Time tracking software is bought for one of three reasons, and buying the wrong category for your reason is why so many teams abandon it within a quarter.
Billing — you invoice clients by the hour and need defensible records. Payroll — you employ hourly staff and need hours for pay and compliance. Insight — you want to know where the week actually goes.
These need different products. A billing tool asked to run payroll compliance will fail an audit. A workforce management system bought for personal insight will be resented.
Before the List: The Monitoring Question
Some products in this category include screenshots, keystroke counts, application monitoring and activity scoring. Others deliberately do not.
This is worth deciding early, and not only on ethical grounds. Employee monitoring is regulated. Under GDPR and UK GDPR, monitoring employees requires a lawful basis, a data protection impact assessment in many cases, and transparency with staff — covert monitoring is generally unlawful. Several US states require notice, and rules vary by jurisdiction.
Separately, the practical effect is well documented in management research: surveillance tends to produce compliance behaviour rather than productivity, and it damages trust in ways that outlast the software.
If you want insight, timesheets give you that. If you are considering monitoring, take advice on your obligations first and tell your staff.
The Ten
1. Toggl Track
The one most people should try first. A timer, projects, clients and tags, with genuinely good reporting and browser extensions that let you start a timer from inside other tools.
Toggl has been explicit about not building surveillance features, which is a positioning choice worth knowing.
Suits: freelancers, agencies, consultants tracking billable time. Watch: not a payroll or scheduling tool.
2. Clockify
The value option, with a free tier that supports unlimited users — unusual in this category and the reason it appears on so many lists.
Covers timesheets, projects, billable rates and reporting, with paid tiers adding approvals and invoicing.
Suits: teams wanting capable tracking at minimal cost. Watch: the free tier is generous; approvals and locking sit on paid plans.
3. Harvest
Time tracking with invoicing built in, and the smoothest path from tracked hours to a sent invoice. Expense tracking included.
Suits: consultancies and agencies billing by the hour. Watch: priced per user, and lighter on project management.
4. Everhour
Designed to embed inside other tools — it adds timers directly into Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Notion and others rather than being a separate place to visit.
Suits: teams already living in a project tool who will not adopt a second app. Watch: value depends on your project tool being supported.
5. QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets)
Rebranded after Intuit acquired TSheets. Built for hourly workforces — GPS tracking, geofencing, clock-in from mobile, overtime rules — and flows into QuickBooks payroll.
Suits: construction, field service, hourly staff on QuickBooks. Watch: location tracking carries the notice and consent obligations described above.
6. Homebase
Scheduling first, time clock second, aimed at shift-based businesses — hospitality, retail, salons. Includes shift swapping, labour cost forecasting and break compliance tooling.
Suits: businesses running rotas. Watch: not designed for billable professional time.
7. Deputy
Similar shift-work territory with stronger compliance features around breaks, overtime and awards, and a strong presence in Australia where award interpretation is genuinely complex.
Suits: shift businesses with complex award or overtime rules.
8. Timely
Takes a different approach: it records what you worked on automatically in the background and then asks you to convert that into timesheet entries, rather than expecting you to remember to start a timer.
Suits: people who genuinely cannot remember to press start. Watch: automatic capture is monitoring-adjacent — be clear with staff about what is recorded and where it goes.
9. My Hours
Straightforward project time tracking with client billing, at a low price point.
Suits: small teams wanting simple billable tracking.
10. Kimai
Open source and self-hostable. Free if you run it yourself, with your data staying on your infrastructure.
Suits: technical teams with data residency requirements. Watch: you own hosting, backups and updates.
How They Compare
| Product | Primary purpose | Invoicing | Scheduling | Monitoring features |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toggl Track | Billable time | Basic | No | None by design |
| Clockify | Billable time, value | Paid tiers | Limited | Optional |
| Harvest | Time to invoice | Strong | No | None |
| Everhour | Embedded tracking | Yes | No | None |
| QuickBooks Time | Hourly payroll | Via QuickBooks | Yes | GPS, geofencing |
| Homebase | Shift scheduling | No | Strong | Clock-in photos |
| Deputy | Shift compliance | No | Strong | Clock-in verification |
| Timely | Automatic capture | Basic | No | Automatic activity capture |
| My Hours | Simple billable | Yes | No | None |
| Kimai | Self-hosted | Yes | No | None |
Pricing is per user per month across nearly all of these and changes regularly. Verify current pricing and check which features sit behind which tier — approvals, locking and invoicing are commonly gated.
Record-Keeping Obligations
If you employ hourly staff, time records are not optional.
In the US, the Fair Labor Standards Act requires employers to keep accurate records of hours worked for non-exempt employees, and the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division publishes what must be retained and for how long. UK employers have obligations under the Working Time Regulations, and the EU Working Time Directive was reinforced by a Court of Justice ruling requiring employers to maintain objective, reliable records of daily working time.
The practical implication: if you have hourly staff, your time tracking is a compliance record, not a management convenience. Choose something with approvals and an audit trail, and confirm your retention obligations for your jurisdiction.
What Actually Determines Adoption
Friction at the moment of tracking. If starting a timer takes four clicks, people will reconstruct their week on Friday from memory, and that data is worthless.
Whether it lives where they work. A separate app people must remember to open loses to a timer inside the tool they already have open.
Whether anyone looks at it. If tracked time never appears in a decision, people stop tracking accurately. Show the team what it produced.
Whether it feels like measurement or surveillance. The fastest way to kill adoption is for staff to conclude they are being watched rather than that work is being costed.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Buying a workforce management tool for billable consulting. Different product, and staff will resent it.
- Buying a billing tool for hourly payroll compliance. It will lack approvals, locking and the audit trail you need.
- Introducing monitoring without notice. Legally risky under GDPR and several US state laws, and reliably damaging to trust.
- Tracking time nobody analyses. If it never informs a decision, accuracy decays within weeks.
- Too many project codes. Fifty options means people pick the first plausible one. Keep the list short.
- No timesheet locking. Editable history is not a compliance record.
- Rolling out to everyone at once. Trial with one team, fix the friction, then expand.
- Not exporting before cancelling. Time records may need retaining for years.
FAQs
What is the best free time tracking software?
Clockify has a free tier supporting unlimited users, which is unusual. Toggl Track’s free tier suits individuals and very small teams. Kimai is free if you self-host.
Is employee monitoring legal?
It depends on jurisdiction and method. Under GDPR and UK GDPR you need a lawful basis, transparency with staff, and often a data protection impact assessment; covert monitoring is generally unlawful. Several US states require notice. Take advice before implementing screenshots, keystroke logging or location tracking.
Do I legally have to track employee hours?
If you employ non-exempt hourly staff in the US, the FLSA requires accurate records. UK and EU employers have obligations under working time rules, reinforced by case law requiring objective, reliable records. Confirm the specifics for your jurisdiction and worker classifications.
Which is best for an agency billing clients?
Harvest if invoicing matters most, Toggl Track for reporting depth, or Everhour if your team lives inside a project tool and will not open a second app.
Can time tracking integrate with payroll?
Yes. QuickBooks Time flows into QuickBooks payroll, and Homebase and Deputy integrate with several payroll providers. If payroll is the reason you are buying, verify the specific integration with your payroll provider before choosing.
Should I track my own time as a solo business owner?
For a few weeks, yes — the data on where your week actually goes is usually surprising and worth acting on. Ongoing tracking only pays off if you bill hourly or genuinely review it.
Key Takeaways
- Decide whether you are buying for billing, payroll or insight — they are different products.
- If you employ hourly staff, time records are a compliance obligation with retention rules.
- Monitoring features carry legal obligations and reliably damage trust. Decide deliberately.
- Adoption depends on friction at the moment of tracking, not on features.
- Time nobody analyses stops being tracked accurately within weeks.
Before You Choose
Write down which of the three reasons applies to you, then trial one tool from that category with a single team for two weeks. If people are still tracking accurately at the end, expand.
For related decisions, see our guides to invoicing software for turning hours into payment, and payroll providers if hourly compliance is the driver.