The workforce management software market is worth $9.76 billion in 2026 — growing at 4.29% annually (Mordor Intelligence). With that much money flowing into scheduling tools, you’d think every use case would be covered. And for brick-and-mortar businesses — restaurants, retail stores, coffee shops — Homebase does exactly what it promises.
But if you’re running a 24/7 customer support operation — overnight shifts, rotating agents across time zones, Philippine and Bangladeshi holiday calendars, real-time OT visibility — Homebase is essentially a restaurant POS plugged into the wrong wall socket.
This guide breaks down the 7 best Homebase alternatives purpose-tested for support operations: around-the-clock shift coverage, distributed teams, holiday complexity, and overtime events you can actually act on.
| If You Want To… | Use This | Best For | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purpose-built 24/7 support scheduling with OT events | Manage Roster | Distributed support teams | Free (up to 10 agents) |
| Simple scheduling with no minimum spend | When I Work | Single-location support | $2.50/user/month |
| Enterprise-grade scheduling with deep integrations | Deputy | Large distributed teams | $5/user/month |
| All-in-one deskless employee app with free tier | Connecteam | SMB support teams | Free (up to 10 users) |
| Free scheduling with basic team comms | Sling | Budget-constrained teams | Free |
| Lightweight time tracking + simple scheduling | Clockify | Teams that need time reports | Free |
| Restaurant-style scheduling adapted for service teams | 7shifts | Customer-facing shift teams | Free (1 location) |
Homebase is genuinely excellent software — for hourly teams in physical locations. Restaurants, salons, and retail stores love it. But when support team managers open Homebase to plan a 24-hour coverage window across three regions, the friction starts immediately.
Here’s what consistently pushes support teams away from Homebase:
1. The day view tops out before midnight. Homebase’s schedule view isn’t built around a full 24-hour timeline. Overnight shifts that span midnight get awkward to read, create confusion, and often cause scheduling gaps that managers don’t catch until the morning.
2. No native overtime event system. Homebase tracks hours — but when an agent stays late to cover a sick colleague, that OT event has no dedicated visibility. It surfaces later in timesheets rather than in real time, when you can still do something about it.
3. Single-region holiday logic. Homebase has holiday management, but it’s built for a single operating location. A 10-person support team with agents split between the Philippines and Bangladesh needs two independent holiday calendars — not one merged list.
4. Location-based pricing penalizes remote-first teams. Homebase charges per location per month — starting at $24.95/location. For remote support teams that don’t really have “locations” in the physical sense, this pricing model forces you to hack the structure just to get your team into the tool.
5. Support is only available weekday business hours. As Clockify’s review notes, Homebase’s customer support runs 7 AM–7 PM Monday through Friday. No weekend coverage. That’s a real problem when your support team runs into a scheduling issue on a Saturday night.
6. No AI assistant for coverage planning. When coverage gaps appear at 3 AM, managers need quick answers. Homebase has no AI layer to help identify gaps, suggest coverage, or flag overtime risk proactively.
The result: support team leads either spend hours hacking Homebase’s location-centric structure into something resembling a distributed team setup, or they abandon it entirely for spreadsheets. Neither is a great outcome.
We evaluated each tool across six criteria specifically relevant to 24/7 support scheduling:
We deliberately excluded payroll integrations, POS connectivity, and tip pooling — those matter for Homebase’s core market, not for support team scheduling.
| Tool | Free Tier | Paid Starts At | 24h Day View | OT Events | Holiday Groups | Multi-Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manage Roster | Up to 10 agents | Pro plan (paid) | ✅ Native | ✅ Dedicated system | ✅ PH + BD groups | ✅ Yes |
| When I Work | 14-day trial | $2.50/user/mo | ❌ No | ⚠️ Basic alerts | ❌ No | ⚠️ Limited |
| Deputy | 31-day trial | $5/user/mo | ❌ No | ⚠️ Reports only | ❌ No | ⚠️ Limited |
| Connecteam | Up to 10 users | $29/mo (30 users) | ❌ No | ⚠️ Basic | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Sling | Up to 30 users | $2/user/mo | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No |
| Clockify | Unlimited users | $3.99/user/mo | ❌ No | ❌ No | ⚠️ Basic | ❌ No |
| 7shifts | 1 location, 30 staff | $29.99/mo | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No | ❌ No |
Manage Roster is the only tool on this list designed from scratch for distributed, always-on support operations. Every feature — the native 24-hour day view, the OT events system, the multi-region holiday groups, the AI assistant — exists because support teams actually asked for it.
If Homebase is a restaurant scheduling tool, Manage Roster is its support-team counterpart. It doesn’t try to do payroll for your baristas. It focuses entirely on the one problem that keeps support managers up at night: keeping coverage gapless at 3 AM across time zones.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: Any distributed support team running 24/7 coverage, particularly those with agents in the Philippines, Bangladesh, or across multiple time zones.
When I Work is clean, fast, and easy to set up — which makes it a strong Homebase alternative if your support team operates from a single physical location or a small handful of sites. It handles scheduling, time tracking, and team messaging in one tidy package, and at $2.50/user/month for single-location teams, it’s among the most affordable paid options on this list.
The caveat: When I Work is still fundamentally a shift-worker tool built for industries like retail and healthcare. You won’t get native 24h views or multi-region holiday logic here.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: Support teams in a single physical contact center that need simple, affordable scheduling without the complexity of Homebase’s location-based pricing.
Deputy is one of the most feature-rich workforce management platforms in this space — and it shows in both its capability set and its pricing. Starting at $5/user/month for the Lite plan (with a $30/month minimum), it offers scheduling, time & attendance, onboarding, and a strong ecosystem of payroll integrations.
Deputy works well for large support teams that need enterprise-grade compliance features — particularly those in industries with labor law requirements. It’s not purpose-built for support operations, but its integration depth makes it adaptable.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: Larger support operations (50+ agents) that need enterprise compliance features and deep payroll integrations, and don’t mind paying a premium.
Connecteam packs an impressive amount of functionality into a single mobile-first platform: scheduling, time tracking, task management, forms, checklists, training, and team messaging. Its free plan is genuinely usable (up to 10 users with all core features), and its paid plans are priced per account rather than per user — making it more affordable for growing teams than per-seat tools.
It’s not designed for pure support scheduling in the way Manage Roster is, but if you want a Swiss Army knife for managing a deskless or mobile workforce, Connecteam delivers.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: SMB support teams that need more than just scheduling — think task management, team communications, and onboarding in a single app.
Sling is a strong contender when budget is the primary constraint. Its free plan supports unlimited staff at a single location with basic scheduling and team messaging included — no credit card required. The Premium tier at $2/user/month adds time tracking and overtime calculation, while Business ($4/user/month) layers in labor cost management and reporting.
Sling lacks the depth that 24/7 support teams need — no overnight shift continuity detection, no multi-region holiday groups, no OT event system. But if you need a functional schedule up and running today at zero cost, Sling gets you there.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: Small support teams or startups that need basic scheduling right now and plan to upgrade as they grow.
Clockify is primarily a time tracking tool that has grown into lightweight scheduling territory. Its free plan is genuinely generous — unlimited users, unlimited projects, and detailed time reports at no cost. For support teams where accurate hour tracking and project-level reporting matter more than complex shift management, Clockify is hard to beat.
The scheduling feature (available on the Standard plan and above) lets managers see who’s working and when, but it doesn’t approach the depth of purpose-built schedulers. Think of it as time tracking with a scheduling side dish, not the other way around.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: Support teams where time accuracy and project-level reporting take priority over complex shift scheduling.
7shifts is primarily built for the restaurant industry — but many customer-facing service teams find its shift management model maps well onto their operations. It offers a clean free plan for single locations (up to 30 staff members), and its paid plans include AI-powered scheduling, labor cost tracking, and team task management.
The restaurant DNA shows in some areas (tip pooling, labor compliance for food service), but the core scheduling engine is solid and the mobile app is one of the better ones in this category.
What makes it stand out:
Pricing:
Best for: Customer service teams in food service, hospitality, or retail that want a proven shift management tool with a solid free tier.
What’s the best free Homebase alternative for support teams?
For true 24/7 support teams, Manage Roster is the best free option — it offers a free plan for up to 10 agents with all core features including the 24h day view and OT events system. If you just need basic scheduling without support-specific features, Sling (unlimited staff at 1 location) and Connecteam (up to 10 users) are also strong free options.
Is Homebase good for remote support teams?
Not really. Homebase’s pricing and feature set are designed around physical locations. Remote support teams end up paying for “locations” they don’t actually have, and the lack of 24h day view makes overnight shift management painful. Tools like Manage Roster, When I Work, or Deputy are better fits for distributed teams.
What’s the cheapest Homebase alternative with paid features?
Sling Premium at $2/user/month is the most affordable paid option. When I Work starts at $2.50/user/month. If you want purpose-built support team features, Manage Roster’s free plan handles teams up to 10 agents — and the Pro plan is the most cost-effective option for larger support operations.
Can I switch from Homebase without losing my schedule history?
Most tools (Manage Roster, Deputy, Connecteam) allow CSV import of employee data. Schedule history from Homebase can typically be exported and archived, but you’ll likely need to rebuild schedules in the new tool. Manage Roster’s setup is streamlined specifically for support teams, so the migration is faster than it sounds.
Does anything on this list handle multi-region holiday schedules?
Manage Roster is the only tool on this list with dedicated multi-region holiday groups — including pre-built PH (Philippines) and BD (Bangladesh) calendars. This is a unique feature designed specifically for distributed support teams that serve multiple regions. Other tools offer basic holiday settings but not true regional separation.
How does Homebase’s pricing compare to these alternatives?
Homebase charges per location: Basic is free (1 location), Essentials is $24.95/location/month, Plus is $59.95/location/month, and All-in-One is $99.95/location/month. For remote teams with no physical locations, this model doesn’t translate well. Per-user tools like Deputy ($5/user) or When I Work ($2.50/user) may be more cost-effective depending on team size.
What do support team managers say about Homebase?
The most common complaint from support teams is that Homebase’s customer support only operates 7 AM–7 PM weekdays — which means if you hit a scheduling problem on a Saturday night, you’re on your own. For teams running 24/7 operations, that’s a significant gap. Many teams also cite the overnight shift display issues and the location-centric pricing model as reasons to switch.
Homebase earned its reputation as a go-to tool for hourly workers in physical locations. But 24/7 support teams have different DNA — you’re running operations around the clock, across time zones, with agents in the Philippines and Bangladesh who follow different holiday calendars and need OT events tracked in real time.
For that use case, Manage Roster is the clear first choice. It’s the only tool on this list built specifically for distributed support scheduling, with a native 24h day view, a dedicated OT system, multi-region holiday groups, and an AI assistant that actually understands support operations. The free plan supports up to 10 agents with no credit card required — so you can test it with your real schedule before committing.
If Homebase has been forcing you to work around its limitations rather than with them, it’s time to try a tool that was designed for your team from day one.