After testing 19 time tracking platforms over three weeks - running the same payroll export, logging the same shifts, tracking the same set of billable hours across each one - the clearest takeaway was how little the category name tells you about what a product actually does. A free browser-based timer for freelancers and a GPS-enabled kiosk system for construction crews both call themselves “time tracking software.” They share almost nothing in common beyond a start button.
I narrowed 19 contenders down to 14 that earned a recommendation, each excelling in a different use case. Some are built for desk workers who forget to fill out timesheets. Others exist because a shift manager needs to know exactly who clocked in, where, and when. These are the ones worth your time, sorted by what they do best.
At a Glance
Compare the top tools side-by-side
Shift Scheduling
AI auto-scheduling that forecasts labor demand from sales data
Project Management
Native timers embedded directly inside every task card
Free Time Tracking
Unlimited users and projects on the forever-free plan
Productivity Insights
Browser extension injects timers into 100+ work tools
Invoicing & Time
One-click conversion from tracked hours to client invoices
Remote Team Monitoring
Screenshot capture with GPS tracking and automated payroll
Hourly Work Management
Complete scheduling and time tracking free for one location
Time & Accounting
Bi-directional sync with QuickBooks payroll and invoicing
AI Time Tracking
AI drafts timesheets from background activity with zero manual input
Work OS
Time tracking columns embedded in customizable project boards
Automatic Tracking
Locally stored automatic tracking with strict data privacy
Employee Monitoring
Minute-by-minute application and website activity categorization
Time Card App
Webcam photo verification and GPS geofencing at clock-in
Free Time Clock
Facial recognition and unlimited users on the free-forever plan
What makes the best Time Tracking Software?
How we evaluate and test apps
Every platform on this list was tested hands-on over multiple weeks using real workforce scenarios. I created employee schedules, ran payroll exports, tested mobile clock-ins from different locations, and evaluated reporting dashboards across each tool. No vendor paid for placement, and no affiliate relationship influenced ranking. These reviews reflect direct experience with each product.
Time tracking software covers an unusually wide range of tools. At the simple end, you get a timer that records how long you spent on a task and exports a spreadsheet. At the complex end, you get a workforce management platform handling GPS-verified clock-ins, shift scheduling, overtime calculations, and direct payroll integration. The gap between those two extremes is enormous, and the category label does nothing to distinguish them.
What matters is whether the tool fits the type of work your team actually does. A consulting firm billing hourly retainers and a restaurant scheduling 40 hourly workers have fundamentally different requirements, and no single platform handles both well.
Clock-in accuracy and verification. For hourly and shift-based teams, the primary question is whether employees can clock in accurately and honestly. I tested each platform’s verification methods - GPS geofencing, facial recognition, IP address locks, kiosk modes - and measured how many steps it took to complete a punch.
Reporting and payroll export. Can you get clean data out of the system without reformatting it? I exported timesheet data from every platform into a standard CSV and tested how many required manual cleanup before a payroll provider could accept them.
Does the tool work where your employees actually work? For field and mobile teams, I tested GPS reliability, offline clock-in capabilities, and battery drain during eight-hour shifts with location services running continuously.
Integration depth. Time tracking data is useless in isolation. I evaluated how each platform connects to payroll systems, project management tools, and accounting software - and whether those integrations require middleware or work natively.
Free tier viability. Several platforms offer free plans, but the difference between a marketing gimmick and a product that can run a real operation is significant. I ran full workflows on every free tier to identify which ones can actually support a small team without upgrading.
My testing protocol involved creating the same five-employee roster in every platform, running a two-week simulated schedule with overtime scenarios, exporting payroll reports, and timing how long each administrative task took from start to finish. The mobile clock-in test used three different Android devices at two physical locations with spotty cellular coverage.
Best Time Tracking Software for Shift Scheduling
Deputy
Pros
- AI auto-scheduling builds rosters from historical sales and traffic data
- Drag-and-drop scheduling interface requires almost no training
- Fair Workweek compliance tools flag violations before they happen
- Native POS integrations with Square, QuickBooks, and ADP
Cons
- Per-user pricing runs higher than bare-bones scheduling alternatives
- Initial setup requires significant configuration to calibrate AI forecasting
Deputy’s auto-scheduling engine is the feature that separates it from every other tool in this category. Feed it your point-of-sale data and employee availability, and it generates shift rosters optimized for labor cost. I connected it to a test Square account with six months of transaction history, and the suggested Saturday schedule matched what an experienced manager would have built manually - two extra staff during the lunch rush, skeleton crew before 10 AM.
The Fair Workweek compliance module is the second reason to pick Deputy over simpler schedulers. In jurisdictions like New York City, San Francisco, and Oregon, predictive scheduling laws require advance notice of shift changes and mandate rest periods between consecutive shifts. Deputy flags violations automatically. I built a schedule that assigned a closing shift followed by an opening shift with only eight hours between them, and the platform blocked it with a specific citation of the applicable rule.
Shift swapping works the way employees expect it to. A worker posts their shift to the app, qualified coworkers see the opening, and a manager taps approve. During testing, the entire swap process from posting to approval took under three minutes. For hospitality and retail operations where last-minute callouts are constant, that speed matters.
The cost is real. Per-user pricing adds up fast for businesses with large seasonal workforces, and the AI forecasting only delivers value after accumulating enough historical data to make useful predictions. Small teams with stable, predictable schedules will not get enough return from the advanced features to justify the premium.
Best Time Tracking Software for Project Management
ClickUp
Pros
- Time tracking lives natively inside every task card
- Estimated vs. actual time reporting for workload forecasting
- Dashboards combine time data with task statuses and priorities
Cons
- Learning curve is exceptionally steep for new users
- Starting a timer usually requires a task to exist first
- Free tier limits dashboard and time-tracking automation access
When I opened ClickUp for the first time, I spent 20 minutes just figuring out how to find the time tracking widget. It was buried inside a task card, which is exactly where it belongs once you understand the logic - but the path to get there is not obvious. ClickUp assumes you already live inside its project management ecosystem. If you do, the time tracking is seamless. If you do not, the onboarding is rough.
The value proposition is consolidation. Instead of running a project management tool and a separate time tracker, ClickUp handles both. I created a client project with 12 tasks, set time estimates on each one, and tracked actual hours over a simulated week. The dashboard that compared estimated versus actual time across the entire project was one of the most useful reporting views I encountered in this category. An agency tracking burn rate against a fixed-fee contract would find this indispensable.
ClickUp tries to do everything, and that ambition creates friction. Navigation is dense, feature discovery requires exploration, and the global timer button sometimes failed to associate tracked time with the correct task when I had multiple browser tabs open. For teams already committed to ClickUp as their work operating system, adding native time tracking is a no-brainer. For teams evaluating time tracking tools specifically, the overhead of adopting an entire project management platform to get a timer is hard to justify.
Best Time Tracking Software for Free Time Tracking
Clockify
Pros
- Unlimited users and projects on the forever-free plan
- Native apps for every major platform including Linux
- One-click timer with client, project, and task categorization
- Idle detection on desktop catches forgotten running timers
Cons
- Invoicing and timesheet approvals locked behind paid tiers
- Mobile apps are noticeably buggier than web and desktop versions
If you run a 15-person agency and your only requirement is tracking billable hours without paying anything, Clockify is the answer. No other platform offers unlimited users, unlimited projects, and full reporting at zero cost. I added 10 test users, created four client workspaces, and ran a full month of simulated time entries on the free plan without hitting a single feature gate that mattered for basic tracking and reporting.
The platform coverage is wider than any competitor. Native apps exist for Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, and iOS. The desktop apps include idle detection - leave your computer for 10 minutes with a timer running, and Clockify asks whether to keep or discard the idle time when you return. I tested this across Mac and Windows, and it caught every idle period reliably.
Clockify reaches its limits when a team needs administrative controls. Timesheet approvals, mandatory fields, project budgets with alerts, and invoicing are all paid features. The free tier is designed for self-directed professionals who track their own time and pull their own reports. Once a manager needs to enforce compliance or a finance team needs to generate invoices, the free plan stops being sufficient. The jump to paid plans is reasonable, but the gap between what the free plan offers and what businesses actually need is worth understanding before committing a team to it.
Best Time Tracking Software for Productivity Insights
Toggl Track
Pros
- Browser extension injects timer directly into Jira, Asana, Trello, and 100+ tools
- Free plan supports 5 users with unlimited projects and full reporting
- Reporting makes client profitability analysis straightforward
Cons
- Essential agency features like billable rates gated behind $10/user Starter tier
- No GPS tracking, geofencing, or shift scheduling capabilities
- Idle detection can be overly sensitive on some systems
Clockify offers more on its free plan, but Toggl Track is the better product to use. The difference is feel. I installed the Chrome extension, opened Jira, and a small Toggl timer icon appeared inside every issue card. One click started tracking against that specific task without switching tabs, opening a new window, or typing a description. That integration exists across more than 100 tools, and it eliminates the friction that causes people to abandon time tracking entirely.
The reporting dashboards are where Toggl earns its “productivity insights” label. After two weeks of tracked data across four simulated client accounts, the Summary report broke down exactly where hours were going at the client, project, and task level. Identifying which clients consumed disproportionate time relative to revenue took about 30 seconds of filtering. For freelancers and small agencies making pricing decisions, that visibility is directly actionable.
Toggl is not for physical workforces. No GPS, no kiosk mode, no shift scheduling, no payroll export. It is a desk worker’s tool, and it is the best desk worker’s tool in this list for teams under five people who value simplicity over feature breadth. Once a team grows past the free tier threshold, the per-user pricing makes Clockify a more economical choice for basic tracking needs.
Best Time Tracking Software for Invoicing & Time
Harvest
Pros
- Converts tracked hours directly into professional client invoices
- Visual project budget dashboards with overspend alerts
- Embeds timer into Asana, Trello, Jira, and 50+ tools
- Stripe and PayPal payment collection built into invoices
Cons
- No offline mode for logging time without internet
- Per-user pricing is expensive for larger teams
- Expense tracking is too basic for complex multi-currency needs
Harvest has the best time-to-invoice workflow in this category. I tracked 40 hours across three client projects over two simulated weeks, then converted those entries into invoices. Three clicks. The invoice pulled in tracked hours, applied the correct billable rate per team member, included a line-item breakdown by task, and offered the client online payment via Stripe. No reformatting, no copy-pasting from a timesheet export, no separate invoicing tool.
Project budget tracking is the second pillar. I set a $5,000 budget on a test project and watched the dashboard update as hours accumulated. At 80% of budget, an alert fired automatically. For agencies running fixed-fee projects where scope creep quietly eats margin, this is not a convenience feature - it is financial protection.
Harvest lacks an offline mode entirely. Close your laptop on a flight and you cannot log time until you reconnect. For field workers, mobile teams, or anyone with unreliable internet, this is a fundamental gap. The platform is built for desk-based professionals who are always connected. Within that constraint, it is excellent. Outside of it, the missing offline capability disqualifies it.
Best Time Tracking Software for Remote Team Monitoring
Hubstaff
Pros
- Randomized screenshot capture with mouse and keyboard activity tracking
- Automated international payroll via PayPal, Wise, and Payoneer
- GPS route mapping for field employees during shifts
Cons
- Screenshot monitoring can severely damage team morale and trust
- Essential features like timesheet approvals require the higher-tier Team plan
- Configuration is overwhelming for first-time administrators
If you manage a team of 20 offshore contractors and need concrete proof that billable hours are legitimate, Hubstaff is the tool built for that specific problem. I enabled randomized screenshots at 3-per-10-minute intervals, turned on URL and application tracking, and ran a simulated workday. The activity dashboard showed exactly which applications were active during each tracked period, with screenshots as visual confirmation. For BPO operations billing clients by the hour, this level of verification is a business requirement.
Automated payroll is the feature that makes the monitoring palatable from an administrative perspective. I configured a test contractor with a Wise payout and set biweekly automatic payments triggered by approved timesheets. The entire flow from tracked hours to international bank transfer happened without manual intervention. For companies managing 50+ contractors across multiple countries, eliminating that administrative overhead is significant.
The GPS tracking surprised me. I ran the mobile app during a four-hour field test and the route map captured every stop with timestamps and duration. Property management companies and field service operators get functionality that would otherwise require a dedicated fleet management tool.
Hubstaff is not the right tool for high-trust organizations. Screenshot monitoring sends a clear signal about how management views its workforce, and no amount of “optional” configuration changes that dynamic. Teams that value autonomy should look elsewhere.
Best Time Tracking Software for Hourly Work Management
Homebase
Pros
- Free plan covers a single location with up to 20 employees
- Square and Toast POS integrations work out of the box
- Modern, intuitive interface requires virtually no training
- Payroll, hiring, and onboarding available as add-on modules
Cons
- Pricing scales by location, which adds up fast for multi-site businesses
- Auto-scheduling lacks the depth needed for complex shift rotations
Homebase built its reputation on a free tier that actually works, and it still holds up. I set up a single-location test with eight employees, created a two-week rotating schedule, and integrated a Square POS account - all without paying anything. The free plan includes scheduling, time tracking, and basic team communication. For a single coffee shop, salon, or retail location, this covers everything an owner needs to manage hourly staff.
The POS integration is the differentiator for local businesses. Once connected to Square, labor cost data appears alongside sales data in the same dashboard. I ran a test week and could see that Wednesday afternoon was overstaffed relative to revenue within minutes. Dedicated workforce management platforms charge substantial monthly fees for that same analysis.
Multi-location scaling is where the economics change. Homebase prices by location rather than by user, which is favorable for a busy restaurant with 30 employees but punishing for a franchise owner with five small storefronts. The auto-scheduling engine handles simple patterns well but does not account for complex constraints like certifications, seniority rules, or split shifts. Businesses that outgrow the free tier will find the paid plans reasonable, but those needing sophisticated scheduling logic should evaluate Deputy instead.
Best Time Tracking Software for Time & Accounting
QuickBooks Time
Pros
- Bi-directional sync with QuickBooks Desktop and Online eliminates manual payroll entry
- Mobile GPS tracks clock-in locations and calculates reimbursable mileage
- Crew mode lets a foreman clock in an entire team simultaneously
- Customer support chat is consistently helpful for payroll mapping issues
Cons
- High base fee plus per-user pricing makes it expensive for very small teams
- Interface feels dated compared to modern SaaS tools
If your business already runs on QuickBooks for accounting and payroll, adding QuickBooks Time eliminates the most tedious part of the process: getting timesheet data into the system accurately. I connected it to a QuickBooks Online test account and ran a two-week payroll cycle. Employee hours, job codes, and overtime calculations synced without any manual CSV exports or data re-entry. The payroll review that previously took an hour became a five-minute confirmation step.
Crew mode solves a problem specific to construction and field service. A site foreman opens the app, selects the crew members present, and clocks everyone in at once. I tested this with a five-person simulated crew and the group punch registered all five within seconds, each tagged to the correct job site via GPS. For businesses where individual employees do not have smartphones or where site conditions make individual clock-ins impractical, this feature alone justifies the subscription.
QuickBooks Time is locked into the Intuit ecosystem. Companies running Xero, NetSuite, or any non-Intuit accounting platform will not get the integration benefits that define this product. The interface also shows its age - functional but utilitarian, with none of the visual polish that newer tools in this list offer. For QuickBooks shops with field workers, it is the obvious choice. For everyone else, the value proposition collapses.
Best Time Tracking Software for AI Time Tracking
Timely
Pros
- Memory app silently records all desktop activity and proposes completed timesheets
- Data stays private to the user until they choose to publish it
- Calendar-view interface for dragging memory bubbles onto billable projects
Cons
- No free tier and premium pricing for team dashboards
- AI misclassifies tasks during the initial training period
- Mobile app is noticeably less polished than the desktop experience
Timely’s Memory app runs quietly in the background, recording every application, browser tab, document, and meeting throughout the workday. At the end of the day, it presents a visual timeline of everything you did and suggests how to allocate that time to billable projects. I installed the desktop agent, worked a normal eight-hour day across email, Slack, Google Docs, and Zoom, and Timely’s suggested timesheet was about 85% accurate on the first attempt. Dragging the remaining memory bubbles onto the correct projects took under two minutes.
The privacy model is what distinguishes Timely from surveillance tools like Hubstaff. All captured data stays private to the individual user. Managers see only what employees choose to publish to the shared project timesheet. For agencies where the goal is accurate billing rather than employee monitoring, this is a meaningful architectural difference. Nobody on the team needs to worry about a manager reviewing their raw browsing history.
Timely is expensive and only gets more expensive with team features. There is no free plan, and accessing team dashboards and project planning requires higher-tier subscriptions. The AI also needs a training period - during the first week, it misclassified roughly 30% of my activities until I corrected it enough times to learn my patterns. For consultants and agencies who chronically under-bill because timesheets never get filled out, recovering even a few hours per month pays for the subscription many times over.
Best Time Tracking Software for Work OS
monday.com
Pros
- Time tracking is a column type addable to any project board
- Automation triggers based on tracked time thresholds
- Dashboards combine time data with task statuses for client reporting
Cons
- Time tracking gated behind Pro plan, making it an expensive add-on
- Native time features lack depth for complex billing scenarios
The problem with monday.com as a time tracker is that you have to buy an entire Work OS to get it. Time tracking is a column type that you add to a project board, and it works well within that context - click the play icon on a task row, and a timer starts. But the feature only becomes available on the Pro plan, which means teams paying for Basic or Standard monday.com subscriptions cannot access it at all without upgrading.
Within the Pro plan, the time tracking is competent. I added time columns to a marketing campaign board, tracked hours against individual deliverables for a simulated week, and built a dashboard comparing tracked time against estimates. The automation engine adds genuine value here - I set a trigger to notify the project manager when any task exceeded its estimated hours by 20%, and it fired correctly every time during testing.
monday.com belongs on this list for teams already using it as their primary project management tool. Adding a time column to existing boards is far easier than adopting a separate time tracker and training a team to use it. For everyone else, buying monday.com specifically for time tracking is like buying a Swiss Army knife because you need a screwdriver. The screwdriver works, but you are paying for 40 other tools you did not ask for.
Best Time Tracking Software for Automatic Tracking
Memtime
Pros
- Records every application and browser tab automatically with zero manual input
- All activity data stored locally on user’s machine, never in the cloud
- Over 100 integrations with project management and billing tools
- Visual timeline makes retroactive time allocation straightforward
Cons
- Cannot track time away from the computer unless manually entered
- Premium pricing, especially for teams needing SSO
Memtime and Timely solve the same problem - automatic time capture for knowledge workers who forget to start timers - but they take fundamentally different approaches to data ownership. Memtime stores everything locally on the user’s machine. The raw activity timeline never touches a server. For lawyers, medical professionals, and anyone working under strict data residency requirements, that distinction is not a preference. It is a compliance requirement.
I installed the desktop agent and worked for three days without thinking about time tracking once. At the end of each day, the visual timeline showed every application window, browser tab, and document I had open, broken into minute-level blocks. Dragging those blocks onto client projects in the connected billing tool recovered approximately 45 minutes of billable time per day that I would have forgotten to log manually.
The limitation is physical. Memtime cannot track what happens away from the keyboard. Phone calls, in-person meetings, whiteboard sessions - anything offline requires manual entry after the fact. For professionals whose work is 90% screen-based, this barely matters. For roles that split time between desk work and meetings, the gap is noticeable.
Best Time Tracking Software for Employee Monitoring
Insightful
Pros
- Categorizes every application and website as productive or unproductive per team
- Stealth or visible mode depending on organizational transparency preferences
Cons
- Demands significant CPU and memory resources on monitored machines
- 7-day free trial is too short to evaluate analytics depth
- Intensive monitoring raises serious privacy and morale concerns
Compared to Hubstaff, which monitors activity through screenshots and keyboard metrics, Insightful focuses on categorization. Every application and website gets tagged as productive, unproductive, or neutral, and those classifications can be customized per team. I set up a test configuration where Slack counted as productive for the marketing team but neutral for the engineering team, and the resulting analytics reflected the distinction accurately.
The stealth mode option is the feature that will polarize any organization considering this tool. Insightful can run invisibly on employee machines, collecting activity data without the employee knowing. Whether that capability is appropriate depends entirely on organizational culture and local labor law. I tested both visible and stealth modes; technically they function identically.
Insightful is built for call centers, BPOs, and environments where efficiency metrics drive business outcomes. For those organizations, the productivity analytics provide data that standard time trackers cannot. For knowledge work environments where output matters more than activity, the monitoring creates more problems than it solves. The CPU and memory overhead is also worth noting - on lower-spec machines, background monitoring caused noticeable performance degradation during testing.
Best Time Tracking Software for Time Card App
Buddy Punch
Pros
- Webcam photos at punch-in eliminate buddy punching entirely
- GPS geofencing restricts clock-ins to approved physical locations
- Built-in US payroll processing as an add-on module
Cons
- Add-on pricing for GPS and custom reporting escalates costs quickly
- No offline mode for locations with poor internet connectivity
For businesses where time theft is an actual line-item problem - construction sites, retail chains, cleaning services - Buddy Punch addresses it more directly than any other tool on this list. I set up webcam verification on a test account and ran through the clock-in process. Every punch requires a live photo. No photo, no clock-in. Combined with GPS geofencing that restricts punches to within 200 meters of a job site, the system makes it physically difficult for an employee to clock in when they are not where they should be.
The interface is simple enough that the training burden is negligible. I tested the mobile app with a simulated hourly workforce and every test user completed their first clock-in without assistance. Overtime calculations and break tracking happen automatically based on configured rules, and the exportable timesheet format integrates cleanly with major payroll providers.
Buddy Punch lacks an offline mode. Job sites without reliable internet - rural construction, warehouse basements, remote facilities - present a genuine operational problem. Employees at those locations cannot punch in until connectivity returns, which defeats the real-time accuracy that justifies the tool in the first place.
Best Time Tracking Software for Free Time Clock
Jibble
Pros
- Unlimited users, projects, and clients on the free-forever plan
- Facial recognition verification on mobile and kiosk devices
- Slack and Microsoft Teams bots for desk-based clock-ins
- Kiosk mode turns any tablet into a shared time clock terminal
Cons
- Timesheet approvals and custom permissions require paid upgrade
- Facial recognition struggles in poor lighting conditions
Jibble’s free plan is more generous than Clockify’s for attendance-focused use cases. Unlimited users and projects, facial recognition, kiosk mode, and basic GPS tracking - all at zero cost. I deployed a test kiosk on an iPad, enrolled five employees with facial recognition, and ran a simulated week of clock-ins. Recognition accuracy was reliable in well-lit environments, averaging under two seconds per verification.
The Slack and Teams integrations handle the desk worker scenario elegantly. I typed “/jibble in” in a Slack channel and the bot logged my clock-in with a timestamp. Pulling a timesheet summary was another slash command. For hybrid teams where some employees clock in at a physical kiosk and others punch in from their laptop via chat, Jibble handles both workflows on the same plan.
Where Jibble falls short is management controls. Timesheet approvals, custom security permissions, and project-based tracking are all gated behind paid tiers. The free plan works well for teams that trust employees to log their own time accurately but need biometric verification to prevent abuse. Once a manager needs approval workflows or detailed project-level reporting, the upgrade becomes necessary. For budget-conscious small businesses that just need an honest time clock with identity verification, nothing else in this list comes close on value.
Which time tracker fits your team?
The split in this category runs along one clear line: desk work versus physical work. Freelancers, agencies, and remote teams billing by the hour need a lightweight timer that integrates into their existing tools and feeds data into invoicing. Retail managers, construction foremen, and shift supervisors need GPS verification, scheduling, and a clean path to payroll.
Pick two or three that match your actual work environment, sign up for a free plan or trial, and run your real workflow through each one. Most of the platforms on this list offer enough free access to make that test meaningful before committing budget. The tracker that fits your process is the right one - not the one with the longest feature list.