Homebase alternatives: 6 options for shift-based teams
Compared on the things that decide it: how many people the free plan covers, whether a time clock is included, and what the first paid plan really costs.
Free plans and prices checked against each vendor's own pricing page on 29 September 2026. Emplora is our product, and it is on this list.
Quick picks
- You need a free time clock and have 10 or fewer staff
- Connecteam
- The 10-employee cap is your whole problem
- Sling
- Getting staff onto the app is what keeps failing
- Emplora
- You run a restaurant and want tips and POS handled
- 7shifts
- You need forecasting or fair workweek compliance
- Deputy
- You want the best mobile app and will pay for it
- When I Work
Why teams look for a Homebase alternative
The free plan stops at 10 employees
Homebase's free Basic plan covers 10 employees at one location. It used to cover 20, which is why so many roundups still say otherwise and a few claim it is unlimited. One seasonal hire takes you over, and the next step is Essentials at $30 per location a month.
Most of the scheduling toolkit is paid
Time off and break waivers, departments and permissions, labor costing, business insights and live human support all start on paid plans. Free timesheets are kept for 90 days and then roll off, which matters if you ever need to prove hours worked.
It is shaped around US payroll and US labor rules
The payroll add-on, the POS integrations and the compliance tooling are built for the US market. Outside it, a good part of what you would be paying for does not apply to you.
The alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Free plan | Time clock on free | First paid price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Connecteam | 10 users, 1 schedule, 1 time clock | Yes, with GPS and geofencing | $35 a month per hub (Basic), flat for the first 30 users |
| Sling | 30 users | No | $2.00 per user a month (Premium) |
| Emplora | 15 employees, 1 location | Not offered on any plan | $39 a month, flat, for 2 locations and 40 employees each |
| 7shifts | 15 employees, 1 location | No | $44.99 per location a month (Essentials), up to 30 employees |
| Deputy | None, trial of up to 31 days | Trial only | $5.50 per user a month (Lite), with a $30 monthly minimum spend |
| When I Work | None, 14-day trial | Trial only | From $2.50 per user a month |
1. Connecteam: best for keeping a free time clock
An all-in-one deskless workforce app: scheduling, GPS time clock, chat, forms and training.
The closest free replacement if the time clock is what keeps you on Homebase. Connecteam's free plan covers 10 users and includes GPS clock-in and geofencing, plus auto-scheduling, repeating shifts and templates that Homebase charges for. The catch is a different shape rather than a smaller one: archived staff count towards the 10, so turnover quietly eats seats, and you get one job schedule and one time clock, so a second site or a separate kitchen rota forces an upgrade. Paid plans are priced per hub, and scheduling is only one of three.
- Free plan
- 10 users, 1 schedule, 1 time clock
- First paid price
- $35 a month per hub (Basic), flat for the first 30 users
2. Sling: best for getting past the 10-person cap for nothing
Shift scheduling from Toast, with the largest free user cap in the category.
The answer if the cap is the whole problem. Sling is free for up to 30 users, three times Homebase's ceiling, and the free tier is not a stub: long-term scheduling, templates, shift offers, time-off requests, shift alarms and announcements are all included. You give up time tracking completely, so hours have to come from somewhere else, and shift swaps are a paid feature even though shift offers are free. If you moved to Homebase for the clock, this is a step backwards; if you moved for the schedule, it is a straight upgrade.
- Free plan
- 30 users
- First paid price
- $2.00 per user a month (Premium)
3. Emplora: best for teams that turn over and will not install an app
Our productScheduling for shift-based teams, where staff open their rota from a QR code or a PIN instead of an account.
Worth a look if onboarding is what hurts rather than the cap. This is our product, so weigh it accordingly. Staff open the schedule from a QR code or a PIN, with no email address, no account and nothing to install, which is the step that usually decides whether a rollout sticks in a kitchen or a shop. Free covers 15 employees at one site and pricing is flat rather than per user. Where we are the wrong answer: there is no time clock on any plan, and shift swaps, time-off requests and notifications start on the paid plan, so if you left Homebase to keep clocking in free, pick Connecteam instead.
- Free plan
- 15 employees, 1 location
- First paid price
- $39 a month, flat, for 2 locations and 40 employees each
4. 7shifts: best for restaurants
Restaurant-specific scheduling with tip pooling, POS integrations and labor tools.
If you run a restaurant, this speaks your language in a way Homebase does not: tip pooling, POS integrations and labor targets built around service rather than generic hourly work. The free Comp plan covers 15 employees at one location and includes shift trades and claiming open shifts, which most free tiers withhold. There is no time clock until you pay, team messaging is paid, and one location is a hard ceiling, so a second site means $44.99 a month per location.
- Free plan
- 15 employees, 1 location
- First paid price
- $44.99 per location a month (Essentials), up to 30 employees
5. Deputy: best for forecasting and labor compliance
Enterprise-grade scheduling with demand forecasting, labor compliance and auto-scheduling.
The upgrade rather than the sideways move. Demand forecasting, auto-scheduling and built-in labor-law compliance are well beyond anything in Homebase's paid tiers, and the entry plan already includes timesheets, the clock and swaps. The cost is real: no free plan at all, per-user pricing from $5.50 a month, and a $30 monthly minimum, so a team of five pays $30 rather than $27.50. Worth the trial of up to 31 days if you operate under predictive scheduling rules.
- Free plan
- None, trial of up to 31 days
- First paid price
- $5.50 per user a month (Lite), with a $30 monthly minimum spend
6. When I Work: best for the best app for your staff
A polished scheduling and time-tracking app aimed at hourly teams, sold per user.
Pick it for the experience, not the price. Staff take to the app quickly, and the swap and availability flows are the most polished here, which matters if your team ignores tools they find awkward. Two things to know before you budget: the free plan people remember is gone, and seats sell in bundles of five or ten, so a 12-person team pays for more than 12. Per-user pricing also means the bill climbs every time you hire, which is the opposite of Homebase's flat per-location model.
- Free plan
- None, 14-day trial
- First paid price
- From $2.50 per user a month
When to stay with Homebase
- You have 10 or fewer staff and need a free time clock. Homebase and Connecteam are the only two here that include one, and Homebase's runs on tablets, computers and POS devices rather than phones alone.
- You want payroll in the same tool as the schedule, and you run it in the US. Nothing else on this list comes close on that.
- You are about to pass 10 employees on a single site. Essentials is flat per location with unlimited employees, so at 25 or 40 staff it is one of the cheaper options in this comparison, not one of the dearer ones.
Moving your rota without losing a week
- 1
Export your timesheets first, because that is what you cannot rebuild
Homebase's free plan keeps 90 days of timesheet history and then drops it. The schedule itself you can recreate from memory in an hour; hours worked, you cannot. Pull them before you cancel anything, and keep the file somewhere outside both tools.
- 2
Rebuild one typical week, not the whole quarter
Every tool here copies a week forward, so the pattern is what you are actually moving. Recreate your busiest normal week, check it against the same week in Homebase, then let the new tool repeat it. Trying to port three months of history is what makes people give up halfway.
- 3
Add people and roles before you add a single shift
Most migrations stall on the team, not the rota: half of them never finish signing up and keep checking the old app. Do the people first and confirm every one of them can see the new schedule. If your team has no work email addresses, choose a tool that does not require one, or budget an afternoon of chasing.
- 4
Run both for one week, then switch the announcement
Keep Homebase as the source of truth for one full week, including a Friday and a weekend, while the new schedule runs alongside. Only once nobody has missed a shift do you tell the team to stop opening the old app. Moving the group chat last, not first, keeps the noise down.
Frequently asked questions
Several, with different caps. Sling is free for up to 30 users but has no time clock. Connecteam is free for 10 users and does include a GPS time clock. Emplora is free for 15 employees at one location. 7shifts is free for 15 employees at a single restaurant. When I Work and Deputy have no free plan at all, only trials of 14 and 31 days.
Ten, at one location, checked against Homebase's own pricing page in September 2026. The cap used to be 20 employees, so older comparisons quote the higher number and some still say unlimited. Above 10 employees, Essentials is $30 per location a month billed monthly or $24 billed annually, with unlimited employees at that point.
Connecteam is the main one: its free plan for up to 10 users includes GPS clock-in and geofencing. Sling, 7shifts and Emplora have no time tracking on their free plans, and Deputy and When I Work have no free plan. If clocking in matters more than the headcount cap, Connecteam is the closest like-for-like swap.
Both are free to 10 users and both include a time clock, so it comes down to shape. Homebase is stronger on US payroll, POS integrations and clocking in on a tablet or till. Connecteam is stronger on scheduling depth, GPS tracking for staff who move between sites, and built-in chat and forms. Connecteam counts archived staff against its cap, which catches teams with high turnover.
Yes, and you should do it before you cancel. Schedules are easy to recreate because every tool copies a week forward, so the data worth exporting is your timesheet history, which the free plan only keeps for 90 days. Export it, store it outside both tools, and treat the rota as something you rebuild rather than migrate.
About two hours of setup and one week of overlap. The setup is quick in any of these tools. The week is for your team: keep the old schedule as the source of truth until the new one has survived a full week including a Friday. The step that actually decides the timeline is how much each employee has to do, since a tool that needs every person to create an account takes days longer than one that does not.
Or compare Emplora directly
Head-to-head on pricing, free plans and features, one tool at a time.
Try the one with nothing for your team to install
Emplora is free for one location and up to 15 employees. No credit card, no employee email addresses, and your team opens the schedule from a QR code.