Visibility in this ranking can be paid for. Payment moves a vendor's position within the
shortlist; it never adds a vendor, and it never changes a word of the review. The largest vendors in time tracking software
cannot hold places 1 to 3. Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands in a category,
wherever the category has them; the established names follow from place 4 in their ranked order. How it works: placement disclosure ·
editorial process.
The 18 tools, reviewed
#1 Jibble
Free time clock and attendance app for hourly teams · United Kingdom · jibble.io
Free unlimited users Attendance Facial recognition
Jibble is a clock-in tool first: staff punch in from a phone, a shared kiosk tablet or Slack and Microsoft Teams, with facial recognition to stop buddy punching and GPS to confirm location. Timesheets, overtime and break rules follow.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Free forever plan with unlimited users; paid per-user tiers add advanced reporting, geofencing and payroll features. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Hourly and field teams on a budget
- Strengths: Mobile and kiosk clock-in; Facial recognition; GPS and geofencing.
Where it falls short
Project, client and billable tracking exist but are basic, so agencies will outgrow it. Some advanced rules and integrations sit on paid tiers.
Wrong for
Consultancies, agencies and freelancers billing clients by the hour with budgets and invoices.
Visit Jibble →
#2 Buddy Punch
Online punch clock with payroll exports for hourly staff · United States · buddypunch.com
Punch clock Payroll integrations US-focused
Buddy Punch does one job carefully: recording when hourly employees start and stop, with photo capture, GPS and geofencing, then applying overtime, rounding and PTO rules and exporting to Gusto, ADP, Paychex, QuickBooks and other payroll systems.
- Pricing: Base fee + per user. A monthly base fee plus a per-user charge, Starter from $19 per month plus about $5 per user billed annually, with a 14-day trial. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: US hourly teams needing payroll exports
- Strengths: Web, mobile and kiosk punch; GPS and geofencing; Photo on punch.
Where it falls short
Project and client billing features are minimal. The base fee plus per-user price is higher than Jibble for similar functionality, and there is no free plan.
Wrong for
Knowledge-work teams that need to track projects, clients and billable hours rather than shifts.
Visit Buddy Punch →
#3 Paymo
Project management, time tracking and invoicing in one app · Romania · paymoapp.com
All-in-one Invoicing Small agencies
Paymo combines tasks, planning, time tracking and invoicing in one product priced for small creative and consulting agencies. Time is tracked against tasks with a timer, a desktop app that can capture activity, or timesheets, then flows onto invoices with expenses.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Free plan for one user with one client and two projects. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Small agencies wanting one work app
- Strengths: Timers and timesheets; Automatic desktop tracking; Task and Kanban boards.
Where it falls short
Each module is less capable than a specialist: project management trails Asana, and time tracking lacks the browser integrations of Toggl Track.
Wrong for
Teams happy with their existing project tool who only need a tracker; Toggl Track or Everhour adds time without replacing it.
Visit Paymo →
#4 Toggl (formerly Toggl Track)
One-click time tracking with a widely liked interface · Estonia · toggl.com
Low friction Free tier Billable rates
Toggl Track wins on the thing that matters most: people keep logging time. Starting a timer takes one click from the desktop app, the phone, or a button the browser extension adds inside Asana, Jira, Trello, Gmail and dozens of other tools.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Free plan for up to three users. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Agencies and teams wanting low-friction tracking
- Strengths: One-click timers; Browser extension for 100+ tools; Desktop and mobile apps.
Where it falls short
Tasks, timelines and capacity planning arrived with the merger into Toggl, but they are lighter than a dedicated project management tool.
Wrong for
Businesses with hourly shift staff who need a clock-in kiosk, overtime rules and payroll export.
Visit Toggl (formerly Toggl Track) →
#5 Harvest
Time tracking and invoicing for client-billed work · Italy · getharvest.com
Invoicing built in Budgets Client billing
Harvest turns tracked hours into an invoice with fewer steps than any other dedicated tracker here: pick the client and date range, check the line items, send, and let the client pay by card online.
- Pricing: Per seat / month. Free for one seat and two projects. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Agencies and consultancies billing hourly
- Strengths: Timers and timesheets; Billable and cost rates; Project budgets and alerts.
Where it falls short
Reporting beyond budgets and billable totals is limited, timesheet approvals and profitability reports need the Enterprise plan, and resource planning needs the separate Forecast product.
Wrong for
Internal teams with no client billing, who will pay for invoicing they never use.
Visit Harvest →
#6 Clockify
Low-cost time tracking with timesheets, rates and reports · United States · clockify.me
Low price Broad features Free for small teams
Clockify covers almost everything a mid-sized team asks of a tracker, including timesheets, kiosk clock-in, rates, budgets, approvals, invoicing, time off and scheduling, at a per-seat price that undercuts most rivals by half.
- Pricing: Per seat / month. Free plan for up to five users. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Cost-conscious teams of any size
- Strengths: Timers and weekly timesheets; Kiosk clock-in; Billable rates and budgets.
Where it falls short
Its famous free plan for unlimited users is gone.
Wrong for
Teams that want the simplest possible tracker and will never use kiosks, scheduling or monitoring.
Visit Clockify →
#7 Hubstaff
Time tracking with activity monitoring for remote teams · United States · hubstaff.com
Activity monitoring Remote teams Contractor payments
Hubstaff is built for companies paying remote contractors by the hour: the desktop app records time with optional screenshots, activity levels and app usage, and approved hours can trigger payments through PayPal, Wise and other payout services.
- Pricing: Per seat / month. Per seat per month in tiers, Team around $10 per seat, with a 14-day free trial and no free plan. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: Remote contractor and outsourcing teams
- Strengths: Desktop time tracking; Screenshots and activity levels; App and URL tracking.
Where it falls short
The monitoring features that sell it to managers are exactly what make many employees distrust it, and screenshot capture creates privacy and GDPR questions in Europe.
Wrong for
A salaried in-house team where trust matters more than oversight.
Visit Hubstaff →
#8 TimeCamp
Automatic time tracking that drafts timesheets from activity · Poland · timecamp.com
Automatic tracking Unlimited free users Attendance
TimeCamp's desktop app records which applications and documents someone works in and assigns time to projects automatically using keyword rules, so timesheets partly fill themselves. That removes much of the manual entry that makes people abandon trackers.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Free plan with unlimited users. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Teams wanting automatic capture cheaply
- Strengths: Automatic activity tracking; Keyword-based project assignment; Timesheets and approvals.
Where it falls short
Automatic assignment needs careful setup of keyword rules, and misassigned time requires cleanup. The interface looks dated beside Toggl Track and Harvest, and reporting has a learning curve.
Wrong for
Teams that bill clients and want invoicing to be the core workflow; Harvest does it with less configuration.
Visit TimeCamp →
#9 Everhour
Time tracking embedded inside your project management tool · Cyprus · everhour.com
PM integration Budgets Embedded timers
Everhour puts timers and time estimates directly inside the task views of Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Jira, Basecamp, Monday and others, so people track time on the task they are already looking at.
- Pricing: Per seat / month. Free plan for up to five seats. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Teams living in Asana, ClickUp or Trello
- Strengths: Timers inside Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Jira and others; Project budgets; Billable rates.
Where it falls short
It depends heavily on the host project tool: if that tool changes its API or you switch tools, much of the value goes with it.
Wrong for
Teams without a single project tool, or with hourly workers clocking in.
Visit Everhour →
#10 Timely
Private automatic time tracking that drafts timesheets for you · Norway · timely.com
Automatic capture Privacy-first Professional services
Timely records work activity privately for each person, including documents, meetings, calls and apps, then drafts timesheets that the person reviews before anything is shared with a manager.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Starter $9 per user per month billed annually for up to five users and 20 projects, Premium $16 for up to 50 users, Unlimited $22, with a 14-day trial. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: Professional services firms billing hours
- Strengths: Memory automatic activity capture; AI-drafted timesheets; Project budgets and capacity.
Where it falls short
It is expensive compared with Clockify or TimeCamp, and the Starter tier is limited to a handful of users.
Wrong for
Small teams on tight budgets or businesses with hourly shift workers who only clock in and out.
Visit Timely →
#11 QuickBooks Time
Mobile time clock that feeds QuickBooks payroll and invoicing · United States · quickbooks.intuit.com
QuickBooks integration Mobile GPS Hourly teams
QuickBooks Time, built on the former TSheets, is a reliable mobile time clock for crews and field staff: GPS clock-in, geofence reminders, a kiosk mode and job coding that sends hours straight to Intuit's payroll, now sold as QuickBooks Workforce, and onto customer invoices in QuickBooks Online.
- Pricing: Base fee + per user. Time Premium $20 per month plus $10 per user, Time Elite $40 plus $12 per user, on top of a required QuickBooks Online subscription. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: US small businesses on QuickBooks Online
- Strengths: Mobile clock-in with GPS; Geofencing reminders; Kiosk time clock.
Where it falls short
The pricing, with a base fee on top of per-user charges, is higher than independent trackers, and Intuit has raised prices repeatedly.
Wrong for
Agencies billing knowledge work or companies on Xero or non-US payroll.
Visit QuickBooks Time →
#12 Tempo Timesheets
Jira-native time tracking and timesheet approvals · United States · tempo.io
Jira native Capitalization reporting Approvals
Tempo Timesheets logs time directly against Jira issues, with suggestions pulled from calendars and Jira activity, and handles weekly approvals by team lead.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Sold through the Atlassian Marketplace, priced per Jira user in tiers and billed with the Atlassian subscription. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: Software teams working in Jira
- Strengths: Time logging on Jira issues; Automatic time suggestions; Timesheet approvals.
Where it falls short
It only makes sense inside Jira, and every Jira user counts toward the price, so cost scales with the whole Jira instance rather than with people who track time.
Wrong for
Agencies or teams not on Jira.
Visit Tempo Timesheets →
#13 ClickTime
Timesheets with approvals, cost rates and budget reports · United States · clicktime.com
Nonprofit pricing Approvals Labor cost
ClickTime has sold web timesheets since 1999, and the maturity shows on the admin side: approval chains by manager and by project, locked periods, cost rates per person, and reports that split hours across grants, departments and funding sources.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Published per-user tiers from $12 a month on Starter billed yearly ($15 monthly), approvals from the Team tier, nonprofit discounts, a demo instead of a self-serve trial, and a quote for enterprise. Free plan: none.
- Best for: Nonprofits and grant-funded project teams
- Strengths: Weekly timesheets; Multi-level approvals; Cost and billing rates.
Where it falls short
There is no free tier, and the product assumes people complete a weekly grid rather than run timers, so hours captured in the moment are weaker than with Toggl or Timely.
Wrong for
Freelancers and small studios who want a timer that becomes a client invoice the same afternoon.
Visit ClickTime →
#14 Time Doctor
Time tracking with activity monitoring for distributed teams · United States · timedoctor.com
Activity monitoring Remote staff BPO
Time Doctor was designed for companies that pay people they never see: virtual assistant agencies, offshore support teams and outsourcing firms billing a customer for a full-time seat.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Published per-user tiers billed monthly or annually (annual saves about two months), a 14-day trial of the Premium plan, and paid add-ons such as video screen recording, SSO and payroll integrations. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: Outsourcing firms managing remote staff
- Strengths: Automatic desktop tracking; Screenshots and screen recording; Idle time alerts.
Where it falls short
Monitoring is the point, and it cuts both ways: salaried designers and engineers often resent screenshots, and in the EU the collection needs a lawful basis, a privacy notice and in some countries a works council conversation.
Wrong for
Agencies and in-house teams run on trust and billable reporting rather than proof of presence.
Visit Time Doctor →
#15 BigTime
Time, billing and project accounting for professional firms · United States · bigtime.net
PSA Utilization WIP billing
BigTime treats a logged hour as the start of an accounting record.
- Pricing: Per user / month. Published per-user monthly pricing from $20 on the Essentials edition, Advanced and Premier tiers above it, a quoted Enterprise tier, and onboarding usually scoped separately. Free plan: none.
- Best for: Accounting, engineering and consulting firms
- Strengths: Timesheets and expenses; Work-in-progress billing; Utilization and realization reports.
Where it falls short
Setup is a project rather than an afternoon: rate tables, billing rules and invoice layouts need care and often a paid onboarding package.
Wrong for
Small teams that only need hours per project and a CSV at month end.
Visit BigTime →
#16 Kimai
Open source web time tracker, self-hosted or cloud · Austria · kimai.org
Open source Self-hosted EU hosting
Kimai has existed since 2006 and is maintained from Vienna.
- Pricing: Open source + paid tiers. The software is free under the AGPL. Free plan: open source.
- Best for: Self-hosters and budget-bound nonprofits
- Strengths: Web timers and timesheets; Customers, projects and activities; Invoice generation.
Where it falls short
Self-hosting means you own updates, backups and security patches, and several of the most useful additions for the self-hosted edition are paid plugins.
Wrong for
Teams with nobody comfortable running a web server who also want polished apps and hooks into Asana or Jira.
Visit Kimai →
#17 Productive
Agency management with time, budgets and profitability · Croatia · productive.io
Agency PSA Budget burn Profitability
Productive, built in Rijeka, is sold as an operating system for agencies, and its timesheets exist to answer one question: is this project still making money?
- Pricing: Per user / month. Published per-user monthly tiers from about $9 on annual billing, a 14-day trial, and a quoted Ultimate plan that adds revenue forecasting and scenario planning. Free plan: free trial.
- Best for: Agencies on fixed-fee and retainer work
- Strengths: Timers and timesheets; Budget burn tracking; Resource scheduling.
Where it falls short
Nobody should buy it merely to record hours; the depth makes onboarding slower and per-seat costs higher than a plain tracker.
Wrong for
Hourly workforces, in-house product teams and freelancers.
Visit Productive →
#18 Homebase
Free time clock and schedules for hourly shift teams · United States · joinhomebase.com
Per-location pricing Time clock Shift teams
Homebase approaches time tracking from the shop floor.
- Pricing: Per location / month. A free Basic plan for one location with up to 10 employees. Free plan: free plan.
- Best for: Restaurants and shops with hourly staff
- Strengths: Mobile and tablet time clock; POS clock-in integrations; Break and overtime alerts.
Where it falls short
There are no projects, clients or billable rates, so it can only say which shift and which role consumed the hours.
Wrong for
Agencies, consultancies and software teams tracking time against clients or tickets.
Visit Homebase →
Questions and answers
What is the best time tracking software in 2026?
Jibble ranks first of 18, best for hourly and field teams on a budget. Buddy Punch is second (uS hourly teams needing payroll exports) and Paymo third (small agencies wanting one work app). Places 1 to 3 go to challengers, vendors outside the best-known brands, wherever the category has them.
Is there any truly free time tracking software for a whole team?
Jibble offers a free plan for unlimited users covering clock-in, timesheets and basic reports, and TimeCamp's free plan also allows unlimited users with feature limits. Clockify, long known for free unlimited users, now caps its free plan at five users.
Should we use automatic tracking or manual timers?
Automatic tracking records the apps, documents and sites someone uses and builds a draft timesheet from it, which captures time people forget. Timely and TimeCamp do this well.
Is employee monitoring with screenshots legal?
In most US states it is legal on company devices with notice, though some states require written disclosure.
Which time tracker works best inside Jira?
Tempo Timesheets is the standard choice for Jira-centric teams: time is logged against issues, approved by team leads and reported for capitalization or client billing without leaving Jira.
Can time tracking software create client invoices?
Yes, several can. Harvest, Paymo, Everhour and Toggl Track (on paid plans) turn billable hours and expenses into invoices, and most push them to QuickBooks Online or Xero. Harvest's invoicing is the most complete of the dedicated trackers.
How do we get approved hours into payroll?
For hourly staff, choose a tracker with a direct payroll integration: QuickBooks Time connects to Intuit's payroll, now sold as QuickBooks Workforce, and Buddy Punch and Jibble integrate with Gusto, ADP and other providers.
What does time tracking cost per user?
Entry paid tiers across this list mostly run between about $4 and $12 per user per month on annual billing, with mid tiers around $10 to $20.
Does Harvest's ownership change affect customers?
Harvest's terms now name Bending Spoons Operations S.p.A. in Milan as the provider. Bending Spoons has a record of restructuring products it acquires, including pricing and staffing changes.
What is the difference between time tracking and employee scheduling software?
Time tracking records hours actually worked, per project or per shift. Employee scheduling plans who works when, handles shift swaps and availability, and forecasts labor.
How do we stop people forgetting to track time?
Pick a tool that puts the timer where the work happens, through browser extensions in project tools and a desktop app. Turn on idle detection and reminders for people with no running timer.
