Best Windows Time Trackers in 2021

Windows time trackers are more in demand than ever. Companies with remote teams need an efficient way to keep work visible.

84.5% of companies intend to allow their employees to keep working from home at least some of the time. More than a quarter (25.5%) plan to stay fully remote.

If you want to get the most out of remote work, it’s time to upgrade your toolkit with a powerful desktop time tracker.

Why?

You can spot the warning signs of burnout early enough to help. Productivity issues are easier to troubleshoot with unbiased data to show you what’s happening. The best tools show you which tasks get the most attention so you can better manage priorities.

We compiled the best Windows time trackers out there to help you make an informed decision.

Let’s jump in.

1. Hubstaff

Hubstaff’s Windows time tracker app has everything you need to run your business smoothly. In addition to time tracking, this tool automates your administrative work to save time and money.

Accurately track time with this lightweight Windows time tracker. That time data for you and your team is easy to analyze with Hubstaff’s powerful time reports. Dig into your business operations with accurate, unbiased data.

You can see useful information like:

• Total hours tracked by the team
• Hours tracked by each employee
• The apps and websites your team visits and how much time they spend on them
• Hours spent on projects
• Time your team members work on specific tasks
• Activity levels for each team member

Hubstaff calculates activity levels based on keyboard and mouse inputs. Activity levels give you a useful baseline. Changes can be a warning sign that you need to check in.

You can also use activity levels to set a timeout warning. The timeout appears after a user has been inactive for the time you specify. This prevents the timer from running when nobody is working.

Tracking time automatically generates timesheets. Use one of Hubstaff’s payment integrations to automatically process payroll after you approve their timesheets.

You can also set weekly limits for your team and budget limits for your projects. The app notifies you when an employee gets close to their limits so you can adjust. It’s much easier to stay on top of overtime and manage budgets wisely because you see the risk early enough to do something about it.

Use Hubstaff to automate client invoicing. Set your billing rates and track expenses in the app. This ensures that your billing is accurate and your time tracking data can serve as proof of work. Plus, automating your invoices saves a lot of time.

Hubstaff integrates with over 30 other business apps. It’s easy to fit it into your current tech ecosystem.

Get even more out of Hubstaff by pairing it with the matching project management tool Hubstaff Tasks.

Pricing

Hubstaff has a 14-day free trial with complete features. It has one free plan and three paid plans.

• Free for solo users
• Basic: $5.83/user/month
• Premium: $8.33/user/month
• Enterprise: $16.67/user/month

2. Toggl Track

Toggl Track has a bright, colorful interface that’s fun to use. It’s also a solid time tracking app to help you manage your remote team.

Log hours from your desktop with this minimalist app. Track time by task to get an accurate picture of you and your team use your work hours. You can create new tasks right from the app.

Color-coded projects help you find what you’re looking for quickly. Create sub-projects for better organization. Toggl Track allows you to set billable hour rates, generate and share time reports, and log hours even if you’re offline. The app also has a calendar view, which allows for smoother task planning.

Pricing

Toggl Track offers a 30-day free trial. It has a free plan and three paid plans.

• Free plan with limited features
• Starter: $9/user/month
• Premium: $20/user/month
• Enterprise: Contact sales

3. Harvest

Harvest is designed to help make your business more profitable. You can track time with the built-in timer or enter timesheets manually.

Tracked time shows up on your dashboard so it’s easy to see how your team is doing. Track by project to get insights into project progress and team capacity.

This app’s main features are built around accurate reporting and expense tracking. The built-in reports show you your most costly projects and budget information at a glance.

Harvest also offers invoicing, timesheet management, and downloadable reports.

Pricing

Harvest has a 30-day free trial. You can choose the free plan or the paid plan.

• Free for one user and two projects
• Pro: $12/user/month

4. VeriClock

VeriClock is designed to make timekeeping easier. Clock in from the web app, mobile app, or over the phone via SMS.

Your team’s time tracking data is available in reports. The app also has a TimeGuard feature that automatically clocks out employees if they forget to at the end of the day.

One of VeriClock’s notable features is its automatic signature requests. It prompts your team members to sign off on their timesheet when they submit it so they’re more likely to check for accuracy.

Pricing

VeriClock has a 30-day free trial. It doesn’t have a free plan, and costs $5/user/month on top of a base $10 fee.

5. WorkingHours

WorkingHours offers an easy-to-use interface that makes it easy to track time by task. This straightforward app is available for your PC and your smartphone. It’s a good option for freelancers and small teams.

This simple app includes reporting to help you get more out of your work hours. You can also track earnings and export data for analysis or proof of work.

WorkingHours also has a built-in Pomodoro timer. The Pomodoro technique is a popular time management technique that relies on timed work sessions. If that’s how you like to work, this is a good app for you.

Pricing

WorkingHours offers a 7-day free trial. It has a free plan that includes its basic time tracking features, and you can unlock all the other features with a one-time payment of $4.99.

6. Paymo

Paymo is a project management solution with Windows time tracking. If you don’t want to use the full suite of features, you can still track time with the web timer or mobile app.

Paymo monitors activity during working hours. You can define the time you spent on specific tasks at the end of the day. Monitoring also helps you stay focused on the most important tasks by showing you how often you got off track.

This app also includes timesheet reporting, team scheduling, and workload management features. Your team can plan time off within Paymo so you can easily plan ahead to cover gaps.

Pricing

Paymo has a 15-day free trial period. There is no free plan.

• Small Office: $11.95/user/month
• Business: $18.95/user/month

7. ClickTime

ClickTime is a great tool when you need to develop better time discipline.

Set time estimates for your tasks before you start working. As your team works, your dashboard shows you the health of each project. You can see if some projects are being neglected while others are close to going over budget.

ClickTime includes built-in budgeting features. You can upload receipts to track expenses.

This is a good app if you need mobile timesheets. There are also more than 70 different types of reports to help you stay on track.

Pricing

ClickTime offers a 14-day free trial. There is no free plan.

• Starter Plan: $12/user/month
• Team Plan: $16/user/month
• Premier Plan: $28/user/month
• Enterprise Plan: Contact sales

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8. ActiveCollab

ActiveCollab has great time tracking features, though it’s primarily a tool to help your team work better together. Track the time your team spends on different tasks and view detailed reports on their performance.

Time tracked with the stopwatch automatically fills out timesheets. Log hours to projects and clients to easily calculate profitability.

ActiveCollab can generate time tracking reports for your whole team, or you can use it to analyze your own time. It also includes an invoicing feature so you can bill clients within the app.

Pricing

ActiveCollab has a free 14-day trial. It doesn’t have a free plan. Their basic plan costs $7/user/month. Additional features like timesheets and invoicing are included for an additional $4/user/month.

9. Clockify

Clockify offers hassle-free time tracking with a clean, organized interface.

Track time straight from your to-do list. Custom task labels make it easy to see how work is organized and whether or not that time is billable. You can also edit time entries from the tracker.

Clockify’s reporting features are just as easy to use. Your dashboard gives you a visual overview of your team’s activity. For more detail, view and export reports that tell you how much you earned and what your team worked on.

If you need a free option for a startup, Clockify may be a good choice.

You won’t get any of the more premium features, but you can track as much time as you want for as many users as you need. If you need more advanced analytics and controls, you’ll have to upgrade or choose a more flexible option.

Pricing

Clockify offers a 7-day free trial. There’s a free plan that allows you to add unlimited users and projects, though features are limited.

• Free with limited features
• Plus: $9.99/month
• Premium: $29.99/month
• Enterprise: $9.99/user/month

10. RescueTime

RescueTime is a good choice for teams that want to work on time discipline. This app works well to help you handle multiple priorities when you have limited time.

Set time limits on tasks and RescueTime will alert you when it’s time to change your focus. Use these reminders wisely to make it through all the items on your to-do list.

If you’re still running out of time, the reporting features are designed to help you optimize the way you use your work hours. Detailed reports show you the websites and software you use the most.

Productivity scores and weekly email summaries show how you and your team are doing. Use these benchmarks to strategize and get more done.

Pricing

RescueTime offers a free 14-day free trial. There’s a free plan and options for solo users or teams.

• Free plan with light features
• Premium (for solo users): $12/month
• RescueTime for Teams: $6/user/month

11. Tick

Tick is a great time tracker for startups and businesses that do client work.

It’s easy to train your team to use Tick. Use timers to track by task or manually enter time at the end of the day. Your employees can use both methods.

Allocate hours to each project. As your team logs time, Tick tells them how many hours they have left before they go over. This makes it easier to stay within budget, and your employees can self monitor to make sure they’re focusing on the right things.

The reporting features allow you to see data for your whole team, for individual employees, or by client.

If you have a big team, but only a few projects, Tick can be a cost effective solution. While most apps charge by the user, Tick charges for the number of projects you set up. You always have unlimited users.

Pricing

Tick has a 30-day free trial. Pricing is based on the number of projects you need to track.

• Free for one project
• $19/month for 10 projects
• $49/month for 30 projects
• $79/month for 60 projects
• $149/month for unlimited projects

12. Everhour

Everhour has a clean interface to easily track team availability and organize timesheets. It’s a good tool for small teams that work on multiple projects.

You can track time using the app’s timer, or you can manually log hours and use Everhour to manage timesheets.

Everhour includes project management features to help you manage multiple priorities. The schedule shows you who is available so you can more easily manage workloads. Load your tasks into the app to get the most out of its task management features.

If you do client work, you’ll appreciate features like expense tracking and invoicing.

It’s easy to stay within budget using this tool. The app will notify you when you hit budget milestones or approach a limit.

Pricing

This app offers a 14-day free trial. There is no free plan.

Everhour costs $10/user/month at a minimum of five users. The app can be used by fewer people, but you will still be charged for five team members.

13. Paydirt

Paydirt automatically determines what client you’re working for and logs your hours correctly. This is a good app for freelancers and small teams that do client work.

If you forget to start a timer, you can automatically tell your timer to start up to 60 minutes ago so your time gets logged anyway.

As you work in Chrome, the Paydirt extension will detect when it looks like you’re working. If it seems like you’re doing work but the timer isn’t running, the extension will automatically suggest that you start tracking.

Set your task budget and Paydirt will show you how much time you have left with a visual tracking bar.

Paydirt also offers online invoicing and payments via PayPal and Stripe.

Pricing

Paydirt has a 14-day free trial. There is no free plan.

• Starter: $8/month for one user
• Hustler: $16/month for one user
• Co-op: $29/month for three users
• Small team: $49/month for six users
• Large team: $79/month for 10 users
• Agency: $149/month for 20 users

14. Grindstone

Grindstone is a free Windows app that helps you track your work and manage your time. See overviews of your day, week, or month so you always know where you are with your projects. This app is best for freelancers, contractors, and solo entrepreneurs.

In Grindstone, each chunk of time you track is called a time slice. Each to-do is called a work item. Create a new work item by giving your task a name, then track time to it. Grindstone also lets you create and assign properties to work items so you can stay organized.

With Grindstone, you can view graphical representations of your time slices. This feature helps you see which tasks you spend the most time on and when your productive hours are.

Pricing

Grindstone is completely free to use.

Summary of the best Windows time trackers

Application	Description	Pricing
Hubstaff	Automatic time tracker with activity monitoring, productivity metrics, payroll, and invoicing	Free; $5.83 to $16.67/user/month
Toggl Track	Straightforward time tracking with a simple interface	Free; $10 to $20/user/month
Harvest	Time tracking with budget management, timesheets, and invoicing	Free; $12/user/month
VeriClock	Chrome-based time tracker with multiple clock-in options	$10/month base fee plus an additional $5/user/month
WorkingHours	To-do list and time tracking tool with spreadsheet exporting	Free; $4.99 flat fee
Paymo	Project management with time tracking with add-ons for invoicing, Gantt charting, and task scheduling	$11.95 to $18.95/user/month
ClickTime	Time tracker with useful expense reporting features	$9 to $24/user/month with custom pricing
ActiveCollab	Team collaboration and task management software with time tracking	$7/user/month; optional $4/user/month for extra features
Clockify	Time tracking and timesheet management in a clean interface	Free; $9.99 to $29.99/month flat fee for individuals; $9.99/user/month for teams
RescueTime	Time management tool with social media alarm and usage statistics	Free; $12/month for individuals; $6/user/month for teams
Tick	Time tracking optimized for client work	Free; $19 to $149/month depending on the number of projects
Everhour	Minimalistic time tracker	$10/user/month with a minimum of five users
Paydirt	Automatic web-based time tracker with task-time estimation	$8 to $149/month depending on the number of users
Grindstone	Simple time tracking tool with time slices and graphs	Free

Next steps

We hope this list of the best Windows time trackers helps you make an informed decision. Now, it’s your turn to take action.

• Determine what you need – What do you need your time tracker to do? Decide what features you need (and which ones you don’t) to help you narrow down your options.
• Maximize free trials – Take advantage of free trial periods to make sure your app is easy to use and includes all the features you need.
• Talk to your team – If you own a business or manage a team, you’re not the only one that needs to use this time tracker. Ask your team to try it out and listen to their feedback.

Ready to get started? Try Hubstaff for free for 14 days.

This post was published March 15, 2017, and updated March 2021.