Sling Review 2026: Free Scheduling, Premium Pricing, Pros, Cons

Sling is the scheduler small hourly teams pick when they want the rota out of a group chat without paying for it. The free plan is the reason it shows up on so many shortlists, and the per-user upgrade is the reason some teams leave it once they grow.

This review covers what each plan includes, what a 12, 25 and 45 person team pays each month, and how that compares with Homebase, Connecteam, When I Work and Deputy, with every price read on the vendor's own pricing page on 19 October 2026.

Toolradar data: Sling is listed as an alternative to 8 other tools on Toolradar, the software directory we run, against a median of 5 for the 39 internal communication tools it is grouped with, as of October 2026. Buyers cross-shop it often, which fits a free product that teams try before they compare.

How we reviewed it: we read Sling's plan and feature tables, its billing FAQ and the competitors' pricing pages, then priced three team sizes on list rates. Dupple has no test lab, so this page reports what the vendors publish, not hands-on results.

Sling is employee scheduling, team messaging and time tracking for hourly businesses such as restaurants, shops, clinics and call centers. It runs on the web, iOS and Android, so managers build the schedule at a desk and staff check shifts on their phones.

Sling now trades as Sling by Toast, under the restaurant point-of-sale brand. Toast customers are sent to the Toast Shop to view their plans, so a restaurant already on Toast should check that listing before it signs up on the public page.

It is not payroll and not an HR system. Business adds payroll reports that aggregate hours for processing, but the pay run itself still happens in your payroll provider, and there is no employee record beyond documents and time off.

You create a company account, add employees by hand or import them from a file, and each person accepts an invite by email or SMS. The free plan starts immediately, and Premium or Business start with a 15-day free trial.

At the end of the trial you pick a plan and choose monthly or annual billing, and annual saves 15%. An existing customer can switch to annual from the billing page, so a team can start monthly and lock in the lower rate once the tool has stuck.

Billing follows active users. When an employee leaves and you deactivate or remove them, Sling prorates the unused time, and a replacement hire is added to the bill automatically. That makes Sling cheaper than tools with a monthly minimum for a team with high turnover.

Prices below were read on Sling's pricing page on 19 October 2026, in USD. Sling prints a monthly rate and an annual-billing rate per user per month, and it does not print a yearly total, so the scenarios are monthly bills. The number that matters most is headcount at one site, because Sling charges per user and some rivals charge per location.

On monthly billing, a 12-person team pays $24 a month on Premium and $48 on Business. A 25-person team pays $50 and $100, and a 45-person team pays $90 and $180. Annual billing cuts each of those by 15%, so the 25-person team on Premium pays $42.50 a month.

Per-location pricing changes the order as teams grow. Homebase Essentials is $30 per location per month billed monthly with unlimited employees, so it matches Sling Premium at 15 users and wins above that at one site. Connecteam Operations Basic is $35 a month for the first 30 users on monthly billing, plus $1 for each extra user, so a 45-person team pays $50 against Sling's $90.

Small teams are where Sling wins. At 12 users Premium costs less than either flat-fee rival, and the free plan covers the whole team if nobody needs to clock in. Connecteam's free plan stops at 10 users and Homebase's free Basic plan at one location with up to 10 employees.

Sling fits a single-site shift business small enough for the free plan's user cap that needs a schedule everyone can see and a way to message the team. A cafe, salon, small retail store or front desk can run on the free plan for as long as nobody clocks in through the app.

Choose Premium when hours have to be tracked, which for most teams means the moment payroll depends on the schedule. Choose Business when the manager also tracks attendance, PTO and holiday pay, or wants kiosk clock-in at the door.

Look elsewhere if one location has more than about 15 staff who all need a time clock, because Homebase's flat location fee is lower there. Look elsewhere too if you want payroll inside the same product: Homebase and Deputy sell payroll add-ons, while Sling stops at payroll reports.