An employee time clock app records when staff start and stop work, replacing a punch card or a paper sheet. The good ones also stop the two things that cost money: hours entered from memory at the end of the week, and time recorded for someone who was not there.
This guide compares free time clock software and the paid alternatives, states the exact free-plan limit for each, and explains which features actually matter for hourly teams. Every price was checked on the vendor’s own pricing page in August 2026.
What an employee time clock app does
An employee time clock app performs four jobs: it records a clock in and clock out, stores those punches as a timesheet, applies your rules for breaks and overtime, and exports the result to payroll.
That last step is the reason most teams adopt one. A spreadsheet can hold hours, but somebody has to total them, chase the gaps and retype them into payroll every fortnight. The tools below remove that job rather than the timekeeping itself.
Free options genuinely exist and are enough for many small teams. Our wider roundup of free time trackers covers the project-tracking end of the same category. What free plans almost never include is approvals, payroll integration and location verification, which is exactly what you need once the team grows past a handful of people.
Free plan limits compared
The most useful fact about any free time clock app is where the free plan stops. These are the current limits.
| Tool | Free plan | Best for | Paid from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homebase | Basic plan, free | Shift teams at a single location | $30 per month |
| Clockify | Up to 5 users | Cheapest capable option | $3.99 per user per month, billed annually |
| Toggl Track | Up to 5 users | Least friction to actually use | $9 per user per month |
| actiTIME | Up to 3 users | Hours tied to projects and cost | $6 per user per month |
| OnTheClock | Free trial, no permanent free plan | Straightforward punch clock | $4 per employee per month |
| Time Doctor | Free trial only | Teams wanting activity monitoring | See vendor site |
The best time clock apps and software
Homebase
- Time clock with mobile and tablet kiosk
- Shift scheduling
- Team messaging
- Free Basic plan
Homebase is built for hourly shift teams in retail, hospitality and similar businesses, and its free Basic plan is the most generous starting point here. Staff clock in from a phone or a shared tablet acting as a kiosk, and scheduling sits in the same product.
It is less suited to project work, because it tracks presence rather than what the hours went towards. If you need to know which client a shift belonged to, it is the wrong tool.
Pricing: Basic plan is free. Paid plans start at $30 per month, then $70 and $120 for higher tiers.
actiTIME
- Timesheet and one click timer
- Hours against projects and tasks
- Cost and billing rates
- Approvals and reports
actiTIME records hours against customers, projects and tasks rather than only recording presence, so the same punches answer both “who worked” and “what did the work cost”. Estimates sit alongside actual hours, which is what makes future quoting realistic.
It suits teams billing clients or running projects more than it suits a shop floor needing a kiosk. The free version covers up to 3 users permanently.
Pricing: free for up to 3 users. Paid plans are $6 per user per month for 1 to 40 users and $5 for 41 to 200, with a 30 day trial and no credit card required.
Clockify
- Timer and manual entry
- Kiosk mode for shared devices
- Timesheets and reports
- Free for up to 5 users
Clockify is the cheapest capable option in this category, and its free plan now covers up to 5 users. That cap is newer than many people expect, since it used to have none.
Within the limit it includes unlimited tracking, timesheets, an automatic tracker, idle detection and reports, plus a kiosk mode where several people clock in from one shared device.
Pricing: free for up to 5 users. Basic is $3.99, Standard $5.49 and Pro $7.99 per user per month billed annually.
Toggl Track
- One click timer
- Browser extension
- Idle detection and reminders
- Free for up to 5 users
Toggl Track is the least demanding tool here to use day to day, which matters more than it sounds: the most accurate time clock is the one people remember to use.
It is designed around individuals starting and stopping timers rather than a shared clock-in point, so it fits knowledge teams better than shift teams.
Pricing: free for up to 5 users. Starter is $9 and Premium $14 per user per month.
OnTheClock
- Punch clock with GPS
- PTO tracking
- Payroll integrations
- Scheduling
OnTheClock is a straightforward employee time clock with GPS location on punches and payroll integration, aimed squarely at small businesses that want a clock rather than a project tool.
There is no permanent free plan, only a trial, but the per employee price is among the lowest for a dedicated time clock.
Pricing: $4 per employee per month for time tracking. Payroll is an additional paid module. Free trial available.
Time Doctor
- Time tracking with activity monitoring
- Screenshots and app usage
- Productivity reports
- Payroll features
Time Doctor combines a time clock with activity monitoring, recording which applications and sites people use during tracked time, and optionally taking screenshots.
That makes it a different proposition from the rest of this list, and one worth discussing with your team before adopting. Monitoring changes the relationship a time clock has with the people using it.
Pricing: free trial, no permanent free plan. Time Doctor’s public pricing page was unavailable at the time of writing, so check current rates directly.
We reduced payroll processing to 45 minutes per week
actiTIME is very robust, integrated well into your business process, and most important, helps you focus on your business instead of monkeying around with technology. actiTIME has reduced our payroll processing from 4-6 hours per week to 45 minutes per week.
Features that matter for hourly teams
Feature lists in this category are long and mostly irrelevant. Five things decide whether the tool works.
- Kiosk mode. One shared tablet where staff punch in with a PIN. Essential if not everyone has a work phone, and missing from most tools built for knowledge workers.
- Location verification. GPS on the punch, or geofencing that only allows clock in within a set radius. This is the feature that stops buddy punching, and it is almost always paid.
- Break and overtime rules. The tool should apply your rules automatically rather than expecting a manager to correct the maths afterwards.
- Approvals. A timesheet a manager signs off before it reaches payroll. Rare on free plans and the main reason teams upgrade.
- Payroll export. Check the specific format your payroll provider accepts, not just that “payroll integration” appears on the feature list.
Anything beyond those five is usually a preference rather than a requirement. If your team clocks in from phones specifically, our comparison of Android time clock apps goes deeper on mobile, and clock in and clock out apps covers that side of the category.
How to choose
-
Decide whether you are tracking presence or work.
Presence means who was on shift, and Homebase or OnTheClock handle it. Work means which project or client the hours belonged to, which is what actiTIME and Clockify record. Buying the wrong kind is the most common mistake here.
-
Count the people, then check the cap.
Clockify and Toggl Track stop at 5 users free, actiTIME at 3. Homebase’s free Basic plan is the most forgiving on headcount.
-
Check how people will actually punch in.
Personal phones, a shared tablet, or a desktop all imply different tools. A kiosk requirement narrows the field immediately.
-
Confirm the payroll handoff before committing.
Export the first period as a test. Discovering the format does not fit after two months of data is an expensive way to learn.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best employee time clock app?
It depends on what you are tracking. For hourly shift teams, Homebase is the strongest free option and covers scheduling in the same product. For a straightforward punch clock with GPS, OnTheClock at $4 per employee per month. For hours tied to projects, clients and cost, actiTIME, free for up to 3 users. For the cheapest capable team option, Clockify, free for up to 5. There is no single winner because presence tracking and project tracking are different jobs.
Is there genuinely free time clock software?
Yes. Homebase’s Basic plan, Clockify for up to 5 users, Toggl Track for up to 5, and actiTIME for up to 3 are permanent free plans rather than trials. What free time clock software rarely includes is timesheet approvals, GPS or geofencing, and payroll integration. If you need any of those, budget for a paid plan from the start.
What is the difference between a free plan and a free trial?
A free plan continues indefinitely within its limits. A free trial gives full access for a fixed period and then stops. Several tools marketed as free time clock apps only offer trials, including OnTheClock and Time Doctor. It matters because migrating timesheet history between tools after a trial expires is tedious and sometimes impossible.
How do time clock apps stop buddy punching?
Three mechanisms are common: GPS location recorded with each punch, geofencing that only permits a clock in inside a defined area, and photo or biometric verification at a kiosk. All three are paid features in practice. If buddy punching is your actual problem, a free plan will not solve it and you should compare the paid tiers directly.
Can I just use a spreadsheet instead?
For two or three people with fixed hours, yes. Spreadsheets fail on three things: hours get entered from memory days later, nobody notices missing entries until payroll, and there is no record of who changed what. The moment someone is spending an hour a fortnight totalling and chasing timesheets, a free time clock app costs less than the admin.
Track the punch, then track what it cost
A time clock tells you who worked and for how long. What most of them never answer is whether those hours went where you expected, which is the question that decides whether a job made money.
actiTIME records hours against projects and tasks, applies cost and billing rates to them, and shows the result in clear reports. Start a free 30 day trial. No credit card required, and the free version covers up to 3 users afterwards.
