WFM — Workforce Management (Scheduling, Time & Attendance)
Entry signal — what decides who wins here
One thing must be trueEntry turns on a single condition that can be named and tested before much is spent. Clear it and this becomes an execution question; fail it and no amount of operating skill helps.
Displace an incumbent the screen found well defended — payments attached to the workflow, data that does not leave, a contract that renews itself. Share here means giving a buyer a reason to break something that currently works, which is a higher bar than being better.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
This is not a probability of success, and it is not a verdict on you. No survival probability is published per market, and inventing one would be worse than saying so. What the bar reads is how much of the outcome sits inside an operator's control: green means the hurdles are ones a better operator clears, red means the binding constraint is capital, an asset or a permission rather than execution. Someone arriving with an advantage this screen did not assume can win a market shown in red.
Companies named in this market · 16
The binding constraint — incumbent vulnerability
Workforce management here means the scheduling, time-and-attendance and labour-forecasting layer for hourly and shift workers, sold to every industry that runs shifts. The top of it was consolidated years ago, and the bottom is crowded with free tiers. This is not the franchise record (5331-franchise-workforce-management-saas), which tested whether a franchise label opens a market inside the same product and found that it does not. It is not HRM (541514-hrm-human-resource-management), the employee system of record and payroll. Payroll suites do sell time as a module, and that is the pressure on this market from above. It is not workflow automation (541514-workflow-automation-bpa-ipaas-rpa), which routes documents and processes rather than labour hours. And it is not guard-company software (561612-security-guard-workforce-software), a vertical with post orders and patrol proof on top of scheduling. At the enterprise end, UKG is the reference vendor and is still buying. UKG was formed when Kronos and Ultimate Software completed their merger on 1 April 2020, and Hellman & Friedman owns about half of it [C]. In 2025 it took Shiftboard, the Seattle scheduler for energy and manufacturing; shiftboard.com now redirects permanently to ukg.com/shiftboard [A, observed 2026-10-10]. From the payroll side, time is pulled into the payroll suite. Paychex completed its all-cash purchase of Paycor on 14 April 2025 at $22.50 a share, about $4.1B of enterprise value [A, Paychex release]. ADP, Workday and Dayforce each sell time and scheduling inside the suite the buyer already pays for. At the SMB end the product is cheap or free, and the operator buys it directly. Homebase, Sling and 7shifts all offer free plans, and the venture-funded independents raised their big rounds in 2021–22. Those rounds were Connecteam's $120M at about $800M (March 2022), When I Work's $200M from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities (November 2021), 7shifts' US$80M (February 2022), Homebase's $71M (July 2021), Legion's $50M (May 2021) and Quinyx's $50M (November 2021) [B]. None publishes revenue. The independent tier is being bought: Toast bought Sling in July 2022, and TCP bought Humanity, scheduling at more than 175,000 locations, in December 2020 [C, vendor]. Incumbent vulnerability decides it. The enterprise vendor is buying its challengers, payroll owners are absorbing time, and an entrant at the bottom would be competing with free.
Sectors joined: Cybersecurity · SaaS · Technology · Dev Tools · B2B SaaS · AI
[UNVERIFIED] Sector-to-NAICS mapping is analyst judgment — see data/angel-sector-map.json. Counts are a per-record cross-reference and are not additive across records.
The incumbent
Who owns this market and who is coming for it. Fields a screen never reached say so rather than guessing.
The field
Every vendor named on this record, and what each one discloses. Most disclose nothing, which is why the market is not sized.
Competitor set · 14 named · 0 disclose revenue
| Name | Revenue | Share | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| UKG (Kronos)C | not disclosed | — | Private (Hellman & Friedman about 50%, Blackstone 20–25% [C, Wikipedia]). Formed by the Kronos–Ultimate Software merger, completed 2020-04-01. A FY2022 revenue figure of $3.656B appears in UKG's own release, but ukg.com and Business Wire both blocked automated access, so it was not opened and is not used. Bought Shiftboard in 2025; shiftboard.com now 301-redirects to ukg.com/shiftboard — The enterprise time-and-attendance standard (Kronos Workforce Central / UKG Pro WFM / UKG Ready) |
| ADPNASDAQ: ADPC | not disclosed | — | Public; time and attendance is sold inside ADP's payroll and HCM platforms, and no WFM line is broken out. Covered in the HRM record — Time bundled with payroll at every size band |
| WorkdayNASDAQ: WDAYC | not disclosed | — | Public; scheduling and time tracking are modules of Workday HCM, with no line broken out. Covered in the HRM record — Enterprise suite module |
| PaycorA | not disclosed | — | Acquired by Paychex: all-cash deal completed 2025-04-14 at $22.50/share, about $4.1B enterprise value [A, Paychex release]. Paycor's time and scheduling are now part of the Paychex HCM portfolio; paycor.com carries a Paychex acquisition banner — The clearest recent price on a mid-market HCM with time inside it |
| DeputyB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. Sydney, founded 2008. $81M Series B led by IVP on 2018-11-28, $106M in total at that point; claimed then to serve 90,000 businesses [B: VentureBeat; count C]. A March 2024 strategic investment from Express Employment Professionals was reported as an A$37M Series C at a valuation above US$1B. iTWire's account of the 2024-03-21 partnership was opened and gives no amount, so the figure is C — Cross-industry shift scheduling, time and HR; sold direct |
| When I WorkB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. $200M growth investment from Bain Capital Tech Opportunities, with Arthur Ventures reinvesting, announced 2021-11-01; claimed then: more than 200,000 workplaces, over 10M hourly employees [B: Bain Capital release; counts C] — Minneapolis, founded 2010; SMB scheduling and time clock |
| ConnecteamB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. $120M Series C co-led by Stripes and Insight Partners on 2022-03-02 at about $800M valuation; $160M total [B: Globes, Reworked] — Deskless-workforce app: scheduling, time clock, communications and forms; the best-funded SMB independent |
| 7shiftsB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. US$80M Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with Ten Coves Capital and Enlightened Hospitality Investments, on 2022-02-10 [B: Osler deal note] — Saskatoon; restaurant-only scheduling, tip pooling and payroll. Covered in depth in the franchise record |
| HomebaseB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. $71M Series C led by GGV Capital on 2021-07-29, with Bain Capital Ventures, Baseline, Bedrock, Cowboy and Khosla [B: Gunderson Dettmer deal note] — Free plan for a single location; scheduling, time clocks, payroll |
| Sling (Toast)B | not disclosed | — | Acquired by Toast, announced 2022-07-07, terms not disclosed [B: Restaurant Dive]. getsling.com still sells a free scheduling tier. Toast's own figures are in the franchise record (FY2025 10-K) — A free scheduler absorbed into a payments-funded restaurant platform |
| TCP Software (Humanity)C | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. TCP (TimeClock Plus) bought Humanity on 2020-12-02, terms not disclosed; Humanity then claimed more than 175,000 business locations, 7,000 customers and 1.3M users [C, TCP release]. humanity.com now redirects to tcpsoftware.com/products/humanity — Time and attendance for public sector and education, plus Humanity scheduling |
| LegionB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. $50M Series C led by Stripes on 2021-05-11, with Norwest, First Round, XYZ, Webb Investment Network and Dollar General; $85.5M total [B: Legion release announcing the round] — Redwood City; AI labour forecasting and scheduling for large retail and hospitality employers, competing with UKG directly |
| QuinyxB | not disclosed | — | Private; no revenue published. $50M round led by Battery Ventures on 2021-11-30, with Alfvén & Didrikson and Zobito [B: Tech.eu] — Stockholm, founded 2005; European enterprise WFM for retail, hospitality and logistics |
| ShiftboardC | not disclosed | — | Acquired by UKG in 2025, terms not disclosed; shiftboard.com now 301-redirects to ukg.com/shiftboard [A, observed 2026-10-10]. The deal date and Shiftboard's prior funding come from search results only; GeekWire and ukg.com blocked automated access — Seattle, founded 2002; scheduling for energy, manufacturing and other 24/7 operations |
Nobody here publishes revenue. The market is not sized for that reason — an estimate built on nothing would only look like knowledge.
Startups & challengers
Newer and smaller vendors going at the incumbent — funded challengers first. Named, not researched to the depth of the field above; a company with a page here links to it.
| Company | Stage | What it does | Raised |
|---|---|---|---|
| Teambridge | Funded challenger | Workforce management and scheduling for hourly and staffing workforces | — |
| Hammr | Startup | Payroll, time tracking and HR built for construction contractors. | — |
| Nowsta | Startup | Hourly workforce scheduling and staffing for events, catering and hospitality | — |
Vendor landscape
Market leaders, the full paid field, and every open-source alternative. Where a free tier exists it is what sets the price floor, so it is analysis rather than an appendix.
Private; revenue not opened (UKG and Business Wire blocked automated access). Bought Shiftboard in 2025
Paid about $4.1B enterprise value for Paycor, closed 2025-04-14 [A]
The best-funded SMB independents: $160M, $200M and about $106M+ disclosed respectively [B]
Paid field · 12 vendors
Ex-Kronos; the reference time-and-attendance platform
Time and scheduling inside the HCM and payroll suite
Owned by Paychex since April 2025
AI demand forecasting and scheduling
Stockholm
Time clocks plus Humanity scheduling
Cross-industry; Sydney
Bain Capital Tech Opportunities-backed
Scheduling plus communications and forms
Free plan; Saskatoon
Free for one location
Free scheduling tier
Open source · 3 projects — the price floor
Open-source HRMS with shift types, shift assignment and attendance; github.com/frappe/hrms had about 8,900 stars and was pushed 2026-10-09 [A, GitHub API]
Time tracking and timesheets, not shift scheduling; github.com/kimai/kimai had about 5,100 stars and was pushed 2026-10-10 [A, GitHub API]
Scheduling, time clock and payroll. timetrex.com blocked automated access, and the public GitHub copies are stale third-party mirrors (latest push 2023), so its current status is unconfirmed
WFM has three tiers, and each tier has a different owner. UKG holds the enterprise end, Kronos's installed base of pay rules, union agreements and timeclocks, and it is still buying. Payroll suites (ADP, Paychex–Paycor, Workday, Dayforce) sell time as a module of the payroll the buyer already runs. A crowded SMB tier of venture-funded apps sells to the operator, priced per user or per location, and three of them have free plans.
Evidence
Evidence. Market size and vendor WFM revenue UNVERIFIED: UKG is private, ukg.com sits behind a Cloudflare challenge and Business Wire returned 403, so UKG's own revenue releases could not be opened and no UKG figure is used. ADP, Workday and Dayforce report no WFM line. Opened [A]: Paychex's 'Paycor acquisition complete' release (2025-04-14; $22.50/share, about $4.1B EV). shiftboard.com returning 301 to ukg.com/shiftboard (observed 2026-10-10). The GitHub API for frappe/hrms and kimai/kimai (licence, stars, last push). Opened [B]: VentureBeat on Deputy's $81M Series B (2018-11-28). Globes and Reworked on Connecteam's $120M Series C (2022-03-02). Bain Capital's release on When I Work's $200M (2021-11-01). Osler's deal note on 7shifts' US$80M Series C (2022-02-10). Gunderson Dettmer's deal note on Homebase's $71M Series C (2021-07-29). Legion's own release on its $50M Series C (2021-05-11). Tech.eu on Quinyx's $50M (2021-11-30). Restaurant Dive on Toast–Sling (2022-07-07). Opened [C]: TCP's release on Humanity (2020-12-02; 175,000 locations is a vendor claim), SaaS Capital's note on the same deal, iTWire on Deputy–Express (2024-03-21; no amount given), Wikipedia on UKG's formation and ownership, and vendor homepages for confirmation only. NOT opened, robots or bot-blocked: TechCrunch, which disallows Anthropic agents in robots.txt; Startup Daily, same; GeekWire (403) for the UKG–Shiftboard deal date; BetaKit (403); timetrex.com (403); ukg.com, adp.com and toasttab.com (bot challenge). Deputy's A$37M / US$1B+ 2024 round and the 2025 date of UKG–Shiftboard therefore rest on search results and are C. Customer and location counts throughout are vendor claims [C]. Market-research CAGR figures for WFM circulate but are not used. Verify before acting.
Where the industry talks
The associations, forums and events where people in this trade actually talk shop — where to listen before entering, and where the first customers are found. Each link was opened on the date shown.
Membership body for workforce planners and managers in contact centres; runs the CWPP certification and the annual conference (Nashville, 8–10 March 2027). No member count on the page opened.
Canadian payroll profession body, the buyer side for time and attendance feeding payroll; describes 'a community of 40,000+ payroll professionals'. That is a community figure, not a member count.
20–22 October 2026, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas; claims 7,200+ attendees and 400+ solution providers, with workforce management among its tracks.
PayrollOrg (the former American Payroll Association, payrollorg.org) renders no content without JavaScript and was not verified. SHRM and CIPD were not added because they are general HR bodies, not WFM-specific. Vendor-run communities (UKG's Workforce Institute, the vendors' user conferences) are left out.