Every shift-based business hits the same wall: the schedule lives in a spreadsheet, the group chat fills with “can anyone cover Friday,” and someone spends Sunday night rebuilding the week by hand. The scheduling apps all promise to fix it, and they all promise AI that builds the schedule for you. What they don’t make easy is comparing price, because this market bills three different ways: per user, per location, and per “hub.”
Here is what each one actually charges in November 2026 on published plans, with no sales call required.
The published numbers, November 2026
| Tool | Entry price | Billing model | AI scheduling | Time clock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sling | $0 for 30 users | Per user | Shift alarms only | Paid plans |
| When I Work | $2.50/user/mo | Per user | Auto-scheduling | Add-on |
| 7shifts | $0 for 15 staff, 1 location | Per location | Forecasting on Team | Add-on |
| Connecteam | $0 up to 10 users | Per hub, tiers | Suggestions | Included |
| Deputy | $5/user/mo | Per user | Auto-scheduling | Included |
| Homebase | $0 for 1 location, 10 employees | Per location | Forecasting on top tier | Included |
One note on the word AI: none of these vendors sell a chatbot that writes rosters on command. What they sell is automation around the schedule, and it comes in two flavors. Availability-driven auto-scheduling reads each employee’s open hours and time-off requests, then fills the empty slots for you; that is what When I Work and Deputy mean by the label. Demand-driven forecasting reads your sales history and predicts how many people you need on the floor by daypart, then proposes those shifts; that is 7shifts and, at the top tier, Homebase. The first saves you a scheduling session every week. The second saves money when it stops you over-staffing a Tuesday. Know which one you are paying for before you pay a premium for it.
The billing-model column matters more than the price column. Per-user plans scale with headcount. Per-location plans scale with how many doors you run. Connecteam’s hub model multiplies both if you want more than one product family. Pick wrong and the cheap app becomes the expensive one by month three.
The free tiers are real, and they are the floor
Four of the six have genuine free plans, and for a small single-location business, they may be all you need.
Sling is the most generous: scheduling and team chat free for up to 30 users, with no time limit. What the free plan buys is the schedule itself, time-off requests, open shifts and news pages. What it withholds is everything that touches money: time tracking, labor costs, overtime and reports start at Premium, $2.00 per user per month.
When I Work costs $2.50 per user per month for Essentials and is the cheapest real AI scheduler on the list. That tier includes auto-scheduling, which builds shifts around availability, plus the mobile apps. Time and attendance with GPS is the jump to $4 per user on Essentials.
For a 20-person cafe, the arithmetic is quick: Sling Free is $0 a year for scheduling, and Sling Premium is $480 a year when you add the clock. When I Work Essentials at 20 users is $600 a year with AI-assisted scheduling included. Free wins until free costs you two hours of schedule-building every week.
What the AI features cost, and where they hide
Publishing a comparison of AI schedulers means separating the marketing from the invoice, and the invoice is the reliable half. When I Work puts auto-scheduling in its $2.50 Essentials tier, which is the lowest-priced genuinely intelligent scheduling on any published plan this month. Deputy’s auto-scheduling lives on the $6.50 Scheduling tier and up, not Lite, so the feature adds $1.50 a user a month over the entry plan. Homebase does not lead with AI at all; its paid plans sell scheduling automation as copy-and-repeat templates plus notifications, and the machine learning sits mostly in labor forecasting behind the All-in-One tier. 7shifts ties its forecasting to the sales integrations, so the feature is only as smart as the point-of-sale connection you wire into it. Connecteam’s suggestions work inside its Operations hub and are closer to smart defaults than prediction. Two of these six are worth naming the feature for: When I Work at $2.50 and 7shifts at $39.99 per location.
Per-user pricing: Deputy and When I Work
Deputy bills per user per month: $5 on Lite (scheduling and time tracking), $6.50 on Scheduling, and $9 on Business, billed annually. That is the full workforce stack, including the time clock, in the base price. The gotcha for tiny teams is the $30 a month minimum, so under six users you are paying for seats you don’t have.
When I Work stays the budget pick in this group: Essentials at $2.50, Pro at $5, Premium at $8 per user. If you want the time clock, add $1.50 to $2 per user depending on tier. A 30-person team on Pro without attendance is $1,800 a year, with attendance $2,520.
Per-location pricing: Homebase and 7shifts
Per-location pricing flips the math for big-staff businesses. A bar with 45 employees scheduled daily and a kiosk with 12 pay the same on a per-location plan.
Homebase is free for one location and 10 employees, then $70 per location per month for Plus and $120 for All-in-One, with 20% off annual billing. Payroll is separate at $49 a month plus $6 per active person. For the 45-employee bar, All-in-One is $1,152 a year before the annual discount, versus $5,400 on a $9 per-user plan. The crossover point is roughly 18 to 20 employees; past that, per-location is almost always cheaper.
7shifts is the restaurant specialist and also bills per location: free for one location up to 15 staff, then $39.99, $79.99 or $134.99 per location per month billed annually, with headcount caps that set the tier. Those are annual-billing rates, so paying monthly runs higher. What you get at Team and above is sales-integrated labor forecasting: the schedule proposes itself from last year’s sales, which is the AI feature in this category that actually saves hours, not just taps.
The flat-fee wildcard: Connecteam
Connecteam is free up to 10 users forever, then prices its paid tiers flat: the Operations hub, which carries scheduling, starts around $29 a month for up to 30 users on annual billing. The catch is structural, not numerical: Connecteam sells three separate hubs, Operations, Communications and HR and Skills, and each has its own plan. A business that wants scheduling plus company chat plus HR forms is effectively stacking three subscriptions. One hub at 30 users is $348 a year, which is fine; three hub plans can run close to triple that. Go in for scheduling only and treat the rest as an upgrade, and it is the cheapest one-price deal on the board.
Check When I Work pricing · See Deputy plans · Compare Sling plans
Three setups, priced for a year
- Under 20 people, one location, need the clock. Deputy Lite at $5 a user is $1,200 a year at 20 employees with the time clock included. Homebase Plus at $70 per location is $672 a year before the annual discount, and Homebase’s free tier may be enough while you stay under 10 employees.
- Restaurant or bar past 20 staff. 7shifts Team at $79.99 per location annually is under $960 a year, with labor forecasting against sales data. The same 40 employees on Deputy Business would be $4,320.
- Just need the schedule gone from spreadsheets, no clock. Sling Free for up to 30 users is $0. Add Premium at $2 a user only when you want time tracking. When I Work at $2.50 a user is the alternative when you want the AI to draft the schedule.
Four traps in this category
- The headline price is usually the annual one. Deputy’s $5 to $9 and 7shifts’ $39.99 to $134.99 figures are annual-billing rates. Monthly billing adds roughly 10 to 15%. Quote your monthly cash cost before you commit.
- Time clocks are a paid feature more often than not. Sling gates all time tracking behind Premium; When I Work charges a per-user add-on; 7shifts sells attendance separately. Deputy and Homebase include the clock in base plans at most tiers.
- Per-location plans have headcount caps. 7shifts sets its three tiers by how many staff you schedule, and Homebase’s free plan stops at 10 employees. The “per location” price is not unlimited seats.
- Minimums and hub-stacking hurt the very small. Deputy requires $30 a month regardless of team size, and Connecteam’s hub model triples your bill if you decide you want more than one hub. The free plans from Sling, Homebase, 7shifts and Connecteam exist precisely to catch teams below those minimums.
See 7shifts restaurant plans · Check Homebase pricing · Compare Connecteam plans
Key takeaways
- Free tiers are real here: Sling (30 users), Homebase (1 location, 10 staff), 7shifts (15 staff), Connecteam (10 users). Most single-location businesses under 15 people can run scheduling for $0 indefinitely.
- Per-user plans (Deputy $5 to $9, When I Work $2.50 to $8) win under about 18 employees; per-location plans (Homebase $70 to $120, 7shifts $39.99 and up) win above it.
- Connecteam’s $29 flat hub is the cheapest “one price for the team” deal, until a second hub doubles it.
- Real AI scheduling means auto-fill from availability (When I Work, Deputy) or sales-based forecasting (7shifts, Homebase top tier); budget for the flavor that matches your problem.
If you are choosing this month: count employees first, locations second, and let the billing model pick the shortlist before you compare features. Most businesses overbuy per-user seats they could have had per-location, or add a time clock they weren’t priced for. The app that builds the schedule for you only pays off if its billing model matches your headcount.
Prices read November 12, 2026 from vendor pricing pages and recent dated comparisons. Scheduling pricing changes often, so confirm on the vendor page before you commit. Some links here are affiliate links, which cost you nothing and don’t change which tools made the list.