Best Employee Scheduling Software 2026: 9 Tools Compared, Priced for a 25-Person Team

Scheduling software is the system hourly employees open more than any other piece of workplace software — to see next week's rota, swap a shift, request time off and clock in. For the managers who build those rotas it is the difference between a Sunday evening spent on a spreadsheet and a schedule that is published in minutes. For a business it is also where labour cost is decided, because the schedule is the wage bill before it happens.

This comparison is for owners, operations managers and HR teams running shift-based teams of roughly 10–500 people in restaurants, retail, healthcare, hospitality, logistics and field services. Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on 30 October 2026 and is attributed there; where a page left something ambiguous — usually whether a headline figure is the annual or the monthly rate — we say so instead of guessing.

The 9 tools at a glance

What the same team costs on each tool

Comparing "$2.50 per user" with "$30 per location" with "$29 for 30 users" tells you nothing until you fix the team. So we priced two common shapes at list price, choosing on each tool the cheapest published plan that includes both scheduling and a time clock, because almost every hourly team needs both and several free tiers include only the first.

Scenario A: 25 employees, one location

Scenario B: 60 employees across three locations of 20

Excluding Shifts, the spread is 4.3x in Scenario A ($125 ÷ $29) and 5.7x in Scenario B ($300 ÷ $53). That is our own arithmetic on published list prices, not a vendor claim, and it comes with two honest caveats. First, the plans are not feature-equivalent: Deputy Lite includes labour-law compliance tools and leave management that Connecteam Basic does not, and Connecteam only adds repeating shifts and shift templates on Advanced — which is why we show both Connecteam tiers. Second, several pages do not label whether the headline figure is the annual or monthly rate (details in each review below); where they offer annual discounts, those run from 10% to 20%.

The break-even headcount: when per-location pricing wins

The most useful number in this category is not a price; it is the headcount at which a flat per-location plan becomes cheaper than a per-user one. Divide the per-location price by the per-user price and you get the break-even staff count per site:

Read it this way: a coffee shop with eight staff should look at per-user tools or a free tier; a 40-person restaurant should almost never pay per head. 7shifts caps headcount per tier (30 on Essentials, 60 on Pro), so its per-location price steps up rather than staying flat.

The 9 tools, ranked

1. Homebase — best overall for small hourly businesses

Homebase is the default answer for a single-site or small multi-site business with hourly staff, because it is the only tool here that charges by location with unlimited employees from its first paid tier and gives away a usable free plan. Basic is $0 "for 1 location, up to 10 employees" with basic scheduling, basic time tracking and a point-of-sale integration. Essentials ($30 per location per month) adds advanced scheduling, advanced time tracking and team communication; Plus ($70) adds an AI scheduling assistant, PTO controls and departments and permissions; All-in-One ($120) adds onboarding, labour-cost management and HR and compliance.

Watch the add-ons. Payroll is $49 a month plus $6 per employee paid; tip management $25 per location; task management $13 per location; background checks $30 each. The pricing page carries an Annual/Monthly toggle labelled "Save 20%" but does not say which cycle the headline figures represent, so ask before you sign. A 14-day All-in-One trial falls back to the free Basic plan if you do not pick one — and Homebase's FAQ says teams above 10 employees or one location will be asked to upgrade.

2. Deputy — best for compliance-heavy and multi-site operations

Deputy is the most fully featured per-user scheduler here, and its plan ladder reads like a workforce-management roadmap. Lite ($5 per user per month) covers scheduling, timesheets, time clocking, labour-law compliance, shift swapping, leave management and payroll integrations. Core ($6.50, marked "Most popular") adds advanced compliance, auto- and micro-scheduling, demand forecasting, biometric clocking, timesheet auto-approval and wage and labour budgets. Pro ($9) adds location hierarchies, pay centres, SSO, a sandbox and 24/7 live chat. Those rates are shown "billed upfront or in monthly installments" — that is, on an annual commitment; the page offers a 10% annual saving.

Two terms matter. Since 1 September 2025 there is a minimum monthly spend of USD $30 (AUD $30, GBP £20) per invoice on monthly plans. And on an annual plan Deputy's FAQ says you cannot change plan or reduce headcount mid-term, and cancellation carries no refund. Add-ons: HR at $2 per user per month, Messaging+ $1.95, Analytics+ $1.50 (both included in Pro), and Deputy Payroll enabled by Paycor at $8 per user plus a $49 monthly base fee on annual Core and Pro plans in the US. Billing currency follows your sign-up country: AUD in Australia and New Zealand, GBP in the UK, USD everywhere else.

3. When I Work — best simple per-user pricing

When I Work's pitch is that nothing is gated: its pricing page says every plan "includes employee scheduling, time and attendance software, and team messaging", with "no setup fees, no feature restrictions". The FAQ prices it at $2.50 per user per month for single-location teams and $5 for multi-location businesses, billed month-to-month or annually, after a 14-day trial that needs no credit card. The time clock supports GPS and geofencing.

Pricing flag: on the same date, a second rendering of the page showed three plans — Essentials $2.50, Pro $5 and Premium $8 per user, with API access, webhooks and SAML/SSO only on Premium — while the FAQ still described two. If you need SSO or the API, confirm in writing which structure applies to you. At $5 per head, a multi-site team pays the same as Deputy Lite, so the decision becomes simplicity against Deputy's compliance depth.

4. 7shifts — best for restaurants

7shifts is built for one industry and it shows: tip management, a digital manager log book, labour-compliance tools and restaurant POS integrations, and the claim of being "trusted by 55,000+ restaurants". Pricing is per location with a headcount ceiling: Comp is free for one location and up to 15 employees (basic scheduling, announcements, availability and time-off requests — no time clock); Essentials $39.99 per location per month up to 30 employees, adding basic time clocking and team messaging; Pro $79.99 up to 60 employees, adding PTO accruals, labour compliance and labour-cost tools; Premium $134.99 for unlimited employees, bundling tip management, task management, 7shifts Payroll and employee training.

Bought separately, tip management is $49.99 per location, payroll $39.99 per location plus $6 per employee paid (US only), the log book $14.99 and task management $12.99 per location. The page offers 10% off for annual billing; the trial gives 14 days of the top plan, and afterwards you can drop to Comp. Outside food service, the restaurant-specific features are cost you will not use.

5. Connecteam — best all-in-one app for deskless teams

Connecteam bundles scheduling and time tracking with checklists, forms, tasks and internal communication in one employee app, and its pricing is built for small teams: the Small Business Plan is free for up to 10 users across all hubs. The Operations Hub (scheduling and time clock) then charges a flat fee for the first 30 users plus a small per-user tail: Basic $29 a month billed yearly or $35 monthly, then $0.80 or $1.00 per extra user; Advanced $49 or $59, then $2.50 or $3.00; Expert $99 or $119, then $4.20 or $5.00. Enterprise is on quote.

Basic includes a real-time GPS clock and basic scheduling with open shifts. Repeating shifts, templates, auto clock-out and up to 10 geofence sites arrive on Advanced; auto-assigned shifts, API access and webhooks on Expert. For a team whose schedule repeats week to week, plan on Advanced. The yearly saving is stated as 18%.

6. Sling — best free scheduling for teams up to 30

Sling's free plan is the most generous on headcount: shift scheduling, time-off requests, available shifts, news sharing and private messaging for up to 30 users. It does not include time tracking. Premium ($2.00 per user per month monthly, $1.70 annually) adds mobile time tracking, labour-cost management, overtime tracking and calendar sync; Business ($4.00 or $3.40) adds kiosk time tracking, hours and wage reports, no-show and sick-call tracking and PTO management. All plans have a 15-day trial.

One billing detail other per-user vendors do not offer: Sling says paid plans are billed only for active users, and a departing employee's seat is prorated. In industries with high seasonal turnover that is worth real money. If you only need a rota and track hours elsewhere, Sling Free is the cheapest serious option for up to 30 people.

7. Planday — best for European hospitality and retail groups

Planday is the European-born option in this list, and its entry tier leads with what European employers worry about: working-time rules and compliance warnings alongside scheduling, simple time tracking, basic payroll reporting and team communication. Starter is $2.99 per user per month with a minimum of 5 users; Plus is $4.49 per user per month plus a $15 monthly subscription fee, with a minimum of 10 users, adding advanced scheduling, leave and absence management, revenue integration, the API and employee document management; Pro (auto-scheduling, custom permissions, configurable organisational structure) is priced individually.

Planday displayed prices in US dollars to our session; European buyers should expect a local-currency page. The 30-day free trial, with no credit card and cancel-anytime terms, is the longest here.

8. Agendrix — best for Canadian employers

Agendrix ("Proudly Canadian") sells scheduling and time tracking as separate line items, which is unusual and makes it look cheaper than it is. Essential is US$2.93 per user per month (scheduling, communication, request management, reporting) and Plus US$4.73 (adds HR management, surveys and permission customisation). Time and Attendance is an add-on at US$2.03 per user on either plan, so the realistic entry price for an hourly team is about US$4.96 per user. Enterprise targets businesses with 250+ employees. The trial runs up to 21 days with no credit card.

The page toggles between Yearly ("-10%") and Monthly without labelling which figure is shown by default. Its schedule features — training shifts, vacation and overtime banks, weather forecast on the schedule, staffing-agency integrations — suit multi-site retail and food service.

9. Microsoft Shifts — the free baseline for Teams tenants

If your company already runs Microsoft Teams, you own a scheduling tool. Microsoft documents that "Users must have a Teams license to use Shifts" and that "Shifts is enabled by default for all Teams users in your organization". Managers can create schedules and open shifts by hand or in bulk "through Excel import and copy/paste"; workers can request open shifts, request time off, swap or offer shifts to a coworker on the same team, and clock in and out of shifts and breaks. Open shifts across locations are in preview, and there is a Graph API and a WFM connector route for larger estates.

Its limits are documented too. Shifts "currently doesn't support guests", is available in GCC but "not in GCC High or DoD environments", and approved time off "applies only to the team in which the worker requested it". There is no demand forecasting, no labour-cost budgeting, no payroll and no tip handling. Price every paid tool above against Shifts, not against zero — for a Teams-licensed frontline with simple rotas, it may be enough.

Per user, per location or flat bundle: which model fits you

Connecteam's flat-then-per-user model sits between the two: it is the cheapest option in both of our scenarios at Basic, but the per-extra-user rate on Advanced ($2.50 yearly) is the same as When I Work's whole per-user price, so it gets less distinctive as teams pass 30.

Seven things to check before you sign

1. Is the time clock in the plan you are pricing? It is not on Sling Free, 7shifts Comp or Agendrix without the add-on.
2. Annual or monthly? Homebase, 7shifts and Agendrix show an annual toggle without labelling the default figure. Ask for the number in writing.
3. Minimums. Deputy: $30 a month on monthly plans. Planday: 5 users on Starter, 10 on Plus plus a $15 fee.
4. Headcount caps per tier. 7shifts tiers stop at 30 and 60 employees per location; free tiers stop at 10 (Homebase, Connecteam), 15 (7shifts) or 30 (Sling).
5. Payroll is a separate bill. Homebase $49 + $6 per employee; 7shifts $39.99 per location + $6 per employee; Deputy (via Paycor) $49 + $8 per user.
6. Annual lock-in. Deputy's FAQ says annual plans cannot be downgraded or reduced mid-term, and early cancellation is not refunded.
7. Who counts as a user. Sling bills active users only and prorates leavers; on monthly plans Deputy charges a full month for any user added during the month.

Where scheduling meets recognition (Rewordin's angle, clearly labelled)

Schedules generate the most objective recognition signals an hourly workforce has: who picked up the open shift on a holiday weekend, who has not missed a clock-in in six months, who trained three new starters. None of the nine tools above pays a reward for that — they are scheduling systems — and that matters because the people they serve are the least likely to be recognised. Our frontline workforce statistics show that in hospitality and retail roughly seven in ten separations are voluntary quits, far more than in desk-based sectors, and our absenteeism statistics cover what unplanned absence costs the shifts that remain.

A practical pattern is to export a monthly report of reliability signals from the scheduler and fund a small reward per person — see our frontline recognition guide for programme designs that work without a desk or a corporate email. Rewordin delivers that reward as a gift card from a local catalogue in 100+ countries, one at a time or in bulk through the bulk gift card API.

Sources

All pages retrieved on 30 October 2026. Prices are list prices in USD excluding tax, as displayed; derived figures (scenario totals, spreads and break-even headcounts) are our own arithmetic on those prices.

• Homebase pricing (Basic $0 "for 1 location, up to 10 employees"; Essentials $30, Plus $70, All-in-One $120 per location per month, unlimited employees; Annual/Monthly toggle labelled "Save 20%"; payroll $49 per month base plus $6 per employee paid; tip manager $25 per location; task manager $13 per location; background checks $30 each; 14-day All-in-One trial falling back to Basic).
• Deputy pricing (Lite $5, Core $6.50, Pro $9 per user per month "billed upfront or in monthly installments"; "SAVE 10%" annual; "minimum monthly spend of USD $30/AUD $30/GBP £20 per month per invoice on our monthly Lite, Core & Pro plans from September 1, 2025"; HR $2, Messaging+ $1.95, Analytics+ $1.50 per user per month; Deputy Payroll enabled by Paycor $8 per user plus $49 monthly base fee; annual-plan change and refund terms; billing currency by country).
• When I Work pricing ("$2.50 per user per month for single-location teams, and $5 per user per month for multi-location businesses"; every plan includes scheduling, time and attendance and team messaging; fully featured 14-day trial, no credit card; month-to-month or annual billing; a second rendering listing Essentials $2.50, Pro $5 and Premium $8 per user, with API, webhooks and SAML/SSO on Premium).
• 7shifts pricing (Comp free, single location, up to 15 employees; Essentials $39.99 up to 30, Pro $79.99 up to 60, Premium $134.99 unlimited, per month per location; "Save 10% with Annual Billing"; tip management $49.99, payroll $39.99 per location plus $6 per employee paid, manager log book $14.99, task management $12.99; "Trusted by 55,000+ restaurants"; 14-day trial of The Works then optional Comp).
• Connecteam pricing (Small Business Plan "free for up to 10 users"; Operations Hub Basic $29/$35, Advanced $49/$59, Expert $99/$119 per month yearly/monthly for the first 30 users, then $0.80/$1.00, $2.50/$3.00 and $4.20/$5.00 per extra user; "Yearly save 18%"; feature lists per tier).
• Sling pricing (Free for up to 30 users; Premium $2.00 monthly / $1.70 annually and Business $4.00 / $3.40 per user per month; 15% annual saving; 15-day trial; paid plans billed only for active users with proration).
• Planday pricing (Starter $2.99 per user per month, min. 5 users; Plus $4.49 per user per month plus $15 monthly subscription fee, min. 10 users; Pro custom; "30 days for free", no credit card).
• Agendrix pricing (Essential US$2.93 and Plus US$4.73 per user per month; Time and Attendance US$2.03 per user per month; Enterprise for 250+ employees; Yearly "-10%" toggle; "Up to 21 days of free trial. No credit card required").
• Microsoft Learn — Manage the Shifts app for your organization ("Users must have a Teams license to use Shifts"; available in GCC, "not in GCC High or DoD environments"; "Shifts is enabled by default for all Teams users in your organization"; "Shifts currently doesn't support guests"), page dated May 2026.
• Microsoft Learn — Shifts for your frontline organization (manager and worker capability table: schedules and open shifts with "Bulk creation of shifts and time off through Excel import and copy/paste", swap and offer requests, time-off requests applying only to the requesting team, "Clock in and out of shifts and breaks", cross-location open shifts in preview, WFM connectors).
• Google Search Central — Review snippet structured data (rating genuineness requirements).