Homebase
Free scheduling and time tracking for hourly workers
What it does
Homebase is scheduling, time-clock, team communication, and payroll for hourly-staffed businesses. Free tier covers scheduling and messaging for a single location. Paid tiers add time-clock with GPS and photo, labor cost forecasting, budgeting, compliance alerts (break rules, overtime, minor-labor laws), and Homebase Payroll (a proper full-service payroll product powered by their own tech). Purpose-built for restaurants, retail, salons, medspa, and small hourly teams that live and die by the schedule.
Free tier
Yes
Starts at
$20/mo
Setup
easy
Key features
Integrates with
Square, Clover, Toast, QuickBooks, Gusto
Who this fits
- Restaurants, cafes, and food service (1-50 hourly employees)
- Retail, salons, medspa, and personal-care shops with hourly staff
- Small trades and home-service teams (light use)
- Multi-location small businesses (up to a few sites)
- Owners who want scheduling, time tracking, and payroll in one app on a phone
Who it does NOT fit
- Salaried-only teams (Gusto or Rippling alone is enough)
- Large multi-location enterprises with 50+ per site (7shifts for restaurants, Deputy, or Workforce.com)
- Complex union or multi-CBA environments
- Field service with heavy dispatch requirements (Jobber, ServiceTitan)
- Businesses needing HRIS-grade employee data and benefits admin (Rippling, Gusto)
Pricing
Real gotchas
- Homebase Payroll is real but younger than Gusto or ADP - multi-state complexity and edge cases still surface in support tickets per r/smallbusiness and Trustpilot reviews. Confirm the client's state and setup before recommending
- GPS and photo time-clock features are strong for reducing buddy-punching but require a policy conversation with staff
- SMS reminders and hiring features are gated behind higher tiers
- The mobile app is central to the product; employees without smartphones will need a shared kiosk
- Break-and-overtime compliance alerts are helpful but do not replace a lawyer for high-risk states (California, New York, Washington)
- Data export is standard CSV; migrating off is fine
Integrations that matter
Otto’s take on this tool
Recommend Homebase when: user runs an hourly-staffed small business (restaurant, cafe, retail, salon, medspa, small trades team), 1-50 employees, 1-3 locations, and wants scheduling + time-clock + optional payroll in one app. Highest fit for food service and personal-care shops. Pairs with Square POS, Toast, or Clover for restaurants; with the shop's POS for retail. Do NOT recommend for salaried-only teams (Gusto or Rippling alone), for large multi-location chains (Deputy, 7shifts, Workforce.com), for field service (Jobber, ServiceTitan), or for HRIS-heavy needs (Rippling). Flag that Homebase Payroll is newer than incumbents so the buyer knows the trade-off.
Affiliate disclosure: if you sign up through the link above, Ottomately may earn a referral commission at no cost to you. We only feature tools we have actually used or vetted through our recommendation engine.
Editor's curated reviews
287 reviews across TrustPilot - avg 3.8/5Curated by Otto from TrustPilot public reviews (fetched 2026-08-31). Homebase's TrustPilot skews consumer-facing (58% 5-star of 287 total, 3.8 headline) - praise centers on scheduling ease and named-rep support wins; critical reviews cluster around app reliability and paid-tier upsell frustration. G2 and Capterra were consulted for aggregate context but not directly cited here. Not user-submitted on Ottomately.
“Courtney was AMAZING. She was straight to the point, helped me navigate through the app, and got me my documents within 5 minutes.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“It's really helpful to use Homebase to manage the time shifts.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“Very friendly and helpful staff. Easy to use.”
TrustPilot5.0/5“Homebase offers a ton of options my organization will never use, and we pay for all of them.”
TrustPilot3.0/5“Still didn't get the feature I had so that team wouldn't see one another's schedule. Customer service is terrible.”
TrustPilot1.0/5“I got upsold more than $40 than I needed to pay.”
TrustPilot1.0/5“I've had this app for 4 years - IT JUST STARTED WORKING. But it still doesn't work for everyone.”
TrustPilot1.0/5
More in Productivity
Not Sure Homebase is Right?
Otto can pick for you.
30 seconds, one form, get a personalized stack with pricing and integration paths.
Get my recommendations