7 crew management apps with built-in chat for Australian teams (2026)

If you run a crew in Australia, you need three things in one place: a way to post the work, a way for your crew to pick their own shifts, and built-in chat so nobody is coordinating a Saturday job in a WhatsApp group at 11pm. Most crew management apps do two of the three. This comparison covers seven that come closest, what each costs in 2026, and which kind of crew each one actually suits.

We build one of them (Zelos), so read this as a comparison written by someone with a horse in the race. Every price and feature below comes from the vendors’ own published pricing as of August 2026, and we’ve named what each tool does better than we do.

At a glance

App	Chat	Pricing	Free plan
Zelos	Yes	Flat	Yes
Connecteam	Yes	Per hub	Yes
Sling	Yes	Per user	Yes
Deputy	Yes	Per user	No
Tanda	Yes	Per user	No
When I Work	Yes	Per user	No
Rosterfy	Yes	Quote	No

What to look for in an Australian crew app

Self-selection, not assignment. Some tools build the roster for you and tell people where to be. Others post the work and let the crew claim it. If your crew is casual, seasonal, volunteer or spread across sites, self-selection fills shifts faster because people only take what they can actually do.

Chat that knows what the shift is. Generic team chat means someone has to explain which job they’re asking about. Chat attached to the shift means the context is already there, and the conversation is still findable in six months.

Awards and Fair Work. Be honest about which problem you’re solving. A signup board fills shifts. It does not interpret modern awards, calculate penalty rates or flag a broken shift. If award interpretation is your risk, you want a rostering platform, and that decision changes the shortlist below.

A pricing model that survives your headcount. Crew sizes swing. A per-person price is fine at 12 people and painful at 120, especially when half of them work four shifts a year, which describes most casual pools and every event crew in the country.

Something people will install. Your crew won’t sit through training. If it isn’t obvious in the first two minutes on a phone, it won’t get used.

1. Zelos: best for crews that fluctuate in size

Zelos is a task and shift signup app with messaging built in. You post shifts, your crew claims what fits, and every task gets its own chat channel. There is no algorithmic assignment. People choose, by design.

Shift claiming: Post a shift with a time, location and capacity. Crew members browse and claim on a first-come basis, or you switch to approval mode and pick from the queue. You can publish only to people who hold the right skill, ticket or location tag, and you can send a direct offer to one person.

Chat: Every task has its own channel. Group and direct messages are included, all with admin oversight, by design. Members cannot see each other’s contact details, and there is no unsupervised one-to-one messaging.

Pricing: Free forever with unlimited members and unlimited admins, 25 concurrent active tasks, a 100-task archive and 10,000 chat messages. Pro is A$159/month billed annually, or A$189 month-to-month, for unlimited active tasks, full archive, no message cap, CSV bulk upload and auto-updating member groups. Enterprise starts at US$999/month for a white-label app, REST API and webhooks. Never per seat.

Where it doesn’t fit: No time clock, no payroll, no auto-rostering, no award interpretation. If penalty rates and timesheet-to-payroll flow are your problem, one of the Australian platforms below will serve you better.

Best for: Event crews, cleaning and facilities crews, contractor pools, surf clubs and community groups, and anyone whose headcount doubles over summer.

“We didn’t even know day labor management software existed. Now with Zelos Team Management we can confidently focus on scaling our business. We are no longer limited by noise-producing communication tools.”

Dispatch business owner

2. Connecteam: best all-in-one for deskless crews

Connecteam is a deskless workforce platform covering rostering, time tracking, checklists, forms and internal comms. Crews can be given open shifts to claim, and there is a full chat product with channels and a directory.

Shift claiming: Managers publish open shifts; qualified staff claim them from the mobile app. Shift swaps and manager approval are both supported.

Chat: A dedicated Communications hub with one-to-one chat, groups, an updates feed, surveys and an employee directory.

Pricing: A free Small Business plan covers up to 10 users with access to all hubs. Paid tiers are sold per hub. Basic is $29/month, Advanced is $49/month and Expert is $99/month, each billed annually and each covering the first 30 users, with additional users charged on top. Monthly billing runs $35, $59 and $119. Pricing is listed in US dollars.

The catch: Rostering, communications and HR are three separately sold hubs, so a crew that needs shift claiming and chat is often buying two. No Australian award interpretation.

Best for: Construction, facilities and field service crews that want time tracking, forms and chat in one app.

See Connecteam vs Zelos, compared in detail.

3. Sling: best free plan for small crews

Sling is a rostering and communication app built for shift-based businesses, and its free tier is unusually generous.

Shift claiming: Available shifts are posted to the team and picked up by whoever wants them. Shift swapping is included on the free plan.

Chat: Private messages, group messages and a company newsfeed, in the same app as the roster.

Pricing: Free for up to 30 users, including rostering, available shifts, time-off requests and messaging. Premium is $1.70 per user/month billed annually ($2 monthly) and adds mobile time tracking, labour cost tracking and overtime alerts. Business is $3.40 per user/month annually ($4 monthly) for kiosk clock-in, leave management and reporting. Priced in US dollars.

The catch: The free plan stops hard at 30 users, time tracking is a paid feature, and there is no Australian compliance tooling or local support.

Best for: Single-site crews under 30 people who mostly need a clean roster plus messaging and don’t want to pay anything.

See Sling vs Zelos, compared in detail.

4. Deputy: best for award interpretation

Deputy was built in Sydney and is the default answer for Australian shift businesses that need modern awards handled properly. It covers rostering, time and attendance, and compliance.

Shift claiming: Managers publish open shifts and staff claim or swap them from the app, with approval rules and qualification checks applied.

Chat: A News Feed for team-wide and targeted announcements, plus messaging. Deputy sells a Messaging+ add-on for richer comms on lower tiers.

Pricing: Per user, per month, split across scheduling, time and attendance, and premium tiers, with HR and analytics add-ons priced separately. Deputy publishes local AUD rates for Australian customers, so check the AU pricing page. The global list starts at US$5 per user/month for the entry Lite tier. Free trial, no permanent free plan.

The catch: Per-user pricing plus add-ons and a minimum spend makes Deputy expensive for a large casual pool where most people work a handful of shifts.

Best for: Hospitality, retail and healthcare operators who need penalty rates, breaks and award rules enforced automatically.

See Deputy vs Zelos, compared in detail.

5. Tanda: best Australian-built workforce platform

Tanda is a Brisbane-built workforce management platform with a strong compliance engine, designed around Australian awards and payroll.

Shift claiming: Open shifts can be published and claimed, with swaps and availability handled in-app and validated against award rules.

Chat: Team messaging and announcements alongside rostering and time capture.

Pricing: Capterra lists Tanda from A$8 per user/month. The full workforce management, HR and payroll bundle is quoted from around $12.80 + GST per user/month, with individual modules priced through sales rather than published on the site.

The catch: No free plan, per-user costs mount quickly past 20–30 staff, and support runs to AEST business hours.

Best for: Australian businesses that want rostering, timesheets and payroll compliance in one local system.

6. When I Work: best for shift swaps and drops

When I Work is a rostering platform whose strongest feature is letting staff trade shifts among themselves without a manager in the middle.

Shift claiming: OpenShifts can be published to eligible staff and claimed from the app. Drop, pick-up and swap requests route through configurable approval rules.

Chat: WorkChat handles one-to-one and group messaging alongside the roster.

Pricing: Essentials from $2.50 per user/month, Pro at $5 and Premium at $8, in US dollars, with a 14-day free trial. Time and attendance is a separate add-on rather than part of the base rate.

The catch: No free plan, no award interpretation, and the add-on structure means the advertised per-user price isn’t the whole bill.

Best for: Retail, hospitality and healthcare crews with a stable roster who trade shifts constantly.

See When I Work vs Zelos, compared in detail.

7. Rosterfy: best for very large event and volunteer crews

Rosterfy is an enterprise volunteer and workforce management platform founded in Melbourne and used by major events, sporting bodies and government programs.

Shift claiming: A branded signup portal where crew members apply, get screened, and self-select shifts, with compliance checks and accreditation built into the flow.

Chat: Bulk communications, automated messaging journeys and in-app messaging rather than casual team chat.

Pricing: Quoted annually. Public listings put entry-level contracts in the region of US$7,000 per year, so this is a budgeted procurement rather than a card-on-file signup.

The catch: Cost and setup time. Rosterfy is built for programs with several hundred to several thousand crew members and a coordinator whose actual job is running the program.

Best for: Major events, stadiums, state sporting bodies and national volunteer programs at 500+ people.

How to choose

• Your crew size swings and half of them work occasionally → a flat-fee tool. Per-person pricing turns your quiet season into a bill for people who aren’t working. Zelos is the only flat-fee model on this list.
• You need award interpretation and timesheets feeding payroll → Deputy or Tanda. This is the clearest reason to pick a full Australian platform over a signup board, and it’s worth paying for.
• You want the work claimed, not assigned → Zelos, Sling and Connecteam all support genuine open claiming. Deputy, Tanda and When I Work support it too, but their centre of gravity is the manager-built roster.
• You’re running a one-off with 800 people → Rosterfy, or Zelos if the budget is closer to zero than to five figures.
• You’re replacing WhatsApp, not a roster → the question is whether chat is attached to the shift. Task-level channels beat a general team chat every time when three jobs are running at once.

Frequently asked questions

What is a crew management app? A crew management app is software for posting shifts or jobs to a group of workers and coordinating them from their phones. Most include rostering, availability, messaging and some form of time tracking. The difference between them is whether the software assigns the work or the crew claims it.

Which crew management apps let staff pick their own shifts? Zelos, Sling, Connecteam, Deputy, Tanda and When I Work all support open shifts that crew members can claim from a mobile app. Zelos and Sling make self-selection the default behaviour rather than an option layered on top of a manager-built roster.

Which crew app has the best built-in chat? Connecteam has the deepest standalone chat product, with channels, surveys and a directory. Zelos attaches a chat channel to every individual task, so the conversation stays tied to the job it’s about. Sling, Tanda and When I Work all include competent messaging alongside the roster.

Is there a free crew management app with chat in Australia? Yes. Zelos is free for unlimited crew members with 25 concurrent active tasks and 10,000 chat messages. Sling is free for up to 30 users. Connecteam is free for up to 10 users. Deputy, Tanda and When I Work run on trials rather than free plans.

What does crew management software cost in Australia? Most per-seat tools run A$4–13 per person per month, so a 50-person crew costs roughly A$200–650/month. Flat-fee pricing works differently: Zelos Pro is A$159/month billed annually for unlimited members. For crews with lots of casual workers, the pricing model matters more than the headline rate.

Does Zelos handle modern awards and penalty rates? No. Zelos is a task and shift signup app, not a payroll or award interpretation system. It posts work, lets your crew claim it, and keeps the coordination in one place. If you need award rules, penalty rates and timesheets flowing into payroll, use Deputy or Tanda. Some teams run Zelos alongside a payroll system rather than instead of one.

How is Zelos different from Connecteam and Sling? Connecteam and Sling are workforce platforms built around a schedule: you build the roster, then people work it. Zelos is a signup board: you post the work, and people claim what fits. Connecteam adds time tracking, forms and checklists across three separately priced hubs. Sling adds time tracking and labour costing on paid per-user tiers. Zelos includes unlimited members on every plan and never charges per person, but has no time clock and no payroll.

Do crew members need to download an app? Not necessarily. Zelos runs in any browser as well as native iOS and Android apps, so someone can claim a shift from a link without installing anything. Connecteam, Sling, Deputy, Tanda and When I Work are all mobile-first and work best with the app installed.

Try the flat-fee option first

If your crew changes size month to month, start with the tool that doesn’t bill you for it. Zelos is free with unlimited crew members, task and shift posting, self-signup, skills-based targeting and built-in messaging. No credit card, no trial expiration.

Start a free project →

Trusted by crews in 40+ countries since 2018. Prices checked August 2026. Verify current rates on each vendor’s pricing page before you commit.