When I Work alternatives: 6 options, several of them free

The free plan that made When I Work popular is gone. Here is who still offers one, what each costs once you pay, and what you give up compared with When I Work.

Free plans and prices checked against each vendor's own pricing page on 29 September 2026. Emplora is our product, and it is on this list.

Quick picks

You want a free plan back, for up to 30 people: Sling
You want one flat price as you hire: Homebase
You need a free time clock and have 10 or fewer staff: Connecteam
Your staff do not have work email addresses: Emplora
You run a restaurant: 7shifts
You need forecasting and labor compliance: Deputy

Why teams look for a When I Work alternative

The free plan is gone

When I Work now offers a 14-day trial and paid plans only. Plenty of articles still describe a generous free tier, so teams arrive expecting one and find a per-user bill instead.

Seats are sold in bundles

When I Work's own help centre says seats are billed in bundles of five or ten depending on the plan. A 12-person team pays for 15 or 20 seats, which makes the headline per-user price a floor rather than a quote.

Per-user pricing, and a pricing page that varies

Prices start at $2.50 per user a month, with $5 for multiple locations, so the bill climbs with every hire. The pricing page has also changed shape more than once, and existing customers can still see an older layout with different plan names and prices, so check what your own account shows before you budget.

The alternatives at a glance

Free plan limits and first paid price for When I Work alternatives
Tool	Free plan	Time clock on free	First paid price
Sling	30 users	No	$2.00 per user a month (Premium)
Homebase	10 employees, 1 location	Yes, with 90 days of timesheet history	$30 per location a month (Essentials), unlimited employees
Connecteam	10 users, 1 schedule, 1 time clock	Yes, with GPS and geofencing	$35 a month per hub (Basic), flat for the first 30 users
Emplora	15 employees, 1 location	Not offered on any plan	$39 a month, flat, for 2 locations and 40 employees each
7shifts	15 employees, 1 location	No	$44.99 per location a month (Essentials), up to 30 employees
Deputy	None, trial of up to 31 days	Trial only	$5.50 per user a month (Lite), with a $30 monthly minimum spend

1. Sling: best for getting a free plan back

Shift scheduling from Toast, with the largest free user cap in the category.

The nearest thing to the free When I Work people remember. Sling is free for up to 30 users and keeps a lot of the day-to-day on free: shift offers, time-off requests, templates, shift alarms and announcements. The trade is time tracking, which Sling's free plan does not have at all, and shift swaps, which are paid. If you used When I Work for scheduling rather than hours, this is a like-for-like move that costs nothing.

Free plan: 30 users
First paid price: $2.00 per user a month (Premium)

2. Homebase: best for predictable cost as you hire

Scheduling, a time clock and light HR for small US hourly teams, with payroll sold alongside.

The opposite pricing model. Homebase charges per location, not per person, so Essentials is $30 a month whether you have 15 staff or 40, with no seat bundles to round up to. Its free plan covers 10 employees at one location and includes a time clock, which neither When I Work nor most free plans offer. It is built around US payroll, so the value is highest for US businesses.

Free plan: 10 employees, 1 location
First paid price: $30 per location a month (Essentials), unlimited employees

Emplora vs. Homebase, side by side

3. Connecteam: best for free scheduling with a gps clock under 10 users

An all-in-one deskless workforce app: scheduling, GPS time clock, chat, forms and training.

If you used When I Work's clock-in, this keeps it for free at small sizes. Connecteam's free plan covers 10 users and includes GPS clock-in, geofencing, auto-scheduling and shift templates. Archived users count towards the 10, and you get one schedule and one time clock, so multiple sites need a paid plan at $35 a month per hub.

Free plan: 10 users, 1 schedule, 1 time clock
First paid price: $35 a month per hub (Basic), flat for the first 30 users

Emplora vs. Connecteam, side by side

4. Emplora: best for teams without work email

Our product

Scheduling for shift-based teams, where staff open their rota from a QR code or a PIN instead of an account.

This is our product, so read it with that in mind. When I Work invites each employee to an account; Emplora does not. Staff open the schedule from a QR code or a PIN in any browser, with nothing to install. Free covers 15 employees at one location, then $39 a month flat. What you lose against When I Work: there is no time clock on any plan, and shift swaps and time-off requests start on the paid plan.

Free plan: 15 employees, 1 location
First paid price: $39 a month, flat, for 2 locations and 40 employees each

5. 7shifts: best for restaurants

Restaurant-specific scheduling with tip pooling, POS integrations and labor tools.

Restaurant teams get more from a restaurant-specific tool. 7shifts is free for 15 employees at one location, including shift trades, availability and time-off requests, with POS integrations built in. There is no time clock on free, and a second location means Essentials at $44.99 per location a month.

Free plan: 15 employees, 1 location
First paid price: $44.99 per location a month (Essentials), up to 30 employees

6. Deputy: best for going up a tier, not down

Enterprise-grade scheduling with demand forecasting, labor compliance and auto-scheduling.

If you are leaving because When I Work does too little rather than costs too much, Deputy is the step up: demand forecasting, auto-scheduling and labor-law compliance. It is also more expensive per head, from $5.50 per user a month billed monthly with a $30 monthly minimum, and there is no free plan, only a trial of up to 31 days.

Free plan: None, trial of up to 31 days
First paid price: $5.50 per user a month (Lite), with a $30 monthly minimum spend

Emplora vs. Deputy, side by side

When to stay with When I Work

Your team already lives in the app. The mobile experience and the swap and availability flows are genuinely good, and adoption is the hardest thing to rebuild after a switch.
You have fewer than 10 people, where the per-user total is small enough that the price barely matters.
You need scheduling and time tracking together on mobile and are happy to pay for both from day one.

Moving your rota without losing a week

1
Price your real headcount, not your seat bundle
Check how many people actually work shifts, not how many seats you are billed for. Teams leaving When I Work often find they have been paying for a bundle larger than their rota, which changes which alternative is cheapest.
2
Export timesheets and attendance before the plan ends
If you used When I Work for time tracking, export the history while you still have access. Your new tool may not have a clock at all, so decide where hours will live before you switch.
3
Collect availability again rather than migrating it
When I Work teams lean heavily on availability. It changes too often to be worth porting, so ask everyone to re-enter it in the new tool during the first week, and treat that as the onboarding check.
4
Run both for one full week
Keep the old schedule as the source of truth for a week that includes a Friday and a weekend. Once nobody has missed a shift, tell the team to stop opening the old app.

Frequently asked questions

No. When I Work offers a 14-day trial and then paid plans only, from $2.50 per user a month, checked in September 2026. The free tier that older articles describe no longer exists.

Sling, if you need a free plan for a larger team: it covers up to 30 users, though it has no time tracking. For teams of 10 or fewer that need a time clock, Connecteam and Homebase both include one on their free plans. Emplora and 7shifts are free for 15 employees at one location.

More than 12 times the per-user price. When I Work bills seats in bundles of five or ten depending on the plan, so 12 people means paying for 15 or 20 seats: $37.50 or $50 a month at $2.50 a seat. Existing customers can still see an older price layout, so confirm the figure in your own account.

On a free plan, Homebase and Connecteam. Homebase's clock runs on tablets, computers and POS devices for up to 10 employees; Connecteam's uses GPS and geofencing for up to 10 users. Sling, 7shifts and Emplora have no time tracking on their free plans.

For scheduling, yes, and it is free for up to 30 users with shift offers, time-off requests and announcements included. For time tracking, no: Sling's free plan has no clock-in or timesheets, and shift swaps are a paid feature.

With most alternatives, yes, and each person will need to accept an invitation and create an account. Plan a week of overlap for it. Tools that let staff in with a QR code or a PIN, like Emplora, remove the account step, which is usually where a switch stalls.