Customer: Homebase

Homebase helps more than 150,000 small businesses simplify scheduling, payroll, and team management, all in one easy-to-use app. 3.5 million employees logged a shift on Homebase last year, and Homebase has processed more than $5 billion in payroll to date.

For many of these small businesses, offering flexible pay to employees has become a powerful way to attract and retain talent. But making earned wage access both fast and reliable—without adding operational burden—was a growing challenge.

Making instant pay truly instant

As an early innovator in earned wage access, Homebase initially relied on debit card rails to deliver payouts. But as adoption grew, so did friction: cards could expire, be lost, or create unnecessary processing costs.

To scale confidently, Homebase needed a payment partner that could help them move funds instantly across banks and institutions without sacrificing security, cost efficiency, or reliability. That’s where Plaid came in.

A secure, unified solution

For Homebase, Plaid’s unified API offered a complete solution on a single platform. This allowed the company to reduce engineering complexity and streamline maintenance, freeing its team to focus on customer innovation over infrastructure management.

Plaid’s robust fraud prevention tools and built-in processing redundancy also ensured that payouts would be consistent and dependable at scale.

“Plaid’s API architecture gave us exactly what we needed: speed to market, built-in compliance, and a seamless user experience,” said Rushi Patel, Chief Customer Officer and Co-Founder at Homebase. “It’s rare to find a partner that’s both deeply technical and deeply aligned with our mission.”

Faster funds, lower costs, increased reliability

By becoming Plaid’s first Real-Time Payments (RTP) customer—and today its largest by transaction volume—Homebase has transformed how quickly and reliably hourly workers can access their earnings. What once could take hours, or even days now happens in just seconds, while failed transactions have been reduced by 89% compared to debit.

Moreover, the company has been able to offer new payroll use cases like off-cycle pay and immediate wage access after a shift. For employees, the impact is deeply personal, reducing financial stress and improving day-to-day stability. For business owners, it translates into stronger trust, better employee attendance, and higher retention, with flexible pay now seen as a key differentiator in a competitive hiring landscape.

“Flexible pay gives small businesses a critical edge when competing for talent and Plaid helps make it reliable, fast, and affordable,” explained Patel.

Looking ahead

As Homebase continues to grow, the company is building on its foundation of trust and innovation to deliver even more intelligent financial tools for small businesses and hourly teams. Beyond flexible pay, the team has launched AI-powered assistants that help employers simplify payroll and surface personalized financial insights, with the hopes of simplifying every financial moment that powers small business success. 

“Plaid gives us the infrastructure to innovate faster,” concluded Patel. “As we expand what’s possible for small businesses and their employees, we know Plaid will be there with us.”