Principal Engineer - Core Product

Homebase review 2026: pricing, features, limits. Homebase is the strongest value in this category if you run one busy location, and the weakest if you run several. It charges per location with unlimited employees, so a 45-person restaurant pays the same $30 a month as a 12-person cafe, and the same $30 becomes $90 the moment you open two more sites. It bundles scheduling, a time clock, hiring, messaging and an optional payroll product, which is more than most time clocks attempt. This review is written from public information: pricing and app store ratings were checked on September 9, 2026, and every number below says where it came from. Who Homebase is for. * Single-site restaurants, cafes, bars and retail shops with 10 to 60 hourly staff. This is the case the pricing model was built for. * Owners who also do the hiring. Job posting, applicant tracking and interview scheduling are in the product, so you are not paying separately for a hiring tool. * Businesses that want payroll from the same vendor. The payroll add-on files taxes and runs direct deposit, so hours flow into checks without an export step. * Teams that use a POS. Homebase's time clock page lists integrations with Square, Toast and Clover, which single restaurants and shops usually already run. Who Homebase is not for. * Multi-location operators. Three sites on Essentials is $90 a month, on Plus $210, on All-in-One $360, before payroll. Headcount-based tools usually undercut that badly at three or more sites with small crews. * Mobile crews without a fixed address. Cleaning, landscaping, HVAC and construction teams that work at client sites do not map cleanly onto a per-location fee. * Very small teams. A 4-person shop pays the same $30 as a 40-person one, so the price per head is poor at the bottom end. The free Basic plan covers up to 10 employees at one location, but with capped scheduling and time-tracking features. * Buyers who want only a time clock. You are paying for hiring, messaging and HR whether or not you switch them on. Homebase pricing as of September 9, 2026. Read from joinhomebase.com/pricing on September 9, 2026. Every paid tier covers unlimited employees at one location, so the only thing that moves the bill is how many locations you have. | / | Basic | Essentials | Plus | All-in-One | | Monthly billing, per location | $0 | $30 | $70 | $120 | | Annual billing, per location | $0 | $24 | $56 | $96 | | Employees included | Up to 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited | | Locations included | 1 | 1 per fee | 1 per fee | 1 per fee | | Cost for 3 locations, monthly | Not available | $90 | $210 | $360 | | Payroll | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on | What the product does. Feature claims below are taken from Homebase's own product pages, read on September 9, 2026. They are what the vendor says the product does, not a hands-on test. | / | Homebase claims | Notes | | Time clock | GPS-enabled clock in, photo capture at clock-in, kiosk mode, offline tracking | The mobile app and a shared tablet are both supported | | Geofencing | Listed on the time clock page | Tier availability not verified: see vendor site | | Breaks and overtime | Break tracking and reminders, automatic overtime tracking, clock out reminders and auto clock-out | FLSA compliance support is claimed on the same page | | Alerts | Alerts for missed punches, late and attendance notifications | Useful for approving a week quickly | | Scheduling | Employee scheduling with automated features, labor cost tracking by role or department | Core product area on the homepage | | Hiring | Job posting, candidate screening, interview booking | Unusual to find bundled with a time clock | | Payroll | Wage calculation, tax filing, direct deposit | Paid add-on, $39 a month plus $6 per employee paid | | Messaging, tasks, tips | Team messaging, task manager, tip manager | Named on the homepage as additional tools | | Integrations | Square, Toast, Clover, QuickBooks, Shopify, ADP, Gusto | POS coverage is a genuine differentiator for restaurants | What users rate it. Ratings fetched from the store listings on September 9, 2026. | / | Rating | Count | Checked | | US App Store (Homebase: Scheduling & Payroll) | 4.8 out of 5 | About 93,000 ratings | Sep 9, 2026 | | Google Play (Homebase: Scheduling & Payroll) | 4.1 out of 5 | About 24,600 reviews | Sep 9, 2026 | The gap between the two stores is worth noticing. A 4.8 on iOS against a 4.1 on Android is a wide spread for the same product, and the recurring theme in public Android and iOS reviews is clock-in reliability: location checks refusing a punch, and sessions logging out at the wrong moment. Homebase's homepage, read the same day, claims more than 150,000 small businesses and 3.5 million workers supported in 2025. That is a vendor claim, not an audited figure, but the review volume is consistent with a product at that scale. Pros and cons. What Homebase does well. * Unbeatable price per head at one site. Unlimited employees for a flat location fee is the cheapest structure in the category for a large single-site team. * Genuinely broad. Scheduling, time clock, hiring, HR, messaging, tasks and tips in one product, with payroll available. Most competitors cover two or three of those. * POS integrations. Square, Toast and Clover coverage matters to restaurants and shops in a way generic time clocks cannot match. * Real free tier. One location and up to 10 employees at $0 is enough for a small shop to run on indefinitely, with feature caps. * Track record. Long-established, widely reviewed, and not a product likely to disappear. Where it falls short. * Per-location pricing punishes growth. Every new site is a new full-price fee, and the jump from Essentials to Plus is more than double per site. * Android reliability. The 4.1 Play rating against 4.8 on iOS is a real signal if your staff are mostly on Android. * Feature tiering is hard to price. The pricing page does not make it obvious which time clock capabilities sit on which tier, so budgeting means reading the comparison carefully rather than the headline number. * Payroll is a second decision. The add-on has its own base fee and per-employee charge, which at 25 employees is $189 a month on top of the plan fee. * Not built for mobile crews. If your work happens at customer addresses, the location-shaped pricing and product design fit awkwardly. Alternatives worth pricing against it. The right comparison depends on which way your business is shaped. * Several small sites, or crews at client addresses: a headcount-priced tool. ClockOut Starter is $19 a month for up to 5 people then $3 each, with the geofence, kiosk, schedules, approvals and exception inbox included and no per-site fee. See ClockOut as a Homebase alternative and the direct ClockOut vs Homebase comparison. * Deskless team that needs chat, forms and training: Connecteam, at $35 a month covering 30 users on the Operations hub (monthly billing). See its Connecteam review. * Restaurant with heavy labor forecasting: 7shifts, also priced per location, built specifically around restaurant scheduling. * Straight per-seat simplicity: When I Work at $2.50 per user per month on Essentials, or Deputy at $5 per user on Lite with a $30 minimum invoice. To compare all of these at your headcount, see what time clock software costs at 10, 25 and 50 people. If you run a restaurant specifically, the shortlist is in the best Homebase alternatives for restaurants. Being clear about its own product, since ClockOut sell one: ClockOut has no built-in payroll processing, no POS integrations, and payroll data leaves as CSV files (including the ADP, Gusto and QuickBooks formats on Pro) rather than through a live sync. If bundled payroll or a Toast connection is what you need, Homebase is the better answer. Faq. How much does Homebase cost? Is Homebase really free? Is the Homebase app any good? Is Homebase good for multiple locations? What is the best alternative to Homebase? Related reading. Sources and method. * joinhomebase.com/pricing, checked September 9, 2026 * joinhomebase.com/time-clock, checked September 9, 2026 * joinhomebase.com homepage, checked September 9, 2026 * apps.apple.com listing for Homebase: Scheduling & Payroll, checked September 9, 2026 * play.google.com listing for Homebase: Scheduling & Payroll, checked September 9, 2026

From this foundation of learning, Homebase has introduced its first AI-powered Hiring Assistant and Scheduling Assistant, tools designed to transform how small businesses manage their teams.

CDS Superstores, parent of The Range and wilko, is expanding its new-format superstores after acquiring Homebase and up to 70 of its stores. Four new locations will open on 9th May: Santry, Woodside Park, Tiverton, and Cookstown. The Range plans to open up to 10 new superstores monthly, aiming to transform 70 Homebase locations by 2025, securing up to 1,600 jobs. The initiative includes retaining Homebase staff and relaunching the Homebase website for an enhanced shopping experience.