Buddy Punch vs. Homebase

Buddy Punch vs. Homebase: Side-By-Side Comparison

Buddy Punch vs. Connecteam: Detailed Comparison

While Buddy Punch and Homebase are both all-in-one employee management tools with time tracking, employee scheduling, and payroll features, the two platforms are built for very different use cases. Read on to determine which option is right for your company.

Both tools can be more affordable for different business types

Homebase and Buddy Punch have different types of pricing. With Homebase, you’ll pay per location. With Buddy Punch, you’ll pay per user. In most cases, Homebase will be the more affordable option for teams with lots of employees working at one or just a few locations, and Buddy Punch will be more affordable for teams that work at lots of different locations.

However, it’s also important to take into account what features you’ll need from Homebase as that can impact its affordability considerably. For example, if you want to receive alerts when employees are nearing overtime, prevent employees from clocking in early, or automatically clock employees out at the end of their shifts, you’ll need to be on the $80/location/month plan.

With Buddy Punch, these features are available on plans that start at $5.49/user/month, so you’d need to have only one location and more than 11 employees for Homebase to be more affordable. If you have two locations, you’d need to have fewer than 25 employees for Homebase to be more affordable.

To determine which tool will be the better deal for your team, we recommend viewing the plan comparisons on each tool’s pricing page in detail to determine exactly what you’ll have to pay to get the features you need for the number of employees/locations you need to add.

Homebase caters more to restaurant and retail businesses

Homebase has some features that are great for restaurant and retail businesses that you won’t find in Buddy Punch. For one, you can integrate Homebase with your existing point-of-sale (POS) system to turn your POS into a time clock kiosk. This is a great option for companies using a POS that want to create a central place for employees to clock in and out.

You can create a kiosk using Buddy Punch too, though you’ll have to do so on a central computer or tablet. Buddy Punch does not offer integrations with POS systems.

Homebase also offers some helpful features for businesses with high turnover rates. You can use it to create a careers page and post jobs on sites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter. It also acts as an applicant tracking system where you can track and communicate with candidates. You can even run background checks through Homebase for $30 per check.

Buddy Punch offers more features for field and remote teams

Homebase caters more to businesses where employees all work together in person. Buddy Punch offers more features for teams that work in the field or remotely.

For one, you can only create geofences in Homebase for the locations you’re paying for. In Buddy Punch, you can create unlimited geofences at no additional cost. This makes it easy for you to prevent employees from clocking in or out before they arrived at a job site or after they left. If employees aren’t in the geofence, they’re prevented from punching.

Second, Homebase only offers GPS tracking when employees clock in and out. Buddy Punch offers that as well as real-time GPS tracking. You can see where all clocked-in employees are located at any time on a map, and you can also view breadcrumb trails of everywhere they traveled over the course of a workday.

Finally, Buddy Punch offers a couple of features you won’t find in Homebase to prevent time theft. You can set up facial recognition to verify employees’ identities before they’re allowed to clock in or out, or you can use photos on punch to require employees to take a selfie when they clock in and out. Those photos can be reviewed on employees’ timesheets anytime.

Homebase offers a wider variety of integrations

Homebase integrates with 27 different tools in total, which narrowly beats out Buddy Punch’s 20. Additionally, Homebase is particularly diverse and effective in the point-of-sale software integration category.

That said, one area where this advantage isn’t strictly true is in the payroll category, where Buddy Punch offers more payroll integrations than Homebase does. This means there’s a greater chance of Buddy punch fitting your established payroll workflow without requiring a change of tools.

Another interesting thing to note is that both Buddy Punch and Homebase offer built-in payroll as an option to replace third-party payroll processors. Both tools charge the exact same amount for this option ($39/month base fee + $6/user per month), so what’s more important is which tool you prefer in the other categories.

Buddy Punch has higher customer ratings

On popular software review site Capterra, Buddy Punch has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars. This breaks down into three categories: ease of use, customer service, features, and value for money.

Buddy Punch is rated 4.8/5 by its customers for ease of use, customer service, and value for money — and 4.7/5 for its features. In contrast, Homebase is rated 4.6/5 in ease of use, 4.5/5 for customer service and features, and 4.6/5 in value for money.

Who Homebase is right for vs. who Buddy Punch is right for

Restaurant and retail businesses with lots of employees working at only one or two locations will get a lot of value out of Homebase. Its POS integrations make setting up your time clock simple, its location-based pricing will make it affordable, and its hiring tools will help you keep your business staffed appropriately.

Businesses with few employees but multiple locations — as well as remote and field teams — will be better off with Buddy Punch.

Buddy Punch’s user-based pricing makes it more affordable when you have lots of job sites, it offers lots of features to help you save on labor costs and prevent time theft, and it’s really easy for even your least tech-savvy employees to use, with little-to-no training required and exceptional customer support when you need help.