When I Work Review: Is It Right for Your Business?
Charlette has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance and 2 years of partnering with HR leaders on freelance projects. She uses this extensive experience to answer your questions about payroll.
Juvy has over 10 years of content writing experience and was a licensed teacher. She has evaluated and written about dozens of payroll and HR software solutions for small business to provide the best answers to your software questions.
When I Work is an employee scheduling software with time clock and attendance features and monthly fees of $2.50–$8 per user. It has desktop and mobile apps that make shift management and time tracking easier. With its cloud-based and scalable platform, you can start with a single location subscription and easily scale up as your business expands to multiple locations.
What We Like
- Offers a 14-day free trial
- Has robust employee scheduling and time management features
- Its Small Business plan is affordably priced (monthly fees start at $2.50 per user)
What's Missing
- Limited reporting; only basic options are available
- Lacks phone support; email and live chat support is not available 24/7
- Access to overtime alerts, POS and payroll software integrations, and mobile time clock apps with GPS enforcement cost extra
Deciding Factors
- Affordable Monthly Pricing
- Standard – $2.50/user
- Essentials – $4/user
- Advanced – $6/user
- Complete – $8/user
- Ease of Use
- Beginner-friendly
- Features
- Drag-and-drop scheduling
- Auto-scheduling
What We Recommend When I Work For
One of our top-recommended HR apps, When I Work is a strong option for scheduling, time tracking, and attendance due to its functionalities and affordability. For businesses with shift-based workplaces, When I Work offers a full-featured system that lets you create, share, and track staff shifts easily and efficiently. Setup is easy, plus you get robust shift and staff management tools—from schedule templates and labor forecasting to team messaging and employee time clock apps. When I Work is also affordably priced—monthly fees for its Standard plan (up to 50 employees) start at $2.50 per user.
In short, When I Work is best for:
- Companies with hourly or shift workers looking for an affordable and comprehensive staff management solution: When I Work’s robust suite of features lets you manage scheduling, time tracking, and team communications from one dashboard. It has drag-and-drop scheduling tools, which managers can use to make new schedules. Employees can also tailor their schedules by swapping or bidding on shifts. There’s even a smart auto-scheduling tool that creates optimized work schedules for your staff.
- Growing businesses that need an easy-to-use tool: When I Work has been well-reviewed as a straightforward and user-friendly tool that does not require any complicated setup processes. Its flexible and intuitive system enables new employees to get up and running quickly.
- Employers that hire hourly employees across different locations: Its platform is built to scale with any size of business and can be used across single and multiple business locations, making When I Work an easy system to adopt for a dispersed company. All of its plans support multiple locations and schedules. As you start out, you can perhaps benefit from its most affordable plan and upgrade to its higher tiers as you need more advanced scheduling and time tracking functions.
When When I Work Would Not Be a Good Fit
- Businesses that require robust point-of-sale (POS) and payroll software integration options: When I Work has limited third-party software integration options, having only one POS system and eight payroll solution partners as of this writing. Businesses that need employee scheduling and/or time tracking software that fully integrates with their POS and payroll software should consider Homebase.
- Budget-conscious employers needing free, basic employee scheduling software: Although affordable, When I Work no longer has a free forever plan. If you want to try a free solution, check out our top free employee scheduling software picks.
Looking for time tracking solutions for your business? Check out our buyer’s guide to the best time tracking software.
When I Work Alternatives At A Glance
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
Best for | Retail and restaurant businesses that need free employee scheduling for up to 20 employees | Large restaurants with complex employee work shifts | Multilocation and global companies that share employees across several business locations |
Offers a free plan | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Monthly fees for Paid Plans Start at | $24.95 per location | $34.99 per location | $4.50 per employee |
Since Our Last Update:
When I Work changed its pricing in May 2022 to address the increasing demand for a more affordable plan. It has since introduced the Standard plan, which starts at $2.50 per user, per month, for up to 50 users.
When I Work Pricing
When I Work’s pricing scheme follows a pay-as-you-go model. Check the following table for its plans and pricing.
Standard | Essentials | Advanced | Complete | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Recommended for | Businesses needing standard scheduling tools | Businesses looking for basic time tools in addition to scheduling tools | Workplaces that primarily require advanced scheduling tools | Organizations looking for advanced time, scheduling, and on-demand pay tools in one system |
Monthly pricing (per user) | $2.50 | $4 | $6 | $8 |
Maximum users | 50 | 200 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Team messaging; availability and time off management | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Auto scheduling; schedule builder and schedule templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Labor planning; multiple schedules or locations | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Mobile, web, and terminal time clock | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
Time sheets; overtime alerts; mobile clock-in w/ GPS and early clock-in prevention | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
Advanced scheduling rules; role permissions; custom shift reports | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Custom attendance reports | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
Payroll and POS integrations | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
On-demand pay via Clair* | ✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
*When I Work allows users to give employees access to a portion of their pay after each shift via its partner, Clair Spending—a demand deposit account.
Want to know which When I Work plan will fit your budget? Use our online calculator to compute the estimated monthly and annual fees.
When I Work Features
When I Work can efficiently handle employee scheduling and time tracking with its features. It also supports multiple pay rates, labor reports, and clock-in/out reminders. Like most software we’ve reviewed, it can be implemented on web browsers and mobile devices, which makes it easy for employees to clock in and out. Check out more of When I Work’s features to see if it’s a viable option for your business.
When I Work has a wide range of scheduling capabilities that includes multilocation scheduling, shift replacements and swapping, and schedule templates. It has shift eligibility and smart auto-scheduling tools that quickly match shifts with employee availability and work qualifications. However, When I Work doesn’t have a drag-and-drop scheduler, making it less intuitive than other software such as Sling and Deputy.
With When I Work’s online schedule builder, you can easily assign shifts to employees given its drag-and-drop functionality.
Employees can also identify and share their shift preferences online, providing you instant visibility into your staff’s preferred schedules. In addition, When I Work lets you list the expected shift and team tasks on employee schedules. This helps you manage employees more efficiently by helping you monitor the completion rates of listed tasks on a per-day and per-activity basis (such as opening tasks and closing shift activities).
Employees can view the work tasks via When I Work mobile apps.
When I Work’s online employee time clock is designed to let you track attendance and breaks with ease. It offers time tracking apps that work on computers, tablets, and mobile devices (with iOS and Android systems). Your remote workers can record their time entries via their smartphones, and you can set up geofencing and geolocation tracking to restrict and monitor where offsite employees clock in/out. However, you have to purchase the time and attendance add-on to gain access to its mobile GPS enforcement functionalities.
Like Deputy, you can also activate its “photo clock-in” feature that captures snapshots of your employees when clocking in and out, enabling you to prevent buddy punching and providing an added layer of security. System administrators and authorized managers can access, review, and delete the employee pictures taken for each time transaction. Note that this functionality works only on iOS devices.
While other software like Deputy and QuickBooks Time allows employees to track time even without an internet connection using the mobile apps, When I Work’s time clock isn’t capable of this.
Apart from tracking time and alerting managers of missed clock-ins and employees nearing overtime, When I Work has break management features that include break schedule planning and notifications that inform employees of upcoming rest periods (i.e., lunch break) and the end of break times. It also comes with paid time off (PTO) management, digital time sheets with edit histories, and early clock-in prevention tools. You can even set up different pay rates for each position that employees are qualified to work in, allowing you to efficiently track and control labor costs.
If it fits your process, you can enable employee time sheet editing, allowing staff to manually add details for missing time entries online. Employees can then forward the edited time sheets to their managers for approval and payroll processing.
With When I Work mobile apps, system administrators and authorized managers can review, edit, and approve time sheets even while on the go.
If it fits your process, you can enable employee timesheet editing, allowing staff to manually add details for missing time entries online. Employees can then forward the edited timesheets to their managers for approval and payroll processing.
Looking for more options? Check our best time and attendance software guide to see if something suits your business.
When I Work offers a secure platform for sending team messages. It features instant notifications, broadcast messaging, private one-on-one communications, and group chat. It even allows you to send documents and important files to employees.
If you have staff without smartphones, When I Work has a “TeamTxt” function that lets you send messages through group texting. What’s also great about its team messaging tool is that your employees must be invited to join your online workplace to access your company’s chat thread, making it a secure place for team communications.
With the mobile app, employees can clock in, access schedules, and communicate with managers and co-workers. On the manager’s side, however, the mobile app is fully featured, allowing them to create schedules, manage time off, and communicate with employees.
When I Work’s mobile app allows users to create groups for easier communicating with team members.
When I Work integrates with several third-party software, but this option is only available in the optional time and attendance add-on or the Enterprise plan. Here are its partner solutions.
- POS systems: Square
- Payroll solutions: Gusto, ADP Run, ADP Workforce Now, OnPay, Gig Wage, QuickBooks, Paychex, and Simplepay.ca
- HR tools and other business apps: People HR, Rippling, GoCo, ResaleAI, Crew, and Zapier
- On-demand pay: Clair
With When I Work, you get customer support through online tickets and live chat. However, these are available only on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (until 10 p.m. for online tickets), weekends from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and holidays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central time.
When I Work Ease of Use
- Easy to set up and use
- In-app help tools
- Library of how-to guides
- Instant notifications and alerts
When I Work has a cloud-based platform that’s easy to set up, plus its mobile apps are easy to use for both your managers and employees. While its interface is generally user-friendly, some of the features take time to get used to. You also need to have a good understanding of how scheduling and timekeeping work to maximize all of its online tools.
In terms of customer service, When I Work doesn’t provide live phone support, but you can submit online tickets and contact its support team through live chat. If you prefer a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to getting answers to your system queries, you can check its library of how-to guides, training resources, and webinars.
What Users Think About When I Work
Users Like | Users Don’t Like |
|---|---|
Affordably priced | Some tools aren’t intuitive (like making mass schedule changes) |
Efficient time tracking and scheduling tools | Occasional software lags and glitches |
Easy to set up and convenient to use | Slow customer service |
Many users who left positive When I Work reviews online highlighted its ease of setup, affordability, and efficient scheduling tools as its best features. They added that it helps them easily create schedules for multiple employees and work locations. However, some reviewers said that its mobile app can be glitchy at times.
At the time of publication, When I Work reviews earned the following scores on popular user review sites:
- Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 based on 920+ reviews
- G2: 4.4 out of 5 based on about 250+ reviews
- TrustRadius: 8.8 out of 10 based on more than 50 reviews
Bottom Line
If you’re looking for a flexible and affordable employee scheduling and time tracking tool, When I Work offers the essential features you need for your business. Apart from letting you create schedules, capture employee clock-ins/outs, and monitor attendance online, it has labor cost forecasting and team messaging tools that enable you to efficiently manage your hourly workforce and team communications. Sign up with When I Work for a 14-day free trial—no credit card required.
