Homebase Review: Who Should Use It

Last Updated on June 18, 2025 by Ewen Finser

When it comes to employee software, finding the right all-in-one tool can be challenging. Homebase is a cloud-based software that focuses on helping teams save time by automating scheduling, time off, and payroll in one place. Here’s my honest review of Homebase, including who it’s for, who it’s not for, and what you can expect from its features.

Who should use it?

Homebase is a great fit for teams that need to track time and monitor scheduling changes at any moment.  This makes Homebase an excellent fit for industries like retail, hospitality, food and beverage, education, medical field workers, or any service-based industry. It’s better suited for shift workers, contractors, and hourly staff.

Who is it not for?

Large enterprise organizations that need to handle complex HR requirements and employee management. Homebase is centered around hourly employees, so it’s not an ideal solution for salaried, permanent employees who need to handle advanced payroll and benefits administration.

TL; DR:

Overall, I really like Homebase. It’s a popular tool for a reason and an excellent option for small to medium-sized businesses with shift-based or hourly workers. Homebase is a great all-in-one platform that can handle everything from timesheets, shift scheduling, through to recruitment, onboarding, and payroll.
It’s not an ideal fit for larger organizations that need full-feature platforms with advanced capabilities.

Summary of my favorite Homebase features

1. Employee scheduling      

Employee scheduling is typically an admin overhead that no one likes to manage, but it takes just a few minutes to set up and create a schedule for multiple employees.
The user interface is easy to navigate, and you can make changes to your roster and employee schedules within a few clicks.

Once published, you can notify your employees via email or text (or even within the Homebase app), making it convenient to ensure everyone is kept up to date. You can also set up reminders for upcoming shifts so that important shifts aren’t missed.

I like the clear and easy-to-view schedule at a glance, which helps keep things simple so that you can pick up clashes or gaps in shifts.

Once ready, you can publish your schedule so that all employees have access to view and manage their shifts or see where there’s availability to take on additional slots.

Added filters like forecasting help you to ensure you’re staying within regulation and budget for various roles or jobs.

When scheduling shifts or having employees apply for new shifts, there may be conflicts that are easily picked up on the system with conflict popups.

I also like that the integrated time off request is built into the team availability calendar view, which makes it easy to ensure you don’t miss any requests.

On top of all these features, this can all be managed within the mobile app, which is very convenient, and I found it easy to set up.

2. Timeclock and timesheet management

Timesheet management can be a chore for both employees and employers, and making sure your app is user-friendly is a great way to ensure you have the best user adoption.
With Homebase, managing your employees’ (or your own) timesheets is easy. I like that you’re reminded of scheduled breaks or any other important information that may have been missed.

The detail is easy to see at a glance, and I love tools that surface key information without needing to dig into multiple folders or tabs if employees are over- or under-scheduled or have missed breaks.

Clocking in and out for shifts can easily be managed from within the mobile app, via mobile or tablet, which I like for employees who require this functionality on the go. 

As a manager, you’ll be able to view and approve requests and easily view employees who are clocked in and open shifts against their names.

The mobile view is easy to navigate, and you can toggle between your own view or “all shifts”.

I loved the automated reminders that come straight to your email; this way, you’ll know if your employees are late for shifts that have been scheduled.

My likes:

• Ease of use is important, and having a mobile app that works smoothly is an essential component of this.
• Having employees able to clock in from anywhere is great; however, you may require employees to clock in at work only. I love that Homebase has location services that allow you to track where employees are clocking in from, if that is important for your requirements.
• Geofencing also means that you can disable employees from clocking in outside of your work location.
• There is also automatic timesheet generation and payroll summaries generated as a great value add.

My dislikes:

• I’d love to see more intuitive timesheeting and automatic suggestions for time blocks based on expected shift times.
• I would anticipate that some employees have hesitation with personal privacy based on geolocation requirements for clocking in.

3. Payroll functionality

I love that payroll is integrated into the app. It makes so much sense to have a complete end-to-end solution from shift management, timesheet consolidation through to payroll.
Homebase also has built-in integrations that sync your timesheets to other payroll platforms such as QuickBooks, Rippling, Paychex, Gusto and more.

My likes:

• I like the ease of integration between timesheets as the system automatically calculates totals, including breaks, overtime time off, as well as wages, without requiring manual calculations.
• I like automation in tools like this, and Homebase has an option to automate your payroll once you’ve done a few runs which is a great value add.
• If you’re like me, you’ll want to double-check before you execute your payroll run. I like the fact that Homebase has a quick overview page.

• Staying compliant with tax regulations can be a complicated process. Homebase has built-in features making it easier to manage tax calculations, including filing payroll taxes.

• From an employee perspective, having automated notifications for pay alerts is a significant value-add. Your team can also access their hours, wages, and schedules all in one place.
• As an employer, it’s essential to be able to pay employees or run payroll from your mobile device, which is possible using the Homebase app.

• Confirmation messages ensure a great end-to-end process.

My dislikes:

• I’d love to see basic payroll abilities included in the platform as a standard feature; however, this is an add-on paid feature only. 
• The payroll feature is great for smaller businesses but lacks some of the advanced features like other full-scale payroll platforms.

4. Other mentionable standout features.

There is so much to like when it comes to Homebase that it’s hard to deep dive into everything. As a small business owner, you may need more than just a timesheet, shift management, and payroll. I like the fact that Homebase also includes the following in its standard features.

Hiring and onboarding:

• Although the applicant tracking capabilities are a little basic, it’s helpful to have a centralized platform to track applicants from hiring through to onboarding in one place. Homebase also integrates with several online job boards like Indeed, Google, ZipRecruiter, and others, which saves time and money when needing to post job adverts.
• Onboarding forms can be generated and sent to candidates from within the tool. This way you have a centralized repository for all employee information.

• As an additional (currently free) value add, you can make use of AI to help you create job advertisements, screen candidates, parse resumes, as well as schedule interviews. This feature is available for free until September 2025, and thereafter it will cost $150 per posting.

• I really like the screening simulator functionality. You can try it out as part of the free trial. This gives you a good idea of what candidates can expect from the screening tool.
• This is a huge time-saver for hiring managers or recruiters that need to screen hundreds of applicants for high-volume recruitment which is typical in the retail, hospitality and food and beverage industries.

• Background checks are also integrated into the platform and although this is an optional paid-for add-on, I like that all information is in one place.

Centralized team communications

• I love having a single communication platform for all teams and employees in a shared location. This helps avoid disparate communication channels and missed updates.

Free mobile app

• For businesses that have hourly employees or shift-based workers, you need a solid and stable mobile app that can handle multiple features. I found it easy to set up, use, and track important information on the go.

Homebase Pricing

Homebase offers four tiers so that you can choose the most relevant one for your organization. They do offer a free trial, which I’d highly recommend trying out if you need to see more of the functionalities and how they work!

1. Basic (free) – Best for small organizations with less than 10 employees
2. Essentials – Best for scale-ups and organizations with more advanced needs
3. Plus – Best for enterprise-level organizations with multiple teams
4. All-in-one – Best for enterprise-level organizations with multiple teams

	Free (Basic)	Essentials	Plus	All-in-one
Pricing	$0 per location/month	$30 per location/month	$70 per location/month	$120 per location/month
Employee limit	1-10 employees	Unlimited employees	Unlimited employees	Unlimited employees
Scheduling	Basic scheduling features are included	Yes – Advanced scheduling.	Yes	Yes
Time tracking	Basic time tracking is included	Yes – Advanced time tracking	Yes	Yes
Point of sale integration	POS integration included	Yes	Yes	Yes
Payroll	Payroll add-on is available (starts at $39/month)	Payroll add-on is available (starts at $39/month)	Payroll add-on is available (starts at $39/month)	Payroll add-on is available (starts at $39/month)
Hiring	–	Included. Includes branded careers page and job board access.	Included	Included
PTO & time-off controls		Included – Manage time-off requests and access a team-wide dashboard.	Included	Included
Departments & permissions	–	Included – Assign managers and set custom permissions	Included	Included
Employee onboarding	–	–	–	Included – Ability to send onboarding packs including government documents or custom forms and more.
Labor cost management	–	–	–	Included – Includes receiving alerts for overtime warnings and more.
HR & compliance	–	–	–	Included – Includes live support from certified HR Advisors.

Features	Pros	Cons
Ease of use	The overall app is easy to use and quick to set up.	It can be too basic for larger organizations that need more features.
Scheduling	Scheduling is easy to set up and can be managed easily on the mobile app.	Advanced scheduling features are not available and may be limited for organizations that need more complex schedule creation.
Payroll	Payroll features can be integrated. Includes the ability to integrate with QuickBooks, Gusto, and more.	This is a paid add-on only.
Hiring and onboarding	You can make use of the built-in ATS for hiring. Job board integrations are included for free.	The ATS is basic, so larger organizations with complex hiring needs may need to utilize a secondary platform.
AI Features	AI tools within the hiring suite can assist you with resume parsing, finding matches, candidate screening, and automated scheduling.	Although this is a free feature currently it will become a paid-for add-on in future,
Dashboards and reports	Advanced reporting across activity, sales, and more is available.	Advanced features are only available on higher tiers.
Pricing	Tiered pricing plans are available. Flexible pricing structure for monthly or annual commitments	It can be too costly for smaller organizations that require additional employees or features.

In Summary

Homebase is an excellent platform for small organizations that have hourly employees or shift worker requirements in retail, hospitality, fast food, and related industries. It has excellent shift management, time tracking, and schedule management capabilities that help you juggle staff management and timecards in one place.
You have the ability to choose from different pricing tiers based on your requirements, which is great for companies that need to scale and make use of additional features later on.
I found the platform and the mobile app intuitive and easy to use, which means that you won’t have to spend hours training employees on how to use the system or app.
Overall, it’s a great fit for SMBs to help ease the administrative burden of managing multiple aspects; however, it may be limited for larger organizations with more complex requirements.