Most time clocks charge per head. Hire your hundredth employee and your bill goes up again. Punchwell doesn’t work that way. You pay per site, once a year, flat — and you can add as many employees as you like for $0 more.
One price. Everything bundled. Your data stays on your own WordPress site.
Pick your plan
Two plans, no add-on shopping list. The free tier is the on-ramp; Pro bundles everything — full IP-lock depth, GPS geofence, kiosk, mobile/PWA punch, payroll export, PTO accrual, recruitment, loans, attendance reports, and self-service — into one flat annual price, per site.
Free / Community — $0
The base HR suite, free on WordPress.org. Good for a small team that wants employees, departments, leave, basic attendance, and a basic single-office IP lock to get started.
- Employees as WordPress users — unlimited
- Departments and job titles
- Leave types and approval workflow
- Basic time clock and attendance
- Basic single-office IP lock
- Self-hosted, GPL, no data call-home
[ Start free on WordPress.org ] Free on WordPress.org. Unlimited employees. No card required.
Pro — $99 / year, per site · Most popular
Everything Punchwell does, for one WordPress site. This is the full flagship: per-employee and per-office IP-lock depth, plus GPS geofence, kiosk, mobile/PWA punch, payroll export, PTO accrual, and every add-on.
- Full office-IP clock-in lock — per-employee and per-office allowlists, CIDR and address ranges, IPv4 and IPv6
- Block / warn / flag enforcement modes plus clock-in time windows
- GPS geofence, kiosk clock, and mobile/PWA punch screen
- Payroll export — weekly and daily overtime, double-time, holiday pay, CSV plus SurePayroll and Gusto connectors
- PTO accrual, leave, holiday import, HR reminders, onboarding checklists
- All add-ons — recruitment, loans, attendance reports, permissions, self-service
- Updates and support while your license is active
Get Punchwell Pro — $99/yr Per site, not per seat. Renewal price locked if you never lapse.
Running several locations under one business? That’s built into Pro — one license covers unlimited locations. Running separate businesses you want kept fully independent? Buy one Pro license each, at the same flat $99/year — no bulk tier to decode, no five-site ceiling.
Per site, never per seat · Unlimited employees · Unlimited locations · Renewal price locked if you never lapse
Stop paying per head to track your team
Here’s the math nobody wants you to do. Most SMB time clocks bill by the employee, so a growing roster quietly grows your invoice. Take a 25-staff shop:
| What you’d pay for ~25 staff | Annual cost | Punchwell |
|---|---|---|
| Buddy Punch | ~$1,520/yr | $99/yr flat |
| Deputy | ~$1,950/yr | $99/yr flat |
| When I Work | ~$2,100/yr | $99/yr flat |
Competitor figures are approximate, as of June 2026. Vendors price dynamically — re-check current rates before deciding.
Punchwell is a flat annual price, unlimited employees included. Add staff 26, 50, or 100 and your bill doesn’t move. That’s the whole point of per-site pricing.
Already on WP ERP? Its stack adds up too — Pro plus $3 per user per year plus à-la-carte modules (Attendance and Payroll each at their own monthly fee), and its attendance IP whitelist is global-only: everyone or no one. Punchwell’s lock is per-employee and per-office, all bundled into one flat fee. See the full breakdown on Compare.
What’s included
Free gets you the HR basics. Pro bundles the differentiators and every add-on. No modules to buy à la carte, no per-user upgrades.
| Free / Community | Pro ($99/yr, per site) | |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited employees | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-hosted, GPL, no data call-home | ✓ | ✓ |
| Employees, departments, leave | ✓ | ✓ |
| Basic time clock & attendance | ✓ | ✓ |
| Basic single-office IP lock | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-employee + per-office IP allowlists | — | ✓ |
| CIDR & address ranges (IPv4/IPv6) | — | ✓ |
| Block / warn / flag modes + clock-in windows | — | ✓ |
| GPS geofence | — | ✓ |
| Kiosk clock + mobile/PWA punch | — | ✓ |
| Shift policies, rounding, auto clock-out, overnight | — | ✓ |
| PTO accrual + holiday import | — | ✓ |
| Payroll export (weekly/daily OT, double-time, holiday) | — | ✓ |
| SurePayroll & Gusto connectors | — | ✓ |
| HR reminder digest + onboarding checklists | — | ✓ |
| Recruitment, loans, attendance reports, permissions | — | ✓ |
| Employee self-service (My Pay, My Time Off, leave) | — | ✓ |
| Updates & support while licensed | — | ✓ |
For the full feature story, see Features. For the flagship in detail, see how the IP lock works.
Your renewal price is locked
We don’t do the “introductory rate, then surprise increase” routine. As long as you don’t let your license lapse, you renew at the price you signed up at — $99 per site, every year. No hike at employee #26. No hike at year three.
Lapse and come back later and you’d re-join at whatever the current price is — so the only thing that protects your rate is keeping the license active. That’s the deal, stated plainly.
You keep your data, no matter what
Because Punchwell is GPL and self-hosted, you own something a cloud tool can never give you: even if you lapse or cancel, the plugin and every record stay on your server. There’s no vendor cloud to lock you out of your own roster, timesheets, or leave history. Your data lives in your WordPress database — where it always was.
That’s also why migrating off the abandoned original plugin is a migration, not a rebuild: same database lineage, your records carry over.
FAQ
What counts as a “site”? One WordPress installation on one domain. A Pro license covers that one install with unlimited employees at no extra cost. Multiple locations of one business on a single site are built in — one $99 license covers unlimited offices. Separate businesses you want kept fully independent each take their own Pro license at $99/year. Pricing is per site, never per seat.
How long do updates and support last? For as long as your license is active. Pro includes updates and support while you’re licensed; renew each year and they continue. If you let the license lapse, you keep the version you have (it’s GPL — it’s genuinely yours), you just stop receiving new updates and support until you renew. (Note: an in-dashboard update channel is being set up — until it’s confirmed live, plan on manual updates through your WordPress dashboard.)
What does support actually cover? Help from the people who maintain the code — not an outsourced tier-1 script. Pro support covers installation, configuration, the IP-lock and attendance setup, payroll export, and migration questions while your license is active. We’ll set out the specific channel and response-time target at checkout.
It’s GPL — do I really own it? Can I self-host freely? Yes. GPL means the code is genuinely yours: install it on the licensed number of sites, keep your data in your own WordPress database, and never get held hostage by a vendor that disappears — which is exactly what happened to the plugin Punchwell replaces. Your license pays for the Pro features bundle, updates, and support — the same model as most professional WordPress plugins. Your data never phones home; all of the original’s outbound network code was removed and verified, and the only outbound call Pro makes is validating your license key against our own billing server — never your data.
Do I need a separate server or a cloud account? No. If you already run a WordPress site, you have everything you need. Punchwell installs like any other plugin — no extra server to manage, no cloud account to create. “Self-hosted” simply means your employee and attendance data lives in your own database instead of a vendor’s cloud.
I’m migrating from the abandoned WP Human Resource Management plugin — do I buy Pro before or after? Your data carries over either way — it’s the same database lineage, so employees, attendance, and leave records migrate in place with a documented script. You can install the free version, run the migration, then upgrade to Pro. See the Migration guide for the step-by-step. Punchwell is an independent, third-party maintained GPL fork — not affiliated with the original author, wpspear, or weDevs.
Ready when you are
If you want to stop buddy punching without paying per head, this is the whole offer: $99/year per site, unlimited employees, unlimited locations, your data on your own server.
Get Punchwell Pro — $99/yr [ Or start free on WordPress.org ]
Per site, not per seat. Unlimited employees. Renewal locked if you never lapse. GPL, self-hosted, no data call-home.
Still comparing? See Features, the Compare table, or how the IP lock works.
Punchwell is an independent, third-party maintained fork of the GPL-licensed “WP Human Resource Management” plugin. Sturdyhaus is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by wpspear, weDevs, or the original author. Product names are referenced descriptively only. Competitor prices are approximate and current as of June 2026.