Hubstaff vs Clockify vs actiTIME: tested and compared in-depth (2026)

Hubstaff vs Clockify vs actiTIME: tested and compared in-depth [2026]

Hubstaff and Clockify both sit in the time tracking category, but they’ve been built for fundamentally different teams. Hubstaff is a workforce management platform aimed squarely at managers who oversee remote or field employees. Clockify is a flexible, budget-friendly time tracker that works for almost anyone. Put them side by side and the overlap is real, but so are the gaps.

The biggest one: Hubstaff pays employees. It has built-in payroll through Wise, PayPal, and Payoneer. Clockify doesn’t. If you manage a remote team that you also need to pay based on tracked hours, that distinction is the whole comparison.

We’ve added actiTIME as a third option because both Hubstaff and Clockify leave a gap for project-based teams that need to see whether their work is actually profitable, not just tracked. If invoicing clients, monitoring project budgets, and connecting hours to financial outcomes matter to you, that’s where the conversation changes.

Hubstaff vs Clockify: the short answer

Pick Hubstaff if you manage remote or field teams and need workforce monitoring, GPS tracking, and built-in payroll in one tool. It’s the only choice in this comparison that lets you pay employees directly from time data.

Pick Clockify if you need a flexible, low-cost tracker with a generous free plan, kiosk mode, and broad integration coverage without committing to employee monitoring as a core workflow.

Pick actiTIME if project profitability, client billing, and cost of work are what you actually need to track. It’s the only tool here where budget tracking, invoicing, and profit and loss reports are included at the entry paid tier with no monitoring features you may not want.

Hubstaff vs Clockify vs actiTIME: comparison summary

What is Hubstaff?

Hubstaff launched in 2012 and has been built consistently around one use case: managing remote and distributed teams. It tracks time, monitors activity, captures screenshots, follows employees via GPS, and pays them, all in a single platform. That focus on workforce oversight and payroll is what separates it from most other time trackers.

Hubstaff has over 35 integrations covering project management tools like Jira, Asana, GitHub, and ClickUp, plus accounting connections to QuickBooks and Salesforce. It’s HIPAA and SOC-2 Type II compliant at the Enterprise tier, which matters for healthcare and finance teams with compliance requirements. The free plan supports only one seat. All paid plans require a minimum of two users.

See also: Hubstaff Review 2026: Is It Really Worth It? | Hubstaff Pricing 2026: Plans, True Costs & Hidden Fees

What is Clockify?

Clockify launched in 2017 and took a different approach: broad features, low prices, generous free plan. It quickly became one of the most-used free time trackers in the world, and with a 4.8 rating across 9,000-plus Capterra reviews it’s hard to argue with the adoption. Unlike Hubstaff, Clockify serves a much wider range of users, from solo freelancers to large enterprise teams, without employee surveillance as a core selling point.

Clockify covers time tracking, reporting, invoicing, scheduling, GPS, and screenshots, though most of those features require paid tiers. Its kiosk mode, which lets employees clock in via a shared tablet, is unique in this comparison. Its 100-plus native integrations is the broadest list here. There is no built-in payroll.

See also: Clockify Review 2026: Pros, Cons & Feature Analysis | 2026 Clockify Pricing Guide: Full Cost & Value Analysis

What is actiTIME?

actiTIME has been on the market for over 20 years, used in 130-plus countries, and has more than 1,000 five-star reviews from real customers. It’s not trying to compete with Hubstaff on workforce monitoring or with Clockify on integration breadth. It’s built around connecting time to business outcomes: every hour tracked flows into cost of work, billing totals, and profit or loss reports by customer, project, or task.

There are no feature tiers within the paid product. Every option includes the full feature set: budget tracking, invoicing, approvals, leave management, and 17-plus report types. A self-hosted version is available for a one-time payment of $120 per user, and a permanent free version supports up to three users. Human support and free onboarding come with every option, including the free one.

Time tracking methods

Hubstaff

Hubstaff tracks time through a start-and-stop timer available on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. It also offers GPS-based automatic tracking for field teams on mobile, and browser-based time entry via its web app. There is no kiosk mode for shared-device clock-in. The desktop app handles idle time detection and can be configured to prompt employees when they stop working without stopping the timer. Automated timesheets pull from all tracked sessions and feed into the payroll workflow.

Clockify

Clockify offers the widest range of input methods in this comparison: a timer, a manual timesheet, a calendar view for blocking out time visually, an auto tracker that records active apps and websites, and a kiosk mode for PIN or QR-based clock-in from a shared device. The auto tracker is available from the Basic plan ($3.99/seat/month annual). Kiosk is available on all plans. No other tool here covers this many ways to log time.

actiTIME

actiTIME uses a weekly timesheet and a calendar view with start and stop times per task. All time entry is manual, which reflects a different philosophy: voluntary, trust-based tracking rather than automated capture. Leave time appears in the same timesheet view as worked hours, so the full picture of a week is visible without switching reports. A Chrome extension enables one-click time capture from web-based tools.

Employee monitoring

This is where Hubstaff and Clockify look most similar on the surface, but differ meaningfully in depth and focus.

Hubstaff

Employee monitoring is part of Hubstaff’s core identity. Screenshots are available from the Starter plan with a limit of 500 per user per month, and unlimited on Team and above. App and URL tracking follows the same structure. The platform also captures activity levels based on keyboard and mouse input, detects unusual activity patterns using AI, and can track field employees via GPS with geofencing. At the Team tier, all of these work together: managers see who is working, where they are, what they’re doing, and what they’re spending time on, inside a single dashboard.

Hubstaff’s AI-powered workforce analytics go further than any feature Clockify offers: performance benchmarking across team members, remote versus in-office comparisons, focus time metrics, and meeting cost analysis. For managers making staffing or productivity decisions, that level of data is hard to find elsewhere at this price point.

Clockify

Clockify’s monitoring features, screenshots, GPS, app and URL tracking, activity levels, and geofencing, are all consolidated behind the Pro plan at $7.99/seat/month annual. This is actually a more convenient structure than Hubstaff’s, where monitoring features are split across Starter and Team tiers. The Pro bundle gives teams a complete monitoring picture at one price. What Clockify doesn’t have is Hubstaff’s AI analytics layer, the performance benchmarking, unusual activity detection, and workforce intelligence reports.

actiTIME

actiTIME has no employee monitoring features. No screenshots, no activity tracking, no GPS. This is a deliberate product choice. For teams where employee monitoring creates friction or raises privacy concerns, and there’s substantial research suggesting it can, actiTIME’s absence of surveillance is a feature rather than a gap.

Hubstaff wins on monitoring depth and AI analytics. Clockify wins on monitoring consolidation at one price tier. actiTIME doesn’t monitor employees and is built for teams that don’t need it.

Payroll and payments

This section is short because there’s no comparison to make: Hubstaff has built-in payroll, Clockify and actiTIME don’t.

Hubstaff

Starting on the Team plan ($10/seat/month annual), Hubstaff can pay employees and contractors directly from tracked time data through Wise, PayPal, and Payoneer. Pay rates are configurable per employee, and the system handles currency conversion for global teams. For businesses that manage remote contractors in multiple countries, this eliminates a full step in the operations workflow: track time, approve timesheets, pay people, all without exporting to a separate payroll tool.

ACH payments are available on the Enterprise plan. This makes Hubstaff genuinely useful as a contractor management platform, not just a time tracker.

Clockify

Clockify has no payroll or direct payment capability. It generates invoices, tracks billable amounts, and syncs with QuickBooks and Xero, but paying people is outside its scope. Teams that need payroll will need a separate tool regardless of which Clockify tier they’re on.

actiTIME

actiTIME also has no payroll or direct payment capability. It generates invoices based on tracked time and billing rates, and syncs with QuickBooks Online. Paying team members is handled outside the tool.

Hubstaff wins this category outright. Built-in payroll via Wise, PayPal, and Payoneer is available from the Team plan and has no equivalent in either Clockify or actiTIME.

Project budgets and profitability

Hubstaff

Hubstaff adds project budget tracking on the Grow plan ($7.50/seat/month annual), where teams can set time-based and cost-based budgets per project and track actual spend against them. Client budget tracking and profitability reports become available on the Team plan ($10/seat/month annual). For a 10-person team that needs profitability data, that’s $1,200 per year before any add-ons.

The budget features are well integrated with Hubstaff’s monitoring data, so managers can see not just whether a project is over budget, but which team members are spending time where. That combination of financial and workforce data is a real advantage for agencies and consulting firms.

Clockify

Clockify’s budget tracking and labor cost analysis arrive on the Pro plan at $7.99/seat/month annual, which is $959/year for 10 people. It covers time-based and cost-based budgets, profit analysis, and budget alerts. The reports are clean and the budget visibility is solid, but there’s no workforce analytics layer behind the numbers.

actiTIME

actiTIME includes three budget types across all paid versions at $5/user/month: time budgets comparing invested hours to estimates, cost budgets tracking expenses against pay rates, and billing budgets monitoring what clients owe. All three apply at the task, project, or customer level. The profit and loss report draws from all three and shows profitability by customer, project, or task without requiring an upgrade.

For a 10-person team, that’s $600 per year for the full profitability picture.

actiTIME wins on value: full budget tracking and profitability reporting at $5/user/month. Hubstaff wins when the budget data needs to sit alongside workforce monitoring and payroll. Clockify sits in the middle on price and depth.

Scheduling and attendance

Hubstaff

Scheduling is available on Hubstaff’s Team plan ($10/seat/month annual) and is one of the more developed scheduling features in this comparison. Managers can assign shifts, set availability windows, and track attendance against schedule. Time off, PTO, and holiday management are included at the same tier. For field teams or shift-based workforces, this is a meaningful capability that Clockify only matches at a slightly lower price point.

Clockify

Clockify includes scheduling and forecasting on its Pro plan at $7.99/seat/month annual. Managers can build team schedules, see capacity, and set targets. Time off management is available from the Standard plan ($5.49/seat/month annual), which is actually more accessible than Hubstaff’s equivalent. Attendance and overtime reports come with Standard as well.

actiTIME

actiTIME doesn’t include forward-looking scheduling. It handles the attendance side well: leave tracking, PTO accrual rules, PTO balances, sick day tracking, and a company-wide calendar are all included on every version. For teams that need to track time off and leave balances without scheduling shifts, actiTIME covers that at the lowest price point of the three.

Reporting and analytics

Hubstaff

Hubstaff ships 20-plus reports covering productivity, payments, project spending, and work sessions. What makes its reporting distinctive is the workforce intelligence layer: AI-powered benchmarking, remote versus in-office comparisons, focus time analysis, and unusual activity detection. These reports go beyond what a traditional time tracker produces and are specifically useful for managers making decisions about team structure, remote work policies, or contractor performance. Labor cost and profitability reports require the Team plan.

Clockify

Clockify’s report library covers summary, detailed, weekly, attendance, expense, and custom views. It’s broad and well-designed. Activity monitoring reports (what apps and websites teams used) require Pro. Labor cost and profit analysis require Pro. Scheduled report delivery via email requires Enterprise. For most reporting needs at mid-tier pricing, Clockify covers the ground without the AI analytics layer Hubstaff offers.

actiTIME

actiTIME ships 17-plus report types standard, all included at the entry paid tier. The most distinctive ones: a profit and loss report showing profitability by customer, project, or task; a cost of work report tying hours to individual pay rates (regular, overtime, and leave); a billing summary for total billable amounts; and an estimated-versus-actual report for tracking against project scope. These financial reports are the deepest in this comparison for project-based work, and they don’t require an upgrade to access.

Hubstaff wins on workforce intelligence and AI analytics. actiTIME wins on project financial reporting available without a tier upgrade. Clockify covers the middle ground well.

Integrations

Hubstaff

Hubstaff connects to 35-plus tools natively, including Jira, Asana, GitHub, ClickUp, Monday, Slack, Salesforce, and QuickBooks. Unlimited integrations are available from the Team plan. The list is focused on project management, version control, and business operations rather than breadth for its own sake. There’s no Zapier-based connector, so teams with niche tools outside the native list have fewer options.

Clockify

Clockify’s 100-plus integrations via browser extension cover the widest range in this comparison. The extension works on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge (not Safari) and adds a timer button to the interface of any supported tool. Native QuickBooks and Xero connections are available from Standard. For teams with specific third-party tools, Clockify is the safest bet for finding a connection that already exists.

actiTIME

actiTIME connects through Zapier (2,000-plus apps), a REST API, QuickBooks Online, a Chrome extension for web-based tools, and actiPLANS for absence management. It has fewer native logos than Clockify, but the API and Zapier combination covers most custom needs with more flexibility than a browser extension approach.

Pricing and value

Hubstaff pricing

Clockify pricing

actiTIME pricing

Cost comparison: 10-person team needing invoicing, budget tracking, and profitability reports

Hubstaff’s cost climbs steeply once you need payroll and profitability on the same plan. Clockify is the most flexible mid-tier option. actiTIME costs the least for the same combination of budget tracking and invoicing, and the self-hosted option eliminates recurring costs entirely after the initial purchase.

Final Verdict

Go with Hubstaff if you manage remote or field employees, need to monitor activity and location, and want to pay contractors directly from time data in a single platform.

Go with Clockify if you need a free or low-cost tracker for a team of any size, kiosk clock-in matters, and you’d rather pay for monitoring features only if and when you need them.

Go with actiTIME if your work is project-based, you bill clients for hours, and you want cost of work, billing, and profit and loss visible without paying for workforce surveillance you don’t need.

Resources

Hubstaff pricing (verified June 2026): hubstaff.com/pricing
Clockify pricing (verified June 2026): clockify.me/pricing
actiTIME pricing (verified June 2026): actitime.com/pricing