs 7shifts](https://paddl-ai.co/compare/7shifts) - [Staff rota software](https://paddl-ai.co/features/rota): Paddl's staff rota software builds the week against a demand band drawn from up to thirteen weeks of Square takings, warns before you publish if someone is untrained or over hours, takes the hours from staff check-ins, works out holiday, and exports to payroll. - [Team management software](https://paddl-ai.co/features/team): Paddl's team management software keeps a staff directory per site with roles, groups and permissions, tracks each person's training and certificates, records GPS check-ins and handovers, and gives managers a view of who is on site and who is compliant. - [Compliance alerts](https://paddl-ai.co/features/notifications): Paddl's compliance alerts send push notifications, email digests and end-of-day reports for overdue checks, expiring certificates, out-of-range temperatures and unfilled shifts, escalating to a manager when a task is missed, with every alert kept on the record. - [Food safety app](https://paddl-ai.co/features/mobile-app): The Paddl food safety app is a native iOS and Android app for the people on shift: opening and closing checks, fridge and cooking temperatures, cleaning tasks, the SFBB diary and HACCP monitoring records, with quick incident and fault reports, training, the rota and Ask Paddy, working offline and syncing when the signal returns.