Homebase: Scheduling & Payroll

Review by eFreeware

Homebase is a team management app from Homebase Team Management, built for small businesses that run hourly staff. It covers scheduling, a time clock, payroll, hiring and HR, and it has been on Google Play since the summer of 2014, with more than a million installs and a 4.2 average from just under 25,000 ratings. The free download carries no ads and offers in-app purchases.

What makes it worth a closer look is the breadth. Most owners I talk to end up juggling a spreadsheet for the rota, a separate clock-in tool, a payroll provider and a group chat, and Homebase sets out to fold those into one app. The developer says more than 150,000 small businesses use it to run their hourly teams, and pitches it as saving owners five or more hours a month.

That combination is the main reason to consider it. Whether it delivers depends on how closely your existing payroll and point-of-sale setup matches what Homebase supports, which is worth checking before you commit a team to it.

Building and sharing the weekly rota

Scheduling is the entry point for most teams. You can build a week from templates, share it with staff, and send shift reminders so nobody turns up on the wrong day. Availability tracking sits alongside that, so the people doing the work can flag when they can and cannot be on site.

Staff can ask for time off and the manager approves it in the app, and shift trades are supported for the swaps that come up midweek.

The scheduling tools are tied to the paid tiers, so the plan you pick determines how much of this you get. Anyone running a rota of more than a handful of people should look at the plan comparison before deciding.

Time clock, timesheets and overtime alerts

The time clock is the part that feeds everything else. Employees clock in and out in the app, and those entries flow into timesheets that a manager can review before payroll runs. Breaks, overtime and attendance all show up in the same view, and the app raises an alert when someone is close to crossing into overtime.

Clock-in also works through point-of-sale systems, with Clover, Square and Toast supported, which matters if staff already start their shift at a till rather than a back-office computer. Shift notes and expected earnings are visible alongside the schedule, so an employee can see what a week is worth before it is worked.

Payroll and scheduling are designed to work from the same hours, which is the part that removes the most tedious manual checking. If your team is paid hourly and overtime is a regular feature of the week, that link is the strongest argument for keeping both jobs in one app.

Payroll, hiring and the rest of the admin

Payroll calculations are automated, and the developer says the tools include compliance monitoring. Timesheets generated from the time clock feed into paycheck processing inside the app, and Homebase works with Gusto, Intuit QuickBooks Online Payroll and Square, so it can slot in beside a provider you already use rather than replacing it outright.

Hiring, onboarding and HR sit higher up the plan ladder. Tip Manager and Task Manager are available as add-ons to any plan, which is useful for businesses where tips or a daily checklist are part of the routine.

Team communication is included in the form of group chats and direct messages between employees and managers. It is a modest feature next to the scheduling and payroll tools, but it means the inevitable "can you cover Thursday" conversation happens in the same place as the schedule it affects.

The scale figures the developer cites are large: over 1.3 billion hours tracked, more than 7 million paychecks processed and over $5 billion in payroll run through the platform. Those are the developer's numbers, and they are the kind of claim worth weighing against your own needs rather than taking as a reason on their own.

Plans, pricing and what the free tier covers

The Basic plan is free for up to 10 employees, which is a genuine starting point for a cafe, salon or single-location shop. Beyond that, Essentials costs $24.49 a month and adds advanced scheduling, Plus is $59.99 a month with hiring and PTO tracking, and All-in-One is $99.95 a month with hiring, onboarding and HR.

Payroll, Tip Manager and Task Manager can be added to any plan, so the monthly cost depends on which of those you need alongside the tier you choose. Plans renew on their own unless you cancel before the final day of the billing cycle, and payment is taken when you confirm the purchase.

The app is free to download and shows no ads, so the decision is entirely about which plan fits your headcount and which add-ons you want. A team of eight and a team of forty will land in very different places on that ladder.

Getting a team onto it

Setup is not something the developer spells out step by step. If you want clock-ins through a point-of-sale system, you need one of the supported names, and if you want Homebase to sit alongside your existing payroll provider, that provider needs to be one of Gusto, QuickBooks Online Payroll or Square.

The practical starting point is the free Basic tier for up to 10 employees. That lets a small team try the scheduling and time clock before any money changes hands, and it is the sensible way to find out whether the app's way of working matches how your business actually runs a week.

Support is available by phone, email and chat, which matters more than usual for software that touches pay. The app was last updated in October 2026, with the developer describing ongoing improvements and bug fixes.

Everyone who clocks in needs the app or a supported POS terminal.

Where Homebase fits best

This is software for businesses with hourly employees and a manager who does the rota. Cafes, restaurants, retail shops, salons and small clinics are the obvious fits, particularly where overtime is a live concern and the weekly schedule changes often. Owners who currently pay for a scheduling tool and a separate payroll service may find the combined approach simpler to run.

If your team is small enough to fit the free plan, the case for trying it is straightforward.

It is a less natural fit for salaried teams with fixed hours, where a rota and a time clock have little to do. The same goes for anyone whose payroll provider sits outside the supported list. The app is built around hourly work, and that focus shapes everything in it.

A practical choice for hourly teams

Homebase is a well-established option for small-business scheduling and payroll, and the free tier for up to 10 employees makes it easy to judge without spending anything. The scheduling, time clock and payroll tools share the same hours, which is where most of the saved admin comes from.

The trade-offs are the plan ladder and the integrations. For payroll, Gusto, QuickBooks Online Payroll and Square give the smoothest fit. A 4.2 average across nearly 25,000 ratings suggests a broadly satisfied base, though it is not a perfect score.

I would point owners and managers of hourly teams toward it first, especially anyone currently running a schedule in one tool and payroll in another. Start on the free plan, put a real week through it, and let the result decide whether the paid tiers are worth it.

What's new in version 5.22

We've made improvements and fixed bugs to help your app run smoothly and support your teams.