Replace a subscription · every price cited

The self-hosted When I Work alternative

Rostera: 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.

Own Rostera for $69 Try the live demo

Stop renting When I Work.

Rented When I Work Essentials $2.50/user/month (single location), Pro $5/user/month (multiple locations), Premium $8/user/month. Monthly or annual billing, and the page shows the same per-user price for both (no separate annual figure) ^[1] billed every month, for as long as you use it; your data in their cloud

Yours

Rostera

$69 once · self-hosted · your data on your server

10 months of When I Work costs what Rostera costs once.

Buy once

How we counted: Per-seat monthly. Figure shown for 3 staff on Essentials, the single-location plan; Rostera is one payment, unlimited staff. Re-read 2026-10-11: prices unchanged; the plans are named Essentials, Pro and Premium again (on 2026-09-26 the page named them by what they cover, one location against several).

How When I Work pricing grows

When I Work bills per user per month, with the per-seat rate rising for multi-location businesses.

“When I Work pricing starts at just $2.50 per user per month for single-location teams, and $5 per user per month for multi-location businesses.”, their own page, read 2026-09-26

What When I Work does that we don't

When I Work integrates with Rippling so customers can run payroll and manage HR benefits alongside scheduling.

“When I Work works seamlessly with Rippling, our preferred partner, so you can run payroll, manage benefits, and stay compliant without duplicating work.”, their own page

Who should stay with When I Work

If you need built-in payroll integration and HR benefits management alongside scheduling, stay with When I Work — Rostera plans shifts only and holds no pay rates or wages.

What Rostera deliberately doesn't do is on its product page.

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 by a pricing tier.

It keeps working if the vendor doesn't

Self-hosted software can't be sunset or repriced out from under you.

The fair trade-offs: you host it, back it up and apply updates yourself. See the product page for its limits, and the full Rostera vs renting comparison.

Questions about moving off When I Work.

Is Rostera payroll?

No. It plans shifts — who works, when, and for how long. It holds no pay rates or wages, calculates no pay, and moves no money. Zero payment surface, by design.

Is it a time clock?

No. Shifts are planned hours, not clock-in / attendance records — there is no time or biometric capture. It is a scheduling and planning tool.

How exact are the hours?

Exact to the minute. Times are stored as integer minutes and summed in PHP, with DST-correct shift lengths — the shipped test suite covers overnight shifts and both DST transitions — run it yourself with php tests/run.php.

MySQL or SQLite?

Either — SQLite for a zero-config trial, MySQL/MariaDB for production on ordinary shared hosting.

Related on this site

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Sources

When I Work: price checked 2026-10-11, source“Essentials $2 .50 /user/month ... Pro $5 /user/month ... Premium $8 /user/month ... flexible monthly or annual billing options”

Competitor prices change, so 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.

Replace When I Work with Rostera.

Open the live demo first; it costs nothing.

See Rostera Rostera vs renting All alternatives