Skip to content
Z Zendikt
W
Workforce Management · Rank #2 of 10

When I Work

SMB scheduling leader with profitable-without-VC execution discipline.

By When I Work, Inc. · Founded 2010 · Minneapolis, MN · private

When I Work is the SMB scheduling leader, founded 2010 in Minneapolis by Chad Halvorson. The product covers scheduling, time and attendance with mobile clock-in, team messaging, shift swap, and basic labor reporting at a transparent per-user price. The company has been notably public about being profitable and choosing not to raise additional growth capital, the most recent meaningful round was an 80-million-dollar growth investment from Bain Capital Ventures in 2018, and management has repeatedly stated since that growth is funded from cash flow. Strengths: cleanest SMB scheduling UX, transparent per-user pricing without per-feature gating, mobile-first execution that genuinely works for hourly teams, profitable-without-VC discipline that shows in product stability and roadmap consistency, and strong fit for under-200-employee hourly businesses. Best fit for SMB hourly workforces (5-200 employees), restaurants, retail, healthcare, services, that need solid scheduling and time tracking without the mid-market complexity. Trade-offs: labor forecasting is lighter than Deputy and meaningfully lighter than Legion or Quinyx, predictive scheduling compliance toolkit is functional but not as deep as Deputy, and the platform deliberately stays out of the 1,000-plus employee mid-market band where Deputy and UKG Ready compete.

Visit When I Work Vendor pricing Compare to Deputy
Best for

SMB hourly workforces (5-200 employees), restaurants, retail, healthcare, services, needing solid scheduling and time tracking without mid-market complexity.

Worst for

Mid-market and enterprise (Deputy and UKG Ready stronger), restaurant operators wanting deep POS integration (7shifts purpose-built), or AI-first labor forecasting buyers (Legion and Quinyx stronger).

Vendor Trust Score

Is When I Work a trustworthy vendor?

9.0/10
High trust
Pricing transparency
Published rates; no hidden fees
9.0
Contract fairness
Reasonable terms; no auto-renew traps
9.0
Incident response
How they handle outages and breaches
8.5
Post-acquisition behavior
Customer treatment after M&A or PE
9.0
Executive stability
Leadership churn over 24 months
9.5
Roadmap honesty
Public commitments held
9.0
Trust signal log
  • 2018-09-22
    Bain Capital Ventures 80-million-dollar growth investment
    The most recent meaningful capital event; company has publicly stated growth is now funded from cash flow.
  • 2024-09-22
    Founder Chad Halvorson still serving as CEO 15 years in
    Public statements confirm profitable execution and intention not to raise additional growth capital.
  • 2025-08-14
    Pricing held flat for 18-plus months in a category creeping up 8-15 percent annually
Vendor Trust is scored independently of product quality. A great product from an unfair vendor still earns a low trust score.
Review Intelligence

What 2,180 reviews actually say

Synthesized from G2, Capterra, Reddit, Trustpilot. Patterns >15% prevalence shown.

Last synthesized
2026-04-29

Praise patterns

  • Cleanest SMB scheduling UX
    87% →
  • Transparent per-user pricing without surprise upsells
    78% ↑
  • Mobile experience genuinely works for hourly teams
    71% →
  • Founder-led discipline shows in product stability
    47% →

Complaint patterns

  • Labor forecasting lighter than mid-market peers
    47% →
  • Reporting depth below mid-market peers
    41% →
  • Predictive scheduling compliance functional but not deep
    31% ↑
Sentiment trend (6 months)
85/100 +1 pts
12
01
02
03
04
05
Representative voices

  • “We have been on When I Work for seven years across three coffee shops. The pricing has not jumped, the product has not gotten worse, and that is not nothing in this category.”

    Owner, Independent Cafe Group· Capterra · 2026-04-02

Patterns are extracted from review corpus and human-verified. We surface trends, not anecdotes.
Verified Pricing

What buyers actually pay

234 anonymized deal disclosures · last updated 2026-05-01

Contribute your deal price
Company size Median annual
5-25 employees $1,800
25-100 employees $7,200
100-200 employees $14,400
Listed-price history
2023
Pro
$
+ $6/emp
2024
Pro
$
+ $6/emp
2025
Pro
$
+ $6/emp
2026
Pro
$
+ $6/emp
Verified pricing is crowdsourced from buyers under anonymity guarantees. Vendor-listed prices are validated against actual deals quarterly.
Compliance & Security

Auto-verified certifications

Verified 2026-05-01
SOC 2 Type II
ISO 27001
HIPAA
GDPR
CCPA
PCI DSS
FedRAMP

Editorial: Strengths

  • Cleanest SMB scheduling UX in the category
  • Transparent per-user pricing without per-feature gating
  • Profitable-without-VC discipline shows in product stability
  • Mobile-first execution genuinely works for hourly teams
  • Strong shift swap and open-shift-claim flows
  • Founder-led for 15 years
  • Reasonable payroll integrations (Gusto, ADP, QuickBooks, Square)

Editorial: Weaknesses

  • Labor forecasting lighter than Deputy and much lighter than Legion or Quinyx
  • Predictive scheduling compliance functional but not deep
  • Deliberately stays out of 1,000-plus employee mid-market band
  • Reporting depth below mid-market peers
  • Limited European footprint

Key features & integrations

  • +Mobile-first scheduling
  • +Time clock with GPS and photo verification
  • +Team messaging
  • +Shift swap and open-shift-claim
  • +Labor reporting (Pro and above)
  • +Schedule templates
  • +Payroll export
30+ integrations
GustoADPQuickBooksSquareToastCloverXeroBambooHRSlack
Geography supported
Global; strongest in US, CA, AU, UK
Best fit
5-200 employees · SMB hourly workforces across restaurants, retail, healthcare, services
Editorial deep-dive

Read our full ranking of Workforce Management

When I Work ranks #2 in our editorial review of 10 workforce management platforms. The deep-dive covers methodology, comparison tables, decision matrix, migration scoring, and FAQs.

Read the full ranking

Closest alternatives in Workforce Management

#1
Deputy
Modern hourly workforce management leader for SMB and mid-market.
★ 4.6 public
#3
UKG Ready
Mature SMB and mid-market UKG offering, distinct from UKG Pro enterprise HRIS.
★ 4.0 opaque
#4
Humanity
Long-running scheduling platform under TCP Software ownership.
★ 4.3 partial
Help the next buyer

Contribute your verified deal price

Pricing in B2B software is opaque because vendors want it that way. Verified buyer prices fix that, anonymously. Share what you actually paid for When I Work; we’ll add it to the verified pricing dataset on this page (with company size band only, no identifying details).

Submit anonymously