Homebase vs. Papershift

At a glance

Best for

Best for a small business with hourly staff at one or a few sites, where a per-location price beats paying per employee.

Small and mid-sized

Papershift

Best for

Best for small and medium-sized businesses with shift-based staff who want rotas, clock-ins, absences and a DATEV or LODAS payroll export in one cloud system.

Small and mid-sized

Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.

Full Comparison

Criterion	Homebase	Papershift
Starting price	Free plan; Essentials $30 / location / month The free Basic plan covers one location and up to ten employees. Paid plans are per location per month with unlimited employees: Essentials $30, Plus $70, All-in-One $120. Payroll adds $49 a month plus $6 per employee, Tip Manager $25 and Task Manager $13 per location per month.	Not stated
Free trial	14-day free trial of the All-in-One plan, no credit card required	14-day free trial of all features
Team size	Priced per location per month, unlimited employees on the paid plans	Not stated
Users	Small businesses with hourly staff in restaurants, retail, beauty and wellness, medical and veterinary practices, home services, hospitality, education and caregiving	Small and medium-sized businesses with shift-based work; the vendor names hospitality, healthcare, retail and production
API	Yes, API access for custom integrations on the All-in-One plan	Public API documented at developers.papershift.com; access is activated on request
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a tablet time clock	Cloud, in the browser, with the Plan app for Android and iOS and a time clock app for iPad and Android tablets; the pricing page lists GDPR-compliant data storage with EU hosting
Made in	Not stated	Germany
Shift planning and templates	Weekly schedule building on the free Basic plan, advanced scheduling from Essentials and an AI-powered scheduling assistant from Plus	Online roster across locations, departments and teams, with shifts created in the calendar, recurring shifts, copied weeks, work schedules and a required number of employees per shift. The pricing page lists rule-based automatic shift allocation from Premium and fully automated roster allocation in Professional; the help article on automatic assignment names the Professional package and uses availabilities, target hours and working areas
Shift swaps and open shifts	Employees trade, cover and claim open shifts, from the Essentials plan	Employees apply for open shifts in the Plan app, and assign themselves where the planner allows it. Assigned shifts can be released for trading to colleagues in the same working area who are free at that time, who are notified by email; if the colleague already has a shift then, an admin makes the trade
Availability and time off	Availability and time-off requests from Essentials; Plus adds a team-wide time-off dashboard and PTO policies that track accruals and balances	Employees enter one-off or recurring availabilities in the calendar, which planners see while scheduling. Absence requests for holidays, sick days and other absence types go through approval processes, with vacation entitlements, a team absence calendar, alerts on overlapping absences and blocked holiday periods; the pricing page lists blackout periods in Professional
Time clock and attendance	Time clock on tablets, computers and point-of-sale devices with PIN, photo and GPS or geofence verification, timesheets that flag missed punches, breaks and overtime, availability and time-off requests, shift trading and cover from Essentials, and 90 days of timesheet storage on the free plan	Clock-ins through a time clock app on iPad and Android tablets with PIN, signature or IP authentication, a browser time clock and the mobile app, synchronised in real time. Timesheets are created from the roster or from clock-in times, can carry job or client names, and are edited and approved under custom user rights
Labour cost and forecasting	Labour cost management on All-in-One, with overtime alerts, reports on activity, sales and labour costs, and schedules built against forecasted sales and custom labour targets	A reports module for custom reports such as sick leave hours per month, hours worked per shift type or staff costs per project, and an Insights add-on that shows Papershift data in graphical reports
Breaks, overtime and labour rules	Custom overtime and break preferences from Essentials, with the option for staff to waive breaks; the HR and compliance package on All-in-One notifies about changes to federal and state labour laws	Custom rules for overtime and required rest periods, employee-specific break rules and an automatic break feature, scheduled against contracted hours, maximum weekly or monthly hours, and warning notifications for back-to-back scheduling. Advanced break logic is listed from Premium
Payroll export and integration	Payroll integrations with providers such as ADP, Paychex, Gusto and QuickBooks, or Homebase's own payroll add-on, available on every plan and fed from the timesheets	Professional calculates pay types and allowances such as night, Sunday and public holiday supplements and exports to DATEV and LODAS with a flexible payroll period. A payroll add-on calculates wages including bonuses from tracked time, and the vendor names a monthly report to import into payroll software
Team messaging and notifications	Real-time team messaging, custom messenger channels and announcements from Essentials, with automated reminders and notifications to employees	Published rotas are sent to employees with an optional message, individual working times go out by email, and saving a shift can notify everyone assigned to it. Shift trades send email notifications, and a Slack integration shares information about shifts and absences
Platforms and mobile app	Web and iOS and Android apps, with a time clock on tablets, computers and point-of-sale devices and location-based clock-in on the mobile app	Web app in current Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge on Windows, Mac and Linux, the Plan app for Android and iOS, and a time clock app for iPad and Android tablets
Integrations and API	Point-of-sale and payroll connectors including Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, Shopify, PAR, GoDaddy, ADP, Paychex, Gusto, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, Heartland and SurePayroll, with API access for custom integrations on the All-in-One plan	Public API with endpoints for absences, absence types, accounts, availabilities, evaluations, locations, payrolls, shifts, shift assignments, tags, target hours, time tracking, uploads, users, vacation entitlements and working areas, with rate limiting; it is activated on request. Integrations listed in the marketplace include Personio, CharlieHR, bookingkit, FareHarbor, EasySecure, sevdesk and Slack, plus Google Calendar, Outlook and iCal links
AI features	Yes	Yes
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	Chat, 24/7, Phone	Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base	more entries Documentation and knowledge base, Guided onboarding
Company size	Small and mid-sized	Small and mid-sized
Integrations	Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, Shopify, PAR, GoDaddy, ADP, Paychex, Gusto, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, Heartland, SurePayroll	more entries Personio, CharlieHR, bookingkit, FareHarbor, EasySecure, curaMED, Opushero, Oneteam, sevdesk, Slack, DATEV, LODAS, Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal

Compare more tools

Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.

The short version

Key Differences

Free trial Homebase 14-day free trial of the All-in-One plan, no credit card required Papershift 14-day free trial of all features
Hosting Homebase Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a tablet time clock Papershift Cloud, in the browser, with the Plan app for Android and iOS and a time clock app for iPad and Android tablets; the pricing page lists GDPR-compliant data storage with EU hosting
Support Homebase Chat, 24/7, Phone Papershift Email helpdesk, Phone, Chat
Users Homebase Small businesses with hourly staff in restaurants, retail, beauty and wellness, medical and veterinary practices, home services, hospitality, education and caregiving Papershift Small and medium-sized businesses with shift-based work; the vendor names hospitality, healthcare, retail and production
API Homebase Yes, API access for custom integrations on the All-in-One plan Papershift Public API documented at developers.papershift.com; access is activated on request

Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.

The trade-offs

Strengths and Limitations

Homebase

Strengths

Priced per location with unlimited employees, so the bill does not grow with the roster
A genuinely free plan for one location with up to ten employees
The time clock verifies punches by PIN, photo and GPS or geofence, including on point-of-sale devices
Payroll, hiring, HR compliance and tip pooling sit in the same product as the schedule

Limitations

Departments, permissions and PTO policies need Plus; HR compliance, labour cost controls and API access need All-in-One
Payroll, Tip Manager and Task Manager are separately priced add-ons on top of the plan
The free plan stops at one location, ten employees and 90 days of timesheet history
No client invoicing: hours are built for payroll rather than for billing work

Papershift

Strengths

Shift planning, time tracking, absences and payroll preparation in one cloud system
Time clock app for iPad and Android tablets with PIN, signature or IP authentication
DATEV and LODAS payroll export in the Professional plan
Documented public API covering shifts, time tracking, absences and payrolls

Limitations

A monthly base fee of 39 euros applies on top of every plan
The English pricing page shows the per-employee amounts with a dollar sign while the base fee is stated in euros
Automated roster allocation and the DATEV export are limited to the upper plans
API access is activated through a request to the vendor rather than self-serve

Plans

Pricing

Homebase

Basic $0 Per location per month, for one location with up to ten employees. Scheduling and time tracking, a time clock on tablets, computers and point-of-sale devices, timesheets with 90 days of storage, point-of-sale integration and 24/7 AI chat support.
Essentials $30 Per location per month, unlimited employees. Everything in Basic plus advanced scheduling and time tracking, custom overtime and break preferences, availability and time-off requests, shift trading and cover, team messaging and live chat and phone support.
Plus $70 Per location per month, unlimited employees. Everything in Essentials plus an AI-powered scheduling assistant, a team-wide time-off dashboard, departments and permissions, and PTO policy automation.
All-in-One $120 Per location per month, unlimited employees. Everything in Plus plus employee onboarding and paperwork, certified HR advisers, HR compliance and handbooks, labour cost management with overtime alerts, business insights and API access for custom integrations.
Add-ons Not stated Payroll $49 a month plus $6 per employee, Tip Manager $25 per location per month, Task Manager $13 per location per month, background checks $30 per check, job post boosts from $50 per post and a Hiring Assistant from $99 a month.

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Papershift

Core Not stated Per employee per month plus the monthly base fee. Digital time tracking via smartphone, tablet or browser, absence management, target hours, employee profiles and self-service, document management, employee-specific break rules and EU hosting.
Premium Not stated Per employee per month plus the monthly base fee. All Core features, plus digital rota planning, rule-based automatic shift allocation, custom working time models, multi-site planning and advanced break logic.
Professional Not stated Per employee per month plus the monthly base fee. All Premium features, plus fully automated roster allocation, holiday blackout periods, roster confirmation workflows, timesheet processing, pay types and allowances, DATEV and LODAS export, custom reports, an audit trail and location templates.
Enterprise Not stated Individual offer for larger companies, with tailored modules, integration through the open API and personal onboarding.

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What users say

Review Scores · opens after launch

Homebase

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.

Papershift

Ease of use: Not rated yet
User interface: Not rated yet
Onboarding: Not rated yet
Support and service: Not rated yet
Value for money: Not rated yet
Features: Not rated yet

No reviews yet. Nothing has been published here yet, and no score is shown. How a review is checked before it appears is described below.

How we check reviews

Before sending, the author has to confirm three things: that they have used the product themselves, that they work neither for the vendor nor for a competitor, and that nobody is paying them for the review. We also ask whether the vendor invited them to write it. That answer is required, either answer is accepted, and it stays with the review.

Every review is read by a person before it appears. An email address is required and is confirmed: we send a link to it, and a review does not reach us until the author opens that link, so a review has a sender who was reachable at least once rather than being anonymous. Where what somebody writes needs backing, we ask them for evidence that they used the product, and a review that does not get it is not published. We publish positive and negative reviews alike, we pay nothing and offer nothing for a review, and we accept none that was bought or incentivised.

What we cannot do is verify a purchase. There is no shop here and no account, so whether the author really used the tool rests on their own declaration, on whatever we ask them for, and on the plausibility of what they write. We say so rather than implying a check that does not exist.

A vendor cannot buy a review, and cannot have one removed or changed because they dislike it. We remove or edit a review only if it breaks our rules or the law, for example a false statement of fact. Paid placement has no effect on which reviews appear or on any score.

Read the full version on our methodology page

Where this comes from

Homebase https://joinhomebase.com · checked against the official source on 2026-09-16

Papershift https://www.papershift.com/en · checked against the official source on 2026-11-08

This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.