Time Tracking Software Selection Guide

Best fitted for freelance teams and small businesses, especially if they use Basecamp or Trello to track their projects. Makes easy to send estimates and invoices to customers as well as receive payments from them. Allows to set up daily and project-based time budget. Helps to create professional estimates that include SOW & Contract Agreements Section and allows your client to accept/reject it.

* It does provide a limited free plan (1 User, 2 Clients, 3 Projects) that starts after your 30-day trial ends

Easy-to-use time-tracking software designed for remote teams of employees that includes automatic timesheets and screenshots of employees’ workstations as proof of work done. Screenshot monitoring is completely transparent to the employees and they control when the monitoring starts and when it stops.

Allows you to keep records of team's working time in terms of customers, projects and tasks. Looks good for team management purposes, rather than for a personal time tracking.

* Provides such management features as task estimates and completion tracking, deadline reminders and budget control notifications.

Allows finding out the activities employees spend their working time on and how much time was spent on a particular task. You will know how much you should pay your employee and for what.

* Saves screenshots (optional) and tracks used apps

Tracks what your freelancers do and how much they work, showing their current status and screenshots. Allows paying them immediately. Similar to Worksnaps, but with ability to pay contractors and without invoicing.

* Staffing services and GPS tracking are also available

Nice service for small teams (especially for distributed ones). It seems to offer everything you need from project management and collaboration to online invoice payments in a sleek and simple way.

* They also offer PaymoPlus, an application for automatic time tracking.

Helps you to see what your employee was doing during a particular day (based on screenshots) and what kind of task/project he/she was doing and how much time he/she spent on it. Additionally, you will be able even to know with whom your employee talked over Skype and what kind of text he/she was typing (again based on screenshots).

* Focused on screenshots

This app keeps track of what you do on your Mac and provides constant feedback on your productivity. It analyses what apps, websites and documents you are working on and relates this time to some project or simply marks it as productive, neutral or distracting according to your rules.

* Tracks YouTube videos and Reddit subs separately, so you can categorize them as productive if necessary.

Good for companies working on fixed-price project as it totally focused on budget control. It doesn't count your money, nor invoice your customers, but it tracks your time budget. If you want invoicing, you can integrate it with Freshbooks. If you need payouts, connect it to Quickbooks.

A simple user experience and sleek interface lets you easily track your time on your iPhone, Apple Watch, and on the web – and it’s totally free – unless you want to take advantage of the collaborative team tracking functionality for a minimal cost. Allows to create timers with your own project/client/task information

* Hours’ visual timeline lets you track in real-time or add time retroactively.

This product is different from others because your worker doesn't have to press anything to clock in and clock out, instead just place the card in front of smartphone camera or bring NFC card to compatible smartphone.

* A special temper-proof device TimeTablet™ can be provided for wall-mounting.

Allows not only to determine on which websites and applications employees spend their working time (including number of hours), but also to find out who's late and who's in the office on time. Additionally, it is good to determine your own time-spending habits.

* Primarily designed to track employee's full working day

Helps to find out how much time you have spent, for instance, in Facebook or how productive your general time-spending habit is. Additionally, the app also monitors how your productivity changes over time.

* Determines productivity based on apps and websites being used

Based on applications being used it determines where you have spent your time and how much time you have spent on a particular project.

* Automatic time breakdown based on customizable rules

Helps you to see how much your freelancers work on your projects and what do they do. Very similar to Hubstaff, but with invoicing instead of contractor payments.

* Saves screenshots and tracks used apps

Tracks your employees' working time and invoices your customers. Especially convenient if you need such payment specifics as flat rate, reimbursement, contingency, overtime, taxes and so on.

* Offers some legal features like ABA Activity, Task Codes, LEDES Invoicing, Trust Accounting и Conflict Checker

Good for those who works alone and doesn't want to pay monthly subscription for online services. Works in terms of Customer->Project->Task->Expenses.

* Allows to record the distance and time travelled with a vehicle whether for billing or tax purposes.

Made in Austria and mainly focused on Microsoft technologies. Due to its highly customizability it looks like it was made for developers. Charges basing on the number of active users per day.

* Offered only to organizations and not to consumers. All prices are excluding VAT.

Will tell you the exact time-spending habits as well as indicate the busiest days of the team. It has a free plan, but it's hidden in the user's billing page.

* Focuses on tags

Helps to find out how much time you or members of your team have spent on a project and the way this time was distributed among task categories.

* Doesn't need connection to the Internet

Allows tracking how much time you or members of your team have spent on a project and how that time was distributed among clients, projects and tags.

* Provides Chrome browser extension called 'Toggl Button' that works inside 30+ other productivity tools

Helps to find out how much time was spent on particular tasks and clients as well as keep record of additional expenses.

Will tell you what apps your child is using or the activities your employee has spent his/her time on. Helps you to analyze website, document and software usage statistics as well as to know when employees start working and duration of their breaks.

* Automatically tracks working time, software and Internet usage (That means the user doesn't need to do anything)

Tracks the location of an employee during work hours, employee's particular tasks and their duration as well as who is working at the moment.

* Tracks employees' GPS coordinates and allows them to mark time via phone, twitter and SMS

Being a bit complicated for ordinary freelancers it's rather designed for attorneys, accountants and other professionals. Like eBillity's Time Tracker it's provides additional financial and legal features.

Provides basic task management and time tracking functionality (Clients, Projects, Tasks, Services, Team members). Team collaboration is mainly realized in sharing of task status, comments and current team member status.

* Windows and Linux applications are made in a form of Chrome Application.

Supposed to assist you in project management, time tracking, invoicing and receiving money from your customers. Allows to 'resell' your employee's time to the customers.

Tries to combine task management (due dates, task status, daily due reminders), lightweight project management (budget, expenses, payments) and time tracking.

Records what applications and websites you use allowing to assign tags to all your activities and then generate tag-based time sheets and statistics. Also provides an on-premise server application for you to monitor your team activity.

* Exports reports as pictures and all data as CSV

Especially good for invoicing your customers and working with contractors (in addition to your staff). Though there are no built-in contractor payouts, you can invite contractors to Ronin and their invoices will be payable (if they upgrade to a paid plan).

* It's a GoDaddy company since Oct, 2013

Sitting in the system tray, it distributes your working time among the projects basing on what applications and web sites you're working with. Also tracks how much you rest and reminds you about working and/or resting time.

Being purposed for personal use mainly, it helps you to realize what you spend time on. Thanks to automatic categorization it may especially be helpful for those who frequently switch between tasks and still want to know how much time they spent on a certain project.

* Works locally, nothing is sent to the server

Provides automatic time tracking. But instead of tracking your apps, Daily periodically asks you what are you doing at the moment. Allows setting an activity, for example, presentation or lunch. Possibility to set particular days and hours when time should be tracked.

It's a time tracking web service with built-in timer and reports. It supports team work and integration with other services via Google Chrome plugin. You can group tasks into projects and the system administrator is able to access to reports of any user.

Allows to track time with hourly rates or fixed salary. Supports overtime for salaried employees. Timer is managed from employee's account via web. Timer works in the background mode which allows to avoid keeping your browser always open.

* Employees can manage timer by calling a designated toll-free telephone number

Perfectly intergates with QuickBooks and Lacerte providing seamless synchronization. Features customizable user interface and flexible reports, but seems to be more appropriate for small and medium sized businesses than for freelancers.

Allows to bind work of remote employees to projects. Projects enable you to limit work time and set up an hourly rate for each employee. Also it takes screenshots and tracks mouse and keyboard activity.