Time tracking software for remote teams: 4 real options compared

Wrkbase's time tracking runs off task status changes: move a card to "In progress" and its timer starts automatically, because you were already making that change for its own reason. There's no manual start/stop button to forget, no screenshots, no keystroke logging, nothing running in the background watching how someone works, the record is a byproduct of the work itself, not a monitoring layer on top of it.

The hours it logs feed straight into payroll: a pay run reads the same hours the task board already tracked, no export-and-reconcile step against a separate timesheet tool. Included on every plan, including free for up to 5 people.

What it doesn't have: freelancer-oriented features like client invoicing, billable-rate reports, or a standalone timer for work that isn't tied to a task. If invoicing clients directly off logged hours is the actual requirement, Harvest below is built specifically for that.

Toggl Track's free plan is permanent (not a trial) for teams up to 5, with unlimited time tracking, projects, and clients, an autotracker, idle detection, and CSV/PDF exports. Paid tiers are Starter ($9/user/month annual) and Premium ($18/user/month annual), adding features like time estimates, scheduling, and priority support. It's a dedicated, well-regarded standalone timer; there's no task board, attendance system, or payroll anywhere in the product, hours have to be exported or integrated into whatever you run those in separately.

Clockify's free plan now caps at 5 users (previously unlimited, changed in 2026) and covers basic tracking, idle detection, and a Pomodoro timer, billable rates, invoicing, and Excel/CSV export moved to paid tiers. Paid plans run Basic ($3.99/user/month), Standard ($6.99), Pro ($9.99), and Enterprise ($14.99), all billed annually. Teams of 6 or more now need a paid plan for everyone given the new free-tier cap. Like Toggl, it's a pure time tracker: no attendance or payroll module, and no task board to attach the timer to.

Hubstaff's free plan is built for a solo user tracking their own time and providing proof of work, not a team plan. Paid tiers (2-seat minimum) are Starter ($4.99/seat/month annual), Grow ($7.50), and Team ($10), with Enterprise at $25; extras like Insights, Tasks, Locations, additional screenshots, and longer data retention are separate add-ons on top. Hubstaff leans into screenshot-based activity monitoring as a core feature, the opposite design choice from Wrkbase's task-triggered, monitoring-free approach, worth weighing directly against whether your team is comfortable with that.

Harvest's free plan covers one seat and two projects, aimed at solo freelancers. The Teams plan is $9/seat/month annual ($11 monthly), and Enterprise is $14/seat/month annual ($17.50 monthly), adding profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, and SSO. A 2026 pricing restructure moved Harvest from flat per-seat pricing to a plan-fee-plus-usage model, so the per-seat number alone no longer reflects the total cost, usage-based fees apply on top depending on invoices, projects, clients, and tasks. Harvest's real strength is client invoicing built directly off logged hours, a genuinely different job than internal payroll.

If you bill clients directly off logged hours, Harvest is built specifically for that job. If you want a pure, inexpensive standalone timer and nothing else, Toggl Track or Clockify cover it. If screenshot-based activity monitoring is something you actively want, Hubstaff offers it, at the cost of the trust that monitoring can cost with a remote team (see the actual research on that trade-off in a related post). If you'd rather the hours a timer logs feed directly into payroll with no export step, and never involve surveillance to get there, that's what Wrkbase is built for, free for teams up to 5. Pricing above is as publicly listed in August 2026 for each vendor, confirm current numbers on their own pricing pages before deciding.