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Best When I Work Alternatives for 2026

When I Work is cheap for what it does, and the time clock is already included. Here is when another tool is genuinely a better buy.

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Why people switch

Why people look for a When I Work alternative

What it is

A When I Work alternative is another scheduling or time tracking tool you move to when When I Work stops fitting your team. Price is the usual trigger. It starts around $2.50 a user a month, which sounds small until a 40-person roster makes it a real line item. Some readers also want a free option for one small site, and Homebase gives that. Others need award and overtime rules read for them, which Deputy does and When I Work does not. A smaller group never rosters anyone and only wanted the clock, and that group should not be buying scheduling software at all.

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
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When I Work

Focused tightly on scheduling and attendance at a low per-user price, with auto scheduling, shift swapping, and GPS clock-in included on every plan.

Best for
Local businesses that want straightforward shift scheduling and attendance in one cheap per-user app.
Pricing
About $2.50/user/mo for the entry plan and $5/user/mo for Pro. Month-to-month or annual, with a free trial.
  • Auto scheduling and shift templates
  • Shift swapping and open shifts
  • GPS clock-in
  • Time-off and availability
  • Overtime and break tracking
  • Multiple time zone support
Full comparison

See how the alternatives stack up

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

Comparison dimensionTimeTrackerBest fitWhen I WorkHomebaseDeputyuAttend
CategoryProject time trackingTime and attendanceTime and attendanceTime and attendanceTime and attendance
Best forAgencies and consultancies of 2 to 50 people who bill.Local businesses that want straightforward shift.Single-site small businesses like cafes and shops that.Shift-based businesses like hospitality, retail, and care.Businesses that want physical time clock hardware paired.
Starting price$12/user/month$2.5/user/monthFree$5/user/month$29/month
Top strengthTies every time entry to a task, so hours and money are.One of the cheapest per-user prices for real scheduling.A real free plan that covers scheduling and a time clock.Auto-scheduling is genuinely good and saves real hours on.Reviewers call it affordable for the price

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

Every option, in full

Each When I Work 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

When I Work

Best for

Local businesses that want straightforward shift scheduling and attendance in one cheap per-user app.

Pricing

About $2.50/user/mo for the entry plan and $5/user/mo for Pro. Month-to-month or annual, with a free trial.

Checked 30 July 2026

Focused tightly on scheduling and attendance at a low per-user price, with auto scheduling, shift swapping, and GPS clock-in included on every plan. A restaurant, clinic, or retail team of 10 to 100 hourly staff whose main problem is publishing next week's rota.

Where it wins

  • One of the cheapest per-user prices for real scheduling plus a time clock
  • Every plan includes GPS clock-in, shift swapping, and overtime tracking
  • Well liked for how quickly a manager can build and publish a week

Where it falls short

  • Scheduling and attendance only. No client billing, budgets, or invoicing
  • Reporting is thin next to workforce platforms like Deputy
  • Multiple time zone views and advanced coverage need the Pro plan

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

Deputy

Best for

Shift-based businesses like hospitality, retail, and care that need to build rotas and control labour cost.

Pricing

Per user a month: Lite $5, Core $6.50, Pro $9, with a $30 minimum monthly spend, so a four-person Lite team pays $30 rather than $20. Payroll is an $8/user/mo add-on plus a $49 monthly base fee, powered by Paycor, US only, on annual Core or Pro. Other add-ons run $1.50 to $2/user/mo.

Checked 31 July 2026

More on Deputy

Auto-scheduling builds the rota for you from demand, availability, and cost rules, then the time clock checks people in against the shift they were actually rostered on. A multi-site business rostering hourly staff, where the weekly schedule and labour cost against sales are the numbers that matter.

Where it wins

  • Auto-scheduling is genuinely good and saves real hours on a weekly rota
  • Strong award, break, and overtime interpretation, which matters for compliance
  • Time clock ties each punch to the rostered shift, so variances are obvious

Where it falls short

  • A $30 minimum monthly spend means teams under six pay for seats they do not have
  • Add-ons stack up, and the payroll one carries a $49 monthly base fee on top of per-user pricing
  • Built around shifts, so it is heavy for a team that just logs project hours
  • No client billing or invoicing, so agency work needs a second tool

uAttend

Best for

Businesses that want physical time clock hardware paired with a cloud dashboard.

Pricing

Tiered by employee count: about $29/mo (1-9 employees) up to $195/mo (100+). Hardware clocks sold separately from about $139. A plan covers 2 clocks and 1 admin, with extra clocks $12/mo and extra admins $8/mo. Payroll is a separate add-on from $5 a person a month.

Checked 31 July 2026

More on uAttend

Sells its own line of physical time clock hardware (fingerprint, facial recognition, badge) alongside cloud software, priced by employee count. A brick-and-mortar or field-based small business with on-site staff punching a physical clock and remote staff using GPS punching.

Where it wins

  • Reviewers call it affordable for the price
  • Straightforward to learn, with easy sick and vacation reporting
  • Customer support frequently praised as responsive

Where it falls short

  • Fingerprint scanners sometimes misread, and the mobile app can crash
  • Employee record fields and report options are limited
  • Hardware is an extra upfront cost beyond the software subscription
  • The clocks stop working if the subscription lapses, so the device you bought outright still needs a plan
  • A plan covers only 2 clocks and 1 admin, and both are billed monthly beyond that
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→
Reports & Dashboards

See where the time really goes

Break hours down by client, project, and team member. Find the work that pays off and the projects that run over.

Explore Reports & Dashboards→
Use cases

Use cases this solves

More comparisons

Compare other tools

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is When I Work free?
No. There is a free trial but no free plan. Paid plans start at about $2.50 a user a month, and that entry tier already includes the time clock and GPS clock-in, not just scheduling. If free matters most, Homebase covers one location and up to 10 staff at no cost. Prices checked in July 2026, and our full explainer on When I Work breaks down what each plan costs and includes.
Does When I Work include time tracking, or is that extra?
It is included. When I Work's own pricing page lists time tracking, attendance and GPS clock-in inside the entry plan and under what comes with every plan. Some comparison pages claim the clock costs extra, which its published pricing does not support. Checked July 2026.
Does TimeTracker do employee scheduling?
No. There is no rota builder, no shift swapping and no auto scheduling. If you publish a weekly schedule, stay with When I Work or look at Homebase or Deputy. TimeTracker records and bills hours through timesheets, which is a different job.
What is the cheapest When I Work alternative?
Homebase, if you run a single location with 10 or fewer staff, because that is free outright. Above that it is priced per location rather than per user, from about $24 a month, which works out cheaper than per-seat pricing for a site with lots of part-timers. Checked July 2026.
Which alternative handles overtime rules properly?
Deputy. It reads award, break and overtime rules and applies them to the timesheet, which When I Work does not do to the same depth. TimeTracker shows overtime tracking so you can see who is running over, but it does not interpret award rules for you.
Can I use a physical time clock instead of the app?
uAttend is the option on this page that sells its own wall-mounted clocks, from about $139 of hardware plus a monthly plan by headcount. TimeTracker has no kiosk and no shared device mode, so everyone signs in as themselves and logs billable hours from their own phone or browser.
I only wanted the time clock, not the scheduling. What should I use?
Then you are paying for the wrong shape of tool. If your team bills clients, a project time tracker fits better, because every hour lands against a customer rather than a shift. See time tracking by client for what that looks like day to day.
Can When I Work invoice a client?
No. It schedules people and feeds payroll, but it does not raise a client invoice, and neither do Homebase or Deputy. That is the gap for agencies and consultancies. TimeTracker turns approved hours into a bill, see how invoicing from tracked time works.
Is switching from When I Work hard?
Moving to another scheduler is mostly re-entering people and shift patterns, so allow a week of parallel running. Moving to a project time tracker is faster, because there is no rota to recreate. Either way you can export your data to CSV first.
Which When I Work alternative is right for my team?
One free site, 10 or fewer staff, Homebase. Complex award and overtime rules, Deputy. A clock on the wall, uAttend. Billing clients for time rather than rostering anyone, TimeTracker, where hours feed project profitability directly.
A professional team working on a laptop at a warm wooden desk in an office.

For teams that bill hours, not roster them

If your week is client work rather than published shifts, set up your first project and start tracking in an afternoon.

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