Maya runs a cafe with nine people on the rota. The task board lives in a free Trello workspace, the shifts in a free scheduling app. In October she hires two weekend baristas, sends the invites, and the second one bounces: the workspace is full. Nothing about the cafe changed except two names, and now every tool wants a card number.
This happens to a lot of small crews, because the most-used free plans stop at about ten people. Below are the limits as the makers' own pricing pages showed them on 19 October 2026, what each one does when you reach it, what the next step costs for a crew of 12, and the ways around it that don't break anything.
Where the free plans stop
Trello: free for up to 10 collaborators per Workspace, and up to 10 boards. Members, board guests and pending invites all count. When Atlassian brought the cap in (April and May 2024), workspaces that were already over 10 could not add anyone, and boards in workspaces with 11 or more people became view-only until the team upgraded or went back down to 10.
Connecteam: the Small Business plan is free for up to 10 users, with every feature. Archived users count towards the 10, so letting someone go does not free their seat unless you delete them.
Homebase: the Basic plan is free for up to 10 employees at one location. A second location needs a paid plan.
monday.com: the free plan has 2 seats and 3 boards. Paid plans start at 3 seats.
The cap is counted in people, not in work. Your 11th hire can cost as much as a new software project.
What the next step costs for 12 people
Prices as listed on each pricing page on 19 October 2026, before tax, in US dollars:
Trello Standard: $5 per user a month on yearly billing, $6 on monthly. Twelve people: about $60-72 a month, and the whole team is billed, not just the two new people.
Connecteam: each hub's Basic tier is $29 a month on yearly billing ($35 monthly) for the first 30 users. A cafe that wants tasks and scheduling may need more than one hub.
Homebase: Essentials $30, Plus $70, All-in-One $120 per location a month, with unlimited employees. Payroll is extra.
monday.com: Basic $9 and Standard $12 per seat a month on yearly billing, sold in seat sizes, so a team of 12 usually pays for the next size up.
None of these is expensive for a business that makes money from the tool. The trouble is the timing: the bill arrives with a seasonal hire or a weekend shift, not with a new way of working.
Ways around the cap that don't cause trouble later
Count who really needs a seat
Someone who only reads the opening checklist may not need an account at all. A printed list on the wall can cover people who only follow tasks and never add them. Don't share one login between people to get around a cap: most tools' terms forbid it, and you lose the record of who did what.
Clean out old invites and guests
On Trello a pending invite holds a seat, and so does a guest on a single board. On Connecteam an archived user still counts. Removing people who left months ago is often enough to get the newest hire in.
Don't split the team into two workspaces
It works for a week. Then the owner has two boards to check, tasks for the weekend crew go to the wrong place, and the shift lead is a member of both. If you have to split, split by place (two sites), not by day of the week.
Pay for the tool you use most, and keep the rest free
If the shift plan matters more than the task board, pay for the scheduling app and keep the board for the few people who plan the work. Paying for two tools for the same 12 people is where the money goes.
Or move to a tool whose free plan is bigger than your crew
A few tools set the free line higher than 10. Ours is one of them, so read the next part as written by the people who make it.
Doing this in tick-tock-done
tick-tock-done is free for up to 20 people in a team. A team has its task board, the week's shift plan, a time clock, and time-off and shift-change requests in one app, and a task can be marked done with a photo or a short video. The owner sees who is on shift and what each person still has open.
It is not a payroll tool and it has no POS link, so a restaurant that runs payroll through Homebase or labour forecasts through 7shifts would still keep those.
Tasks, shifts and a time clock for your crew, with photo proof on each task.
See how it worksWhat this does not show
Prices and limits change. We read each pricing page on 19 October 2026; check them again before you decide. Homebase was running a time-limited offer on its Plus plan that week.
We did not test each cap by hand. What happens at the cap comes from each maker's own pages and announcements, not from accounts we filled up.
We make tick-tock-done, so we are not neutral about the last section. The other tools do things ours does not (payroll, POS links, labour forecasts, automations).
Sources
Trello pricing, free plan and Standard prices. trello.com/pricing
Atlassian Community, "Update on Collaborator Limit for Free Trello Workspaces" (2024). Post
Connecteam pricing. connecteam.com/pricing
Connecteam Help Center, Small Business plan FAQ (archived users count). Article
Homebase pricing. joinhomebase.com/pricing
monday.com pricing. monday.com/pricing
Marc Andrews, monday.com review 2026 (seat sizes). Review