Buddy Punch Pricing Explained (2026): Base Fee, Tiers, and What Geofencing Costs

This post explains the Buddy Punch pricing model as it appears on Buddy Punch's pricing page, read on September 8, 2026. The table below carries the verified numbers, so the prose covers how the bill is built and what to confirm before you sign up. Our Buddy Punch vs Clox page has the short side-by-side; this is the longer read on the bill.

01

What the price includes

Buddy Punch has three tiers. Each is priced per user per month, with a lower rate if you pay annually, and each tier carries the same flat base fee on top of the seats. The base fee doesn't change with headcount, so it's a larger share of the bill for a small crew than for a large one. A three-person crew pays the base plus three seats.

Starter is the entry tier. The pricing page lists scheduling and GPS on punches under Pro, and scheduling also appears on the page as a paid add-on. So don't assume Starter covers a crew that clocks in at job sites and needs a weekly schedule. Ask what Starter itself includes before you pick it.

Pro includes scheduling and GPS on punches. Advanced includes real-time GPS and onboarding tasks. The two GPS labels are separate items on the page, and the table above carries them as the page lists them. What GPS on punches records, and whether real-time GPS follows a worker between punches, are questions for the demo.

Geofencing is the feature most field crews ask about first. When we verified our comparison page in July 2026, geofencing and the kiosk started on the Pro tier. The pricing page we read on September 8, 2026 lists GPS on punches under Pro, which is a different label from geofencing. Confirm the current tier placement of geofencing on the vendor page or on the demo before you buy.

There's a 14-day free trial with no card. The pricing page doesn't state a contract term.

02

What costs extra

Four add-ons are listed at per user per month rates: real-time GPS, scheduling, onboarding and offboarding tasks, and data retention. On the page's terms, each one multiplies by your seat count. A crew on Starter that wants scheduling and real-time GPS pays the base, the Starter seats, and two add-on rates per seat. At that point, compare the total against Pro or Advanced, which include some of those features outright.

Payroll is its own add-on with its own per user rate and its own base fee. A company running payroll through Buddy Punch pays two base fees every month, one for the time clock and one for payroll. The table above shows both.

Annual billing lowers the per user rate on every tier; the base fee is listed as a monthly amount. The page doesn't say whether annual billing commits you for the full year or what happens if you drop seats mid-term, so ask.

03

Questions to ask on the demo

1. Which tier includes geofencing today, and does an off-site punch get blocked or recorded?
2. What is the difference between GPS on punches and real-time GPS, and what does real-time GPS capture while a worker is clocked in?
3. What does the flat base fee cover, and is it the same amount on every tier?
4. Are the add-ons charged on every seat, or only on the workers who use the feature?
5. Does annual billing commit us for twelve months, and can we remove seats mid-term?
6. Does the payroll add-on replace our payroll provider, and what does its separate base fee cover?
7. Which export formats does the time clock produce for the payroll provider we already use?

04

When Buddy Punch is the right choice

Buddy Punch fits a business that wants a mature, configurable time clock with a long report library and many payroll integrations, and that doesn't mind paying by tier to get there. If your bookkeeper uses a payroll provider that Clox doesn't export to, a long integration list is a real advantage, and that's a reason to read Buddy Punch's list first.

It also fits a company that wants to buy features one at a time. The pricing page lists data retention and onboarding tasks as separate add-ons, so ask whether you can add one of them without moving everyone up a tier. A business that clocks in at one shop and doesn't need GPS or scheduling may find that the entry tier plus the base fee is the whole bill, once the demo confirms what Starter includes.

Where the model costs you is a small field crew. The base fee is spread over a few seats, and the field features (GPS on punches, scheduling, and per our July 2026 check, geofencing and the kiosk) start on Pro. Do the math on Pro if your crew works at job sites.

05

How Clox compares

Clox has one plan and everything is on it. The price is $29 a month, which includes the first 3 users, then $6 per user per month after that. So a 3-person crew is $29, a 5-person crew is $41, and a 6-person crew is $47. Annual billing is $240 a year for the first 3 users, then $60 per user per year, about 20 percent off.

There's no tier to pick and no add-on list. Geofenced worksites, the WiFi site check, the PIN kiosk with an optional clock-in photo, schedules, job and task costing, overtime rules, payroll exports, and the read-only API are all included. The pricing page has the full list, and the time clock app cost post walks through how base fees and tiers change the real bill across vendors.

The bigger difference for a field crew is what the location feature does. A Clox worksite is a named location with a GPS coordinate and a radius, 200 meters by default. Geofencing is turned on per employee, and a geofenced worker who is outside every assigned worksite at clock-in has the punch blocked with a message to get on site. Location is read only at the moment of the punch, so there's no real-time tier to decide about and no tracking between punches. The worksites and geofence docs explain the setup.

Location comes from the worker's phone, so a geofence is a deterrent rather than proof that someone was on site. Separately, every punch is signed and hash-chained, and anyone can verify a record at getclox.com/verify. That proves the record hasn't been altered since capture; it doesn't prove the GPS reading was true.

Payroll exports cover ADP RUN, ADP Workforce Now, Paychex Flex, and Gusto as CSV files, plus QuickBooks Desktop as an IIF file and a universal payroll summary CSV. For QuickBooks Online there's a CSV import and an optional live sync. If your provider isn't on that list, Buddy Punch's longer integration list may serve you better. Clox has a 14-day trial with no card, a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first paid subscription, month-to-month billing, no sales call, and no onboarding fee. If you're moving over, the steps are in switching from Buddy Punch, ClockShark, or QuickBooks Time.

06

FAQ

Clox is free for 14 days with no credit card, and the first paid subscription carries a 30-day money-back guarantee. Start a free trial, add a worksite and your crew, and run one real week of punches before you compare the two bills.