8 Best Time Tracking Software in 2023

Clockify tracks hours for unlimited projects for an unlimited number of users for free. This is an excellent tool for employers and freelancers who need to monitor time on projects as it captures all non-billable and billable hours worked. You can even send invoices to bill clients for the hours that you and your team worked on projects. Its robust time tracking features for its free option and affordable paid plans made Clockify our top pick.

Clockify’s time tracking apps are different from Homebase and Deputy’s time clock tools, which require employees to clock in/out. With Clockify, your staff will simply need to type in the project name or task that they’ll work on and then click the start/stop button to record actual hours.

Clockify earned an overall score of 4.15 out of 5 in our evaluation. It got a perfect mark for pricing since it offers a free plan, affordable paid plans of less than $10 per user, and transparent pricing. It also got high marks for ease of use and popularity. However, it scored low for reporting because it doesn’t allow you to create custom reports.

Clockify’s time tracking app requires employees to click the start/stop button to record hours.

If you’re looking for a flexible, simple-to-use time tracking software that works well for inconsistent time tracking needs, Deputy is the right tool for you. It has a Flexi Weekly plan option ($2 monthly per employee) that allows you to keep inactive employees in the system at a low cost, so when you schedule them again, you don’t have to re-enter their data—plus they can stay in the loop while they’re off. Aside from that, it makes it easy to capture clock-ins/outs of hourly staff and export timesheets for payroll processing. And it offers a standalone scheduling solution and paid tiers that include both time tracking and scheduling tools.

Deputy earned an overall score of 4.10 out of 5 in our evaluation with high marks in ease of use, reporting, and popularity. Its score was pulled down by the lack of built-in invoicing tools and no free option for time tracking. Integrating its platform with third-party solutions, like ADP Run and Gusto, can also be challenging given the occasional data sync and connection glitches. However, users said that Deputy is generally easy to learn and use.

With the Deputy Kiosk app for iOS and Android tablets, employees can start/end work shifts through voice commands and facial recognition clock-ins/outs.

Homebase is great for small businesses, especially restaurants and retail shops, with one physical location because it has more features that you can access for free than many other providers do, even in their paid plans. Aside from tracking the actual work hours of your hourly workforce, Homebase lets you create staff schedules, post jobs, track applicants, and onboard new hires. It also comes with compliance tools to ensure that standard breaks and overtime rules are followed, plus its budgeting and labor cost controls help you stay within your targets.

Based on our evaluation, Homebase earned an overall rating of 4.05 out of 5. It didn’t get a higher score because it lacks invoicing capabilities and doesn’t integrate with third-party scheduling systems (since it has its own scheduling solution) or accounting and project management software—features that would have further streamlined client billing, budget monitoring, and task tracking processes.

In terms of user feedback, many appreciate Homebase’s intuitive interface and robust scheduling and time tracking features. A few users, on the other hand, said that its mobile time tracking apps (for iOS and Android) can be glitchy at times.

Homebase’s free tier includes mobile time tracking apps that take a photo of the employee after every PIN clock-in.

TimeCamp, like Clockify, offers a free tier with unlimited projects and user seats. Its automated time tracking feature captures time and assigns it to the right client or project, which helps with project tracking and management. It didn’t top our list since it lacks multiple clock-in options and because it doesn’t have integrations with payroll software. It also has a lower number of average user reviews on G2 and Capterra as of this writing.

Scoring 4 out of 5, TimeCamp earned perfect marks in pricing and reporting. It also rated highly in billable hours and job labor costing features, given its productivity, invoicing, and online payment tools. Many users even said that TimeCamp is a good tool for monitoring hours spent on projects and provides useful reports about their daily work routine and productivity. It scored lowest in popularity because of its limited number of reviews.

With TimeCamp, project managers can view a member’s productive and non-productive times.

busybusy is one of the two time tracking systems on our list that’s designed for the construction industry (ClockShark is the other). Because of its free plan and affordable pricing compared to ClockShark, we’ve deemed busybusy best for independent contractors or small construction teams—its equipment tracking feature is available even with the free plan. We also recommend busybusy for independent contractors over ClockShark because of its fair billing policy, which factors in the seasonal fluctuations of the industry.

Larger businesses may find its free offering limited but startups can benefit from tools such as location features, mobile time clock, and equipment tracking.

While busybusy also offers a paid version with a useful scheduling feature, businesses with larger crews may find it inefficient to manage time off. Only supervisors can log time off, so without an employee self-service option, administrators and supervisors may have to go through emails or texts before they can log time-off requests. This might be okay for small businesses but the more employees you have, the more time consuming it can be to process time-off.

busybusy got an overall score of 3.9 out of 5, with a perfect mark for ease of use and high scores for pricing and time tracking functionality. Its inability to create custom reports and invoices and low number of user reviews brought its score down.

Track your crews’ hours and real-time location with busybusy.

We recommend ClockShark for midsize and larger construction businesses. Compared to busybusy, it has a self-serve function useful for efficiently managing timesheets and time-off requests, especially for a large number of employees. It can also help you minimize time theft with facial recognition, GPS tracking, geofence notifications, and pictures to show the progress of the job. Like busybusy, it has a crew punch feature that allows a supervisor to clock in for their staff using its mobile app. It tracks hours by job and service code, plus its time data can be exported to popular payroll and accounting programs.

What’s also great about ClockShark is that it provides you with one platform to track time, manage jobs, and collaborate with team members on all of your work tasks. It also streamlines the process of organizing jobs since it stores all documents, in-app communications, client information, and progress updates for every job.

Scoring 3.78 out of 5, its online time clock can help you track actual hours spent on jobs and tasks. However, it doesn’t have a free option like Homebase, Deputy, and busybusy, and while its monthly fees are reasonably priced (starts at $15 plus $3 per user monthly), it is still more expensive than Deputy. These factors, including the inability to create custom reports and user reviews of occasional mobile app glitches and GPS tracking issues, prevented ClockShark from ranking higher on our list of best time tracking software.

ClockShark has a “KioskClock” app that turns mobile devices into a dedicated terminal for capturing time spent on jobs.

QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) is terrific for monitoring the costs of freelance jobs and the attendance of your hourly workforce with its versatile time tracking apps. Its web and mobile apps (for iOS and Android devices) can track hours spent on jobs, while its time kiosk solution captures clock-ins/outs via PIN code entries and facial recognition scans. It even offers PTO management, employee scheduling tools, and budget estimates versus actuals reporting. QuickBooks users can easily integrate data from QuickBooks Time and make payroll processing more efficient.

Scoring 3.7 out of 5, it earned high marks in employee time tracking, ease of use, and popularity. On the other hand, QuickBooks Time scored poorly in reporting and pricing because its reports have limited customizability, it lacks a free option, and its paid tiers are more costly than other providers—monthly fees start at $20 plus $8 per employee. However, many users still commended QuickBooks Time for providing them an easy way to manage time tracking and capture billable hours.

With QuickBooks Time’s mobile apps, you can easily track time on jobs, see the status of projects, and more.

Harvest offers its time tracking, invoicing, and expense reporting tools for free—provided you have only one user and two active projects. This makes it a good option for freelancers and small business owners with a few employees looking for an efficient way to monitor project time and work tasks. It also has a paid plan that comes with unlimited seats and projects.

This software earned an overall score of 3.68 out of 5 in our evaluation. It received perfect marks for billable hours tracking and job labor costing, followed by popularity and pricing. However, Harvest lost points since it doesn’t support GPS tracking and facial recognition scans, and has limited task management tools. Although it connects with more than 50 third-party software, it lacks integration with payroll, scheduling, and POS solutions.

In terms of user feedback, most of the online reviews are positive, with users praising Harvest’s simple yet efficient time tracking app. Some, on the other hand, said that its reports aren’t robust and its mobile app can be a bit clunky at times.

A view of Harvest’s online time sheet with tasks and timers that you can easily start and stop.