Homebase Pricing Explained (2026): Per Location, Not Per User

This post explains the Homebase pricing model as it appears on the Homebase pricing page, read on September 8, 2026. The table below carries the verified numbers, so the prose covers how the tiers and the location model work for a crew. Our Homebase vs Clox page has the short side-by-side; this is the longer read on what a crew pays.

01

What the price includes

Every Homebase tier is priced per location per month. Headcount doesn't change the tier rate; the number of locations does. That's the reverse of most of the time clocks we compare, which bill per user.

Basic is free for one location with 10 employees or fewer, and it includes basic scheduling and time tracking. Essentials is the first paid tier, at a flat monthly rate per location. Plus adds PTO controls, departments, and permissions. All-in-One adds onboarding, labor cost management, and HR and compliance.

Each tier has a lower rate on annual billing, shown in the table above. The free trial is 14 days of All-in-One with no card.

Geofencing isn't in those tier summaries. When we verified our comparison page in July 2026, job-site geofencing was on Plus and above. Confirm the current tier on the vendor page, because that one feature decides whether a crew that works at job sites is on the free tier or two tiers up.

02

What costs extra

Payroll is an add-on with its own monthly base plus a per employee charge for each person paid. Unlike the tiers, that part of the bill scales with headcount, so a 15-person shop adding payroll pays the base and 15 per employee charges on top of the tier rate.

A second location is a second tier rate. If Homebase counts something you run as a second location, the rate applies again. Going past 10 employees at a single location moves you off the free tier. The tier steps are the other extra: per our July 2026 check, a crew that wants job-site geofencing is on Plus.

03

What a location means for a contractor

The Homebase model is built around a place of business, a store or a restaurant, with a staff that works there. A contractor doesn't work that way. You may have one shop and eight active job sites in a month, and next month a different eight. Those job sites aren't eight locations in the Homebase sense; they're places your crew works rather than places of business with their own staff.

Ask on the demo how Homebase counts a company with one office and many sites, and whether job-site geofencing lets you define many sites under one location. If your shop is the one location and the sites live inside it, the per location model is cheap for a crew. If each site counts, the bill changes.

04

The math for one shop

Three common situations, with the numbers in the table above:

For the 5-person shop, Homebase is free as long as everything the shop needs is in Basic. For the 15-person shop, the cap moves you to Essentials, and the comparison is one flat location rate against 15 seats somewhere else. For the crew that wants geofencing, you're pricing Plus.

05

Questions to ask on the demo

1. What counts as a location for a company with one office and many job sites?
2. Which tier includes job-site geofencing today, and does an off-site punch get blocked or recorded?
3. Do the time clock features differ between Basic and Essentials, or is the clock the same on both?
4. Does the 10-employee cap on Basic count the owner and managers?
5. What is the payroll add-on total at our headcount, and does it require a specific tier?
6. Does annual billing commit us for the year, and what happens if we add a location mid-term?
7. Can workers clock in from a phone browser or a shared tablet without the app?

06

When Homebase is the right choice

Homebase is the right choice for a shop with a front counter, tipped staff, and hourly shifts that repeat week to week. That is one place of business with a headcount that may sit inside the free tier's cap. It also fits a company with a few storefronts that wants payroll, HR, and onboarding in the same product.

It's a weaker fit for a crew that works at job sites. The location model was built for a different kind of business, and geofencing sits two tiers above the free plan per our last check.

07

How Clox compares

Clox bills per user and ignores the number of sites. The price is $29 a month for the first 3 users and $6 per user per month after that, so a 5-person crew is $41 a month and a 15-person crew is $101. Paid yearly, it is $240 for the first 3 users plus $60 per user per year, about 20 percent off. Clox has no free tier, so for the 5-person shop that fits in Basic, Homebase is cheaper by the whole amount.

Everything else is on the one plan. That means unlimited worksites, geofencing that blocks off-site clock-ins for the workers you choose, the WiFi site check, and a PIN kiosk with an optional photo. It also means schedules, time off, job and task costing, overtime rules, and payroll exports. The pricing page has the full list, and the time clock app cost post compares the models across vendors.

For a crew, the difference is what a site is. In Clox a worksite is a named location with a GPS coordinate and a radius (200 meters by default), you add as many as you have jobs, and adding one doesn't change the bill. Turn geofencing on for the people it should apply to, and their clock-ins outside every assigned worksite are blocked with a message to get on site. Location is read only at the moment of the punch; Clox has no live map and no tracking between punches. The worksites and geofence docs cover the setup.

Workers clock in from the phone app or from a phone browser with nothing installed (see an employee time clock without downloading an app). A shared tablet can run the PIN kiosk for crews that ban phones on site.

What Clox doesn't have is the storefront side. There's no payroll, HR, or onboarding module, and nothing for tips or a register. Payroll leaves Clox as a file for QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, ADP RUN, ADP Workforce Now, Paychex Flex, or Gusto, and for QuickBooks Online there's also an optional live sync. If your business is the shop with the counter, Homebase's All-in-One list covers things Clox doesn't. If your business is the crew on the site, 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.

08

FAQ

Clox has a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed, and the first paid subscription comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Start a free trial, add every site you're working this month as a worksite, and run one real week of punches.