Best Employee Scheduling Software for Small Agencies

Website: https://www.7shifts.com

Best for: Restaurants and cafes that need labour cost tools

Starting price: $39.99 per location/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Free Comp plan covers 1 location and up to 15 employees with basic scheduling; Essentials adds advanced scheduling, team messaging and a basic time clock; Premium adds tip management, task management and payroll

Cons: Prices are per location, so a second site doubles the bill; payroll is limited to eligible US accounts and costs $6 per employee on the payroll run

7shifts is built for restaurants, and it prices per location per month rather than per user. The Comp plan is free for 1 location with up to 15 employees, and it includes basic scheduling plus availability and time-off requests. Essentials costs $39.99 a location a month billed annually, or $44.99 month to month, for up to 30 employees, and it adds advanced scheduling, team messaging and basic time clocking. Pro costs $79.99 a location a month billed annually for up to 60 employees, and Premium costs $134.99 billed annually with no employee cap.

The Premium tier is where the operations tools sit: tip management, task management, advanced labour forecasting, employee training and 7shifts Payroll for US accounts. The payroll add-on costs $39.99 a location a month plus $6 for every employee on the payroll run, and it is free on Premium apart from the per-employee charge. The limit to watch is the per-location model: a three-location group on Essentials pays about $135 a month. 7shifts suits a single-site restaurant or cafe that wants scheduling, labour costs and payroll in one place.

Website: https://joinhomebase.com

Best for: Single-location teams that want scheduling free

Starting price: $24 per location/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Basic plan is free for 1 location and up to 10 employees with scheduling, time tracking and team messaging; priced plans have unlimited employees per location; hiring tools and payroll add-on available

Cons: Free plan stops at 1 location and 10 employees; payroll is a separate add-on at $49 a month plus $6 per employee on every plan

Homebase charges per location, not per employee, so the bill stays flat as headcount grows. The Basic plan is free for 1 location with up to 10 employees, and it includes basic scheduling, basic time tracking, team messaging and a point-of-sale integration. Essentials costs $24 a location a month billed annually, or $30 month to month, with unlimited employees, and it adds advanced scheduling, advanced time tracking and GPS clock-ins. Plus costs $56 billed annually and adds AI-assisted scheduling, PTO controls and departments, while All-in-One costs $96 billed annually and adds onboarding, labour cost management and HR tools.

Payroll is never included, not even on All-in-One: the add-on costs $49 a month plus $6 per employee, with unlimited payroll runs. The free plan is the tightest here by headcount, at 10 employees, and a second location means a second subscription. Homebase suits a single-location agency, cafe or shop with up to 10 staff that wants scheduling and a time clock for free.

Website: https://www.deputy.com

Best for: Shift teams that need auto-scheduling and compliance

Starting price: $5 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Free trial (14 days)

Pros: Lite at $5 a user a month billed annually covers scheduling, timesheets and leave; Core adds auto-scheduling, demand forecasting and wage budgets; award interpretation templates for complex pay rules

Cons: No free plan, only a trial; every user counts, including owners, managers and supervisors, and monthly plans carry a $30 minimum spend per invoice

Deputy charges per user per month, and the price depends on the tier. Lite costs $5 a user a month billed annually, or $5.50 month to month, and it covers basic scheduling, timesheets, time clocking, labour law compliance, shift swaps, leave and availability management, and messaging. Core costs $6.50 billed annually and adds advanced scheduling, timesheet auto approval, biometric time clocking, auto-scheduling, demand forecasting and wage budgets. Pro costs $9 billed annually and adds custom access levels, advanced timesheets, location hierarchies and single sign-on.

Add-ons raise the real cost: HR is $2 a user a month, Messaging+ is $1.95 and Analytics+ is $1.50, while Deputy Payroll starts at $8 a user plus a $49 monthly base fee. Monthly plans carry a minimum spend of $30 per invoice, and a user added mid-month is billed for the full month. Deputy suits a shift-based agency that needs auto-scheduling and labour budgets.

Website: https://wheniwork.com

Best for: Small teams that want the lowest per-user price

Starting price: $2.50 per user/month

Free plan: Free trial (14 days)

Pros: Essentials at $2.50 a user a month includes auto-scheduling on every tier, with no base fee and no minimum; Pro at $5 adds scheduling rules, role permissions and labour sharing

Cons: No free plan, only a 14-day trial; the pricing page has shown time tracking both as an add-on and as included, so confirm before you buy

When I Work is the cheapest per-user entry here: Essentials costs $2.50 a user a month for scheduling, Pro costs $5 and Premium costs $8, all shown as monthly prices with no annual prices published. Essentials covers scheduling, shift swaps, open shifts, shift confirmations and auto-scheduling, which is rare at $2.50. Pro adds scheduling rules, role permissions and labour sharing, and Premium adds API access, webhooks and SAML single sign-on. Seats are sold in bundles of five or ten, and there is no minimum headcount stated.

The time clock is the detail to confirm: October 2026 reads of the pricing page disagree, with some showing time tracking as a separate add-on at $1.50 a user a month on Essentials and $2 on Pro and Premium, and others showing it included in every plan. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card required. When I Work suits a single-site hourly team that wants auto-scheduling for $2.50 a user.

Website: https://connecteam.com

Best for: Deskless teams that want scheduling plus chat and HR

Starting price: $29 per month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Small Business plan is free for up to 10 users with features from all three hubs; flat fee covers the first 30 users per hub, so the per-user cost falls as the team grows; GPS time clock and geofencing included

Cons: Each hub is sold separately, so three hubs cost $87 a month billed annually before extra users; crossing 30 users jumps the price from $29 to $49 a month per hub

Connecteam is built around three hubs, Operations, Communications and HR and Skills, and each hub is priced separately. The Small Business plan is free for up to 10 users with features from all three hubs, with limits such as one time clock and one job schedule. For the Operations hub, Basic costs $29 a month billed annually, or $35 month to month, for the first 30 users, then $0.80 per extra user. Advanced costs $49 billed annually and adds auto clock-out and repeating shifts, while Expert costs $99 billed annually and adds unlimited geofence sites, auto-assign shifts and API access.

The flat fee is both the bargain and the trap: a 30-person team on Basic pays $29 a month, but hire one more person and the next tier starts at $49, and the same jump happens at 60 users, from $49 to $99. Buying all three hubs on Basic costs $87 a month billed annually for the first 30 users. Connecteam suits a deskless team of up to 30 that wants scheduling, chat, forms and training in one app.

Website: https://getsling.com

Best for: Small teams that want free scheduling for 30 users

Starting price: $1.70 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Free plan covers shift scheduling for up to 30 users, the widest free plan here; Premium adds mobile time tracking, labour cost management and overtime tracking; 15-day trial on priced plans

Cons: Free plan has no time clock, so clock-ins need Premium; per-user pricing means each hire adds to the bill, and Business at $3.40 a user a month is needed for kiosk clocking

Sling, now Sling by Toast, offers the widest free plan in this list: shift scheduling for up to 30 users at no cost, including time-off requests, available shifts, long-term scheduling, shift swaps and private messaging. Premium costs $1.70 a user a month billed annually, or $2 month to month, and it adds mobile time tracking, labour cost management and overtime tracking. Business costs $3.40 billed annually, or $4 month to month, and it adds kiosk time tracking and no-show and sick call-out tracking. Priced plans include a 15-day free trial.

The free plan is the reason to pick Sling: a team of 15 to 30 that only needs scheduling pays nothing, while the same team on Homebase would pay $24 a location a month once it passes 10 employees. The limit is the time clock, which starts on Premium, so a 25-person team on Premium pays $50 a month billed monthly, or $42.50 billed annually. Sling suits a small agency, cafe or shop that wants scheduling free for up to 30 people.

Website: https://www.planday.com

Best for: European shift teams that want low per-user pricing

Starting price: $2.99 per user/month

Free plan: Free trial (30 days)

Pros: Starter at $2.99 a user a month is cheap for scheduling, shift swaps and messaging; Plus adds leave management and payroll integrations; 30-day trial with no card required

Cons: No free plan; users are billed in bundles of 5, so 8 users still pay for 10; Pro is custom priced and adds auto-scheduling only at the top tier

Planday is a European scheduling tool with three plans priced per user per month. Starter costs $2.99 a user a month and covers scheduling, shift swaps, availability, time-off requests and messaging, with a minimum of 5 users. Plus costs $4.49 a user a month plus a $15 monthly subscription fee, with a minimum of 10 users, and it adds leave management and payroll integrations. Pro is custom priced and adds auto-scheduling. There is no free plan, but new accounts get a 30-day free trial, and onboarding services are available for a fee.

The detail to budget for is the bundle billing: users are billed in bundles of 5, so a team of 8 pays for 10 users, or $29.90 a month on Starter. Planday also charges for SMS sent through the platform. Planday suits a European shift team that wants low per-user pricing and can live with bundle billing and a custom-priced Pro tier for auto-scheduling.