Buddy Punch Review: Pros, Cons, Features & Pricing for 2026

Buddy Punch is a strong choice if you have hourly, mobile, or multi-location employees and want more control over when and where they clock in. Its GPS, geofencing, and shared time clock options are especially useful if buddy punching, off-site clock-ins, or inaccurate timecards have become a problem.

For this Buddy Punch review, I looked at what you get for the price, how its time tracking, scheduling, payroll, and reporting tools work, and where its limitations may make another option a better fit. In my evaluation of the best time clocks for small businesses, Buddy Punch earned an overall score of 4.42 out of 5.

Who is Buddy Punch best for?

Buddy Punch makes the most sense when accurate timekeeping matters more than finding the cheapest possible time clock.

Buddy Punch is a strong fit for businesses that:

• Have employees working across several job sites: GPS records where employees clock in and out, while real-time tracking follows their location during the workday.
• Need stricter clock-in rules: Geofences keep punches within approved locations, while device and IP restrictions work well if employees should clock in only from company equipment or networks.
• Have several employees sharing one time clock: PIN and QR punching lets a tablet or computer act as a shared clock without buying dedicated hardware.
• Deal with time theft and buddy punching: Buddy Punch has a webcam feature that automatically takes a snapshot when employees clock in or out, giving you another way to verify that the right person made the punch.
• Want to prevent overtime charges: Its punch-limiting options let you control exactly when employees clock in and out or how many minutes before and after a shift they can punch. You can also set alerts when an employee is nearing overtime.
• Manage recurring employee schedules: Scheduling covers recurring shifts, availability, trades and covers, time-off visibility, and early or late attendance.

Consider an alternative if you:

• Need to track billable project time: Buddy Punch does not have a start-and-stop project timer built for tracking billable work throughout the day, but Clockify offers online timers you can easily use as you work on projects. Check out our Clockify review to know more about its features.
• Have a very small, single-location team and want free time tracking: Unlike Buddy Punch, Homebase has a free plan for one location and up to 10 employees with basic scheduling and time tracking. Read our Homebase review to see what else it offers.
• Require time tracking, expensing, and invoicing tools: Buddy Punch focuses on employee time and attendance. Harvest is your best choice if you want to track expenses, capture time spent on projects, and generate invoices based on billable hours. To learn more about its functionalities, visit the Harvest website or check out our best free time tracking software guide to see how it compares with similar providers.
• Need advanced workforce scheduling: Its scheduling tools handle shifts, availability, trades, and attendance, but they do not extend into demand forecasting, automatic scheduling, and labor planning as Deputy does. Read our Deputy review to see if its features fit your requirements.

Which Buddy Punch plan is right for you?

When comparing Buddy Punch pricing plans, the main question is how much control you need over employee punches. Its Starter plan covers everyday timecard basics, while the higher tiers add tools such as geofencing, shared clocks, scheduling, continuous GPS tracking, API access, and stronger administrative controls.

Here’s where I see the clearest dividing line between the plans:

• Starter works well if you mainly need employees to clock in, track PTO and jobs, and send approved hours to payroll. GPS punch locations, Face ID, device restrictions, and IP controls already give you more oversight than a basic digital timesheet.
• Pro is the better fit once you need geofencing, shared kiosk or QR punching, webcam verification, scheduling, API, or break compliance. It also comes with MCP access for connecting AI assistants, such as ChatGPT or Claude, to your data. These are some of the features that make Buddy Punch stand out from simpler time trackers.
• Advanced makes more sense if you actually need continuous GPS tracking, advanced SSO, higher API limits, additional reporting, or dedicated support. If you only require reliable employee clock-ins, the price jump may be more than you need.

Buddy Punch also offers several add-on products:

• Data retention: $2 per user monthly
• Payroll: $8 per user monthly plus a $49 base fee per month
• Onboarding, offboarding, and tasks: $4 per user monthly

For seasonal businesses, Buddy Punch has a pause or seasonal hold option that lets you temporarily pause your account for up to nine months. This lets you keep your account and existing setup in place during slower months instead of canceling the service and starting over when business picks up again. 

What are Buddy Punch's features?

Buddy Punch does more than record clock-ins and clock-outs, but time tracking is still the heart of the product. Its other tools help you build schedules around those hours, track paid time-off (PTO) and job time, run payroll (if you get this add-on), and pull useful information from employee timecards.

Time tracking and punch controls

Buddy Punch supports clock ins/outs via PIN code, QR code, or username with password. Its Kiosk option turns a computer or tablet into a central time clock for employees. With offline mode, the system captures employee clock ins/outs even without internet connection. If you enable webcam photos, Buddy Punch automatically takes a snapshot when an employee punches, giving you another way to confirm that the right person clocked in or out.

Basic GPS also records an employee's location when they clock in, clock out, or switch jobs. You decide whether GPS is optional or required. If you require it and the employee's device cannot get a location, Buddy Punch will not accept the punch.

Geofencing gives you tighter location controls. You set a boundary around a job site, and employees assigned to it have to clock in or out from inside that area. If you manage office staff instead, IP or device restrictions may make more sense because they keep punches tied to an approved network or device without tracking employee movement.

Meanwhile, its Real-Time GPS is better suited to companies with employees who move between locations during the day. It follows their route while they are clocked in and stops once they clock out. That works well for service technicians, delivery teams, and other field employees, although it uses more battery and data than basic GPS and requires the Buddy Punch mobile app.

Scheduling and attendance management

You can create recurring shifts, track employee availability, and handle shift trades and covers without managing every change through texts or email. Approved time off also shows up in the schedule, making it easier to catch conflicts before shifts are published.

The schedule becomes more useful once you connect it to employee punches. You can see when someone arrives early or late, spot missed shifts, limit clock-ins to scheduled times, and automatically clock employees out after a shift. That gives managers a clearer picture of the difference between the hours they planned and what employees actually worked.

You can also control how early or late employees are allowed to punch in or out and set alerts when someone is approaching overtime. This gives managers a little more control over unplanned labor costs while still showing how actual hours compare with the schedule.

If schedule forecasting and automatic shift creation are more important to you, compare the best employee scheduling software before deciding.

Overtime controls

Buddy Punch calculates overtime automatically based on the rules you set. You can choose a default overtime rule for the company, set the first day of the workweek, and assign different overtime rules to individual employees when needed. You can also create custom rules with daily, weekly, and double-time thresholds.

Employees don’t need to submit a separate overtime request for those hours to count. Buddy Punch automatically records their punches and applies the appropriate overtime rule to the time worked. If Time Card Approvals are enabled, employees can review and submit their completed timecards at the end of the pay period, and managers or administrators can approve or reject them.

You can also set daily or weekly overtime alerts for employees, managers, or administrators and send them by email, push notification, or both. This gives managers a heads-up when someone is approaching overtime instead of finding out only after payroll is ready.

PTO and job tracking

Employees submit paid or unpaid time-off requests through Buddy Punch, while you set the rules for how PTO is earned. Accruals can run by pay period, hours worked, or an annual date, and the rules support carryover and caps. You can also decide whether employees are allowed to use more PTO than they currently have available.

Using Buddy Punch’s job and location codes can help separate hours before they reach payroll. Different pay rates can also be tied to different jobs. And if an employee works at two stores or splits a day between different jobs, those hours stay attached to the right work instead of showing up as one total. 

Payroll

Once managers approve employee hours, those timecards are ready for payroll without another export or manual entry step. You can run regular or off-cycle payrolls, change pay rates, add bonuses or reimbursements, and review taxes and deductions before submitting payroll.

Buddy Punch calculates and files payroll taxes, handles direct deposit, and prepares W-2s and 1099s. It also supports multi-state payroll, custom deductions and benefits, electronic paystubs, and employee self-onboarding. If you pay commissions, tips, severance, reimbursements, or other earnings outside regular hourly pay, you can add those to the payroll as well.

Want to check out other options? Compare the best payroll software for small businesses before getting this add-on module.

Reporting

The standard reports give you practical information without overwhelming you with analytics. You can review employee hours, timecards, punch activity, locations, deleted or corrected time, and PTO. Scheduling reports also help you spot early, late, and missed shifts.

The PTO Summary shows time used, accrued, carried over, and still available, which saves you from piecing together leave balances manually. For payroll, the Payroll Export Report separates regular, overtime, double-time, and PTO hours.

Other report options include actual versus scheduled hours, break time, employee profile details, approved PTO, and more detailed timecards. You can filter these reports and schedule them to arrive by email, which is handy if managers need the same labor or attendance report every week.

Platform and integrations

Some of Buddy Punch’s payroll integrations include ADP Workforce Now, Gusto, Justworks, Paychex Flex, Paycor, QuickBooks, Rippling, TriNet, and Workday. 

Before choosing Buddy Punch because your payroll provider appears on the integration list, check how the connection sends your data. QuickBooks, for example, sends employee hours directly from Buddy Punch. Other systems require you to download a payroll-formatted file and upload it into the payroll software. That extra step may not be a dealbreaker, but it is good to know before you set everything up.

Meanwhile, its Zapier integration gives you more options for connecting Buddy Punch with other apps. API access is available if your business needs a custom connection. 

Buddy Punch also supports Google single sign-on (SSO). However, more advanced SSO options, such as Okta, OneLogin, and SAML-based authentication, are reserved for its highest tier.

On the security side, Buddy Punch encrypts data both when stored and when transmitted. It also supports multi-factor authentication, role-based access controls, security audits, and vulnerability assessments. Those account protections work alongside its timekeeping controls, such as device restrictions and employee identity checks.

How easy is Buddy Punch to use?

Clocking in and out is one of the simpler parts of Buddy Punch. Employees can handle basic time entry from a computer or phone without going through several screens, which should keep training fairly light for everyday users.

System administrators have more to configure once they start using Buddy Punch’s advanced tools. Setting up geofences, PTO rules, schedules, approvals, job codes, and payroll connections takes additional time, but that setup gives you more control over how employees track and submit their hours.

Even with those extra configuration steps, Buddy Punch is straightforward to set up. Its interface makes it easy to find the main features and settings. 

I also appreciate the in-app chatbot, help widgets with important reminders, and links to relevant how-to guides. While those guides open outside the platform, the direct links save you from having to manually search Buddy Punch’s Help Center when you need setup instructions.

The guides may help with setup, but system administrators still need to understand the timekeeping and overtime rules that apply to their workforce. For example, if you have California employees, you should review California overtime regulations before choosing overtime settings in Buddy Punch. 

For day-to-day management, Buddy Punch handles common tasks fairly well. 

People managers may run into a few more steps when reviewing timecards for larger teams, although Buddy Punch’s single and bulk approvals help speed up the process. Mobile access also works well for everyday employee and manager tasks, but some account and workforce settings are only available or easier to manage from a web browser, so system administrators will likely spend more time there.

Buddy Punch customer support

Buddy Punch does not offer phone support. You can contact its support team via live chat and email, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time (CT). 

It also has a Help Center with how-to articles and video guides that cover system setup, time tracking, GPS, scheduling, PTO, reporting, integrations, billing, and payroll. Customers on the highest tier also get dedicated support.

Chat, email, and the Help Center should be enough for many everyday setup questions. The lack of phone support is more noticeable when you have an urgent timekeeping or payroll issue and would rather talk through it with someone.

What do users think about Buddy Punch?

Buddy Punch gets strong customer feedback overall. As of this writing, Capterra rates it 4.8 out of 5 from more than 1,120 reviews, while G2 shows a 4.8 out of 5 rating from over 390 reviews. 

Users regularly praise how quickly employees can clock in and out and how easy it is to keep timecards, scheduling, PTO, and location information in one place. Many also mention spending less time preparing employee hours for payroll.

However, some users want more customizable reports or fewer steps when approving timecards. Others mention occasional mobile app glitches or syncing issues. 

Buddy Punch alternatives

Another product may suit you better if free time tracking, billable tools, or advanced scheduling matters more than Buddy Punch's punch controls.

Buddy Punch frequently asked questions (FAQs)