# When I Work > Staff scheduling with auto-fill, shift trades and an add-on time clock When I Work is a scheduling app for hourly teams in restaurants, retail, healthcare and call centers. Managers fill shifts by hand, from templates or with auto-scheduling based on availability, staff trade and pick up shifts in the mobile app, and an optional time clock records hours, breaks and overtime for payroll exports. - **Category:** Shift Scheduling - **Made by:** When I Work, Inc. - **Website:** https://wheniwork.com - **Runs on:** Web, iOS, Android - **Facts last checked:** Oct 18, 2026 ## Pricing When I Work is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $2.50 per user / month (Essentials, without time tracking). - **Pricing model:** Free trial - **Free plan:** None. - **Free trial:** 14-day free trial with every feature, no credit card required. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Essentials | $2.50 per user / month ($4 with time tracking and attendance) | Unlimited users. Auto-scheduling, multi-week and multi-location schedules, templates, forecasting, messaging, OpenShifts and swaps. | | Pro | $5 per user / month ($7 with time tracking and attendance) | Adds scheduling rules, role permissions, labor sharing, custom forecasting units, custom reports and callout reporting. | | Premium | $8 per user / month ($10 with time tracking and attendance) | Adds API keys, webhooks and SAML single sign-on. | Read from https://wheniwork.com/pricing on Oct 18, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with When I Work before buying. ## Key features - **Auto-scheduling:** Managers enter the coverage they need and the app assigns shifts from employee availability and qualifications in one click. - **Templates and multi-week schedules:** Saved templates such as a weekend rush or holiday plan are reused to build schedules weeks ahead, across several locations. - **Shift trades and OpenShifts:** Employees swap or pick up open shifts from the app, and managers approve or decline each request before the schedule updates. - **Time clock on any device:** With the time tracking add-on, staff clock in from phones, tablets or terminals, with GPS or geofencing, break tracking and overtime tracking tied to the schedule. - **Team messaging:** Managers and staff message individuals or the whole team in the app without sharing phone numbers. - **Payroll exports:** Approved hours go to payroll services including Rippling, Gusto, Square Payroll, Paychex, QuickBooks Online and OnPay. ## Good for - Restaurants, retail stores and call centers scheduling hourly staff - Managers who want shifts filled automatically from availability - Multi-location businesses sharing staff between sites ## Worth knowing - The time clock, breaks and attendance are an add-on that raises each plan by $1.50 to $2 per user a month, though the page's FAQ says every plan includes them. - The pricing page offers monthly or annual billing but does not say which basis the listed prices use. - API keys, webhooks and SAML single sign-on need the Premium plan. - Payroll runs through partners; Rippling, the preferred partner, offers When I Work customers six months free. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.8 out of 4**, graded Oct 18, 2026. When I Work is good at the bit managers hate: filling the schedule. You enter the cover you need and it assigns shifts from staff availability. The catch is that the time clock costs extra, so the $2.50 price you see is for scheduling only. - **Value for money: C.** Essentials is $2.50 a user a month, so 15 staff pay $37.50 for scheduling, the middle of this category for a team that size. Add the time clock and it's $4 a user, or $60. The page doesn't say whether these are monthly or yearly rates. - **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan. There's a 14-day trial with every feature and no credit card needed, which covers a couple of schedule cycles. - **Features: B.** Auto-scheduling from availability, templates, multi-week and multi-location schedules, forecasting, shift trades, messaging and payroll exports, with a time clock as an add-on. That's the whole job. - **Ease of use: A.** 4.79 from 57,666 App Store ratings. Swapping or picking up a shift is a couple of taps for staff. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web, iPhone and Android, with payroll partners such as Rippling, Gusto, Square Payroll, Paychex, QuickBooks Online and OnPay, plus Zapier. API keys need Premium, and there's no desktop app. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from When I Work's own pages on 18 October 2026, and its App Store rating. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among shift scheduling apps - When I Work's GPA of 2.8 is higher than 8 of the 12 other shift scheduling apps we grade, and level with 1. - It stands best on ease of use (A, above 8 of 12) and worst on free plan and trial (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $2.50 a month for each person, against a middle price of $5.65 for the category: 2 of the 12 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 3.3 out of 4, and no tool on the category's chart scores higher without costing more. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/shift-scheduling ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace When I Work you would be making chat that a whole team counts on staying up. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.8 is higher than 8 of the 12 other shift scheduling apps we grade. It costs $30 a year. - You could make: Time off: an app builder makes this well. - You could not: Chat that a whole team counts on staying up. - You could not: A rota the whole staff sees on their phones, with swaps and alerts. - You could not: Clocking in from a phone, checked against where and when. - You could not: A scheduler that rearranges your day as things move. - You could not: A real app for iOS and Android. Something home-made would be a web page. - You could not: It is priced for each person, which means accounts and billing for a team. - You could not: It plugs into other products, Rippling, Gusto and Square Payroll among them, and has an API. - You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## What people say - **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.8 out of 5 from 57,666 ratings in the United States, read Oct 18, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id383126470 ## Works with Rippling, Gusto, Square Payroll, Paychex, QuickBooks Online, OnPay, Zapier, GoCo **Tags:** Shift scheduling, Time clock, Auto-scheduling, Team chat, Time off, Public API ## Alternatives - [Homebase](https://toolgpa.com/tools/homebase): Small-business scheduling, time clock and payroll, priced per location. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/homebase-vs-when-i-work) - [Sling by Toast](https://toolgpa.com/tools/sling): Free shift scheduling for up to 30 users, with paid time clock tiers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/sling-vs-when-i-work) - [Deputy](https://toolgpa.com/tools/deputy): Shift scheduling, time clock and labor-law tools for hourly teams. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/deputy-vs-when-i-work) - [7shifts](https://toolgpa.com/tools/7shifts): Restaurant scheduling, time clock, tips and payroll, per location. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/7shifts-vs-when-i-work) - [Connecteam](https://toolgpa.com/tools/connecteam): Employee app for shifts, time clock, chat and HR, free up to 10 users. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/connecteam-vs-when-i-work) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 18, 2026: - https://wheniwork.com/pricing - https://wheniwork.com/page-data/sq/d/206657177.json - https://wheniwork.com/ - https://wheniwork.com/integrations - https://wheniwork.com/features/time-clock - https://wheniwork.com/features/employee-scheduling-software Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/when-i-work Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).