Construction Time Tracking Software: 10 Compared

A general time tracking app tells you a worker logged eight hours today. A construction tool tells you they were inside the geofence at the Oak Street site from 7:02am, that the hours coded to framing, and that the punch synced from a spot with no cell signal. That gap is why this category exists.

Construction time tracking is not office time tracking with a hard hat on the login screen. Crews move across multiple jobsites, some with no WiFi, and a foreman often clocks in the whole crew at once. The tools that win here are built around the jobsite and the punch, not the calendar, and they price accordingly.

Below, you get ten tools compared for small contractors: sorted into field-built specialists and cheaper general options, priced at 25 and 50 workers where a list rate exists, with an honest word on when a simpler tool is the right call. It also covers the part of a construction company's software problem that none of these platforms solve.

Why construction time tracking is its own category

Construction time tracking is its own category because a jobsite differs from an office on nearly every point a time tracker depends on: where the work happens, who clocks in, what proof of location you need, and whether there is signal to sync over. The table lines the two up.

Each of those rows is a reason the field-built tools cost more than a generic timer. A crew scattered across sites without reliable signal, a foreman clocking in ten people at once, hours that have to roll up by job rather than by department: in construction these are not edge cases but the normal week.

A general tool covers the clock-in and little else. It leaves the location proof and the job costing to a spreadsheet, which is exactly the work the field-built tools exist to do.

There is a second, quieter divide inside the category itself. Some tools verify presence with GPS on a worker's own phone. Others put a fixed rugged clock on site, punched with a key fob or a face scan, so no phone is needed, and facial verification makes buddy punching impossible at the device.

The phone approach is cheaper and covers most crews. The hardware approach suits fixed-access sites and larger self-perform contractors, meaning firms that do the work with their own crews rather than subcontracting it.

Jobsite time clocks: phone, shared kiosk, or rugged hardware

A construction time clock comes in three physical forms, and that choice usually settles the shortlist before any feature comparison does. A phone app is cheapest and travels with the worker. A shared tablet in kiosk mode fixes the punch to one spot, normally a trailer or a gate. A rugged hardware clock does the same on sites with no power, no signal, or no appetite for phones.

Phones suit mobile crews that touch several addresses in a week. A fixed device suits one large site with a single way in, especially where workers carry no company phone and you want proof of who punched.

Two tools on this list take the hardware route: Arcoro Time, formerly ExakTime, with rugged JobClocks punched by key fob, and SmartBarrel, with a facial-verification clock. For the middle route, busybusy offers kiosk clock-in on a device you supply.

Everything else here is phone-first. Several of those apps can also run a shared tablet as a fixed kiosk, so confirm which mode your plan includes before buying a device for it. On cost, the app is a per-user rate and the kiosk adds a tablet, while neither Arcoro nor SmartBarrel publishes a price for its rugged clock, so that hardware comes through a sales conversation.

10 construction time tracking tools compared

The ten tools below split into six field-built specialists and four budget or general-purpose options. Most of them check all four capability columns on at least one plan, so the checkmarks alone will not pick your shortlist. What separates them is which tier unlocks each feature, and whether a geofence blocks a punch or only reminds the worker.

The field-built specialists

The field-built specialists are designed around the jobsite rather than the desk. If your crews move between sites and you need to prove presence and cost hours to a job, start your shortlist here.

Workyard

The common "best overall" pick for construction, built on continuous GPS breadcrumb tracking rather than a single clock-in stamp. It adds geofencing, cost-code job costing, offline mode, and prevailing-wage pay rates (the set local rates many public jobs require), handled through its QuickBooks Desktop sync.

The $50 monthly base fee makes it punitive for a one-to-three-person crew, though the math improves quickly at five or more users. Workyard's own comparison pages put Starter at $6 per user monthly and Pro at $13, each plus that $50 company base.

Workyard's pricing page lists only the Starter rate ($6 on annual billing, with monthly billing also available), shows no price for Pro or Autopilot, and sends Enterprise to sales. Confirm those terms before buying, and note that geofenced clock-in and cost codes start on Pro.

ClockShark

A construction and field-service staple known for its Crew Clock, which lets a foreman punch in a whole crew at once. It also covers GPS, geofencing, scheduling, and QuickBooks-based job costing. Standard costs $9.50 per user plus a $42 monthly base, and Pro costs $11.50 per user plus a $63 base, both under a three-year contract term, with a 14-day trial.

ClockShark runs a two-way sync with QuickBooks and connects to ADP, Gusto, and Sage 100 Contractor, while Paychex customers get a pre-formatted payroll export file.

busybusy

Built for contractors who track equipment alongside labor on the same timecard, with GPS, geofencing, kiosk clock-in, and equipment cost tracking. Its free tier genuinely covers clock-in, GPS, location reminders, offline mode, and job costing. Pro costs $9.99 per user and Premium $14.99 on annual billing, each plus a $40 monthly admin license that covers the first user.

AlignOps now sells busybusy alongside its ToolWatch, SafetyReports, and FleetWatcher products. Equipment and job costing remain the tool's clearest strength.

Arcoro Time (formerly ExakTime)

A construction veteran, renamed from ExakTime and now part of the Arcoro HR suite, built around rugged, battery-powered JobClocks that crews punch with key fobs. Its mobile app snaps a photo at every clock-in, which the vendor stresses is not biometric. It covers GPS, geofencing, cost codes, and meal-break tracking, and integrates with Sage, ADP, and QuickBooks.

Arcoro publishes its rates: Time Essential starts at $9 per employee a month on an annual contract, Time Professional starts at $12 and adds scheduling and PTO, and Time + Payroll starts at $20.

Raken

Strongest when time tracking is paired with daily field reporting, combining timesheets and cost codes with daily logs, photos, and safety documentation in one field record. It suits general contractors whose primary need is subcontractor and site documentation alongside hours.

Raken's pricing is public: daily reporting starts on Basic at $23 per user a month, while time tracking, geofencing, and kiosk mode sit on Performance at $59 per user. Both are billed annually with a three-user minimum, and the Performance price puts Raken at the high end of this list.

SmartBarrel

A hardware-first option built around a rugged clock with AI facial verification, so workers clock in without an app or a badge and buddy punching is eliminated at the device. The clock runs on solar or a power-tool battery and connects over built-in LTE, WiFi, or LAN, with cost coding and integrations with Procore, CMiC, Viewpoint, and Sage.

SmartBarrel prices by quote only and is aimed at commercial and self-perform contractors more than the smallest crews.

Budget and general-purpose options

These four are general-purpose tools rather than construction specialists, though each sells to field and construction crews. For crews with straightforward needs or a tight budget, the economics are hard to argue with.

QuickBooks Time

The default pick when a contractor already runs QuickBooks. Formerly TSheets, it offers GPS, scheduling, a time kiosk, and the deepest native tie into QuickBooks payroll and accounting. It requires an active QuickBooks Online, Payroll, or Desktop account. Its edge is not field depth but the fact that hours flow into QuickBooks with no reconciliation.

QuickBooks Time costs $10 per user plus a $20 monthly base on Premium, and $12 per user plus a $40 base on Elite, which adds geofencing, mileage, and project tracking. New monthly subscribers get a 30-day free trial.

Connecteam

A deskless workforce platform, built for staff who work away from a desk, that bundles scheduling, communication, training, and time tracking into one app. It includes GPS clock-in and a free plan for up to 10 users.

The flat rate for the first 30 users is cost-effective for a small crew that wants one tool for field operations rather than a dedicated time clock. It is broader than it is deep on construction job costing.

Timeero

The lowest-cost full-feature option: a general field-service tracker covering construction, home health, and delivery. It includes GPS, offline mode, and route-based mileage tracking, which matters for crews reimbursed for truck miles between sites.

Timeero charges $5 per user monthly on Basic, $7.50 on Pro (which adds job tracking and geofencing), and $10 on Premium, all on annual billing. With no base fee, it is the cheapest genuine field tool on this list at small crew sizes.

Jibble

The genuinely free answer for a very small crew. Its free tier covers unlimited users for GPS clock-in, geofencing, a shared kiosk, offline mode, and time tagged to projects and activities. Jibble's paid plans publish no rates.

For the smallest operations, where the main need is recording hours and locations, Jibble can be permanently free, though its project tagging is lighter than the cost-code job costing the construction specialists are built around.

What each option costs at 25 and 50 workers

The table models published rates at two realistic crew sizes for a small contractor. Watch the base fee: several tools add a $40 to $50 monthly company fee on top of the per-user rate, and it weighs most at 25 workers.

Two patterns are worth reading off this. First, the fixed fee shrinks per head as the crew grows: Workyard's $50 base adds $2 per worker at 25 and $1 at 50, so the tools that charge one look worse at the smaller size than their per-user rate suggests.

Second, the cheaper tools trade away depth where it matters most in construction. The free and low-cost options handle GPS and geofencing well but run lighter on cost-code job costing, foreman batch clock-in, and prevailing-wage output.

Giving up that depth is a fair trade when your sites are simple, and a real mistake when a client contract or a federally funded job under the Davis-Bacon Act requires proof you cannot produce.

How to choose construction time tracking software

Choosing construction time tracking software comes down to five questions about your crews, your sites, and your back office. Answer them before you book a demo, because each one rules tools in or out faster than a feature list does.

Where time tracking sits inside construction workforce management

Construction workforce management is the wider category that time tracking is one piece of: deciding which crews go to which projects, scheduling the shifts, capturing the hours, keeping certifications current, and feeding labor cost back into the next estimate. Every tool on this page owns the middle of that list and stops short of both ends.

The gaps appear in a predictable order as a contractor grows. First is crew scheduling, which is a separate buying decision and a separate shortlist, covered in the construction employee scheduling comparison. Next is labor allocation across several jobs at once, which most of these tools express as a report after the fact rather than a plan made in advance.

Then comes the compliance layer: who holds an OSHA Outreach card, whose license expires next month, who has actually signed the safety orientation. That lives in records rather than in punches, which is why a construction stack usually ends up as a time tool plus a workforce management layer rather than one product covering both ends.

Before you choose

FirstHR is not a construction time tracking tool and does not belong in the comparison above. It has no time clock, no GPS or geofenced clock-in, no cost codes or job costing, no offline field capture, and no rugged kiosk hardware. If you need to track crew hours and prove jobsite presence, every tool on this page does something for you that we do not, and the answer is on that list rather than here.

What every tool above assumes is that the worker you are clocking in is already an employee: hired, verified, safety-trained, and cleared to be on site. In construction that assumption is refreshed more often than across the private sector as a whole, because seasonal and project-driven turnover runs high and each new crew member arrives with paperwork and safety documentation a time clock does not touch.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts a number on that churn. According to its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, construction separations (quits, layoffs, and other exits) averaged 4.0 percent of employment a month in 2025, against 3.6 percent across the private sector.

None of that is produced by a time tracking app, and on a small crew it lands on the owner or an office manager between jobs. FirstHR's applicant tracking and hiring workflows are coming soon.

Today the platform covers most of that layer: onboarding with deadline tracking, e-signature on I-9, W-4, and offer letters, document management with retention and expiry tracking for licenses and certifications, training modules with completion records for safety orientation, and employee records with self-service.

Pricing is a flat $98 per month for 10 active team seats and $198 for 50 rather than a per-worker rate, and in a high-turnover setting a flat fee behaves differently from per-head pricing, since the cost does not move every time the crew does. We sit alongside your time clock rather than replacing it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is construction time tracking software?

Software that records crew clock-ins on jobsites and ties hours to jobs, phases, and cost codes. What sets it apart from an office timer is the field layer: GPS stamped at each punch, geofencing that restricts or prompts clock-in at a jobsite, offline mode for sites with no signal, batch or kiosk clock-in, and two-way sync with construction payroll and accounting.

How is it different from regular time tracking software?

A regular timer assumes one connected location and an individual clocking in for themselves. Construction inverts that: crews across multiple sites, some with no signal, a foreman clocking in a whole crew, location proof as the central question, and hours attached to a job and cost code rather than a department.

How much does construction time tracking software cost?

Most published tools run about $5 to $15 per user monthly, and several add a $40 to $50 monthly base fee. Timeero is the lowest paid option at $5 with no base, or $7.50 with geofencing.

Workyard is $6 per user plus a $50 base, ClockShark $9.50 plus $42, busybusy free to $9.99 plus a $40 admin license, QuickBooks Time $10 plus $20, and Arcoro Time, formerly ExakTime, $9. Raken charges $59 for time tracking, and SmartBarrel quotes only.

Do construction crews need GPS and geofencing?

It depends on whether location proof solves a real problem. If crews move between sites and buddy punching costs you money, GPS clock-in and jobsite geofencing pay for themselves. If you run one or two fixed sites and trust your foreman, a cheaper tool without GPS may be enough. The test is whether you have ever disputed whether a worker was on site.

What are cost codes and why do they matter?

A cost code attaches each block of hours to a job, phase, or activity, so labor rolls up by project rather than as a single lump number. Over time, coded hours show what similar work really costs in labor, which is how contractors bid the next job. A tracker without cost codes leaves that allocation to a spreadsheet most crews never complete.

Does the software work without cell signal?

The field-built tools generally do. Offline mode queues punches on the device and syncs when signal returns, so a crew in a basement or rural site still gets accurate times. Rugged hardware clocks go further: SmartBarrel's runs on solar or battery power over built-in LTE, and Arcoro's JobClocks store punches out of range. If your work touches dead zones, confirm offline capture rather than assuming it.

Which tool integrates with QuickBooks?

QuickBooks Time has the deepest native tie because it is an Intuit product. Workyard, ClockShark, and busybusy connect to QuickBooks Desktop and Online in both directions: employees, jobs, and service items come in, and approved hours go back for payroll. For any other tool, ask what moves each way. If your accounting runs on QuickBooks, confirm integration depth in a demo, since a shallow one-way push still leaves cost codes to reconcile by hand.

Does construction time tracking software handle hiring and onboarding?

Rarely. These tools are built around the shift: clocking it, verifying location, coding it, and exporting it to payroll. The signed offer, I-9 within three business days, W-4, E-Verify, OSHA orientation, and trade licenses are a separate layer that recurs constantly with high turnover.