Homebase
Schedule, track time and pay your hourly team from one app, priced per location rather than per employee.
By Homebase · 4.6/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- Hourly, shift-based small businesses: restaurants, cafes, retail shops, salons, clinics and home-service teams
- Owners replacing spreadsheets and group chats for scheduling, time tracking and payroll
- Multi-location operators who want one schedule and labour-cost view per site
- Teams of 10–200 hourly staff that need a free starting point with pay-per-location pricing
- Businesses that want timeclock hours to flow straight into payroll without re-entry
Ideal size: 5–200 hourly employees people · Small business or franchise with hourly shift staff; 1–60 locations
Not for
- Salaried, project-based professional services firms billing hours to clients
- Enterprises needing deep HRIS/ERP integration, custom workflows or global payroll
- Manufacturers or contractors needing production planning, estimating or project controls
- Teams that need patient, student or client records management
- Organisations requiring FedRAMP, CMMC or sector-specific certification out of the box
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
Same day, self-serve signup
~1 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
$2,500/yr
Starts at $0 · Flat monthly rate per location with unlimited employees on paid plans; payroll, tips, tasks and background checks are separate add-ons.
Implementation Friction
1/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
Basic free for up to 10 employees at one location; Essentials/Plus/All-in-One unlimited employees per location; payroll adds $6 per employee paid.
Add-on costs
- Payroll: $49/month base + $6 per employee paid (free for first 6 months on a limited-time offer)
- Tip Manager: $25/month per location
- Task Manager: $13/month per location
- Hiring Assistant: from $99/month
- Background checks: $30 each
- Job post boosts: from $50 per post
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
- PhonePlan not stated
- EmailNot listed
- Live chatPlan not stated
- Support portal / ticketsPlan not stated
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsAll plans
- Dedicated account managerNot listed
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
Pricing page publishes a support line ((415) 951-3831) staffed by Homebase advisors and on-call HR experts, plus a contact/message form, a Help Center and 'Live Support (Chat & Phone)' as a plan feature; 24/7 AI chat support is also referenced.
“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. A dashed ring marks an outlier pinned to the edge; hover for its value.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Homebase
- Connecteam
- ZoomShift
- Findmyshift
- When I Work
- OnPay
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 three assistants: Scheduling Assistant (Plus plan and above), Hiring Assistant (add-on from $99/month) and Payroll Assistant, which flags timecard errors before pay runs. The security page says AI supports smarter scheduling, shift reminders and workforce insights. No model providers, key model or usage-billing detail is published.
Your data & models
- Trains on your data
- Trains on your data
- Runs on
- Not recorded
- AI pricing
- Paid add-on
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, mobile and tablet time clocks with GPS and photo verification, team messaging, hiring and onboarding, HR compliance, and native payroll where hours flow straight into pay runs and tax filing. Pricing is flat per location, with a free Basic plan for one location up to 10 employees and paid plans from $30/month; payroll adds $49/month plus $6 per employee. AI assistants cover scheduling, hiring and payroll error flagging.
Frequently asked questions
What does Homebase cost for a small hourly team?
The Basic plan is free for one location with up to 10 employees and no credit card. Paid plans are billed per location: Essentials $30/month, Plus $70/month and All-in-One $120/month, all with unlimited employees. Payroll is an add-on on every plan at $49/month plus $6 per employee paid; other add-ons include Tip Manager ($25/location/month), Task Manager ($13/location/month), background checks ($30 each) and Hiring Assistant (from $99/month).
Is the free plan a real product or a limited trial?
It is a real plan, not a trial: Basic includes scheduling, time tracking, team messaging, employee management and POS connections for up to 10 employees at one location, with no expiry. Homebase separately offers a 14-day trial of the All-in-One plan; if no plan is chosen when that ends, the account moves onto Basic. Teams above 10 employees or with more than one location need a paid plan.
How quickly can we go live?
Homebase is self-serve: the vendor says signup takes about 5 minutes and no credit card is required to start. Scheduling and time tracking work from day one on the free plan, and timecard hours flow into payroll without re-entry once Payroll is activated. No implementation fee or professional services engagement is published.
Does Homebase replace our payroll provider?
It can. Payroll runs inside Homebase with automatic 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. If you prefer to keep an existing provider, Homebase exports timesheets to ADP, Gusto, Paychex, QuickBooks, Square Payroll and bank payroll services.
What AI is included, and where does it cost extra?
AI-powered scheduling is part of the Plus plan and above. Hiring Assistant, which posts jobs, screens candidates and books interviews, is a separate add-on starting at $99/month, and Payroll Assistant flags timecard errors before pay runs. The vendor does not publish which model providers it uses, whether AI is billed by tokens or credits, or whether customers may supply their own model keys.
Can Homebase handle several locations and 100+ hourly staff?
Yes. Paid plans are priced per location with unlimited employees, and customers include operators running 60+ sites. Departments, custom manager permissions, multi-location reporting, labour cost against forecast sales and consolidated payroll are supported; the free plan is limited to one location and 10 employees.