Homebase
All-in-one scheduling, time tracking, payroll and HR for hourly small-business teams.
By Homebase · 4.6/5 verified-buyer score
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- Hourly, shift-based small businesses such as restaurants, retail stores, salons and clinics
- Owner-operators who want scheduling, time clock, messaging and payroll in one app
- Multi-location operators who prefer flat per-location pricing over per-seat pricing
- Small teams that want a genuinely free plan for one location up to 10 employees
- Managers who need hiring, onboarding and HR compliance in the same tool as scheduling
Ideal size: 5–100 hourly employees people · Small or multi-location hourly business, low HR maturity
Not for
- Enterprise workforces needing a deep HRIS, global payroll or union-rule engines
- Salaried, project-based or fully desk-based teams with no shift coverage
- Businesses that need specialised ERP or field-service software integrations
- Organisations that require advanced BI, data-warehouse reporting or custom analytics
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
Same day to 1 week
~1 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
$3,400/yr
Starts at $360 · Per-location subscription: Basic free (1 location, up to 10 employees), Essentials $30/location/month, Plus $70, All-in-One $120. Payroll add-on $49/month + $6 per employee paid.
Implementation Friction
1/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Buyer Score
out of 5 · verified buyers
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
Priced per location; unlimited employees on paid plans; free Basic capped at 10 employees and 1 location
Add-on costs
- Payroll: $49/month base fee + $6 per employee paid per month
- Tip Manager: $25/month per location
- Task Manager: $13/month per location
- Background checks: $30 each
- Job post boosts: starting at $50 per post
- Hiring Assistant: starting at $99/month
Company & support
Who is behind Homebase, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- Not recorded
- Headquarters
- Not recorded
How you get support
- PhonePaid plans
- EmailNot listed
- Live chatPaid plans
- Support portal / ticketsNot listed
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsAll plans
- Dedicated account managerNot listed
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- 24/7
- Response time
- Not stated
Pricing page lists '24/7 AI chat support and Help Center' with the free Basic plan and 'Live Support (Chat & Phone)' on paid plans. All-in-One adds live support from certified HR advisors. The 24/7 figure refers to AI chat plus the self-serve help centre.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Homebase sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Homebase
- When I Work
- Planday
- OptimoRoute
- SurePayroll
- Deputy
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Homebase. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
No supported MCP path today, so it cannot be driven from an AI client.
AI & MCP readiness
What Homebase ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
AI features shipped
Vendor markets AI Assistants for scheduling, hiring and payroll: Scheduling Assistant builds schedules, Hiring Assistant screens candidates and books interviews, Payroll Assistant flags timecard errors. The security page says AI drives smarter scheduling, shift reminders and workforce insights. No model-provider or AI audit-logging details are disclosed in the sources.
In your ecosystem
- AI connection
- Not supported
- Model key
- Not recorded
- AI usage audit
- Not recorded
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Homebase is an all-in-one app for small businesses with hourly teams: scheduling, time tracking, team messaging, hiring, onboarding, HR compliance and native payroll in one mobile-first product. Its free Basic plan covers one location with up to 10 employees; paid plans run from $30 per location per month, with payroll as a $49/month plus $6 per employee add-on. 150,000+ small businesses use it, and customers report saving 5–20 hours a week. Best fit is shift-based food service, retail, hospitality, clinics and education.
Frequently asked questions
What will Homebase actually cost us per year?
Homebase prices per location, not per employee: Basic is free for one location with up to 10 employees, Essentials is $30/location/month, Plus $70 and All-in-One $120, billed monthly or annually. Payroll is an add-on at $49/month plus $6 per employee paid, with a limited-time offer of six months free. Tip Manager ($25/month per location), Task Manager ($13/month per location), background checks ($30 each) and Hiring Assistant (from $99/month) are optional. A two-location team of roughly 15 people on Plus with payroll lands near $3,000–$3,500 a year.
How fast can we get up and running?
Setup is self-serve and fast. The vendor promotes a five-minute sign-up with no credit card, and the free Basic plan is fully functional rather than a trial. You can build schedules, invite employees and start clocking time the same day, then activate payroll once timesheets are flowing. There is also a 14-day All-in-One trial if you want to test onboarding, HR and labour-cost tools before committing. Implementation friction is low because there is no mandatory onboarding fee or services engagement.
Does Homebase replace our payroll provider?
It can. Homebase offers full-service payroll with automated federal, state and local tax filing, direct deposit, W-2 and 1099 filing, contractor payments and tip pooling, priced at $49/month plus $6 per employee paid. Approved hours flow straight from the time clock into payroll with no re-entry. If you prefer to keep an existing provider, Homebase integrates with ADP, Gusto, Paychex, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, SurePayroll and several banks by exporting formatted timesheets.
Which systems does Homebase integrate with?
The published integration list covers POS (Toast, Square, Clover, PAR, Lightspeed, Shopify, GoDaddy), payroll providers (ADP, Gusto, Paychex, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, Heartland, SurePayroll, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Millennium) and job boards. Integrations sync employees, hours, overtime, tips and sales so labour cost can be tracked against revenue. The vendor also states you can plug into its API to build custom integrations, but no MCP or Model Context Protocol support is mentioned in the supplied sources.
What compliance and security certifications does Homebase hold?
The vendor security page describes application, operations, corporate and assurance practices: annual penetration testing and monthly vulnerability scans, AES-256 encryption at rest with AWS KMS, TLS in transit, two-factor authentication, SSO and role-based access, 24/7 SIEM monitoring, a private Bugcrowd bug-bounty programme and a Trust Center for security questionnaires. It mentions compliance reviews and certifications in the Trust Center but the supplied pages do not name any specific standard, so SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and equivalent attestations should be requested directly from the vendor before you rely on them.
How mature is the AI, and do we need our own model keys?
Homebase ships three AI Assistants: Scheduling Assistant builds schedules, Hiring Assistant handles job posting, candidate screening and interview booking, and Payroll Assistant automatically flags timecard errors before payroll runs. The security page adds that AI supports smarter scheduling, shift reminders and workforce insights, and the vendor has won a 2025 award for AI implementation. The supplied sources do not state which models are used, whether customers may bring their own model keys, or whether AI actions are logged and exportable, so treat those as open questions during evaluation.