All four tools record hours, but they end at different places. One stops at clean reports, one turns hours into invoices and payments, one adds attendance, scheduling and payroll for remote teams, and one competes on price. This guide compares them on where your workflow actually ends: the invoice, the approval, or the payslip.
Starter, billed annually. Monthly billing is $12. Free plan covers up to 3 users on new accounts.
Teams plan, billed annually. Monthly billing is $11. Usage-based fees can apply on top — see the pricing note below.
Starter, billed annually. Monthly billing is $7. No free plan — 14-day trial. Paid plans start at 2 seats.
Basic, billed annually. Monthly billing is $4.99. Free plan covers up to 5 users.
| Toggl Track | Harvest | Hubstaff | Clockify | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Freelancers and agencies that want an easy timer without monitoring features | Agencies and consultants who invoice clients from tracked hours | Remote and field teams that need attendance, activity records and payroll | Cost-conscious teams that want full tracking at the lowest seat price |
| Free option | Yes — up to 3 users on new accounts; no billable rates | Yes — 1 seat, up to 2 projects; invoicing and expenses included | No free plan — 14-day trial, 30-day money-back guarantee | Yes — up to 5 users, unlimited tracking; reports limited to a 31-day range |
| Paid plans from (annual billing) | Starter $9/user/mo ($12 monthly); Premium $16 ($24 monthly) | Teams $9/seat/mo ($11 monthly); Enterprise $14 ($17.50 monthly) | Starter $4.99/seat/mo ($7 monthly); Grow $7.50 ($9); Team $10 ($12); Enterprise $25 | Basic $3.99/seat/mo ($4.99 monthly); Standard $5.49 ($6.99); Pro $7.99 ($9.99); Enterprise $11.99 ($14.99) |
| Invoicing | No built-in invoicing or payment collection; billable amounts shown in reports, with a QuickBooks Online invoice export on paid plans | Yes — invoices on every plan, online payment via Stripe and PayPal, copies to QuickBooks Online / Xero from Teams | Yes — client invoices on paid plans; payments and payroll on Team | From Standard — invoicing and QuickBooks integration included at that tier |
| Approvals & profitability | Timesheet approvals and labor-cost / profitability reports are Premium features | Timesheet approvals and profitability reporting are Enterprise features | Timesheet approvals from Team; budgets from Grow | Approvals from Standard; labor cost and profit reports from Pro |
| Attendance, scheduling & payroll | Not part of the product: no time clock, GPS or payroll | Not part of the product: no attendance, GPS or payroll; a separate scheduling companion (Forecast) exists | Core strength: attendance and scheduling on Team, payroll and payments on Team, optional GPS tracking via add-on | Attendance and time off from Standard; scheduling, forecasting and GPS tracking on Pro; no built-in payroll |
| Activity records | None by design — the vendor states it does not take screenshots or record keystrokes, browsing or location | None — time and expenses only, no screenshots or activity monitoring | Activity levels based on keyboard/mouse use, app and URL tracking, and optional screenshots (capped at 500/seat/mo on Starter, 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team). The vendor states it does not record keystroke content or webcam video | Screenshots and activity features appear on higher paid tiers (Pro); core plans focus on timers and timesheets |
| What a 10-person team pays per year (annual billing) | Starter $1,080 · Premium $1,920 | Teams from $1,080 · Enterprise from $1,680 — base seat price only; usage fees can add to this | Starter $598.80 · Team $1,200 | Basic $478.80 · Standard $658.80 · Pro $958.80 |
| Trade-off to know | The features agencies ask for next — approvals, profitability — double the seat price to Premium | The seat price is now a base price: usage-based fees apply beyond included allowances, and the per-unit rates are not published | No free plan, a 2-seat minimum, and add-ons (GPS, insights) raise the real price above the headline rate | The free plan changed in April 2026: it is no longer unlimited users, and billable rates and CSV/Excel export moved to paid plans |
Prices checked November 2026. All prices are USD, before tax, per user/seat per month. Annual totals above are simple arithmetic on the published per-seat prices (price × 10 people × 12 months) so you can compare like for like; Harvest totals use its published base seat price only, because its additional usage fees are not published per unit. Toggl Track relaunched as Toggl 2.0 in September 2026 — older workspaces may still show a 5-user free plan and different Premium pricing, so confirm the numbers on the vendor's pricing page for your account type before you buy. Plans change — always confirm the current price and what's included on the vendor's site.
Per-seat prices make these tools look closer than they are. Three adjustments matter more than the headline number:
1. Price the tier that has your must-have feature, not the entry tier. If you need timesheet approvals and profitability reporting, the honest comparison for a 10-person team is Toggl Track Premium at $1,920/year and Harvest Enterprise from $1,680/year (plus usage fees) against Clockify Standard/Pro at $658.80–$958.80/year and Hubstaff Team at $1,200/year. The ranking flips once you compare at the feature level you will actually use.
2. Read the free plan's ceiling, not its existence. Harvest's free plan is the only one here that includes invoicing, but it stops at 1 seat and 2 projects. Clockify's free plan still tracks unlimited time for up to 5 people, yet reports only show 31 days at a time and there are no billable rates or spreadsheet exports — fine for a timesheet, limiting for client billing. Toggl Track's free plan has no billable rates either, so it cannot turn hours into amounts. Hubstaff has no free plan at all; the 14-day trial is the whole evaluation window.
3. Check what sits outside the seat price. Harvest now layers usage-based fees on top of its seat price once you pass included allowances for invoices, projects, clients and tasks, without publishing the per-unit rates. Hubstaff charges for add-ons such as GPS Locations (Team plan and above) and sells its paid plans with a 2-seat minimum, so a solo user pays for two seats. Those details, all from the vendors' public pages, decide the real annual cost more than a dollar of difference in the seat rate.
Toggl Track is built around a fast one-click timer organized by project and client, with calendar integration and reports that break hours down by client, project and team member. The free plan covers up to 3 users on new accounts (workspaces created before the September 2026 Toggl 2.0 relaunch may still show 5) but has no billable rates. Starter ($9/user/mo billed annually, $12 monthly) adds billable rates, project estimates and team reporting. Premium ($16/user/mo billed annually, $24 monthly) adds timesheet approvals, labor costs, profitability reporting, fixed-fee projects and SSO. Toggl states publicly that the product does not monitor employees: no screenshots, no keystroke, browsing or location recording. It also does not issue invoices or run payroll — reports show billable amounts, and a QuickBooks Online integration on paid plans can send invoice data to your accounting tool.
Harvest pairs timers and timesheets with expenses and invoicing in one product, aimed at agencies, consultancies and freelancers who bill for their time. Unusually, the free plan (1 seat, up to 2 projects) already includes invoicing and expense tracking. Teams ($9/seat/mo billed annually, $11 monthly) adds unlimited seats, team reporting and the accounting and payment integrations: invoices can be paid online via Stripe or PayPal and copied automatically to QuickBooks Online or Xero. Enterprise ($14/seat/mo billed annually, $17.50 monthly) adds profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, an activity log of entry changes and SSO. One pricing change to understand before you budget: since 2026 Harvest bills a per-seat base price plus usage-based fees once an account passes its included allowances for invoices, projects, clients and tasks — and it does not publish the per-unit usage rates, so the seat price alone no longer predicts the total. Harvest has no screenshots, attendance, GPS or payroll features.
Hubstaff extends time tracking into workforce management for remote, hybrid and field teams. Alongside timers and timesheets it records activity levels (a percentage based on keyboard and mouse use), tracks apps and URLs, and can capture screenshots at intervals — features the vendor describes with stated limits: its documentation says it does not record the content of keystrokes, read messages, or use the webcam. Starter ($4.99/seat/mo billed annually, $7 monthly) includes time tracking, activity levels and up to 500 screenshots and 500 app/URL records per seat per month, for up to 5 clients. Grow ($7.50 / $9) raises those caps to 1,500 and adds project budgets and expenses. Team ($10 / $12) removes the screenshot cap and adds timesheet approvals, scheduling and attendance, time off, payroll and team payments, and unlimited integrations; GPS location tracking is an add-on available on Team and above. Enterprise ($25, annual billing only) adds SSO and compliance features. There is no permanent free plan — a 14-day trial and a 30-day money-back guarantee stand in for it — and Starter, Grow and Team each require a minimum of 2 seats.
Clockify, from CAKE.com, competes on how much tracking you get per dollar: a timer, timesheets, calendar and kiosk entry, with desktop, mobile, web and browser apps. Its free plan covers up to 5 users with unlimited time tracking and unlimited projects — but since an April 2026 change it is no longer the unlimited-users plan older articles describe, and free reports are limited to a 31-day range, with no billable rates and no CSV/Excel export. Basic ($3.99/seat/mo billed annually, $4.99 monthly) adds billable rates and spreadsheet exports. Standard ($5.49 / $6.99) is where the business features start: invoicing, timesheet approvals, time off, attendance and a QuickBooks integration. Pro ($7.99 / $9.99) adds scheduling, forecasting, expenses, labor-cost and profit reporting, and GPS tracking. Enterprise ($11.99 / $14.99) adds SSO and an audit log. For a 10-person team that needs invoicing and approvals, Standard totals $658.80 a year — the lowest full-workflow price in this comparison.
Hours report only → Toggl Track or Clockify. A sent, paid invoice → Harvest, or Clockify from Standard. An approved timesheet that feeds payroll → Hubstaff Team. Buying past your endpoint means paying for a workflow you will never run.
If you review time before billing it, compare Toggl Premium ($16), Harvest Enterprise (from $14, plus usage fees), Hubstaff Team ($10) and Clockify Standard/Pro ($5.49–$7.99) — not the entry prices on the pricing page header.
Count the real ceilings: Harvest free stops at 2 projects, Clockify free shows 31 days of reports and has no billable rates, Toggl free has no billable rates, Hubstaff has no free plan. If your real work hits a ceiling in week one, the free plan is a trial, not a plan.
Hubstaff records activity levels and can take screenshots; Toggl Track and Harvest record none of that by design, and Clockify keeps it to higher tiers. This is a workplace-policy decision, not a feature checkbox — agree it with the people being tracked before you trial anything.
It depends on which part of Harvest you use. If you mainly need tracked time turned into invoices, Clockify from Standard ($5.49/seat/mo billed annually) covers invoicing and approvals at a flat published seat price. If you mainly need clean project reporting and don't invoice from the tracker, Toggl Track Starter ($9) is the simpler swap. Neither replicates Harvest's exact Stripe/PayPal plus QuickBooks/Xero invoice-copy flow, so check that specific path before migrating.
Each is usable for a different job. Harvest free is the only one that can send an invoice, but only for 1 seat and 2 projects. Clockify free fits up to 5 people for plain time tracking, with reports limited to 31 days and no billable rates. Toggl Track free suits up to 3 people who just need timers and basic reports. Hubstaff has no free plan — only a 14-day trial.
It varies by product, per the vendors' own statements. Hubstaff records activity levels and app/URL use and offers optional screenshots, while stating it does not record keystroke content or webcam video. Clockify includes screenshot and activity features on higher paid tiers. Toggl Track states it does not take screenshots or record keystrokes, browsing or location, and Harvest publishes no monitoring features at all. What is appropriate to use is a decision for each workplace's policy and local rules, not something this guide prescribes.
Of these four, only Hubstaff builds payroll and team payments into the product (Team plan and above). The others end at reports, invoices or integrations with accounting software — for example, Toggl Track and Harvest connect to QuickBooks Online for invoicing, and Clockify adds a QuickBooks integration on Standard. If payroll must live inside QuickBooks itself, a dedicated tool such as QuickBooks Time is the separate category to look at.
Because this guide is compiled from publicly available vendor information, not hands-on testing. Where a judgment appears — for example, comparing annual totals at the tier that includes approvals — it is arithmetic on published prices, shown next to the claim so you can check it yourself.