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The self-hosted When I Work alternative

Rostera — Staff Shift Scheduler & Rota (PHP + MySQL, Self-Hosted) — Self-hosted staff shift scheduler — a weekly rota, exact hours, double-booking caught.. Own it once, run it on your own server, and stop paying When I Work every month.

Stop renting When I Work

When I Work — rented
Essentials $2.50/user/mo, Pro $5.00/user/mo [1]
billed every month, forever · your data in their cloud
Rostera — Staff Shift Scheduler & Rota (PHP + MySQL, Self-Hosted) — yours
$59.00
one-time · self-hosted · your data, your server
8 months of When I Work equals this one-time price.
Buy once

Assumption: Per-seat monthly. Figure shown for 3 staff; Rostera is one payment, unlimited staff.

Why owning beats renting When I Work

  • One payment. No monthly, per-seat, or per-location fees — the license is perpetual.
  • Your data stays on your server. It never lives in When I Work's cloud.
  • No plan ceilings. Records and users are limited by your hosting, not a pricing tier.
  • It keeps working if the vendor doesn't. Self-hosted software can't be sunset or price-hiked out from under you.

Fair trade-offs: you host it, back it up, and apply updates yourself — see the product page for honest limitations, and the full Rostera — Staff Shift Scheduler & Rota (PHP + MySQL, Self-Hosted) vs When I Work comparison.

Sources

  1. When I Work — price checked 2026-07-21 — source
    “$2.50 and $5.00 per user per month tiers shown on the pricing page”

Competitor prices change — always confirm on the linked page. We only print figures we could verify on the date shown. This vendor is tracked in the Price Observatory — every figure verbatim, dated, re-checked quarterly.

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