Competitor Comparison
Free That Scales
Homebase is free for one location. Add a second and you’re paying $24.95–$99.95
per location, per month. Cloud Time Manager stays free as you grow.
per location, per month. Cloud Time Manager stays free as you grow.
If you're Choosing Between Them,
Here's The Short Version
Homebase
Homebase has a genuinely strong free tier for businesses with one location. The catch is the per-location pricing model: the moment you add a second location, you go from $0 to a paid plan starting at $20 per location per month (annual) or $24.95 monthly, and the higher tiers run $48 to $80 per location per month. Five locations on the Plus plan is $240 per month. Ten on All-in-One is $800.
Cloud Time Manager
Cloud Time Manager is free for HMS merchants regardless of how many locations you operate. You can have one or fifty — same price, same feature set. The platform also includes the differentiated features no Homebase tier offers: offline-first mobile, an auto-schedule engine, a minor labor law rules engine, and on-demand pay.
What you Actually Pay
- Cloud Time Manager
$0 /user/month
No hardware. No setup fees. Cancel anytime.
- $0/month — completely free
- Unlimited locations included
- Unlimited employees included
- All features on every plan — no tier upsell
- Free for HMS merchants regardless of scale
- No per-location, per-employee, or per-feature fees
- Free forever — no trial timer
- Homebase
$200–$500 hardware + $11+/month
Extra costs often not shown upfront.
- Basic (free): 1 location, up to 20 employees
- Essentials: $20/location/month annual, $24.95 monthly
- Plus: $48/location/month annual, $59.95 monthly
- All-in-One: $80/location/month annual, $99.95 monthly
- Per-location pricing — multi-location costs scale fast
- Payroll add-on priced separately
- 14-day free trial on All-in-One
Side-by-Side Feature Table
Feature
Free plan
Multi-location pricing
Drag-and-drop scheduling
Auto-schedule engine
GPS time tracking
Geofencing
Offline-first mobile
Real-time dashboard
Shift swap & pickup
Minor labor law engine
On-demand pay
POS integrations
Hiring tools (job posts, ATS)
Payroll
Pricing model
Homebase
Yes — 1 location, 20 employees max
$20–$80 per location/month
Yes — strong
No native auto-generation
Yes
Yes
Limited
Yes
Yes
Compliance alerts
Available (Cash Out add-on)Yes
Toast, Square, Clover, Shopify
Plus tier and above
Add-on, separately priced
Per location
Cloud Time Manager
Yes — unlimited locations and employees
Free at any scale
Yes
Demand-analysis optimizer
Yes
Yes — per-location, hard or soft
Full offline punch queue
WebSocket — instant updates
Yes
State-specific rules, auto-enforced
Built-in earned wage access
Generic CSV (no POS dependency)
Not native — focused on time/scheduling
CSV export to ADP, Gusto, QB, Paychex
Free forever for HMS merchants
Honest Assessment
Single-location small businesses with under 20 employees that just want a free tool and don’t have the HMS merchant relationship. Homebase’s free tier is genuinely free, and the product is solid for that use case.
Operators who want hiring and applicant tracking built into the same tool. Homebase Plus and All-in-One include job posting to Indeed and ZipRecruiter, applicant management, and onboarding — Cloud Time Manager doesn’t have a native ATS.
Restaurants and retail already running Toast, Square, Clover, or Shopify and depending on POS-integrated sales-vs-labor reporting at the location level.
Five things Homebase Time doesn't do as well
Free that doesn't punish growth
Homebase’s per-location model means the moment you grow past one location, you’re paying — and the math gets ugly fast. Cloud Time Manager stays free for HMS merchants whether you have 1 location or 50. No tier, no upgrade, no surprise bill at the end of the month.
Auto-schedule engine
Homebase’s scheduling is excellent for manual building, but there’s no native auto-schedule engine that generates shift plans from demand data and constraints. Cloud Time Manager’s optimizer does that automatically.
Offline-first mobile
Homebase’s mobile time clock requires a connection to record punches reliably. Cloud Time Manager queues punches locally with zero connectivity and syncs when the device is back online — every plan, every device.
Real-time WebSocket dashboard
Homebase’s dashboard updates on refresh. Cloud Time Manager pushes punches live via Socket.IO — managers see the floor change in real time.
Minor labor law engine
Homebase has compliance alerts for breaks and overtime. Cloud Time Manager has a full state-specific minor-labor rules engine that auto-enforces school-night limits, max daily/weekly hours, and restricted shift times for under-18 workers.
Switching from Homebase
Multi-location operators have the most to gain from this switch. The migration itself is straightforward:
- Export your timesheet data from Homebase (the Timesheets section supports CSV export)
- Screenshot your schedule templates so you can recreate them
- Export your employee roster and roles
- Import employees into Cloud Time Manager
- Recreate your schedule templates (or use CTM's auto-schedule engine)
- Workers download the CTM mobile app and set their password
- Run parallel for one pay period to validate
- Cancel the Homebase paid plan(s)
The multi-location math
Five locations on Homebase Plus is $240/month or $2,880/year. Ten locations on All-in-One is $800/month or $9,600/year. Cloud Time Manager is $0 at every scale for HMS merchants. The migration pays for itself before the end of the first month.
See more comparisons
Free That Doesn't Tax Growth
Add locations without adding fees. Free for HMS merchants.