Deputy vs Homebase
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Deputy
This app streamlines workforce management by simplifying employee scheduling, time tracking, and team communication. It helps businesses create cost-effective schedules, manage leave requests, and ensure compliance. Employees can easily view their schedules, manage availability, and clock in/out.
- Create balanced, cost-effective schedules
- Publish shift information via push notification, email, SMS
- Fill open shifts easily
- Approve leave and shift changes
- Manage team communications and tasks
- Time and attendance tracking with GPS validation
- Integrates with over 300+ solutions
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Deputy is the ultimate employee scheduling app, shift planner, staff timesheet app, & complete workforce management solution. Get started for free today! Over 250,000 workplaces in 90+ countries trust Deputy for their employee scheduling software, leave management, time & attendance tracking, team task management, staff communication, demand forecasting and performance management. HOW DEPUTY HELPS BUSINESSES ◆ Easily create balanced, cost-effective schedules in minutes from any device. ◆ Publish personalized shift information to your team via push notification, email, and SMS. ◆ Fill open shifts easily by pushing alerts to your team and letting them pick up available shifts. ◆ Approve leave from your mobile easily so you're never caught off guard. ◆ Quickly approve employee shift swaps and shift changes in seconds straight from a mobile device. ◆ Manage team communications easily in one place: broadcast announcements, assign tasks to specific individuals / shifts, and get confirmation that your team has seen it. ◆ Get greater insight and control of your business, and keep yourself compliant with inbuilt fair workweek compliance. ◆ Connect with your existing apps to give you end-to-end visibility. Deputy syncs with over 300+ of the world's most used solutions such as ADP, Square, QuickBooks, Xero, Gusto, NetSuite, Revel, LightSpeed and many more! HOW DEPUTY HELPS EMPLOYEES ◆ Get your work schedule on your device as soon as it’s published. ◆ View all your upcoming shifts in one place and receive alerts on days when you’re due to work. ◆ Manage your availability and time off easily, see what’s approved, and make it simple for your manager to know when you are and aren’t available. ◆ Clock in and out of work quickly from the app. ◆ See important company updates, manage your tasks and communicate with your team from your mobile device. TRY DEPUTY TODAY Setting up your business? Sign up for a free trial today. No setup fee. Pick the plan to suit your business: monthly, annually or flexi. Always know that you have the right people scheduled with our Shift Planner: Deputy makes it easy to create fully costed schedules in minutes, then notify staff when they’re working. Deputy will even automatically remind employees of their shifts on the morning that they are due to work. Manage employees’ leave requests or unavailability from a central location, then integrate with your online schedules so there’s no risk of scheduling someone who is not available. Need to be smart about staffing levels? Deputy integrates with your POS & payroll information to make sure you’re scheduling efficiently, and pulls in real-time weather information so you know if you need extra shifts or not! Clocking in to work is made simple with our time clock software, including GPS validation, to quickly track time and attendance (or optionally from a tablet Kiosk, using our inbuilt facial detection technology). Finalizing your timesheets and exporting to payroll can be done with one click from your mobile device. Joining an existing team? It's free - just log in. CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS “Straightaway, the time and attendance headache disappeared. There’s no need to manually enter data from one system to another. It’s all uploaded effortlessly. And on our tablets or phones, we can sign off timesheets with a swipe." "Everyone gets alerted to their shifts, which they can check on their smartphones. Everyone knows where they should be, when they should be there and what they should be doing." "Deputy has been a revelation for our business. We’re saving approximately $30,000 a year in admin costs alone. But even more importantly, we’re now able to optimize all shifts and staffing levels." ABOUT DEPUTY APP Our staff scheduling app is updated regularly to make sure we’re always providing the best and most flexible features to the businesses we work with. Any feedback? Need help? Email experience+ios@deputy.com Terms of Use: https://www.deputy.com/subscription-agreement
Homebase
Manage employee schedules, track time and attendance, and streamline payroll for your small business. This app helps owners save time on HR tasks, hiring, and team management, integrating with popular payroll providers.
- Employee scheduling and shift planning
- Time clock and attendance tracking
- Payroll management and paycheck processing
- HR and hiring tools
- Shift reminders and time-off requests
- Integration with payroll providers
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Homebase is the easy-to-use app for small business owners who need to build work schedules, set up a time clock, manage payroll, hire employees, manage HR and more. Join 150,000+ small businesses already using Homebase to run their hourly teams, and save 5+ hours every month! Homebase is more than just an employee scheduling app. With Homebase, you can manage payroll, track employee hours, let your team clock in and out, build schedules with our schedule planner, manage costs, and monitor sales — all in one place. Your team's hours are sent automatically to timesheets, so you can review them for payroll. Homebase payroll makes it easy to pay your team. Our payroll tools save you hours and include built-in compliance monitoring. Build and share employee schedules in minutes. Manage multiple teams, approve time off requests, & enable shift trades. Create schedule planner templates or use our AI scheduling assistant to save even more time. Trusted at scale: 1.3B+ hours tracked, 7M+ paychecks processed, and $5B+ in payroll run through Homebase. Homebase has been recognized for small business time clock, payroll, and employee management: Best Payroll Services 2026, Forbes Best Employee Time Clock Software Reviewed in 2026, People Managing People Best Employee Scheduling Software 2025, B2B Reviews Best Payroll Services for 2025, PC Mag Best workforce scheduling software for small businesses – Zendesk Best overall time clock for small business 2025 – Fit Small Business Best for Overall Experience, Best Employee Scheduling Software – Business.com “Best employee communication tool ever!” - Theresa Fouquette, Owner, Bliss Small Batch Creamery “I’m saving hundreds of hours.” – Primo Stropoli, owner of Tetta’s Market Employee scheduling for small businesses is easier with Homebase. Manage shifts, payroll, HR, hiring, timesheets, team attendance and more from your phone. Download Homebase today! HOMEBASE FEATURES EMPLOYEE PAYCHECK & PAYROLL MANAGEMENT - Payroll management made simple with automated calculations - Generate employee time clock sheets with our payroll app - Handle time clock sheets and paycheck processing right in the app -Payroll app that works with providers like Gusto, Intuit QuickBooks Online Payroll, or Square SMALL BUSINESS SHIFT SCHEDULING APP - Use templates to quickly build & share schedules - Send shift reminders through our schedule planner - Use an employee availability schedule tracker - Manage time-off requests for each employee EMPLOYEES CAN CLOCK IN & OUT WITH ATTENDANCE TRACKING - See employee scheduling, hours, breaks, overtime, clock-in, and clock-out time - Get time clock alerts when employees are approaching overtime - Clock in with top POS systems like Clover, Square, Toast, & more TEAM ATTENDANCE & SCHEDULE PLANNER - Payroll & scheduling that work together to get wages right - Clock in and clock out directly with Homebase small business scheduling tools - See shift notes, expected earnings, & employee scheduling in one place - See time clock data, time-off requests, & shift trades EMPLOYEE & TEAM COMMUNICATION - Create group chats & connect with the team - Message employees & coworkers across your company HOMEBASE PLANS - Basic plan free for up to 10 employees - Essentials $24.49/mo with advanced employee scheduling - Plus $59.99/mo with hiring & PTO tracking - All-in-One $99.95/mo with hiring, onboarding & HR - Payroll, Tip Manager, Task Manager, & more available to add to any plan Subscribe to a paid plan for more features. The Account charges payment upon confirmation of purchase. Subscription automatically renews unless turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be disabled at any time in your settings after purchase. For more info, see the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Get support via phone, email, & chat. Terms of use: https://app.joinhomebase.com/terms Privacy policy: https://app.joinhomebase.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Deputy at none against Homebase's shown. Deputy also leads on device support (3 vs 1). Homebase's advantage is review sentiment (76% vs 59%) and ratings volume (97K vs 6.2K). On price, rating, update cadence and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Deputy sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $59.99 per month and Homebase sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $30.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Deputy against 4.8 for Homebase. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Homebase has 97K ratings behind it against 6.2K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 59% of Deputy's written reviews are positive against 76% of Homebase's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Deputy | Homebase |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (6.2K ratings) — better | 4.8 (97K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 59.2% of reviews | 76.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 6.2K | 97K — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Weekly |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #208 | #56 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 289 MB | 188 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Deputy.com | Pioneer Works, Inc. |
Customer experience
Deputy
Homebase
User reviews
Deputy
From 6.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use
- 👍 Convenient for scheduling and timekeeping
- 👍 Helpful for managing staff
- 👍 Reliable and efficient
Room to improve
- 🐛 Glitches and bugs
- 🐛 Unreliable location tracking
- 🐛 Inconsistent performance after updates
- 🔍 Limited customization options
- 💰 Expensive for some businesses
Homebase
From 97K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use
- 🚀 Convenient features
- 💰 Helpful cash out option
- 📅 Useful scheduling and shift management
- 💬 Good communication tools
Room to improve
- 🐛 Glitches and bugs
- 🔁 Inconsistent performance
- 🔒 Location access issues
- 💬 Notification problems
- 🗓️ Limited calendar/schedule view options
Bugs and requests
Deputy
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes or freezes frequently
- Timesheets not accurately recording hours worked
- Shift scheduling issues after updates
- Notification system not reliable
Requested features
5 requests- Add ability to cancel shifts
- Improve communication features between employees
- Provide more detailed reporting and analytics
- Allow employees to view their leave balances
- Integrate with more payroll/HR systems
Homebase
Reported bugs
4 issues- Inconsistent location access
- Unresolved message notification issues
- Freezing/crashing on login or clock-in
- Delayed app updates and sync issues
Requested features
5 requests- Improved calendar/schedule view options
- Direct message reply functionality
- Ability to delete chat threads
- Automatic read notification clearing
- Shift-level details in shift trading
In-app purchases
Deputy
- 10 users1 Month trial$59.991 Month
- 25 users1 Month trial$144.991 Month
Homebase
- Homebase Essentials Plan$30.001 Month
- Homebase Plus Plan$70.001 Month
- Homebase Essentials Annual$289.001 Year
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- Homebase Plus Plan Annual$669.991 Year









