Sling

Who it's for

Sling fits a small or mid-size service business that wants to run real shift scheduling, time-off requests and team messaging without paying anything until it needs deeper time tracking or paid time off management. Its free plan is the most generous starting point among comparable scheduling tools, since it covers core scheduling features rather than a stripped trial.

It also suits a restaurant, retail or hospitality business specifically, since Sling markets to those industries directly and its integrations lean toward restaurant point-of-sale platforms for syncing timesheets and labor data.

Tiers at a glance

Who should look elsewhere

A business that has grown past a free plan's user cap and specifically wants payroll offered as a direct add-on inside the same scheduling platform is better served by Deputy, which layers a payroll add-on and an HR add-on onto its paid tiers. See Deputy.

A team that wants team messaging bundled into every paid tier from day one, rather than group messaging arriving only on the middle tier and kiosk-level features reserved for the top tier, should compare against When I Work, which includes in-app messaging across its tiers. See When I Work.

A business that wants payroll calculated and filed inside its scheduling tool rather than exported to a separate payroll provider will not find that in Sling at all; that gap applies to Deputy as an add-on and to a dedicated payroll product for full in-house payroll.

What it does well

The free plan is not a time-limited trial: it is an ongoing tier that covers shift scheduling, time-off requests, open shifts, a company newsfeed and private messaging for a capped number of users, which lets a small team run real operations at no cost before deciding whether to pay for more.

Scheduling supports building schedules quickly and saving them as reusable templates, which cuts repeat setup time for a business with recurring weekly shift patterns.

Paid plans include a discount for annual billing on top of the monthly per-user rate, which lowers the effective cost for a business willing to commit for a year rather than pay month to month.

All paid tiers include a free trial period before a business commits to a paid plan, which lets a team test mobile time tracking or PTO management features before paying for them.

Limits to know

Kiosk time tracking, comprehensive reporting, no-show tracking, sick call-out management and PTO management are all reserved for the top Business tier, so a business that needs any single one of those has to pay for the highest tier rather than a mid-level plan.

Sling does not run payroll itself; its integrations sync timesheet and labor data into separate point-of-sale and payroll systems, so a business that wants scheduling and payroll calculated in one tool needs an add-on elsewhere.

The free plan's user cap means a business that grows past that headcount has to move to a paid tier to keep the same features running for its whole team.

What to check on pricing

Sling's exact free-plan user cap, per-user rates for Premium and Business, the annual-billing discount, and the current trial length for paid features all change periodically. Confirm current figures on the pricing table on this page and on the Sling pricing page rather than relying on a fixed number here.

Alternatives and when they fit

• Deputy if you have outgrown Sling's free plan and want payroll available as a direct add-on inside the same scheduling platform, with three clearly tiered paid plans.
• When I Work if you want team messaging included in every paid tier from the start and are comfortable with a time-limited trial instead of an ongoing free plan.
• Homebase if you want scheduling and time tracking paired with hiring and onboarding tools in one platform rather than a scheduling-first tool with add-ons.

How we reviewed it

We checked Sling's pricing page directly for its three tiers, the free plan's user cap and included features, the annual-billing discount, and which features are reserved for the Business tier. We separately reviewed its features page for scheduling, time tracking, messaging and task management capabilities, its integrations page for the point-of-sale and payroll systems it connects with, and its homepage for the industries it markets to. We did not rely on any third-party review site for feature claims in this review, and we did not restate specific dollar or percentage figures shown on those pages in the text above.