Homebase vs. Clockify: Which time tracking solution fits your business?

You're comparing two different tools here. Homebase is for running shift-based teams—think restaurants, retail stores, salons. You build schedules, people clock in and out, and you run payroll. Clockify is for tracking project time—freelancers logging billable hours, agencies tracking client work, teams that need to know who spent how long on what.

Here's why that matters. You run a coffee shop? You need to know if you're overstaffed during the Tuesday lunch slump. You run a design agency? You need to know if that client project is eating more hours than you're billing for. Different problems.

We'll walk through pricing, what each one actually does, and the real situations where one makes more sense than the other. No fluff—just what works and when.

TL;DR: Homebase vs. Clockify in 30s or less

Pick Homebase if: You're building weekly schedules for hourly shifts. Someone calls out Tuesday morning, you need coverage fast. You want to see labor costs next to sales numbers. You want payroll to run from the same place you're tracking time.

Pick Clockify if: You're tracking hours across different projects or clients. You need unlimited free users. You're fine exporting timesheets to your existing payroll system. You bill clients based on hours worked.

When Homebase makes sense:

• You're rebuilding schedules every week based on who's available
• You run one location with up to 10 people (that's free)
• You want to see if last Saturday's sales justified your staffing levels
• You're tired of running payroll separately from time tracking
• Your team clocks in from their phones—you see GPS snapshots
• Tips get pooled and go straight into paychecks

When Clockify makes sense:

• You're tracking billable hours for client projects
• You have a lot of people who need to log time (unlimited free users)
• Different projects have different budgets you're tracking against (needs Pro plan)
• Same person works on five different things in a day
• You already have a payroll system you like—you just need the hours
• People forget to start timers—browser extensions and auto-tracking help

What is Homebase?

You're running a restaurant, coffee shop, retail store, or salon. Every week looks different—someone's sick, someone else needs Wednesday off, you're short on Saturday night. Homebase is where you build those schedules, track who's working, run payroll, and message your team when things change.

It's built for hourly shift work. Not project tracking or billable hours—actual shifts where people clock in at 8am and clock out at 4pm.

The new AI features handle stuff you're probably tired of doing manually. Screening job applications, building schedules based on who's available and what you can afford, walking you through payroll questions. Means you spend less time on paperwork, more time actually running things.

Here's what you can do with it:

• Start using it right now. No credit card. Free for one location with up to 10 people—scheduling, time tracking, team messaging, the whole thing.
• Run payroll without a separate system. Hours go straight into paychecks. Taxes get calculated and filed for you. No exporting spreadsheets to another platform.
• See if you're overstaffed or understaffed. Connects to your Square or Clover POS, shows labor costs next to actual sales. Tuesday was slow but you had five people on? You'll see it.
• Stop the group text chaos. Built-in messaging so work conversations stay separate from personal texts. Need someone to cover a shift? Message goes to everyone who might be available.
• Know your team clocked in from the right place. Phone GPS shows where they are, takes a photo when they clock in. Prevents buddy punching without getting weird about it.
• Handle tips without doing math. Tip Manager pools tips and splits them however you set it up, then adds them to paychecks automatically.

100,000+ small businesses use Homebase. Works with Square, Clover, and QuickBooks.

What is Clockify?

Clockify is for tracking time across projects. If you're billing clients by the hour, managing multiple projects at once, or just need to know where everyone's time is going—that's what it does.

Started as just a time tracker. Now it does scheduling, budgets, invoicing, but you need paid plans for most of that stuff. The free version? Unlimited users can track time. That's it.

What it's good at:

• Truly free for unlimited users. Not a trial, not "free for 30 days." Your whole team can track time without paying anything.
• Track time across different projects and clients. Designer works on three client projects in one day? They log hours to each one separately.
• Browser extensions and auto-tracking. People forget to start timers. Browser extension sits there and can track automatically, or you turn on the desktop app that watches what you're working on.
• Export to your payroll system. Clockify doesn't do payroll. Tracks the hours, you export them to QuickBooks or Gusto or whatever you're using.
• Kiosk mode for shared devices. One tablet, multiple people clock in and out. More common in Clockify's project-based world than in shift work.

Clockify connects with the tools project teams already use. For example: Asana for task management, Trello for boards, Jira for dev work, Slack for communication. If your workflow lives in those apps, Clockify plugs right in.

Homebase vs. Clockify pricing (November 2025): What you'll actually pay

Here's how the money works. Homebase charges per location—doesn't matter if you have 5 people or 50. Clockify charges per person—doesn't matter if they're tracking one project or twenty.

Homebase pricing structure: A rundown as of November 2025

You pay per location. Add 10 more employees? Your plan price stays the same. Payroll is separate—we'll get to that.

Basic: $0/month One location, up to 10 people. You get scheduling, time tracking, team messaging, connections to your POS. Completely free. No credit card.

Essentials: $30/month per location Everything in Basic plus better time tracking tools and alerts. Unlimited employees.

Plus: $70/month per location Essentials plus smarter scheduling (predicts labor costs based on sales), PTO tracking.

All-in-One: $120/month per location Plus features plus onboarding new hires and HR compliance stuff.

Homebase Payroll: $39/month + $6 per employee Run payroll as many times as you want. Taxes filed automatically. W-2s and 1099s sent out. Works across multiple states and locations. Your team can access wages early if they need to.

The thing about per-location pricing: hire three more people next month, your plan stays $70. Only payroll costs go up ($18 more for those three people).

Clockify pricing structure: A rundown as of November 2025

You pay per person. Have 20 people? Multiply everything by 20.

Free: $0 Unlimited users can track time across unlimited projects. That's it. You want scheduling? Gotta pay.

Basic: $3.99 per user/month (pay annually) Free stuff plus some admin controls. Still no scheduling. Still no time off management. Still no GPS.

Standard: $5.49 per user/month (pay annually) Basic plus invoicing, time off requests, timesheet approvals. Still no scheduling.

Pro: $7.99 per user/month (pay annually) Standard plus actual scheduling, project budgets, GPS tracking, expenses.

Enterprise: $11.99 per user/month (pay annually) Pro plus custom permissions, single sign-on, priority support, dedicated account person.

Payroll? Clockify doesn't do it. You export hours to Gusto or QuickBooks Payroll or whatever you're using.

Real cost comparison

You run a 16-person hair salon. Biweekly payroll, commission tracking, the usual.

With Homebase:

• Plus plan: $70/month (scheduling and labor forecasting)
• Payroll: $39 base + $96 for 16 people = $135/month
• Total: $205/month for everything—scheduling, time tracking, payroll with tax filing

With Clockify:

• Pro plan (only tier with scheduling): 16 × $7.99 = $127.84/month
• Payroll service: You're paying Gusto or QuickBooks separately (probably another $100-150/month for 16 people)
• No connection to sales data from your POS
• Total: $230-280/month for time tracking and outside payroll

You run a 35-person gym. Membership revenue, lots of part-timers, need HR stuff.

With Homebase:

• All-in-One plan: $120/month
• Payroll: $39 + $210 for 35 people = $249/month
• Total: $369/month for scheduling, time tracking, messaging, HR compliance, full payroll

With Clockify:

• Pro plan: 35 × $7.99 = $279.65/month just for time tracking and scheduling
• External payroll service for 35 people: another $150-200/month
• Clockify isn't built for shift work—it's tracking project hours
• Can't see labor costs against membership sales
• Total: $430-480/month and it still doesn't do what Homebase does

You run a 6-person marketing agency. Not ready for payroll yet. Just need time tracking and maybe scheduling.

With Homebase:

• Basic plan: $0/month
• Covers scheduling, time tracking, messaging for up to 10 people at one location
• No credit card needed

With Clockify:

• Free plan: unlimited time tracking but no scheduling
• Want scheduling? Pro plan: 6 × $7.99 = $47.94/month
• Want time off management and invoicing? Standard plan: 6 × $5.49 = $32.94/month
• Free tier works if you only need time tracking

Breakdown: Homebase payroll vs. Clockify payroll

Hours tracked go straight into paychecks. Taxes calculated, filed, paid. W-2s sent out in January. You're not exporting spreadsheets or doing math.

How Homebase handles scheduling:

• Someone works 42 hours? Homebase calculates overtime at time-and-a-half. Figures out federal, state, and local taxes. Files everything electronically with the IRS and your state.
• Payday comes—direct deposits hit accounts automatically. Someone doesn't have a bank account? Print them a check.
• Tips from last week? Tip Manager already pooled and split them. They go right into paychecks with proper tax withholding.
• You have people working in three different states? Homebase handles the different tax rates and filing requirements for each state.
• New hire paperwork (I-9s, W-4s) happens in the app with e-signatures. Gets sent to state agencies automatically.
• The AI assistant reviews timesheets before you run payroll—flags anything that looks off, helps you fix it.

Clockify doesn’t do payroll:

Clockify tracks the hours. You export them to Gusto or QuickBooks Payroll or whatever service you're using. Here’s what it tracks:

• Different hourly rates for different people or different types of work. Breaks (on paid plans). Which hours are billable to clients vs. non-billable internal time.
• Labor costs per project—helps you see if that client project is profitable or eating more hours than you're charging for.
• You can customize pay periods, run reports, then export everything as a CSV or connect it to your payroll service through integrations.

Here's the real difference:

You're running a cafe with 12 employees. Thursday afternoon you realize payroll is due tomorrow. With Homebase, you review the hours (AI already flagged two people who forgot to clock out), approve them, click run payroll. Done. Taxes filed, money sent.

With Clockify, you export the timesheet, log into Gusto or QuickBooks, import the hours, review everything there, process payroll through that system. Two platforms instead of one.

Breakdown: Homebase scheduling vs. Clockify scheduling

Homebase Scheduling is built for shift work where labor costs need to match forecasted sales from your POS. The AI assistant analyzes past patterns, sales forecasts, and who's available to help optimize schedules.

Homebase scheduling:

• Save weekly schedules as templates for one-click creation
• Forecast staffing needs based on projected revenue from your POS
• Let employees claim open shifts from their phones
• Employees coordinate shift trades—you approve before they're confirmed
• Access schedules from any device with GPS location tracking
• Automatic shift reminders reduce no-shows

Clockify Scheduling organizes project assignments with calendar views. Needs Pro or Enterprise plan—not available on Free, Basic, or Standard.

Clockify scheduling:

• Calendar view for assignments and availability
• Shift scheduling with time slot assignments
• Schedule people across different projects
• Assignment notifications and reminders
• Export and print schedules

Which one fits your situation?

You're building weekly schedules where people call out last-minute and labor cost percentages matter? Homebase handles shift operations. You're assigning people to different client projects and need to track who's working on what? Clockify works for agencies and freelancers at Pro tier and up.

Breakdown: Homebase time tracking vs. Clockify time tracking

Homebase Time Tracking focuses on shift verification, break compliance with FLSA, and preventing time theft through GPS and photo verification. Timesheets connect directly to payroll.

Homebase time tracking:

• Takes employee photos and GPS coordinates at each clock-in
• Blocks early clock-ins to prevent wage padding
• Sends required meal break notifications based on hours worked and local laws
• Alerts you before employees hit overtime thresholds
• Auto clock-out for employees who forget to punch out
• Tracks different hourly rates when employees work multiple roles

Clockify Time Tracking works across project assignments with manual timers, desktop auto-tracker, and detailed project/task logging. Free tier supports unlimited users and unlimited time tracking—good for freelancers and agencies tracking billable hours. Time approvals need Standard tier or higher.

Clockify time tracking:

• Manual timer and kiosk modes
• Desktop auto-tracker captures work automatically
• Browser extension tracks time in web apps
• Assign time to projects and tasks
• Mark hours as billable or non-billable
• Unlimited users on free plan
• Timesheet edit history (approvals need Standard+)

Which one fits your situation?

You need to verify shift attendance, prevent buddy punching, and ensure break compliance for hourly workers in restaurants or retail? Homebase is built for that. You're tracking time across multiple projects where team members need flexible entry methods and unlimited free access? Clockify works for agencies and project teams.

Breakdown: Homebase HR & compliance vs. clockify HR & compliance

Homebase HR & Compliance handles what small businesses with hourly teams need—onboarding paperwork, time off policies, break law compliance with FLSA, and HR expert access. The AI assistant screens job applications based on your criteria.

Homebase HR:

• Collects I-9 and W-4 forms electronically with e-signatures
• Configures PTO policies with automatic accrual based on hours worked
• Enforces meal and rest breaks that vary by state and local laws
• Stores timecard records for required federal retention periods
• Access to certified HR professionals for compliance questions (All-in-One plan)
• Employee policy templates that reflect current labor regulations

Clockify focuses on time tracking and project management. Time off management needs Standard tier or higher. HR features are limited to basic attendance tracking and permissions.

Clockify HR-related features:

• Time off requests and approvals (Standard+)
• Attendance tracking via kiosk and reporting
• User role management and permissions
• Calendar integration for availability views

Which one fits your situation?

Federal, state, and local labor law compliance makes you anxious and you need built-in safeguards plus expert guidance? Homebase addresses those concerns. Time off management and basic attendance tracking alongside your existing HR systems work fine? Clockify provides those at Standard tier and up.

Pros and cons of Homebase and Clockify

Here's what each one does well and where it falls short.

Homebase pros ✅

• Free for small teams. Up to 10 people at one location. No credit card. Scheduling, time tracking, messaging included.

• Shift coverage and labor costs in one place. Building the schedule? You see predicted labor costs next to forecasted sales from your POS. Know if you're overstaffed before you publish.

• GPS and photos at clock-in. Proves people are where they say they are. Costs per location, not per person—add employees without raising your bill.

• Payroll runs from the same place. Taxes calculated and filed. Direct deposits sent. W-2s generated. No exporting to another system.

• AI handles repetitive stuff. Screens job applications, suggests schedules based on past patterns, reviews timesheets before payroll.

• Tips go straight into paychecks. Tip Manager pools and splits tips, adds them to payroll automatically.

Homebase cons ❌

• Only works for hourly shift work. You're scheduling office workers on salary? This isn't built for that.
• Payroll costs extra. $39/month base + $6 per employee. Not included in your plan price.
• Multiple locations add up. Three stores means three separate subscriptions. Gets expensive if you're running five or six locations.

Clockify pros ✅

• Actually free forever. Unlimited users, unlimited projects. Not a trial. Track time without paying anything.
• Flexible tracking methods. Manual timer, kiosk, browser extension, desktop auto-tracker. Whatever works for your team.
• Per-user pricing is predictable. Add someone, add their monthly cost. Easy to calculate as you grow.
• Project budgets and profitability (on paid plans). See if projects are profitable or eating more hours than you're billing.
• Built-in invoicing (Standard tier and up). Generate invoices based on tracked hours.
• Browser extensions and auto-tracking. Captures time while you work without manually starting timers.

Clockify cons ❌

• Scheduling costs extra. Free plan doesn't include it. Need Pro or Enterprise to schedule people.
• No payroll processing. Export hours to Gusto or QuickBooks. Handle payroll through another service.
• Built for projects, not shifts. Assigning people to client work? Great. Covering a Tuesday morning shift when someone calls out? Not really what it's designed for.
• Labor costs per project, not per shift. Helps agencies see project profitability. Doesn't help restaurants see if lunch rush staffing matched sales.
• GPS needs a paid plan. Free tier doesn't verify location.
• No tip management or POS connections. Can't see labor costs against actual sales data.

The bottom line

Pick Homebase if: You're running shifts at a coffee shop, restaurant, retail store, or salon where schedules change every week and you want to see labor costs next to actual sales data. Payroll runs from the same place you're tracking time—no exporting spreadsheets to another system.

Pick Clockify if: You're tracking billable hours across different projects or clients. The unlimited free users matter more than integrated payroll, and you're fine exporting timesheets to Gusto or QuickBooks to process paychecks.

Homebase connects your schedule to revenue from your POS, so you know if you overstaffed a slow Tuesday before it happens. Photo and GPS at clock-in prevent buddy punching. Payroll runs with automatic tax filing. The AI builds schedules based on past patterns and screens job applications so you're not doing admin work on Sunday nights.

Clockify gives you unlimited people tracking unlimited hours for free, which is hard to beat if you're just starting out or running a small agency. But you'll handle payroll separately and won't see how labor costs stack up against sales.

Try Homebase for free. No credit card. Get scheduling, time tracking, and team messaging for up to 10 people at one location.