Emplora vs. Homebase
Both are pitched at small businesses with hourly staff. Here is an honest comparison of pricing, features, and who each is genuinely better for, written in 2026 with no marketing fluff.
TL;DR
- Both have a free plan. Homebase's covers 10 employees at one site and includes a time clock. Emplora's covers 15 at one site with the full schedule builder, and has no time clock at all.
- Emplora is roughly half the price at the paid tiers, especially once you scale to two or more locations.
- Homebase has more US payroll integrations and more years of brand history. Emplora is faster, simpler, and lets your hourly staff sign in with a PIN or email rather than forcing email-only.
What Homebase does well
Mature US payroll integrations
Homebase has direct integrations with Gusto, ADP, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, and several other US payroll providers. If you're already on one of those, the export workflow is well-trodden.
Built-in messaging and hiring tools
Homebase bundles team messaging, applicant tracking, and a built-in hiring board into the platform. For a single-location restaurant that wants one app for everything, that breadth is genuine.
Strong brand recognition
Homebase has been around since 2014 and has hundreds of thousands of small businesses using it. The brand familiarity is real, and the support content (help centre, YouTube, community) is deep.
Where Emplora is different
PIN or email, your choice
Homebase requires every employee to have an email account. Emplora lets hourly staff sign in with a QR code and PIN, or with email if you prefer. For kitchen, retail, and hospitality teams where half your staff doesn't check email, this is the difference between onboarding in 30 seconds and chasing email confirmations.
Real-time scheduling, no publish step
Homebase has a draft / publish workflow. You build the schedule, then click publish. Forget to publish and your team doesn't see it. Emplora is always live, the moment you save a shift it's visible to the assigned employee, with a notification on their phone.
Multi-location done right
Homebase charges per location for paid features, so a two-location restaurant pays roughly double. Emplora's Starter plan covers two locations and up to 80 employees for $39/month flat.
Free plan that doesn't lock the basics
Homebase's free plan ends at 10 employees, and time off, break waivers, departments and labor costing are paid from the start. Emplora's free plan is one location, up to 15 employees, with the full scheduling core: every calendar view, conflict detection, and QR/PIN access. Swaps and time-off workflows join on Starter.
Faster to build a week's schedule
Drag across the days to select them, copy last week, conflict detection in real time. No batch publish, no extra steps. Most managers we've talked to build a week's worth of shifts in 10 minutes once they have the team imported.
Pricing, side by side
Verified 2026-09-29. Competitor pricing changes often, double-check on their pricing page before making a decision.
Homebase charges per location with unlimited employees, so it stays cheap as you hire and gets expensive as you open sites. Emplora is flat. Below 10 employees on one site both are free; between 10 and 15, Emplora still is and Homebase is not.
Feature comparison
Yes· Partial· No
Who should pick which
Pick Homebase if...
Pick Homebase if you're a single-location US restaurant under 10 employees, you want hiring and team messaging built in, and you're already on Gusto or Square Payroll. The breadth is genuine and the integrations save real time.
Pick Emplora if...
Pick Emplora if you have hourly staff without email accounts, you operate from two or more locations, you want a free plan that covers 15 people rather than 10, or you would rather pay one flat fee than $30 a month per location.
Common questions
It depends on headcount and locations. On one site, both are free up to 10 employees; from 11 to 15 Emplora is still free while Homebase Essentials is $30 a month; from 16 to 40 Homebase's $30 is cheaper than Emplora Starter's $39. With two locations Emplora is cheaper, $39 flat against $60 for two Homebase Essentials locations, and the gap widens on the upper tiers (Emplora Professional $79 for three locations against Homebase Plus at $70 per location).
You can export your employee list and schedules from Homebase as CSV and import them into Emplora. We're working on a direct migration tool; in the meantime CSV is the bridge most teams use, and our support team will help you map fields.
Emplora is a mobile-responsive web app today, which means staff use it through any browser without an app store download. Native iOS and Android apps are on the roadmap. For now, the QR / PIN access flow makes Emplora faster to onboard hourly staff than competitors who require an app install.
That's the case Emplora was built for. Hourly staff scan a QR code or enter a PIN on any browser to view their schedule, request swaps, and submit time-off. Homebase requires email per employee, which makes onboarding kitchen and back-of-house staff slower.
Honestly, two: the built-in hiring / applicant tracking, and the in-app team messaging. If those are central to how you run, Homebase's bundle is hard to beat. If you handle hiring on Indeed and team comms on WhatsApp or Slack like most operators, Emplora covers everything you actually use day-to-day.
Other comparisons
Weighing more than two? See every Homebase alternative
Emplora for your industry
How the switch looks for the kind of team you run.
Try the alternative for free
Free for one location and up to 15 employees. No credit card. Build your first schedule in 15 minutes.