Is Homebase really free?

Yes, and it is a plan rather than a trial, so it does not expire. The limits are the catch. Basic covers one location and up to 10 employees, holds timesheets for only 90 days, and leaves out location-based clock-in, punch photos and shift trades. Past 10 people you are on Essentials at $24 a location a month billed yearly. Other free plans are compared in our Homebase alternatives roundup.

How many employees can I have on Homebase?

As many as you like on any paid tier, because you pay per location and not per head. The free Basic plan is the exception and stops at 10. This is the single fact reviews get wrong most often: the longest write-up ranking for this term says twice that there is no employee cap on any plan, including the free one. Homebase's own pricing page says otherwise.

What does a location mean on Homebase?

A location is one physical place of work, so one shop, one restaurant or one clinic. The plan price is charged for each one. Two cafes on Essentials is roughly $48 a month billed yearly, not $24. That is why the bill can double when headcount barely moves, and why a crew that travels between customer sites fits this pricing badly.

Can Homebase process payroll?

Yes. Homebase has run payroll itself since 2020, and it is an add-on you can attach to any plan including the free one. It costs a base fee of $39 a month plus $6 for each person paid, and a second base figure of $49 is currently showing on the same page. Reviews saying you must go to an outside provider are out of date. We do not run payroll, ours goes out as CSV from timesheets.

Is payroll available on all plans?

Yes, payroll can be added to Basic, Essentials, Plus or All-in-One. It is never bundled, so the plan price never includes it. That matters when you compare Homebase against a tool with payroll built in, because the honest comparison is the plan plus $39 a month plus $6 per person paid, not the plan on its own.

Does Homebase integrate with Square?

Yes, and point-of-sale links are on every plan including the free one. Square is the best known of them. The practical benefit is that staff clock in on the till that is already sitting on the counter, so a small shop buys no extra hardware. Sales data coming back the other way is what feeds the labour cost reports on the top tier.

Does Homebase work for restaurants?

It is one of the main things it is sold for. Restaurants tend to need the tip pooling add-on at $25 a location a month, the break waiver rules on Plus, and the overtime alerts and labour-against-sales reports on All-in-One. Priced up honestly that is nearer $121 a month for one site than the free plan people arrive expecting.

What happens after the free All-in-One 14-day trial?

You are not cut off. The trial opens up every All-in-One feature for 14 days, and when it ends the account drops back to Basic unless you pick a paid tier. No card is needed to start. So the trial is the fastest way to see whether PTO policies, onboarding packets and labour cost alerts are worth $96 a location a month to you.

Can I upgrade or downgrade later if I change my mind?

Yes, tiers can be moved in either direction. Dropping down is the one to think about, because the features you lose are not all obvious. Going back to Basic takes your timesheet history down to 90 days and removes location-based clock-in and shift trades. Our time clock app keeps every punch and can refuse one made outside an allowed place, which is a different job from recording it.

What Is Homebase? The Free Plan, Real Prices and Limits

Homebase runs shifts, hours and hiring for hourly teams, and it bills per location. Here is what the free plan really covers and what each tier costs.

See the alternatives

Prices read off Homebase's own page on 31 July 2026.

Definition

What Homebase is, in plain words

What it is

Homebase is a team app for hourly shift work. A manager sets out next week, sends it to everyone's phone, and staff clock in on a tablet, on the till or on their own handset. Hiring, onboarding, leave, team chat and payroll sit in the same account. The pricing is the part that makes it unusual. Homebase charges per location, not per person, so one cafe with thirty part-timers pays the same as one cafe with five. There is a genuinely free tier called Basic. It stops at one location and ten employees, and it only keeps timesheets for 90 days.

Who needs this

Owners and managers of a cafe, shop, salon, gym or restaurant with hourly staff at one or two sites. If your week goes on covering shifts and finding new people, this is aimed straight at you. If you bill clients by the hour, or need to know what a job cost to deliver, it is the wrong shape of tool.

In practice

What teams actually use Homebase for

These eight jobs are what the app gets bought to do. All of them sit inside the plans. The six paid add-ons come after this, and they are where the bill grows.

Covering next week

The main job. A manager fills in who works when, then publishes it to the team. Homebase can build the week from forecast sales and a labour target on its top tier, and its scheduling assistant lives on Plus and above. Staff see the week on their phone instead of a photo of a paper sheet.

Clocking in and out

Staff punch in on a tablet at the counter, on a computer, or on the point-of-sale till itself. That last one is why shops and cafes like it: the till is already on the counter, so no extra hardware is needed. Hours worked land next to hours planned.

Where and who punched

From Essentials up, a clock-in can be tied to a location and the app can take a photo of whoever punched on a tablet or till. Both are held back from the free plan, which is the usual reason a small shop moves off Basic.

Shift trades and open shifts

Somebody cannot make Friday. They offer it up, a colleague claims it, and the manager approves the trade rather than reading six texts about it. Unassigned shifts can be posted for anyone to pick up. This starts at Essentials, not on the free plan.

Time off and break rules

Availability and leave requests start at Essentials. Real PTO policies with automatic accrual and balances, limits on which dates can be booked, and break waivers for the states that need them, all start at Plus.

Team messaging

Basic messaging is on the free plan. Custom channels, company announcements and read receipts on schedules and messages start at Essentials. The point is to get shift chat out of a personal group chat that managers cannot see.

Hiring and onboarding

Job posts and applicant tracking are included, and the All-in-One tier adds onboarding packets, W-4, W-9, I-9 and direct deposit forms, e-signing and document storage. Certified HR advisors and a custom handbook review sit on the same tier.

Watching the labour bill

All-in-One warns when somebody is heading for overtime, stops an early clock-in or an early return from break, auto clocks people out at the end of a shift, and reports labour cost against sales. This is the tier restaurants usually end up on.

Pricing

What each Homebase plan costs and includes

Every figure is per location a month, for unlimited employees on the paid tiers. Reviews get this wrong often, so both the yearly and the monthly rate are shown.

Comparison dimension	Basic	Essentials	Plus	All-in-One
Per location a month, billed yearly	$0	$24	$56	$96
Per location a month, billed monthly	$0	$30	$70	$120
Employees included	Up to 10	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Locations included	1 only	1, pay again per site	1, pay again per site	1, pay again per site
Timesheet history kept	90 days	4 years or more	4 years or more	4 years or more
Rota building	Basic	Advanced	Advanced	Advanced
Time clock on tablet, computer or till	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Location-based clock-in and punch photos	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Shift trades, open shifts, availability	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
PTO policies with accrual and balances	No	No	Yes	Yes
Onboarding packets and HR support	No	No	No	Yes
Payroll	Paid add-on	Paid add-on	Paid add-on	Paid add-on

Read off Homebase's own pricing page on 31 July 2026. Paying yearly saves 20%. The one long review ranking for this term still lists Essentials at $20 and Plus at $48, and skips All-in-One.

The extras

What Homebase charges extra for

The prices above buy the plan and nothing else. Six add-ons sit on top, two of them new this year. This is where a cheap headline turns into a real monthly bill.

Payroll

A base fee of $39 a month plus $6 for every person paid. Homebase's pricing page is showing a second base fee of $49 alongside it, so that number looks like it is going up. Worth saying plainly: Homebase runs the payroll itself, it does not just hand hours to somebody else.

Tip Manager

$25 a month per location, new this year. It pulls tips out of the till, works out the tip pool and puts the result on the timesheet. Restaurants and bars are the reason it exists.

Task Manager

$13 a month per location, also new. Build a task list, hand it to a shift, then see in the app who ticked what off. Opening and closing checklists are the usual use.

Background checks

$30 each, run from inside the account rather than through a separate service. You pay per check, so this one only bites when you are hiring.

Job post boosts

From $79 a post. This pushes an opening onto Craigslist and ZipRecruiter to widen the pool. Ordinary job posts and applicant tracking are already included in the plans.

Hiring Assistant

From $30 a post and still in beta. It handles the run from writing the job post through to booking interviews. The first month is offered free, which tells you how new it is.

Pros and cons

The real strengths and limits of each

We make TimeTracker, so read the second card with that in mind. Both write-ups follow one rule. Strengths and limits carry equal weight, and every price came off the vendor's own site on the date shown.

Homebase

Best for

One-site hourly businesses that want the rota, the clock and the hiring in one account.

Pricing

Basic is free for 1 location and up to 10 employees. Essentials is $24 a location a month billed yearly, or $30 monthly. Plus is $56 or $70. All-in-One is $96 or $120. Payroll, tips and tasks are extra.

Checked 31 July 2026

Where it wins

A free plan that is not a trial. One location, up to 10 staff, with a rota and a time clock included
Per location, not per person, so a big part-time crew on one site adds nothing to the bill
Rota, time clock, messaging, leave, hiring and payroll in one account
Staff can punch in on the point-of-sale till, so a counter needs no extra hardware
Payroll is Homebase's own product now, not a hand-off to a third party

Where it falls short

The free plan stops at 10 employees and 1 location, and reviews still call it unlimited
Basic keeps timesheets for only 90 days. Longer history means paying
Location-based clock-in, punch photos and shift trades all start at Essentials
Six paid add-ons sit on top, so the plan price is rarely the whole bill
Per-location pricing gets steep fast at three or four sites
No client billing, no project budget, no invoice, so it cannot tell you what a job cost

TimeTrackerOurs

Best for

Teams whose hours end up on an invoice, or in front of somebody checking them.

Pricing

Free for up to 3 people, no card asked for. After that it is $15 a person a month, or $12 a person a month if you pay for the year.

Checked 31 July 2026

Where it wins

Approved periods lock against edits, and anything changed afterwards is on the record
Rounding to 6, 15 or 30 minutes keeps the exact raw duration beside the rounded one
Location rules can block a punch made outside an allowed place, not just note where it was
Leave runs on real accrual policies, with opening balances, requests and approvals

Where it falls short

No rota, no shift trades, no hiring, no team chat. Homebase wins all four outright
Charged per person at $15 a month, so a 30-strong shop pays far more than with Homebase
The free plan stops at 3 people, and nobody can share a device to punch
A punch needs a live connection, so it fails where the signal drops
Hours go out to CSV for payroll, with no direct link to a payroll provider

See all Homebase alternatives

Which to pick

Are you running a shift, or billing an hour?

Choose Homebase when…

You publish a rota every week and people trade shifts.
Homebase is built for that. We have no rota at all.
You have one site and a lot of part-time staff.
Per-location pricing means the headcount costs you nothing.
You want to spend nothing and still get a real time clock.
Homebase Basic is free for one site and up to 10 people.
Hiring and onboarding paperwork eats your week.
Job posts, packets and I-9 forms are all in Homebase.
You want one company to run scheduling and the payroll.
Homebase sells its own payroll. We do not run payroll.

Choose TimeTracker when…

You invoice clients for time and the invoice gets queried.
Hours sit against a client, a project and a task.See how
You round billable time and must still show the real figure.
Both the exact duration and the rounded one are stored.See how
Approved hours must not quietly change months later.
The period locks, and every later edit is recorded.See how
Leave balances need real accrual, not a spreadsheet.
Policies handle accrual, balances, requests and approvals.See how
A punch should be refused if it comes from the wrong place.
Location rules use geofences, IP ranges and accuracy limits.See how

FAQ

Common questions about Homebase

There is no People Also Ask box on this search, so every question below is taken from a FAQ section on a page that ranks for it.

Is Homebase really free?: Yes, and it is a plan rather than a trial, so it does not expire. The limits are the catch. Basic covers one location and up to 10 employees, holds timesheets for only 90 days, and leaves out location-based clock-in, punch photos and shift trades. Past 10 people you are on Essentials at $24 a location a month billed yearly. Other free plans are compared in our Homebase alternatives roundup.
How many employees can I have on Homebase?: As many as you like on any paid tier, because you pay per location and not per head. The free Basic plan is the exception and stops at 10. This is the single fact reviews get wrong most often: the longest write-up ranking for this term says twice that there is no employee cap on any plan, including the free one. Homebase's own pricing page says otherwise.
What does a location mean on Homebase?: A location is one physical place of work, so one shop, one restaurant or one clinic. The plan price is charged for each one. Two cafes on Essentials is roughly $48 a month billed yearly, not $24. That is why the bill can double when headcount barely moves, and why a crew that travels between customer sites fits this pricing badly.
Can Homebase process payroll?: Yes. Homebase has run payroll itself since 2020, and it is an add-on you can attach to any plan including the free one. It costs a base fee of $39 a month plus $6 for each person paid, and a second base figure of $49 is currently showing on the same page. Reviews saying you must go to an outside provider are out of date. We do not run payroll, ours goes out as CSV from timesheets.
Is payroll available on all plans?: Yes, payroll can be added to Basic, Essentials, Plus or All-in-One. It is never bundled, so the plan price never includes it. That matters when you compare Homebase against a tool with payroll built in, because the honest comparison is the plan plus $39 a month plus $6 per person paid, not the plan on its own.
Does Homebase integrate with Square?: Yes, and point-of-sale links are on every plan including the free one. Square is the best known of them. The practical benefit is that staff clock in on the till that is already sitting on the counter, so a small shop buys no extra hardware. Sales data coming back the other way is what feeds the labour cost reports on the top tier.
Does Homebase work for restaurants?: It is one of the main things it is sold for. Restaurants tend to need the tip pooling add-on at $25 a location a month, the break waiver rules on Plus, and the overtime alerts and labour-against-sales reports on All-in-One. Priced up honestly that is nearer $121 a month for one site than the free plan people arrive expecting.
What happens after the free All-in-One 14-day trial?: You are not cut off. The trial opens up every All-in-One feature for 14 days, and when it ends the account drops back to Basic unless you pick a paid tier. No card is needed to start. So the trial is the fastest way to see whether PTO policies, onboarding packets and labour cost alerts are worth $96 a location a month to you.
Can I upgrade or downgrade later if I change my mind?: Yes, tiers can be moved in either direction. Dropping down is the one to think about, because the features you lose are not all obvious. Going back to Basic takes your timesheet history down to 90 days and removes location-based clock-in and shift trades. Our time clock app keeps every punch and can refuse one made outside an allowed place, which is a different job from recording it.

Billing the hours, not covering the shift?

Homebase is the better buy for running an hourly team at a place of work, and we will not pretend otherwise. If your problem is proving where hours went, to a client or to an auditor, TimeTracker is free for up to 3 people.

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