BuddyPunch Review (2026)

Pricing (2026)

✓ Pricing re-verified 22 Oct 2026

Per user plus a base fee, re-verified on buddypunch.com/pricing on 24 September 2026 (amounts unchanged since 5 September) and again on 22 October 2026: Starter $5.99 per user a month, Pro $7.99 and Advanced $13.99, each with a $19 base fee a month. Scheduling is $1 per user on Starter (included from Pro), real-time GPS $2 per user, onboarding and task checklists $4 per user, data retention for six years $24 per user a year (listed until September as $2 per user a month), advanced reporting $2 per user; the payroll add-on is $8 per user plus a $49 base fee a month. 14-day free trial, no card.

On annual billing the per-user rates are $4.99, $6.99 and $12.99 and the base fee stays $19 a month. Administrators are free users; employees and managers count, and only active employees are billed. Advanced includes real-time GPS, advanced reporting and the onboarding/tasks add-on (listed as coming soon); the six-year data retention add-on can be bought on every plan, Advanced included. Plans change, so check the live price on their site before you buy.

Category context: Operations & Workflow. Across the 53 tools in this category that we researched with a public US-dollar price, the median entry price is $25 a month (lowest paid plan as listed, per seat where the vendor prices per seat). BuddyPunch’s entry price of $5.99 a month sits below that median. Compare pricing conditions in the Software Cost Atlas →

Correction after re-checking: Buddy Punch's help center now lists Starter at $4.99/user/mo annual ($5.99 monthly), Pro at $6.99 annual ($7.99 monthly) and Advanced/Enterprise at $12.99 annual ($13.99 monthly), all on a $19.00 base fee. So our Starter $5.49 and Enterprise $11.99 figures are out of date, and our Pro figure of $6.99 now applies only to annual billing, monthly Pro is $7.99 (re-verified 2026-07-29).

What the price did

We read BuddyPunch’s own pricing page on a schedule and keep every reading, so this is our record of the page. It is not a forecast, and not someone else’s summary. A change appears here only after we confirmed the new price on the page itself.

What the pricing page doesn’t say

The catch

Two further limits come from Buddy Punch's own documentation. The free administrator seat cannot clock its own time, so a working owner pays for a second login. And outbound webhooks do not yet cover punches or time cards, so a payroll or HR system that needs live punch events has to poll the API instead.

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What BuddyPunch does

Time clock and employee time tracking for hourly teams. Track hours, breaks, PTO and overtime with GPS and photo punch-in, and export payroll-ready reports.

What buyers report about BuddyPunch

Hands-on: tested 2026-10-29Reported by buyers: G2 and Capterra, read August 2026

Themes from the buyer-review sites listed at the foot of this page, read in August 2026. We tested BuddyPunch ourselves on 2026-10-29, but one test is a narrow sample, so here is what other buyers report. We summarise it here because the complaints are usually the part a vendor page leaves out.

When the paid plan is worth it

Buddy Punch's help center documents three tiers, all carrying the same $19.00 monthly base fee. Starter is $4.99/user/month on annual billing or $5.99/user/month monthly, Pro $6.99 annual or $7.99 monthly, and the top tier (headed Advanced, priced as Enterprise) $12.99 annual or $13.99 monthly. The biggest jump is Pro to Advanced, where the per-user rate nearly doubles and what it buys is Real-Time GPS at no extra cost, dedicated enterprise support and SSO via Okta, OneLogin and SAML 2.0.

API access is already included in Pro, so that step only pays for itself if you need enterprise SSO or the dedicated support line: Real-Time GPS is a $2 per user/month add-on on Pro. The cheaper Starter-to-Pro step adds QR code, PIN and kiosk punching, webcam photos on punches, API access and scheduling at no additional cost; scheduling alone is a $1 per user/month add-on on Starter, so a team that only wants shifts can stay on Starter.

Upgrading does not change billing mechanics: users added beyond your initial count are billed prorated, with no refunds or credits when the count drops. Payroll is a separate add-on at $8 per user/month plus a $49 monthly base. Set against two rivals in our files, the base fee decides the small-team comparison. Deputy's Lite plan is $5 per user a month on annual billing and $5.50 monthly, with a $30 minimum per invoice on monthly plans (read 19 September 2026); Connecteam's Small Business Plan is free for up to 10 users (read 22 October 2026).

For five people on monthly billing, Buddy Punch Starter is $48.95 a month, Deputy Lite reaches its $30 minimum, and Connecteam costs nothing. The gap narrows as headcount grows, because the $19 base fee is spread over more people.

What we found running BuddyPunch ourselves

Hands-on · 2026-10-29

The first findings are at the top of this page. The rest:

• Each punch shows the IP address of whoever entered it, here the manager.
• The standard export ('Export to Excel' on the payroll export) is actually a CSV, with employee ID, names and hours: 1.500 and 2.000, which match our test shifts. It has no notes, emails or start and end times. The employee profile export is part of a paid add-on ($2 per user a month).
• The employee import takes eight fixed columns (username, names, email and password required). It has no notes field and no update option, so you cannot change records by importing again.
• Correction 12 November 2026: an earlier version of this review said API access is only in the Advanced plan. Buddy Punch told us, and its pricing page (read 12 November 2026) confirms, that API and MCP access are included from the Pro plan, which our trial runs on; Advanced adds higher API and MCP limits. The Change Plan screen we saw on 29 October lists API access in its Advanced summary, which we read as a gate and should not have.

Claim vs. what we measured

We set a claim from BuddyPunch's own pages next to what we saw in our test, on the plan named. The status says whether the two describe the same thing and match; it is not a verdict on the product. Confirmations are listed too.

What the vendor says	What we measured	Status	What it means if you buy
14 days for FreeSource: app.buddypunch.com, read 29 Oct 2026	Measured 2026-10-29: Pro trial via ProAnnually shows 14 days left and next billing date 11/12/2026, with no payment method.Our test, 29 Oct 2026; Pro (14-day trial)	ConfirmedCompared on the Pro trial that the signup link starts, which is not the cheapest plan.	Trial features are Pro; API and MCP access are included from Pro (vendor pricing page, read 12 Nov 2026), with higher limits on Advanced.
$4.99 / employee / month + $19.00 base fee per monthSource: buddypunch.com, read 29 Oct 2026The vendor's page no longer shows this wording (checked 2026-11-13), original claim: “$4.99 / employee / month + $19.00 base fee per month”	Measured 2026-10-29: Starter $4.99 per employee per month plus $19 base is shown on annual billing. Add a Credit Card was not opened.Our test, 29 Oct 2026; Pro (14-day trial)	Not testableStarter on annual billing as shown in the plan switcher; we did not open the card step, so the charged amount is not checked.	No checkout total or tax verified.

Exit test: can you take your data out?

Created two test employees and synthetic punches, then exported payroll hours on the Pro trial. Test date: 29 Oct 2026. We describe the friction rather than score it; this is one run with synthetic records, not a verdict on BuddyPunch.

What we checked	What we saw
Came along in the export	Both Employee Id values and Unicode names survive; hours match the synthetic shifts.
Lost in the export	The standard hours CSV omits employee free text, hire date, email and shift start/end timestamps.
Awkward but not lost	Export to Excel produces CSV. Employee Profile Details requires the Advanced Reporting paid add-on. Welcome email is enabled by default in both setup and the employee form; it was switched off before saving.
Export route	Time Cards > Export > Payroll Export > Export to Excel.
Export format	UTF-8 CSV without BOM, with a pay-period line before the column headers.
Re-importing the export	The employee import has no free-text field or documented update mode; fixed free-text reimport is not offered.
Cancelling	Change Plan offers Starter and a Cancel Account route is visible. Neither was confirmed.

What the exit test does not show:

• Actual cancellation, expiry and deletion.
• Native-ID update execution.
• Unentered fields and complete signup screen count.

Kit check counts

Kit hr-schedules 1.0.0; run buddypunch-2026-10-29; observed 2026-10-29.

• export / AIBM-001: Of 10 checks: 2 kept, 0 changed, 3 lost, 5 not offered, 0 not tested
• export / AIBM-002: Of 10 checks: 2 kept, 0 changed, 3 lost, 5 not offered, 0 not tested
• reimport / AIBM-001: Of 10 checks: 0 kept, 0 changed, 0 lost, 10 not offered, 0 not tested
• reimport / AIBM-002: Of 10 checks: 0 kept, 0 changed, 0 lost, 10 not offered, 0 not tested

Each record and phase uses this kit’s checks. Counts describe this run; they are not a score or a comparison between kits.

How this compares: across our exit tests of 102 tools, 57 gave us an export file. BuddyPunch gave us a file, but some of our test data was missing or changed in it. Report 08: can you get your data out?

Mail in the first 14 days

11 emails in the 14-day window; first email after signup: unknown (exact signup time not recorded); 0 with an explicit offer.

Retained inbox and junk only; removed or archived mail is outside this observation. Ambiguous supplier attribution is excluded. Day numbers use elapsed 24-hour periods since the recorded signup date at midnight Europe/Amsterdam; the signup hour is unknown. Offer flags quote literal subject/body text. Replies in our own correspondence (support tickets, our comment requests) are excluded; one-time codes, our own address, our account name and our name are replaced in brackets.

Measured mail timeline

Day	Time (UTC)	Sender	Literal subject	Folder	Offer evidence
Day 0	2026-10-29 19:53:34 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	Welcome, [our name]! Let’s Get Started	inbox
Day 0	2026-10-29 19:57:09 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	Welcome to Buddy Punch, [our name]	inbox
Day 1	2026-10-30 19:57:12 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	2 steps to get started with Buddy Punch	inbox
Day 2	2026-10-31 19:57:20 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	[ATTENTION] - Start tracking employee time with Buddy Punch	inbox
Day 3	2026-11-01 05:06:12 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	Time Cards Ready for AI Builder Marketplace	inbox
Day 3	2026-11-01 19:47:56 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	More resources for the features you are interested in	inbox
Day 3	2026-11-01 19:57:21 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	[IMPORTANT] - Start tracking time in Buddy Punch.	inbox
Day 4	2026-11-02 19:57:20 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	[our name], follow the Buddy Punch Quick Start Guide	inbox
Day 6	2026-11-04 19:57:23 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	[our name], your account needs attention	inbox
Day 7	2026-11-05 19:42:41 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	Your Buddy Punch trial ends soon	inbox
Day 9	2026-11-07 19:58:24 UTC	BuddyPunch team / buddypunch.com	15 minutes of setup. Save hours every week.	inbox

Screenshots from our test (click to enlarge)

What this test does not show:

• Punching in from an employee login or the mobile app
• Scheduling and time off
• Payroll
• Support's answer (we emailed our three questions on 29 October)

Most of our reviews are researched rather than run. How we review explains which is which, and why we do not pretend otherwise.

Questions we are still checking

How to actually use BuddyPunch

The vendor's quick start guide reduces first value to three major steps: add employees, start tracking time, then run reports for payroll. Employees are added individually from the Employees section, or in bulk from a CSV template carrying username, first name, last name, email address, password and timezone, with administrators running the bulk upload. Usernames are shared across Buddy Punch, so a name another customer already uses will not import.

The welcome-email checkbox on the bulk import is unchecked by default, so a technically clean import can leave staff never told they have logins. Anything payroll-related is a separate onboarding of five sections: terms of service, organization details, payment setup, tax setup and filing authorizations. Linking the bank through Plaid verifies immediately, but typing account details by hand triggers a $0 prenote test transaction and may bring a request for documents proving account ownership.

The docs tie completing it to getting approved for 2-day or 3-day payroll more quickly. Shared-device punching by QR code or PIN/kiosk is not in Starter, so a breakroom-tablet setup needs Pro from the start. Check the import route with support before planning a large roll-out. The roles-and-permissions article (updated 24 December 2025) marks bulk upload of employees as something neither admins nor managers can do in the app and asks you to contact Buddy Punch support, who will run the bulk upload for you.

Before go-live, an admin should also set the account-wide rules only admins control: automatic punch-out based on hours worked or on the scheduled shift, GPS tracking during shifts, webcam photos on punches, and whether managers may see pay rates. Changing an employee's overtime rule later does not recalculate past pay periods on its own; the same article says support has to do that.

The natural comparison is Clockify or When I Work: cheaper or free time-tracking tools.

Visit BuddyPunch →

Frequently asked questions

Can you export your data from BuddyPunch?

Exit check 2026-10-29; route excerpt: Time Cards > Export > Payroll Export > Export to Excel; came along (excerpts): Both Employee Id values and Unicode names survive; lost (excerpts): The standard hours CSV omits employee free text, hire date, email and shift start/end timestamps; re-import: not tested.

What does Buddy Punch actually cost a team of three or five?

More per head than the sticker suggests, because of the base fee. Read 24 September 2026 on buddypunch.com/pricing, every plan adds a $19 monthly base fee to the per-user rate, on monthly and annual billing alike. On Starter paid monthly ($5.99 a user) three people come to $36.97 a month, about $12.32 each; five people come to $48.95, about $9.79 each. On annual Starter ($4.99) five people are $43.95 a month. Pro at $7.99 monthly puts five people at $58.95. The base fee is the same on every tier, so it weighs heaviest on the smallest teams and fades as headcount grows.

Do managers, admins and seasonal staff each need a paid seat?

Managers do, administrators and inactive staff do not. The FAQ, read 24 September 2026, names three user types: employees and managers are paid and count towards your total, administrators are free and unlimited. Only active employees count; terminated or seasonal staff can stay in the system as inactive. The catch is the seat count itself: a plan is bought for a set number of employees, you can swap people in and out within that number, and going above it is charged pro rata for the rest of the billing cycle. So a summer peak costs extra seats for the remainder of the month or year, not just for the weeks you used them.

What if Buddy Punch does not work out after we pay?

The window is short on monthly and longer on annual. Per the refund FAQ, read 24 September 2026, a full, non-prorated refund is available if you cancel within 72 hours of signing up for monthly billing or within 30 days for annual billing. Subscriptions renew automatically until an administrator cancels under Settings, Billing, Cancel my Account. Once you are on annual you cannot move to monthly until the term ends, while monthly to annual is allowed any time. Cancelling also deletes your data and access to prior records, so export time reports first. The 14-day trial needs no card, so test during the trial rather than relying on the refund.

Can the account owner track their own hours on an admin login?

No. Buddy Punch's roles-and-permissions article (updated 24 December 2025) says administrators are free accounts that do not count towards billing, and as a result cannot punch in or out, track breaks or track time off. An owner who also works shifts needs a second, paid employee or manager login for their own time. Billing is admin-only: managers cannot open the billing page, change the plan or its frequency, see invoices, pause or cancel the account.

Can employees see their own time cards and other people's schedules?

Their own, yes; other people's only if you allow it. The same article says employees can export the Time Card report for their own hours and by default see only their own schedule, availability and time off; an admin can open up the schedule, availability or time off of colleagues. Labour costs stay hidden from employees and managers unless allowed, and an admin decides whether managers may see pay rates for the staff assigned to them.

Does Buddy Punch have an API and an AI connector?

Yes. The public API launched as v1 on 8 April 2026 with scoped API keys. Since 7 May 2026 rate limits depend on the plan: 60 requests a minute on a trial or unpaid account, 600 on paid plans below Enterprise and 1,000 on Enterprise, and a trial account may hold one active API key. The Claude connector (help article dated 18 August 2026) needs an administrator on Pro, Advanced or Enterprise, connects at api2.buddypunch.com/mcp and lets you grant read or write access area by area, so a read-only trial is possible. The API changelog added employee settings on 22 September, projected time-off balances on 13 October and time-off balances in the connector on 16 October 2026.

Can Buddy Punch webhooks notify my system when someone punches in?

Not at the moment. Since 16 October 2026 the API rejects subscriptions to punch, employee, shift, time card and other core events with an invalid_event_type error, because Buddy Punch was accepting them without ever sending them. The events it does send cover tasks, onboarding and offboarding, punch questions and daily sign-offs, and only where those features are switched on for your account. A failing endpoint is disabled after 10 failed deliveries in a row, so an integration that needs live punches has to poll the API.

What happens if a Buddy Punch card payment fails?

The pricing FAQ (read 22 October 2026) says the account email is notified after each failed payment and the charge is retried up to 4 times within the next month; if none succeeds the account is cancelled, and a cancelled account loses access to prior records and has its data deleted. Keep the card current, and export time reports regularly if the account runs on a personal card.

Is this a hands-on review of BuddyPunch?

Yes. We tested BuddyPunch ourselves on 2026-10-29; the section above says what we tested, what we found and what we did not test, and where a figure comes from the vendor's own documentation instead. Most of our reviews are researched rather than run; we say which is which. We name what each tool is good and bad at, and we earn a commission only if you sign up, at no cost to you.

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