Questions and answers

Yes, for organizations whose total finances (the largest of revenue, budget or funding, counting affiliates) were under US $5 million in the last 12 months. Development, testing and evaluation are free for everyone, whatever their size.

The largest of your gross revenue, your total budget and the funding you have received in the most recent 12 months, counting your affiliates with you. If that is under US $5 million, production use is free.

Organizations at or above US $5 million in total finances need a commercial licence from StackBlaze Inc. for production use. Testing and evaluating it stays free.

An agency or consultant may install, set up and support CloverHR on a client's own server or StackBlaze account, free when the client is under the US $5 million limit. Offering CloverHR to others as a hosted or managed service, run from your own infrastructure, needs a commercial licence from StackBlaze Inc., whatever the client's size.

CloverHR is source-available under the Business Source License 1.1: the full source code is public to read and run within the licence. Each version becomes available under the GNU General Public License, version 3, four years after it is first published.

The software is free under the limit above; you pay only for where it runs. StackBlaze has a free plan for trying it, whose services sleep after 15 minutes without visits, and paid plans that keep it on. On your own server, you need room for the app, a Postgres 16 database and uploaded files.

Click Deploy free on StackBlaze. StackBlaze creates the app, a Postgres database, a disk for uploads and an encryption key from the CloverHR template. Then open the app's address: a setup wizard asks for your company, your name, email and password, and offers two-step sign-in.

Yes. The last step of the setup lets you start with an empty company or load the demo company, Northwind Studio, with people in both countries and logins for an admin, a manager and an employee. Use the demo only on a server that will not hold real records.

Yes. CloverHR is published as a Docker image that prepares its database as it starts. It needs Postgres 16 and a disk for uploaded files. The repository's self-hosting guide lists every setting.

Redeploy the newer image. Database changes are applied automatically as the app starts, so a server moves to the new version in place.

No, but it is better with one. Connect any SMTP mail server to send invites, approvals and alerts. Until then, email waits in an outbox in Settings, and nothing is lost.

No. CloverHR keeps what payroll needs, such as pay, hours, overtime, time off, holidays, deductions, bank details and tax forms, and exports it per pay period as a CSV or JSON file for the payroll or accounting software you already use.

Employee records with history, time off and holidays, timesheets and time tracking, scheduling and breaks, hiring, onboarding and offboarding, benefits, compensation planning, performance, training, surveys, documents with e-signatures, announcements, reports and a report builder, a payroll export, and an API with webhooks.

Yes. Policies accrue by length of service, balances are kept as a ledger, and carry-over can have caps, minimums and expiry dates. Opening balances can be imported from a spreadsheet.

Yes. Timesheets work out daily and weekly overtime, and double time where it applies, such as in California, from the rules where each person works. Meal and rest break rules and premiums are included too.

Yes. Locations carry a country and a state or province, which drive holidays, overtime and break rules, ID numbers and tax forms such as the TD1. Money is kept in CAD or USD, and the app, its emails and its help pages are available in English and Canadian French.

Yes. New-hire packets collect W-4 or TD1 forms, and Form I-9 is tracked through Section 1, Section 2 and reverification, with deadlines and reminders.

Yes. Add legal entities with their own employer ids, pay schedules and payroll export, for example a subsidiary in the other country.

There is no app to install from an app store, but every page has a real phone layout. Employees request time off, clock in, sign documents and update their details from their phone.

Yes. A read and write API covers every area, with keys limited to what you allow and an OpenAPI reference inside the app. Webhooks send events, such as new hires and time off decisions, to other software as they happen.

Yes. People can sign in with Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, Okta or another provider using OpenID Connect or SAML, and you can require it for your email domain.

In your own deployment: your CloverHR app and your own Postgres database. Records leave it only through connections you set up yourself, such as webhooks, API keys or your mail server, and emails never include private values.

Access levels decide who sees each field, and the server checks every read and write. Bank and identity numbers are encrypted with AES-256-GCM, private values never appear in emails or logs, every change is in an audit log, and two-step sign-in and passkeys are available.

Yes. Reports download as CSV, Excel or PDF, the payroll export comes as CSV or JSON, and the API reads every area. Because it runs on your own database, you also hold the data itself.

Yes. Import people, opening time off balances and hours from CSV files, with every row checked before anything is saved, and connect other software through the API.

CloverHR is self-hosted and free for organizations under US $5 million, with US and Canadian rules built in, but it does not run payroll itself. See the comparison pages for a side-by-side look at each.