Add up a timesheet in seconds with our free calculator.Open the calculator
TimeTracker
Start free

Best Sling Scheduling Alternatives for 2026

Sling by Toast is free for up to 30 people, so this is not about price. It is about what the free plan leaves out.

Try TimeTracker freeSee the comparison
Why people switch

Why people look for a Sling alternative

What it is

A Sling alternative is another scheduling tool you move to when Sling stops fitting your team. First, a word on names: searching for Sling mostly turns up Sling TV. This page is about Sling by Toast, the shift scheduling app at getsling.com. Price is rarely the reason people leave it. Its free plan covers up to 30 users and the paid tiers are $1.70 and $3.40 a user a month, cheaper than every rival here. Teams move for deeper reporting, for payroll and hiring in the same place, or because they bill customers for the work and a rota cannot tell them what a job earned.

Who needs this

A service business that sells its people's time and needs to know, in real time, whether each client project is still making money.

Meet both products

Compare the two products at a glance

TimeTracker and this competitor cover the same job in different ways. Here is what each one includes.

Best fit

TimeTracker

Every task carries operational and financial context together. Tracked time, budget impact, and invoicing live in one connected system, so you know if a project is still profitable before it becomes a problem.

Best for
Agencies and consultancies of 2 to 50 people who bill clients for time and need to see project profit, not just hours.
Pricing
Free for up to 3 people, no credit card needed. Pro is $15 per user a month, or $12 per user a month billed yearly, with a 14-day trial.
  • One-click task timers
  • Timesheet submission and approvals
  • Effective-dated billing and cost rates
  • Live project budgets and profitability
  • Client invoicing and payments
  • Client portal with a cost firewall
  • Reports and dashboards
  • Expense tracking with billable markup
Start tracking free

Sling

The cheapest real scheduling tool in this group by a wide margin. The free plan covers up to 30 users, and the paid tiers are $2.00 and $4.00 a user a month, or $1.70 and $3.40 billed yearly.

Best for
Small shift-based teams that want free scheduling for up to 30 people and will pay little or nothing for it.
Pricing
Free for up to 30 users, scheduling only with no time clock. Premium $2.00 and Business $4.00 per user a month, or $1.70 and $3.40 billed yearly. Now owned by Toast, so restaurant customers may be steered to Toast plans.
  • Free plan for up to 30 users, scheduling only
  • Shift scheduling and swaps, free tier included
  • Time clock with labour costs, paid tiers only
  • Team messaging and newsfeed
  • Time-off requests
  • Payroll reports
Full comparison

See how the alternatives stack up

Pricing, best fit, and top strengths for TimeTracker and every tool in this comparison.

Comparison dimensionTimeTrackerBest fitSlingHomebaseConnecteamOnTheClock
CategoryProject time trackingTime and attendanceTime and attendanceTime and attendanceTime and attendance
Best forAgencies and consultancies of 2 to 50 people who bill.Small shift-based teams that want free scheduling for up.Single-site small businesses like cafes and shops that.Deskless and field teams that want scheduling, a time.Small businesses that want a simple time clock with GPS.
Starting price$12/user/monthFreeFreeFree$4/user/month
Top strengthTies every time entry to a task, so hours and money are.A free plan that takes 30 users, far beyond most rivals'.A real free plan that covers scheduling and a time clock.The free tier is unusually generous: 10 users with every.Clean, intuitive dashboard that needs little training

Pricing checked 2026-07-31. Confirm current pricing on each vendor's site.

Every option, in full

Each Sling alternative, and who it suits

Each tool below covers a different kind of team, so this is not a ranking. We list what each one does badly as well as what it does well, with the date we last checked its pricing.

TimeTrackerOurs

Best for

Agencies and consultancies of 2 to 50 people who bill clients for time and need to see project profit, not just hours.

Pricing

Free for up to 3 people, no credit card needed. Pro is $15 per user a month, or $12 per user a month billed yearly, with a 14-day trial.

Checked 13 July 2026

Every task carries operational and financial context together. Tracked time, budget impact, and invoicing live in one connected system, so you know if a project is still profitable before it becomes a problem. A service business that sells its people's time and needs to know, in real time, whether each client project is still making money.

Where it wins

  • Ties every time entry to a task, so hours and money are the same record instead of two systems to reconcile
  • Live budget and profitability rollups instead of a month-end spreadsheet
  • Timesheet approval locks numbers before they hit an invoice, so billed hours cannot silently drift
  • No screenshots, keystroke logging, or GPS tracking, by design

Where it falls short

  • Newer product than long-established time trackers, so its integration marketplace is still small
  • No native payroll run; timesheets export for an external payroll tool instead
  • Built for client-project delivery, not a general work OS, so it will not replace a wiki or a sprint board

Sling

Best for

Small shift-based teams that want free scheduling for up to 30 people and will pay little or nothing for it.

Pricing

Free for up to 30 users, scheduling only with no time clock. Premium $2.00 and Business $4.00 per user a month, or $1.70 and $3.40 billed yearly. Now owned by Toast, so restaurant customers may be steered to Toast plans.

Checked 31 July 2026

The cheapest real scheduling tool in this group by a wide margin. The free plan covers up to 30 users, and the paid tiers are $2.00 and $4.00 a user a month, or $1.70 and $3.40 billed yearly. A cafe, shop or small hospitality team of 5 to 30 hourly staff whose main job is publishing next week's rota cheaply.

Where it wins

  • A free plan that takes 30 users, far beyond most rivals' free tiers
  • At $1.70 a user the paid tier undercuts every other scheduler here
  • Swaps and open shifts are on the free tier, which most rivals charge for

Where it falls short

  • No client billing, budgets or invoicing, so it cannot tell you what a job earned
  • Reporting is absent below the $4.00 Business tier, not merely thin
  • Owned by Toast, so the roadmap follows restaurants first
  • Built for shifts, so it fits awkwardly around project work

Homebase

Best for

Single-site small businesses like cafes and shops that want free scheduling and a time clock for a small crew.

Pricing

Free for 1 location up to 10 employees. Essentials about $24/location/mo annual ($30 monthly), Plus about $56, All-in-One about $96, all per location.

Checked 30 July 2026

More on Homebase

Priced per location instead of per user, and free for one location with up to 10 employees, which makes it the cheapest real option for a single small site. A single cafe, shop, or restaurant with under 10 hourly staff that wants a rota and a clock without paying anything.

Where it wins

  • A real free plan that covers scheduling and a time clock for up to 10 staff
  • Per-location pricing is cheap when one site has a lot of part-time people
  • Bundles hiring and messaging, so a small shop needs fewer tools

Where it falls short

  • Per-location pricing gets expensive fast once a business runs several sites
  • Built for hourly shift work, with no client billing or project profitability
  • The free plan stops at one location and 10 employees

Connecteam

Best for

Deskless and field teams that want scheduling, a time clock, chat, and HR in one phone app.

Pricing

Two free-for-life plans: Small Business for up to 10 users with every hub, and Limited for up to 30. Paid plans are per hub and one flat fee covers the first 30 users, from $29 a month billed yearly. Extra users above 30 cost $0.50 to $5 each. Yearly saves 18%.

Checked 31 July 2026

More on Connecteam

Sold as three separate hubs (Operations, Communications, HR) rather than one product, and free for life for up to 10 users with every hub and feature switched on. A 10 to 200 person field, retail, or hospitality operation whose staff work from phones and who wants one app for shifts, clocking, and team comms.

Where it wins

  • The free tier is unusually generous: 10 users with every hub and feature, not a stripped-down trial
  • Genuinely built for phones, which suits crews with no desk and no company laptop
  • Covers scheduling, clocking, chat and HR in one app, so a small operation can drop several tools

Where it falls short

  • Buying by hub means the tool you want can sit in a hub you were not planning to pay for
  • Live GPS and breadcrumbs stop at user 11 and only return on the top Expert tier
  • No client billing, invoicing, or project profitability, so agency work needs another tool
  • Doing many jobs at once means each one is shallower than a specialist product

OnTheClock

Best for

Small businesses that want a simple time clock with GPS, PTO, and scheduling included at the base tier.

Pricing

No free plan, 30-day trial. $4 per employee a month plus a $5 monthly base fee, so 2 employees is $13 a month. Payroll adds $6 per employee plus a $40 base fee, and a one-time $250 onboarding fee.

Checked 30 July 2026

More on OnTheClock

GPS tracking, geofencing, and PTO accrual come standard on the base plan, features most rivals gate behind higher tiers. Small businesses under 100 employees that want straightforward time tracking, scheduling, and PTO with clean payroll exports.

Where it wins

  • Clean, intuitive dashboard that needs little training
  • Strong review scores: 4.7/5 on Capterra, 4.5/5 on G2
  • GPS, geofencing, and PTO included at the base tier, not a premium add-on

Where it falls short

  • Payroll is not included; it's a separate paid add-on
  • Reporting and analytics are more basic than larger workforce platforms
  • Fewer native integrations than bigger rivals like QuickBooks Time
Why switch

Reasons teams switch

Popular features

Time Tracking

Employee time tracking your team will actually use

One click starts a timer, or people type hours in by hand. Every entry ties to a client, project, and task, so the record stays clean.

Explore Time Tracking→
Timesheets

Timesheets your team submits on time

Hours build into a timecard as people work. Send the week for approval, lock it once it is signed off, and bill from a number that cannot quietly change.

Explore Timesheets→
PTO Tracking

PTO tracking that keeps every balance correct

Staff request vacation or sick leave in a few clicks and managers approve in one. Balances accrue on their own, and booked days show on the team schedule.

Explore PTO Tracking→
Use cases

Use cases this solves

More comparisons

Compare other tools

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is Sling the same as Sling TV?
No, and the names cause real confusion. Sling TV is a streaming service owned by Dish. Sling at getsling.com is a shift scheduling app for hourly teams, now owned by Toast. If you searched for one and found the other, that is why. This page is about the scheduling app.
Is Sling free?
Yes, for up to 30 users, which is the most generous free plan of any scheduler in this comparison. The catch is that the free plan has no time clock, so it publishes the rota and records nothing. Premium is $2.00 a user a month and Business $4.00, or $1.70 and $3.40 if you pay yearly. Full breakdown in what is Sling scheduling. Checked July 2026.
Does TimeTracker do shift scheduling like Sling?
No. There is no rota builder, no shift swaps and no open shifts, so it cannot replace Sling for rostering. If publishing next week's schedule is the job, Homebase or Connecteam fit better. TimeTracker records and bills hours through timesheets, which is a different job.
What is the difference between Sling and Homebase?
Sling charges per user and is free up to 30 people. Homebase charges per location and is free for one site with up to 10 staff, but adds hiring and payroll. Sling is cheaper for one bigger team, Homebase is better if you want hiring and payroll too. See the Homebase alternatives for the detail.
Can Sling invoice a customer?
No. It schedules staff and costs their labour, but it does not raise a customer invoice, and neither do Homebase, Connecteam or OnTheClock. If you bill customers for time, that is what invoicing from tracked time is for.
What is the 7 minute rule for clocking in?
It rounds punches to the nearest quarter hour, so minutes 1 to 7 round down and 8 to 14 round up. It is legal federally only while the rounding stays neutral. Our guide to the 7-minute rule has the chart and the law.
Did Toast buying Sling change anything?
Sling still sells on its own site with its own plans, but its pricing page now points Toast customers to Toast plans first. If you already run Toast in a restaurant, expect to be steered there. If you are not a restaurant, that focus is worth weighing.
Which Sling alternative is cheapest for a small team?
Sling itself, in most cases. Free to 30 users beats every rival's free tier, and $1.70 a user undercuts the paid plans here. If your problem is cost alone, staying put is the honest answer.
Which teams should move off Sling?
Teams that bill customers for the work rather than only paying staff for it. A rota tells you who is on shift, not what a job earned. If you need that, look at project profitability instead of a scheduler.
Which Sling alternative is right for me?
Cheap rostering for one team, stay on Sling. One small site wanting hiring and payroll too, Homebase. A deskless crew that lives in chat, Connecteam. Simple clocking, OnTheClock. Billing customers for the hours, TimeTracker, where time feeds billable hours tracking directly.
A professional team working on a laptop at a warm wooden desk in an office.

For work you bill, not shifts you roster

If you charge customers for your team's time rather than only rostering shifts, set up your first project and see what it actually earned.

Start free