Homebase vs. Rotaready Evo

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

Rotaready Evo

Best for

Best for hospitality groups that want rotas, time and attendance and HR in one app, with wage costs and sales forecasts visible while the rota is built.

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

Full Comparison

Criterion	Homebase	Rotaready Evo
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	Not stated
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	Hospitality businesses
API	Yes, API access for custom integrations on the All-in-One plan	Open API and webhooks in the Premium plan
Hosting	Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a tablet time clock	Cloud, with iPhone and Android mobile apps
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 editor with automated rota scheduling, a rota approval process, notable events, a local 10-day weather forecast and an audit history of all changes, listed on all three plans
Shift swaps and open shifts	Employees trade, cover and claim open shifts, from the Essentials plan	Shift swaps and Shift Broadcast are listed on all three plans, and the vendor names shift swaps and absence requests among the tools in the employee app
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, absence and time off, holiday allowances and allowances for any absence type, with automatic holiday accrual from time and attendance
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-in via GPS, PIN code or photo capture, by tablet or mobile, with attendance matched automatically to shifts, automatic issue detection, rounding with custom rules, overtime tracking and approval, and an audited sign-off process
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	Live labour calculations while the rota is built, budgeting, custom sales and revenue streams, forecast against actual against budget, and tracking of wages, hours, sales, wage percentage, covers and covers per labour hour. Pro + Forecasting and Premium add sales predictions from historical sales, weather, reservations, notable events and holidays, including pooled data from industry peers
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	Automatic application of pay and break policies, live validation of every change and Working Time regulations compliance, listed on all three plans
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	Timesheets with overtime and breaks export to third-party payroll providers, with integrations named for payroll systems such as Sage Payroll, BrightPay, PayCaptain and Xero, and a fully managed payroll bureau at extra cost
Team messaging and notifications	Real-time team messaging, custom messenger channels and announcements from Essentials, with automated reminders and notifications to employees	Real-time chat, group conversations and messaging between sites, email, SMS and push notifications, and Engage Lite, a feed for posting updates and tagging colleagues
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	Cloud-based, with iPhone and Android mobile apps and clock-ins by tablet or mobile. Multiple languages on all plans; multiple time zones and currencies in Premium
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	Open API and webhooks in Premium, together with single sign-on through Google and Azure and Sign-in with Rotaready over OIDC. The vendor names real-time integrations with EPoS, reservations, payroll, applicant tracking, training and tips systems, including Tenzo, ICRTouch, OpenTable, NCR Aloha, Zonal, Lightspeed, ResDiary, SevenRooms and Epos Now
AI features	Yes	Yes
Deployment	more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based	Cloud (SaaS)
Support	Chat, 24/7, Phone	Not stated
Onboarding	Documentation and knowledge base	Documentation and knowledge base
Company size	Small and mid-sized	Not stated
Integrations	Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed, Shopify, PAR, GoDaddy, ADP, Paychex, Gusto, QuickBooks, Square Payroll, Heartland, SurePayroll	more entries Tenzo, ICRTouch, Talent Funnel, Comtrex, OpenTable, NCR Aloha, eploy, Tevalis, Monotree, Zonal, Tayl, Centera, Clover, Recruit Genie, PayCaptain, Goodtill by SumUp, PointOne, Epos Now, Staffbase, CPL, Lightspeed K Series, ResDiary, Newbridge, Sage Payroll, TiPJAR, Wagestream, Workvivo, SevenRooms, Yapster, Guestline Rezlynx, Xero, Azuronaut, BrightPay, Temtailor, Lightspeed, Flow Hospitality

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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

Deployment Homebase Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Rotaready Evo Cloud (SaaS)
Hosting Homebase Cloud (SaaS), with iOS and Android apps and a tablet time clock Rotaready Evo Cloud, with iPhone and Android mobile apps
Users Homebase Small businesses with hourly staff in restaurants, retail, beauty and wellness, medical and veterinary practices, home services, hospitality, education and caregiving Rotaready Evo Hospitality businesses
API Homebase Yes, API access for custom integrations on the All-in-One plan Rotaready Evo Open API and webhooks in the Premium plan
Shift planning and templates Homebase Weekly schedule building on the free Basic plan, advanced scheduling from Essentials and an AI-powered scheduling assistant from Plus Rotaready Evo Drag-and-drop rota editor with automated rota scheduling, a rota approval process, notable events, a local 10-day weather forecast and an audit history of all changes, listed on all three plans

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

Rotaready Evo

Strengths

Wage percentage, covers per labour hour and forecast against budget shown while the rota is built
Clock-in via GPS, PIN code or photo capture, matched automatically with shifts
The vendor states its integrations with EPoS, reservations and payroll systems are included free
Chat, group conversations and messaging between sites on every plan

Limitations

No amounts appear in the pricing page text; the monthly cost comes from a calculator
Open API, webhooks and single sign-on are limited to the Premium plan
Sales forecasting needs the Pro + Forecasting or Premium plan
The product and its integration list are built around hospitality

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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Rotaready Evo

Pro Not stated Rota scheduling, HR, wellbeing insights, time and attendance, cost control, payroll export, integrations, messaging and the mobile apps. Includes a customer success plan.
Pro + Forecasting Not stated Everything in Pro, plus sales forecasting from historical sales, weather, reservations and events.
Premium Not stated Everything in Pro + Forecasting, plus the open API and webhooks, single sign-on, and multiple time zones and currencies.

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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.

Rotaready Evo

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

Rotaready Evo https://www.theaccessgroup.com/en-gb/our-brands/rotaready-evo/ · 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.