Buddy Punch Review

Buddy Punch sells one thing well: an auditable record of who was where, when. It is not a scheduler with a clock bolted on, and the pricing shows it, because scheduling is a $1 per user add-on on Starter and an included feature only from Pro. Toolradar data: Connecteam ranks second among the 107 time tracking tools in Toolradar's October 2026 ranking, the software directory we run, and it is the rival with a free Small Business plan for up to 10 users, which Buddy Punch has never offered.

This review prices Starter, Pro and Advanced against Homebase, Connecteam, OnTheClock and QuickBooks Time for a 10-person and a 25-person crew, and it adds up the per-user add-ons that turn a $7 plan into a $12 one. Every price was read on the vendor's own pricing page in October 2026.

Buddy Punch is a cloud time clock for hourly teams. Employees punch in from a phone, a browser, a shared kiosk, a QR code or iOS Face ID, and each punch can carry GPS coordinates, a webcam photo and a note. Managers approve time cards, set overtime and break rules, round punches, lock punches to devices, IP addresses or time windows, and export hours to payroll providers or accounting tools. Scheduling, real-time GPS, onboarding checklists and extended data retention are sold as per-user add-ons or bundled into the higher tiers.

The buyer is a construction, cleaning, landscaping, healthcare or retail operator with staff on several sites who wants fewer disputes over hours. A team that mostly needs rotas, shift swaps and team chat is better served by a scheduler-first tool such as Homebase or Connecteam, and our time clock software ranking sets the two camps side by side.

Sign-up opens a 14-day trial of the full feature set with no card. When it ends, the account needs a paid plan, because there is no free tier. Billing is a per-user fee plus a base fee each month, paid monthly or annually, and the annual rate is the cheaper one. Only active employees and managers count as paid users; administrators are free and unlimited, and a seasonal worker can be set inactive without being deleted.

Day to day, workers punch from the mobile app or a kiosk tablet, and the rules you set do the policing: automatic breaks, automatic punch-outs after a shift or a set duration, punches limited to a time window or a geofence, and alerts to managers when something is off. Time cards go through an approval workflow and then out to payroll by integration, or through Buddy Punch's own payroll add-on with tax filing and direct deposit.

Buddy Punch lists three plans per user per month: Starter at $4.99, Pro at $6.99 and Advanced at $12.99 on annual billing, about a dollar more each when billed monthly, each plus the $19 base fee per month. The add-ons are per user too: scheduling $1, real-time GPS, advanced reporting and data retention $2 each, and onboarding tasks $4, with Pro and Advanced bundling some of them. Payroll is $49 a month plus $8 per user. Prices were checked in October 2026 on the Buddy Punch pricing page.

Scenario one, a 10-person crew that wants geofences and a kiosk, so Pro on annual billing: the base fee plus $69.90 in user fees comes to $88.90 a month, or $98.90 billed monthly. The same crew pays $45 on OnTheClock ($5 base plus $4 per employee), $30 per location on Homebase Essentials billed monthly ($24 on an annual plan), $29 a month on Connecteam's Operations Basic yearly plan, and $120 on QuickBooks Time Premium ($20 base plus $10 per user). Connecteam's Small Business plan would cover this crew for free.

Scenario two, 25 people across three sites on Pro annual: the base fee plus $174.75 is $193.75 a month, and $343.75 on Advanced. Homebase Essentials costs $90 for three locations, Connecteam Basic stays at the same flat rate up to 30 users, OnTheClock is $105, and QuickBooks Time Premium is $270. Buddy Punch is the second most expensive option at both headcounts, and the gap to the flat-rate tools widens with every hire.

Three things move the bill. The base fee is the same on every plan, so it weighs most on a 3-person team. Add-ons are per user, so Starter plus scheduling, reporting and retention costs about as much as Pro. And the annual discount only applies if you can commit, since an annual account cannot drop back to monthly until the term ends. Methodology: list prices read on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026, in USD before tax, with the arithmetic shown. Competitor prices come from the Homebase, Connecteam, OnTheClock and QuickBooks Time pricing pages.

Buy Buddy Punch for a crew of 5 to 20 hourly workers spread across job sites, where the GPS stamp, the geofence and the photo on each punch are the reason to pay, and the schedule is simple enough for the built-in builder. Construction, cleaning and home care fit, and our construction time clock ranking covers the first group in detail.

Skip it above 20 users if your sites are fixed addresses. Homebase charges per location with unlimited staff, and Connecteam charges one price for the first 30 users, so a 25-person restaurant or store pays a fraction of the Buddy Punch bill. Our Connecteam pricing guide and Homebase vs Deputy comparison price those two models at several headcounts.

Skip it too if the budget is zero. There is no free tier, and the free time clock apps we track, Homebase Basic for 10 people and Connecteam Small Business for 10, carry a clock with GPS at no cost. A team that needs time tracking by project rather than attendance belongs on our time tracking software ranking instead.