Homebase vs. RotaCloud

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

RotaCloud

Best for

Best for UK businesses with shift-based staff that want rota planning, holiday and absence in one tool and payroll handed to their existing software.

Small and mid-sized

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

Full Comparison

Criterion	Homebase	RotaCloud
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.	From £10 / month Standard plan for 1 to 5 employees, billed monthly, or £120 a year billed yearly. The price rises with the number of employees, counting all users, admins and managers; above 500 employees the vendor quotes a custom price. Time & Attendance and SMS notifications are add-ons.
Free trial	14-day free trial of the All-in-One plan, no credit card required	30-day free trial, no payment information required
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	Growing businesses with shift-based staff; the vendor names restaurants, cafes and bars, hotels, care homes, retail, healthcare, dental practices, vets, leisure, security services and professional services
API	Yes, API access for custom integrations on the All-in-One plan	Yes, a REST API with bearer-token authentication and webhooks
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a tablet time clock	Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps
Made in	Not stated	United Kingdom
Shift planning and templates	Weekly schedule building on the free Basic plan, advanced scheduling from Essentials and an AI-powered scheduling assistant from Plus	Drag-and-drop rota planner with unlimited rotas and locations, templates applied across any date range, copying of single weeks, months or blocks of shifts, rolling patterns such as 2-on-2-off, customisable roles with hourly or per-shift rates, and shift and day notes; Pro adds bulk actions across many shifts
Shift swaps and open shifts	Employees trade, cover and claim open shifts, from the Essentials plan	Staff arrange shift swaps or request to drop shifts in the app, and open shifts are sent to all eligible staff, who claim them either first come first served or with a manager approval step
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	Availability patterns set by staff or by a manager and shown on the rota while planning, holiday management with leave shown on the rota, time off in lieu, and sickness and absence tracking; Pro adds custom rules for leave requests
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	Time & Attendance add-on: clocking in and out of shifts and breaks on the staff's phones or on a tablet terminal with PIN entry and optional photos, with geofencing, GPS logging, Wi-Fi restrictions and rules for early clock-ins, feeding automatic timesheets that compare scheduled and worked hours and flag lateness
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	Daily, weekly and monthly labour costs while the rota is built on every plan; Pro adds labour forecasting as a percentage of expected sales and budget caps per rota, department or location, with revenue data entered by hand or synced from Tevalis
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	Contracted hours tallied against each employee as shifts are added, breaks recorded on the timesheet, and pay rules for early clock-ins, late clock-outs and rounding of hours; overtime appears in the payroll report
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	A payroll report per pay period with hours, overtime, paid and unpaid leave and total pay, open to manual adjustments before export as a Sage-formatted file or CSV, or sent directly to Staffology or PayCaptain
Team messaging and notifications	Real-time team messaging, custom messenger channels and announcements from Essentials, with automated reminders and notifications to employees	Email and push notifications for shift updates on every plan, shift acknowledgements, open-shift notifications, and shift and day notes on the rota; SMS notifications are an add-on that also lets staff text in for their next shift
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 an up-to-date browser on Mac or Windows, free mobile apps for staff and managers, and a free clocking-in terminal 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	REST API covering shifts, swap requests, availability, leave, terminals, clock-ins and payroll periods, with webhooks; integrations with Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort and calendar feeds for Outlook, Google and Apple
AI features	stated Yes	No
Deployment	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based
Support	more entries Chat, 24/7, Phone	Chat, Phone
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base	Not stated
Company size	Small and mid-sized	Small and mid-sized
Integrations	more entries Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, Shopify, PAR, GoDaddy, ADP, Paychex, Gusto, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, Heartland, SurePayroll	Sage, Staffology, PayCaptain, Tevalis, Zapier, People HR, Breathe HR, IdencyTime, Optix, Care Consort, Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar

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

Starting price Homebase Free plan; Essentials $30 / location / month RotaCloud From £10 / month
Free trial Homebase 14-day free trial of the All-in-One plan, no credit card required RotaCloud 30-day free trial, no payment information required
Hosting Homebase Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a tablet time clock RotaCloud Cloud, in the browser, with free mobile apps
Support Homebase Chat, 24/7, Phone RotaCloud Chat, Phone
AI features Homebase Yes RotaCloud No

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

RotaCloud

Strengths

30-day free trial with no payment information required
Monthly or yearly billing with no setup fees and no long-term contract
Open shifts can go to the first claimant or through a manager approval step
Payroll data exported for Sage or sent directly to Staffology and PayCaptain
Tablet clocking-in terminal runs on an iPad or Android tablet the business already owns

Limitations

Clocking in and timesheets need the paid Time & Attendance add-on
Labour forecasting against sales and budget caps are limited to the Pro plan
Sales data syncs automatically only from Tevalis; otherwise it is entered by hand
Payroll itself is not run in RotaCloud; data goes to separate payroll software

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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RotaCloud

Standard £10 / month Price shown for 1 to 5 employees, billed monthly, or £120 a year billed yearly; it rises with the number of employees. Rota planning, templates, labour costs, holiday and absence management, shift swapping, availability, reports, mobile apps, and live chat and phone support.
Pro £15 / month Price shown for 1 to 5 employees, billed monthly, or £180 a year billed yearly; it rises with the number of employees. Adds bulk actions, labour forecasting, budget caps, document storage, leave request rules, secure share links, a logbook and enforced two-factor authentication.

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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.

RotaCloud

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

RotaCloud https://rotacloud.com · checked against the official source on 2026-11-05

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