Hubstaff vs Toggl vs actiTIME: compared in depth (2026)

Hubstaff vs Toggl vs actiTIME: compared in depth [2026]

Hubstaff and Toggl Track are both time trackers, but they’re not really competing for the same teams. Hubstaff is built for visibility: screenshots every few minutes, app and URL monitoring, GPS for field workers, and activity scores that tell managers whether remote employees were actually working. Toggl Track is built for billing: a clean timer, project budgets, invoicing, and reporting that helps client-facing teams understand where time is going.

The choice between them often comes down to a single question: does your team need to prove it’s working, or track how it’s billing? That’s a management philosophy question as much as a software one — and it’s worth being honest about which situation you’re actually in before comparing features.

We’ve added actiTIME as a third option for teams that need financial structure — project profitability, leave management, budget tracking — without monitoring tools attached.

Hubstaff vs Toggl: the short answer

Pick Hubstaff if you manage remote teams where accountability and visibility are the priority. Screenshots, app and URL monitoring, GPS location tracking, scheduling, payroll processing, and time off management are all in one platform. If you pay hourly workers or contractors and need proof of work alongside payroll, Hubstaff covers the full workflow.

Pick Toggl Track if your team tracks time for client billing, project management, or internal reporting — and monitoring is not part of the picture. Toggl has a free plan for up to five users, invoicing on all plans, and a cleaner path to project-level financial visibility. The Timeline feature offers optional desktop activity recording without screenshots or keystroke logging.

Pick actiTIME if you want the project financial controls — profitability, cost of work, leave management, budget tracking — without monitoring, and without paying Premium-tier prices to unlock them. Every paid version starts at $5/user/month and includes the full feature set.

Hubstaff vs Toggl vs actiTIME: at a glance

What is Hubstaff?

Hubstaff launched in 2012 as a tool for managing distributed teams where visibility into working hours was the core need. It has since grown into a full workforce management platform used by over 95,000 companies. The monitoring layer is central to the product: screenshots capture what employees are doing at regular intervals, activity tracking logs app and URL usage, and GPS records location for mobile workers. These features are not optional add-ons — they’re the primary reason most teams choose Hubstaff.

The platform has expanded well beyond monitoring. The Team plan adds payroll processing, scheduling, time off policies, and overtime management. The Enterprise plan adds HIPAA and SOC-2 compliance, SSO, and bank ACH payroll. For companies managing hourly remote workers or field service teams, Hubstaff covers everything from clock-in to payment in one system. For teams that don’t need monitoring, much of that value doesn’t apply.

See also: Hubstaff Review 2026: Is It Really Worth It?

What is Toggl Track?

Toggl Track launched in 2006 and has become one of the most widely recognized time trackers, particularly among freelancers, agencies, and knowledge workers. The product’s focus is on logging time and connecting it to clients, projects, and billing — not on monitoring the people doing the work. There are no screenshots, no keystroke counters, no activity scores.

The free plan supports up to five users permanently and includes invoicing, a browser extension that adds a timer to 100-plus web tools, and a desktop Timeline feature that records which apps and websites were used — not to monitor, but to help users recall what they worked on. Paid plans add billable rates, project budgets, and profitability reporting. The Premium plan at $20/user/month (or $18 annual) is where timesheet approvals and compliance features become available.

See also: Toggl Track Review 2026: The “Frictionless” Legend vs. Modern Complexity

What is actiTIME?

actiTIME has been in use for more than 20 years, runs in 130-plus countries, and has over 1,000 five-star reviews. Like Toggl, it has no monitoring features — no screenshots, no activity tracking, no GPS. Time is logged manually through a weekly timesheet and calendar view. Where actiTIME differs from both competitors is that every paid version includes the full financial layer: project profitability, cost of work, budget tracking across three types, leave management with PTO accrual, and invoicing — all starting at $5/user/month with no tiers within the paid product.

A permanent free version supports up to three users. A self-hosted version is available for a one-time fee of $120/user, which removes the subscription cost entirely. Human support and free onboarding are included with every option.

Monitoring and activity tracking

This is the sharpest dividing line between Hubstaff and Toggl. It’s not a feature gap — it’s a product philosophy difference.

Hubstaff

Screenshots are taken at regular intervals during tracked work hours and are available for manager review. App and URL tracking logs what employees are accessing and for how long. Activity levels combine keystroke and mouse movement data into a percentage score that represents how “active” a worker was during tracked time. GPS records location for mobile workers. These features are on all paid plans.

The intent is accountability: a manager overseeing contractors in multiple time zones can verify hours worked without being present. For outsourcing companies, BPO operations, and businesses paying hourly remote workers, this visibility justifies the tool’s cost. For knowledge workers billing client projects, it’s surveillance they didn’t ask for and don’t need.

The screenshot and monitoring data can be used to dispute timesheets, verify contractor hours before payment, and identify unusual working patterns. Hubstaff also supports configuring screenshot frequency, blurring sensitive screen content, and giving employees access to their own monitoring data.

Toggl Track

No screenshots. No keystroke tracking. No activity percentage scores. The Timeline feature, available on all plans including the free one, records which desktop apps and websites were used for more than 10 seconds, and displays that history in a visual timeline. Only the individual user sees their own Timeline data. It’s not a monitoring tool — it’s a memory aid for filling out timesheets accurately after the fact. Nothing in the Timeline is visible to managers or admins.

actiTIME

No monitoring of any kind. Time entry is voluntary and manual. There’s no background recording, no screenshots, and no activity data collected at any point. For teams that want the structure of time tracking without any passive data collection, actiTIME and Toggl are the options in this comparison. The difference is that actiTIME includes more financial reporting by default.

Hubstaff wins if employee monitoring is what you need. Toggl wins if you want no monitoring at all, with an optional personal-use activity timeline. actiTIME has no monitoring whatsoever.

Time tracking methods

Hubstaff

A running timer in the desktop app, web app, and mobile app. Time is tracked to projects and tasks. Mobile tracking includes GPS data when the timer is running. There’s no calendar view for visual time blocking, and no auto-tracking of calendar events. The browser extension is more limited than Toggl’s — it adds a timer to a handful of supported tools rather than 100-plus. The kiosk app supports clock-in/clock-out for teams at a shared location, which is useful for construction sites, warehouses, and similar environments.

Toggl Track

Manual timer, direct timesheet entry, and a calendar view that syncs with Google Calendar and Outlook. The browser extension adds a one-click timer button to 100-plus web apps — project management tools, issue trackers, CRMs, and others. The Timeline records app and website activity in the background as a reference for timesheet completion. Desktop apps on Windows and Mac are included on all paid plans. The free plan is genuinely useful for small teams: five users, invoicing, calendar sync, and the full extension integration set.

actiTIME

Manual entry via a weekly timesheet and a calendar view with start and stop times per task. Leave hours appear in the same weekly view as worked hours, giving a complete picture of any given week. A Chrome extension handles one-click time capture from common web-based project tools. No background tracking of any kind.

Project management and budgets

Hubstaff

Project budgets are available from the Grow plan at $7.50/user/month annual. This covers hours and cost tracking against a project budget limit. The Team plan adds client budget management with alerts. Expense tracking also starts on Grow. There’s no fixed fee project type, no estimated-versus-actual comparison for time, and no profitability reporting in the traditional sense — Hubstaff’s financial view is more about budget compliance than profit and loss analysis. Scheduling is a Team-plan feature and includes shift assignment, attendance tracking, and overtime rules.

Toggl Track

Project time estimates with alerts are available from the Starter plan at $9/user/month annual. Tasks, project templates, and recurring projects are also on Starter. Fixed fee project monitoring and project forecasts unlock on Premium at $18/user/month annual. Profitability reporting — comparing revenue to labor cost — also requires Premium. There’s no expense tracking at any Toggl tier, and no scheduling or attendance management.

actiTIME

Three budget types on every paid version: time budgets that compare hours invested to estimates, cost budgets that track hours against internal pay rates, and billing budgets that monitor client invoicing totals. All three feed into a profit and loss report broken down by customer, project, or task. Estimated-versus-actual comparisons, fixed fee project tracking, and budget overage alerts are all standard at $5/user/month. No upgrade needed.

actiTIME gives the deepest project financial picture at the lowest per-user cost. Hubstaff Grow is the most affordable entry to budget tracking ($7.50/month annual) but stays surface-level. Toggl’s profitability requires Premium at $18/month annual.

Invoicing and billing

Hubstaff

Client invoicing is available on all paid plans, including Starter. Expense tracking from Grow means expenses can be added to invoices alongside time. The Team plan expands this to team invoices and client billing. There’s no built-in payment collection via Stripe or PayPal, and no accounting sync with QuickBooks or Xero mentioned as a native integration on lower plans. For payroll, the Team plan supports payment processing for employees and contractors directly inside Hubstaff, including bank ACH on Enterprise.

Toggl Track

Invoice generation is on all plans, including the free one. Free-plan invoices include a Toggl logo on the PDF; paid plans remove it. Invoices draw from tracked billable time. There’s no built-in payment collection and no expense tracking at any tier. QuickBooks Online integration is available on Premium. For teams that just need to generate and send invoices from tracked time, Toggl’s invoicing is functional at a lower price point than Hubstaff’s equivalent.

actiTIME

Invoicing is on all paid versions, generating from tracked time using billing rates set per work type. QuickBooks Online sync is included. Invoice data feeds directly into the profit and loss report, which connects billing to project profitability. Expense items can be added to invoices. No payment collection.

Team management and compliance

Hubstaff

The Team plan is where Hubstaff’s workforce management features come together. Timesheet approvals with one-click manager review, scheduling and attendance tracking, time off and holiday policies, and overtime multiplier settings are all included at $10/user/month annual. The Enterprise plan adds SSO, SCIM provisioning, HIPAA compliance, and SOC-2 certification — relevant for healthcare, legal, and enterprise environments with data governance requirements.

Toggl Track

Timesheet approvals, required fields enforcement, locked time entries, team tracking reminders, and an audit log of time entry changes are all locked to the Premium plan at $18/user/month annual. The free and Starter tiers have no compliance or approval features. There’s no scheduling, time off tracking, or overtime management at any Toggl tier.

actiTIME

Timesheet approvals are included on every paid version. Leave management covers PTO accrual rules, sick day tracking, company holiday calendars, blackout days, and per-employee balance reporting. Overtime tracking is built in. These capabilities exist in neither Toggl nor Hubstaff at comparable price points — Hubstaff’s Team plan at $10/month has time off management but also bundles monitoring; Toggl has no leave management at any price.

Hubstaff Team wins on workforce operations — scheduling, payroll, time off, and approvals in one place. Toggl requires Premium pricing just for approvals with no leave management. actiTIME gives approvals, leave, and overtime at the lowest per-user cost of the three, without any monitoring.

Integrations

Hubstaff

Integration availability scales with plan tier. The Grow plan includes one integration; the Team plan removes that limit. Hubstaff integrates natively with Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, QuickBooks, Gusto, FreshBooks, and several payroll and HR tools. The payroll and HR integrations are more relevant than what Toggl offers because Hubstaff actually processes payments — connecting payroll data to tools like Gusto or QuickBooks makes practical sense in that context. Zapier connects to additional apps.

Toggl Track

The browser extension connects to 100-plus tools on all plans, including the free one — Asana, ClickUp, GitHub, GitLab, Basecamp, Notion, and many others. Native Jira and Salesforce sync are Premium features. Google and Outlook calendar integration is built in. Zapier is available on paid plans. For teams with varied tool stacks, Toggl’s integration breadth via the extension is the widest in this comparison at the lowest price point.

actiTIME

Zapier (2,000-plus apps), REST API, QuickBooks Online, a Chrome extension, and actiPLANS. Narrower native list but the Zapier connection covers most standard workflows.

Pricing comparison

Hubstaff pricing

Prices verified from hubstaff.com/pricing and support.hubstaff.com (June 2026). All paid plans require a minimum of 2 users.

See also: Hubstaff Pricing 2026: Plans, True Costs & Hidden Fees

Toggl Track pricing

Prices verified from toggl.com/track/pricing/ (June 2026). Annual billing saves 10% vs monthly.

See also: Toggl Pricing Review 2026

actiTIME pricing

Cost comparison: 10-person team

Hubstaff’s Team plan is cheaper than Toggl Premium for teams that need approvals — but it bundles monitoring features that not every team wants. actiTIME delivers approvals, profitability, and leave management at $600/year for 10 users, with no monitoring attached.

Final verdict: Hubstaff vs Toggl vs actiTIME

The Hubstaff vs Toggl decision isn’t really about which has better features — it’s about whether your team needs to be monitored. Hubstaff is purpose-built for workforce accountability: screenshots, activity tracking, GPS, payroll, and scheduling in one platform. If you manage remote hourly workers or contractors who need to prove their hours, Hubstaff delivers a complete workflow from clock-in to payment.

Toggl Track is for the opposite scenario: teams that track time for billing and project management, not accountability. The free plan for five users is one of the most useful in the category. The monitoring-free environment is a deliberate product choice, not a limitation. If your team doesn’t need screenshots and your pricing model is project-based rather than hourly, Toggl’s cleaner tool fits the job.

The gap both tools share is financial depth at a reasonable price. Hubstaff has no profitability reporting. Toggl locks profitability and compliance features behind the Premium tier at $18/user/month annual. actiTIME covers profitability, cost of work, leave management, and timesheet approvals at $5/user/month — no monitoring, no Premium upgrade required, and a self-hosted license available for teams that don’t want a subscription at all.

Go with Hubstaff if you manage remote or field-based hourly workers and need screenshots, activity tracking, GPS, payroll, and scheduling in one platform.

Go with Toggl Track if your team tracks time for client billing without any monitoring, and you want a free plan for small teams or a straightforward paid tier for growing ones.

Go with actiTIME if you want project profitability, leave management, and structured budget tracking without monitoring tools — and you’d rather not pay Premium-tier prices to get there.

Resources

Hubstaff pricing (verified June 2026): hubstaff.com/pricing
Toggl Track pricing (verified June 2026): toggl.com/track/pricing
actiTIME pricing (verified June 2026): actitime.com/pricing