There's just so many hours in one day. And if you want to know what those hours have actually been going for, you need a time tracker because, let's face it, no one's memory is that good!
Time tracker applications, whether you are a person or a business owner, help you learn where you and your team are spending your time and how effective your time management is. A quality software that records employee time can really be invaluable.
I'll share and compare 7 different best time tracking apps in this article, including multiple options for people, teams or employers looking to manage remote teams.
I'll start you by setting the stage with this handy comparison table. I will then go a little deeper and share some basic features and pros/cons for each time tracker tool.
What time-tracking app should you use for employees?
Well, this one obviously depends heavily on your needs. It is impossible to predict, because it is dependent on your own workflows so heavily.
But here are some tips, beginning with the actual tools I and the CodeinWP team are using.
I am a freelance soloist, so my needs are different from that of the entire CodeinWP team.
In addition, Timely offers a unique approach which focuses heavily on automatic tracking and learning. Hubstaff could be potentially cheaper than TimeDoctor, especially for larger remote teams. And Tick offers a unique approach to pricing that can make it really affordable for collaborative teams, even if I am not a fan of its interface personally.
But here's the great thing:
All of these platforms offer free plans or free trials, so you can play with them all around and see what works best for you and/or your team's workflows!
Best time tracking apps compared:
1. Time Doctor
Best for the ... time tracking of remote teams and businesses. Not for single people.
Time Doctor lets you track time in your entire team and clearly brand yourself as "Time Tracking for Remote Teams," which should give you a pretty good idea of who your target market is.
If you want more control over your remote team, this includes an option to take screenshots automatically to ensure everyone is on the job.
And you can also make use of the website and the app to see what people are spending their time on.
Employee Time Tracking App: Time Doctor Instead, when it's paycheck time, you can measure your payroll automatically based on fixed hours monitored in Time Doctor and pay directly using PayPal, Payoneer, TransferWise or other methods.
Pricing
Time Doctor is specially priced clearly. You can either use the limited free plan, or you can pay $9.99 for all the features per user per month.
2. Toggl
Best for ... individuals and freelancers, but Toggl does have team business plans, and can be a great time monitoring tool for employees.
Toggl is a lovely freemium time tracker software that gives you plenty of versatility in how you arrange your tracking operation.
This provides a quick time tracking app interface that allows you to delegate tasks to on - the-fly projects and clients, including time-saving options that allow you to create new projects or clients without having to leave your dashboard.
You can use it almost anywhere–it has a web interface, plugins to browsers, mobile apps, and even a desktop version.
Toggl time tracking software You can monitor those tasks and set reminders automatically on the mobile app. You'll have to manually start / stop your timers with the other apps.
You get a great reporting invoice to round things out as well as 100 + integrations with other popular tools like Trello, Asana and much more.
Pricing
Free generous schedule. Individuals will possibly get along with the free plan (I use the free plan with zero problems on a personal note).
The paid plans start at $9 per user per month (billed annually) and extend for the enterprise plan up to $49 per user per month, which is likely a good option if you need an employee time monitoring device.
3. Harvest
Best for ... freelancers and teams who like the concept that a good employee time tracking software should have built-in support for invoicing, billable hours, expense tracking and other accounting apps.
Harvest is a time tracker... with a little more to say. It also lets you track beyond the basic time tracking:
~Expenses
~Billable hours
And Harvest also facilitates invoicing, including an ability to convert billable hours into invoices. One particularly great thing about the invoicing of Harvest is that it allows flat-rate $0.50 PayPal Business Payments (if you have a bank account in the United States).
Pricing
Harvest has a free plan which allows people to create up to 2 projects.
Thereafter, unlimited project plans cost $12 a month per user.
4. Hours
Best for ... individuals who want simple time tracking in a beautiful gui (Hours contains a Team feature, but it's not as in-depth as other instruments).
Hours has one of the most beautiful interfaces in a time tracker I've seen. That could be even better than Toggl!
Using that gorgeous gui, you can start and stop timers as needed. And it also has this really useful timeline feature that allows you to quickly fill in gaps in your time tracking to account for your day entirely.
The Reports app is just as well built and offers you plenty of filters to slice and dice your reports as needed.
Nevertheless, Hours is still a little young, and is only available through its website or an iOS app, which does not provide as much coverage as most other best time tracking apps.
Pricing
Hours of access to the web interface cost a flat $8 per user per month.
You can get free access to the iOS app (without the Pro features).
5. Timely
Best for ... individuals and teams that want a common automatic time tracker.
Timely's unique selling point is its automated time tracking can be a finicky thing, so here's how Timely does it:
~First, it tracks all your behavior and group it together based on what you've been doing.
~Instead, it recommends a mark and tags based on what it thinks you've accomplished.
~You can either follow a suggestion from Timely, edit it manually or absolutely delete the time entry.
Now, here's the cool thing... you're training Timely to change in the future any time you manually edit a time entry.
It is simply not stupid. In the future, it learns from your edits to make more precise suggestions.
It's not for everyone–for example, most of my day is spent exclusively in Google Docs, so it's hard for me to train something to track all my different clients / projects automatically when I'm using the same website all day long.
But if you do different tasks–the automated monitoring of the time is pretty cool.
Pricing
Timely begins at $7 a month for single users, or $20 per user per month for teams, for monthly rates.
6. HubStaff
Best for ... time tracking for remote teams and companies, making it useful as a time tracking device for workers. Not for single people.
Unlike Time Doctor, Hubstaff is more targeting employers who want to control and track the time of their workers.
Hubstaff functions as either a desktop or smartphone device, supporting smaller operating systems such as Chromebooks and Linux as well.
If you really want to monitor your team, you can:
~Take up to 3 random screenshots per 10-minute duration (or, if necessary, disable this feature)
~Track mouse movements and keyboard clicks
~Monitor internet and application usage, including a time chart spent on each website / app
Then, once you have all the data for your team, Hubstaff can calculate payroll automatically, including automatic payments.
Pricing
Hubstaff has a limited free option for their solos. For more integrations, automated payroll, and other features, pay team plans start at $5 per user per month and go up to $10 or $20 per user per month.
7. Tick
Good for ... larger teams that are compensated by the "per user" price of other applications and would like to be less limited in terms of users on board with their employee time monitoring software.
One of the most unique things about this time tracker is the billing system of ticks. Whereas each other tool charges you "per user" for team plans, Tick charges per "project" with unlimited users supporting each plan.
That could mean significant cost savings, especially for larger teams, depending on how many projects you work on.
The actual interface is pretty basic–it sets you up with projects and activities that can be monitored either in real-time, or by entering data manually once you're finished.
Tick
Then you can view your tracking in custom reports that allow you to drill by:
~Billable vs non-billable hours
~Client
~Team member
Pricing
Remember-all these plans support unlimited members of the team (including the free plan). The plans are:
~1 project – free
~10 projects – $19 a month
~30 projects – $49 a month
~60 projects – $79 a month
~Unlimited projects – $149 a month
We hope you found this post helpful and soon going to use these time tracking apps to monitor your work employee efficiency.
There's just so many hours in one day. And if you want to know what those hours have actually been going for, you need a time tracker because, let's face it, no one's memory is that good!
Time tracker applications, whether you are a person or a business owner, help you learn where you and your team are spending your time and how effective your time management is. A quality software that records employee time can really be invaluable.
I'll share and compare 7 different best time tracking apps in this article, including multiple options for people, teams or employers looking to manage remote teams.
I'll start you by setting the stage with this handy comparison table. I will then go a little deeper and share some basic features and pros/cons for each time tracker tool.
What time-tracking app should you use for employees?
Well, this one obviously depends heavily on your needs. It is impossible to predict, because it is dependent on your own workflows so heavily.
But here are some tips, beginning with the actual tools I and the CodeinWP team are using.
I am a freelance soloist, so my needs are different from that of the entire CodeinWP team.
In addition, Timely offers a unique approach which focuses heavily on automatic tracking and learning. Hubstaff could be potentially cheaper than TimeDoctor, especially for larger remote teams. And Tick offers a unique approach to pricing that can make it really affordable for collaborative teams, even if I am not a fan of its interface personally.
But here's the great thing:
All of these platforms offer free plans or free trials, so you can play with them all around and see what works best for you and/or your team's workflows!
Best time tracking apps compared:
1. Time Doctor
Best for the ... time tracking of remote teams and businesses. Not for single people.
Time Doctor lets you track time in your entire team and clearly brand yourself as "Time Tracking for Remote Teams," which should give you a pretty good idea of who your target market is.
If you want more control over your remote team, this includes an option to take screenshots automatically to ensure everyone is on the job.
And you can also make use of the website and the app to see what people are spending their time on.
Employee Time Tracking App: Time Doctor Instead, when it's paycheck time, you can measure your payroll automatically based on fixed hours monitored in Time Doctor and pay directly using PayPal, Payoneer, TransferWise or other methods.
Pricing
Time Doctor is specially priced clearly. You can either use the limited free plan, or you can pay $9.99 for all the features per user per month.
2. Toggl
Best for ... individuals and freelancers, but Toggl does have team business plans, and can be a great time monitoring tool for employees.
Toggl is a lovely freemium time tracker software that gives you plenty of versatility in how you arrange your tracking operation.
This provides a quick time tracking app interface that allows you to delegate tasks to on - the-fly projects and clients, including time-saving options that allow you to create new projects or clients without having to leave your dashboard.
You can use it almost anywhere–it has a web interface, plugins to browsers, mobile apps, and even a desktop version.
Toggl time tracking software You can monitor those tasks and set reminders automatically on the mobile app. You'll have to manually start / stop your timers with the other apps.
You get a great reporting invoice to round things out as well as 100 + integrations with other popular tools like Trello, Asana and much more.
Pricing
Free generous schedule. Individuals will possibly get along with the free plan (I use the free plan with zero problems on a personal note).
The paid plans start at $9 per user per month (billed annually) and extend for the enterprise plan up to $49 per user per month, which is likely a good option if you need an employee time monitoring device.
3. Harvest
Best for ... freelancers and teams who like the concept that a good employee time tracking software should have built-in support for invoicing, billable hours, expense tracking and other accounting apps.
Harvest is a time tracker... with a little more to say. It also lets you track beyond the basic time tracking:
~Expenses
~Billable hours
And Harvest also facilitates invoicing, including an ability to convert billable hours into invoices. One particularly great thing about the invoicing of Harvest is that it allows flat-rate $0.50 PayPal Business Payments (if you have a bank account in the United States).
Pricing
Harvest has a free plan which allows people to create up to 2 projects.
Thereafter, unlimited project plans cost $12 a month per user.
4. Hours
Best for ... individuals who want simple time tracking in a beautiful gui (Hours contains a Team feature, but it's not as in-depth as other instruments).
Hours has one of the most beautiful interfaces in a time tracker I've seen. That could be even better than Toggl!
Using that gorgeous gui, you can start and stop timers as needed. And it also has this really useful timeline feature that allows you to quickly fill in gaps in your time tracking to account for your day entirely.
The Reports app is just as well built and offers you plenty of filters to slice and dice your reports as needed.
Nevertheless, Hours is still a little young, and is only available through its website or an iOS app, which does not provide as much coverage as most other best time tracking apps.
Pricing
Hours of access to the web interface cost a flat $8 per user per month.
You can get free access to the iOS app (without the Pro features).
5. Timely
Best for ... individuals and teams that want a common automatic time tracker.
Timely's unique selling point is its automated time tracking can be a finicky thing, so here's how Timely does it:
~First, it tracks all your behavior and group it together based on what you've been doing.
~Instead, it recommends a mark and tags based on what it thinks you've accomplished.
~You can either follow a suggestion from Timely, edit it manually or absolutely delete the time entry.
Now, here's the cool thing... you're training Timely to change in the future any time you manually edit a time entry.
It is simply not stupid. In the future, it learns from your edits to make more precise suggestions.
It's not for everyone–for example, most of my day is spent exclusively in Google Docs, so it's hard for me to train something to track all my different clients / projects automatically when I'm using the same website all day long.
But if you do different tasks–the automated monitoring of the time is pretty cool.
Pricing
Timely begins at $7 a month for single users, or $20 per user per month for teams, for monthly rates.
6. HubStaff
Best for ... time tracking for remote teams and companies, making it useful as a time tracking device for workers. Not for single people.
Unlike Time Doctor, Hubstaff is more targeting employers who want to control and track the time of their workers.
Hubstaff functions as either a desktop or smartphone device, supporting smaller operating systems such as Chromebooks and Linux as well.
If you really want to monitor your team, you can:
~Take up to 3 random screenshots per 10-minute duration (or, if necessary, disable this feature)
~Track mouse movements and keyboard clicks
~Monitor internet and application usage, including a time chart spent on each website / app
Then, once you have all the data for your team, Hubstaff can calculate payroll automatically, including automatic payments.
Pricing
Hubstaff has a limited free option for their solos. For more integrations, automated payroll, and other features, pay team plans start at $5 per user per month and go up to $10 or $20 per user per month.
7. Tick
Good for ... larger teams that are compensated by the "per user" price of other applications and would like to be less limited in terms of users on board with their employee time monitoring software.
One of the most unique things about this time tracker is the billing system of ticks. Whereas each other tool charges you "per user" for team plans, Tick charges per "project" with unlimited users supporting each plan.
That could mean significant cost savings, especially for larger teams, depending on how many projects you work on.
The actual interface is pretty basic–it sets you up with projects and activities that can be monitored either in real-time, or by entering data manually once you're finished.
Tick
Then you can view your tracking in custom reports that allow you to drill by:
~Billable vs non-billable hours
~Client
~Team member
Pricing
Remember-all these plans support unlimited members of the team (including the free plan). The plans are:
~1 project – free
~10 projects – $19 a month
~30 projects – $49 a month
~60 projects – $79 a month
~Unlimited projects – $149 a month
We hope you found this post helpful and soon going to use these time tracking apps to monitor your work employee efficiency.
