Is Connecteam really free?

Yes, for up to thirty users, as a permanent plan rather than a trial — their pricing page, checked 2026-08-04. Paid tiers start at $35 per month for the first thirty users. If you are inside that and nothing clinical gates your scheduling, it is the better answer and this page says so.

Does Connecteam track certifications?

It has a training module and can store records. The distinction that matters for a clinic is not whether a date can be stored but whether an expired one can stop somebody being scheduled. In MedAligna that check runs in the database under a row lock, so a nurse whose licence lapsed cannot be assigned or claim an open shift.

Can Connecteam produce a CMS PBJ file?

It is a cross-industry workforce app and PBJ is a skilled-nursing federal filing, so no. If you file quarterly, that is usually decisive on its own.

What is a good Connecteam alternative for a care home?

One built for the filing and the rules: MedAligna holds ratios against a census with acuity weighting, blocks expired credentials and OIG-excluded staff at assignment, and generates the quarterly PBJ file from hours already captured — $99–$249 per location per month, published, with a 14-day trial.

Comparison · verified August 2026

Connecteam alternatives for clinical teams

Connecteam is an all-in-one app for deskless teams: scheduling, a time clock, chat, checklists, training and HR forms, priced in bundles of thirty users. MedAligna does scheduling for healthcare only, and enforces the rules a clinic is held to — credential expiry, ratios against census, exclusion screening and the CMS staffing file.

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From $99/month per location · No sales call · No card to start

At a glance

Connecteam is free for life for up to 30 users, and $35 per month for the first 30 on its Basic tier (their pricing page, 2026-08-04). We do not beat that and this page does not pretend to.
It prices in bundles of thirty rather than per seat, which makes it unusually good value for a large casual roster.
It is a broad deskless-workforce suite — chat, training, forms, tasks — with scheduling as one module.
What no general suite does: refuse a shift because a licence expired, screen the OIG list, hold a ratio against census, or produce the quarterly CMS PBJ file.
The question is not which is cheaper. It is whether anything on that list is something you are accountable for.

What Connecteam does well

The free tier is real, not a trial, and for a small team it covers scheduling, a time clock and communication without a card. Very little in this market competes with that, and a clinic under thirty people that needs a rota and a punch clock has a genuinely good free option.

Pricing in bundles of thirty rather than per seat suits an organisation with a long casual roster. A per-diem pool that would cost thirty seats elsewhere costs nothing extra here until the bundle fills.

The breadth is the product. Announcements, chat, training courses, checklists and forms in one app is a real answer for a workforce that has no desks and no company email, and a scheduling-only tool does not replace it.

Where a general workforce suite runs out

Everything below is a rule a clinic is held to and a general product has no reason to have built. None of it is a criticism of Connecteam — it is a description of a different category.

Training completion is not a scheduling rule

Connecteam has a training module, which is more than most general tools carry. The gap is what happens next: a completed course is a record, not a gate. In MedAligna a lapsed annual competency or an expired licence blocks the assignment in the database, so the rota cannot contain somebody who is not currently qualified to be on it.

No federal exclusion screening

An OIG-excluded person scheduled into a Medicare-funded shift is a billing exposure. Screening it is not something a cross-industry product screens for, and remembering to check by hand is not a control.

Coverage is headcount, not ratio

"Somebody is on this shift" and "this unit is staffed to one nurse per four patients, weighted for acuity" are different questions. The second needs a census, and a general scheduler has nowhere to put one.

No CMS Payroll-Based Journal

For a skilled-nursing facility the quarterly PBJ file is frequently the whole reason to buy scheduling software. MedAligna builds it from hours already captured; a general suite has no concept of a CMS job code.

Which one is right for you

This one splits cleanly on a single question: are you accountable for clinical rules, or do you just need a rota and a clock?

Stay with Connecteam if…

You have thirty or fewer people and price is decisive — the free tier is genuinely free.
You need chat, training, forms and tasks as much as you need a schedule.
Your staff are not licensed, or their credentials are tracked reliably elsewhere.
You schedule across clinical and non-clinical teams and want one app for all of it.

Look at MedAligna if…

You employ licensed staff whose credentials expire and gate what they may work.
You file CMS PBJ, or hold nurse-to-patient ratios.
You bill Medicare or Medicaid and want exclusion screening to be structural.
You run home-care visits and need travel time checked between them.
You want the schedule itself to refuse what compliance would refuse, rather than a report telling you afterwards.

MedAligna vs Connecteam, row by row

Binary, verifiable facts only. No adjectives; an opinion is not a comparison.

Capability	MedAligna	Connecteam
Published price	$99–$249 / location / mo	Free to 30 users; $35+ / mo
Free tier	No	Yes
Self-serve trial, no sales call	Yes	Yes
Shift swaps and open-shift claiming	Yes	Yes
Time clock	Yes	Yes
Geofenced clock-in	Yes	Yes
Team chat	Threads on shifts	Yes
Training courses delivered in-app	No	Yes
Training completion blocks the assignment	Yes	No
Credential expiry blocks the assignment	Yes	No
OIG exclusion screening	Yes	No
Nurse-to-patient ratios against census	Yes	No
Acuity weighting and HPRD	Yes	No
CMS Payroll-Based Journal file	Yes	No
On-call scheduling and escalation	Yes	No
Home-care visits with travel-time checking	Yes	No

Connecteam is a trademark of its owner. MedAligna is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Connecteam. Comparison compiled from publicly available documentation and pricing pages, verified July 2026. If anything here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.

The honest bit

When you should stay on Connecteam

More often than on anything else compared on this site, and it is worth saying plainly rather than burying: a free product that does the job is a better answer than a paid one that does the job plus things you will never use.

You are within the free tier. Thirty users free is not a number we compete with, and we are not going to invent a reason you should pay us instead.
Nobody on your team holds a licence or competency that gates what they are allowed to work.
You use the wider suite — training, forms, chat, tasks — and replacing the schedule would leave the rest stranded.
You do not file PBJ, hold ratios, or bill federal programmes.
Your staff already have it installed and use it. Adoption is the expensive part of any rollout, and you have already paid it.

We would rather you stayed and told someone we were straight with you than switched and regretted it. This category is small, and reputations travel.

Moving across, if the rules now apply to you

01
Export your people
Take the roster out as a spreadsheet and upload it. Every row is previewed before anything is written, with the columns we ignored named.
02
Bring the training records with you
If you have been tracking competencies in Connecteam, export the completions and import them. Once they are in, make the ones that matter blocking and the schedule starts refusing what it should.
03
Add contracted hours
A nurse on a 24-hour contract should get her overtime warning at hour 25, not hour 41. It is the one column worth the extra minute.
04
Keep Connecteam for what it is good at
Plenty of organisations run both. If the chat and the training modules are working, there is no prize for consolidating them into a product that does not have them.

Connecteam questions, answered

Is Connecteam really free?: Yes, for up to thirty users, as a permanent plan rather than a trial — their pricing page, checked 2026-08-04. Paid tiers start at $35 per month for the first thirty users. If you are inside that and nothing clinical gates your scheduling, it is the better answer and this page says so.
Does Connecteam track certifications?: It has a training module and can store records. The distinction that matters for a clinic is not whether a date can be stored but whether an expired one can stop somebody being scheduled. In MedAligna that check runs in the database under a row lock, so a nurse whose licence lapsed cannot be assigned or claim an open shift.
Can Connecteam produce a CMS PBJ file?: It is a cross-industry workforce app and PBJ is a skilled-nursing federal filing, so no. If you file quarterly, that is usually decisive on its own.
What is a good Connecteam alternative for a care home?: One built for the filing and the rules: MedAligna holds ratios against a census with acuity weighting, blocks expired credentials and OIG-excluded staff at assignment, and generates the quarterly PBJ file from hours already captured — $99–$249 per location per month, published, with a 14-day trial.