Landscaping Time Tracking Software: 11 Compared
Landscaping time tracking software compared: GPS crew clocks vs job costing platforms, real cost for a 12-person crew, and what none of them cover.
I build HR software for small businesses, and if I ran landscaping crews, I would want two answers before buying a time tracker: which tools show what each property costs in labor, and what the tools themselves cost. Picture a crew that leaves the yard at seven, hits nine properties, and gets back at four.
Somewhere in that day there is a mow that took forty minutes and one that took two hours, and if the timesheet says nine hours you have learned the labor cost of the day and nothing at all about which accounts are worth keeping.
That is the actual problem this category exists to solve, and it is why a general time tracker underperforms here. What a landscaping business needs is hours attached to a property, punches stamped with a location, a way for a foreman to move the whole crew at once, and something that keeps working when the site has no signal.
Two very different products claim this search. One is a GPS crew clock costing tens of dollars a month. The other is a field service platform costing hundreds and replacing your quoting and invoicing at the same time. This page separates them, prices each for a twelve-person crew wherever the vendor publishes a rate, with every base fee included, and covers the part no comparison in this category addresses.
Two different purchases, one search term
Every product below records crew hours. The difference is how much of the business comes with it, and that decides both the price and how long you spend implementing it.
| GPS crew time clock | Field service platform | |
|---|---|---|
| What it answers | How many hours, where, on which property | What the job was quoted at and whether it made money |
| Typical monthly cost at 12 crew | Nothing to about $160 | About $200 to $650 and up |
| Also gives you | Scheduling, GPS, photo verification | Estimating, routing, invoicing, customer records |
| Time to live | A day or two | Weeks, often with a paid implementation |
| Replaces | Paper timesheets | Your quoting, scheduling, and invoicing at once |
| Buy it when | Hours and job costing are the broken part | You are rebuilding how the whole business runs |
The honest test is what you would do with the output. If the answer is run payroll correctly and see which accounts eat labor, a crew clock does that for the price of a tank of fuel. If the answer is quote against a real production rate and invoice from the same system, you are shopping in the second group and should budget accordingly.
11 landscaping time tracking tools at a glance
The table groups the eleven tools by category, then orders each group by what a twelve-person crew pays each month, which is not always the order of the entry prices shown. Every product in the first group does GPS punches and offers geofencing on some tier, so that is table stakes rather than a differentiator.
| Product | Category | Priced by | Entry price | Free plan | Published pricing | Quotes and invoicing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jibble | GPS crew clock | Free | Free, unlimited users | |||
| Connecteam | GPS crew clock | Flat per hub | $29/hub to 30 users | |||
| Timeero | GPS crew clock | Per user | $5/user to 10 users | |||
| QuickBooks Time | GPS crew clock | Per user plus base | $10/user plus $20 | |||
| ClockShark | GPS crew clock | Per user plus base | $9/user plus $40 | |||
| busybusy | GPS crew clock | Per user plus admin | $9.99/user plus $40 | |||
| Hubstaff | GPS crew clock | Per user plus add-on | $13.33/user with GPS | |||
| Service Autopilot | Field service | Per plan | $49 plus signup fee | |||
| Jobber | Field service | Per plan and user | From $29 | |||
| LMN | Field service | Per plan, licenses included | $297 plus onboarding fee | |||
| Aspire | Field service | Quoted, revenue-based | Quote only |
How we evaluated these tools
We evaluated for a small US landscaping business running one to three crews, with a seasonal swing and an office administrator who also does several other jobs.
GPS crew time clocks
GPS crew time clocks are built around a punch attached to a place and a job. For most small landscaping businesses, this is the group to shop in.
ClockShark is built for exactly this workforce, and it shows in the details generic trackers get wrong. A foreman can clock the whole crew in and out on one device, which matters when half the crew has no smartphone, and hours attach to a job and a task rather than to the day.
ClockShark also includes a kiosk app, scheduling, clock-out reminders when a crew leaves a job site, and photo notes on a job. Quotes and invoices come on both plans.
The $40 monthly base fee is the thing to weigh at the small end: for a three-person operation it is most of the bill. Advanced job costing controls and time off management sit on Pro at $60 plus $11 a user, so price Pro if per-job margins are the reason you are buying. Reporting depth also trails the field service platforms once you are running several crews.
busybusy has the most field-specific free tier in this comparison. GPS-stamped punches, break tracking, location reminders, digitally signed timecards, and offline mode all work at no cost, which for a small operation replacing paper is the entire job done. The product is built around construction and field trades, so equipment tracking and job costing sit at its center rather than being adapted from office software.
The features a landscaping business grows into sit on paid tiers. Supervisor tools, enhanced GPS, clock-in photo verification, and kiosk mode all require Pro at $9.99 a user plus a $40 admin license. At twelve people that comes to about $160 a month, level with Hubstaff as the most expensive clock here.
busybusy puts daily project reports and progress tracking a further tier up, on Premium at $14.99. Treat the free plan as genuinely useful and the paid ladder as steeper than the entry point suggests.
Connecteam is the cheapest credible paid option at this crew size by a wide margin. The flat $29 covers thirty users, which works out under $2.50 a head at twelve people, and the free tier gives full feature access up to ten.
The app is designed for staff without a work email address, and it carries GPS clock-in, the schedule, and checklists, so a landscaping business can replace its paper checklist. Crew messaging sits in the separate Communications hub, and adding that hub can replace the group chat as well.
The structure to understand is the hub. Time clock and scheduling live in one hub, communication in another, training in a third, so wanting two doubles the base fee. Above thirty users, additional people are charged individually.
Connecteam is a general platform for deskless staff rather than a landscaping product, so per-property job costing is shallower than ClockShark or busybusy, and there is no estimating or invoicing of any kind.
Jibble runs the most generous free plan in the category, covering unlimited users with time tracking, geofencing, and facial recognition on the punch. For a two-truck operation that has never used software, this is a zero-risk way to stop arguing about hours, and the mobile app is straightforward enough that crew adoption is rarely the obstacle.
The caveat is depth rather than price. Jibble is a general time tracker with projects and client invoicing for tracked time, so per-property job costing is thinner than at the field-trade specialists and it produces no quotes. With the pricing page withdrawn, confirm the free terms in writing before moving a whole crew onto it.
Timeero treats mileage and drive time as first-class data rather than an afterthought, which for a maintenance route hitting a dozen stops is a different picture of the day. GPS and mileage tracking come on every plan.
Timeero's segmented tracking, an add-on from $5 a user on Pro and Premium, shows the route between properties, so you can see that a crew spent ninety minutes driving and six hours working, and price accordingly.
The Basic tier at $5 caps at ten users, so a twelve-person crew starts on Pro at $7.50 and the advertised entry price does not apply. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. Scheduling and job management are competent but thinner than ClockShark, and if drive time is not a cost you actually manage, you are paying for the differentiator without using it.
Hubstaff gives the clearest real-time picture of where crews are, which matters when a customer calls at eleven asking when somebody is arriving and you need an answer rather than a guess. With the Locations add-on, geofenced automatic punching, a live map, and job-level time reporting all work, and the Team plan handles payroll and scheduling properly rather than bolting them on.
The product is built primarily around remote-workforce monitoring, and the activity tracking that comes with it is unnecessary for a crew you can see on a map. Enabling monitoring features carries written notice obligations in several states, among them New York, so if you only want location and hours, confirm what is switched on by default.
Hubstaff's free plan is a single seat, so a crew evaluates it on the 14-day trial instead.
The argument for QuickBooks Time is narrow and strong: approved crew hours land inside QuickBooks payroll with no export, no file, and no reconciliation. Removing the step where hours get retyped is worth real money if that step currently costs somebody an afternoon every pay run. GPS and job costing are mature, with geofencing on Elite.
It is also one of the pricier clocks here at this crew size. The $20 base fee is $240 a year before anyone punches in, and the per-user rate rose from $8 to $10 by early July 2026, a 25 percent increase on the variable part of the bill.
QuickBooks Time requires a QuickBooks Online account. Outside the QuickBooks ecosystem the central argument disappears, and cheaper tools cover the same timekeeping.
Field service platforms with job costing
Field service platforms are not time tracking tools. They run the business, with crew hours as one input, and they are priced accordingly.
Jobber has the cleanest interface and the best mobile experience of the platforms here. For a small operation that has never used software, the difference between an app crews will open and one they will not is worth more than a feature list. Quotes, scheduling, job forms, invoicing, and payments all work well, and the customer-facing experience is the most polished in this group.
The pricing model is the catch for a crew business. Plans cap the number of users and additional seats cost $29 each, so a twelve-person crew reaches about $287 a month on annual billing, which is more than the most expensive dedicated time clock on this page.
Jobber also has no aerial property measurement, and its estimating is general rather than landscape-specific, so a design-build contractor pricing against production rates will find it thin.
Service Autopilot is built around automation for recurring work, and for a high-volume maintenance operation that is exactly the right shape. Route optimization and invoicing built for thousands of clients handle the repetitive administration that eats an owner's evenings once account counts pass a hundred. From Pro Plus up, workflow automations that fire without anyone touching them take on more of it.
Two things to price carefully. The first is the entry tier: Startup at $49 covers one business user and one mobile license, which does not describe a crew, so the realistic entry is Pro at $199 plus a signup fee on an annual contract. Pro includes two mobile licenses, and extra ones are priced on request.
The second is the add-ons: GPS fleet tracking and accounting integration are not publicly priced, meaning the two capabilities most relevant to crew time tracking sit outside the advertised number.
LMN is the most landscape-native platform on this page. Its estimating ties every bid to your annual overhead budget and your crews' actual production rates, a discipline general field service software does not attempt. For a contractor bidding commercial maintenance, that discipline is the difference between winning work and winning unprofitable work. Crew time entry feeds the same budget, so estimated hours and actual hours are compared in one place.
It is also a commitment. The entry tier is roughly ten times a dedicated crew clock, Starter's five crew licenses push a twelve-person crew onto Professional at $648, and the one-time onboarding fee is not published, so get the figure in writing. Setup is a project rather than an afternoon. If your estimating already works, you are buying an expensive time clock.
Aspire is the enterprise answer in this industry, and it is included here because it ranks for these searches, not because a twelve-person crew should buy it. For a commercial contractor running several branches, its real-time job costing and production-kit estimating give a level of margin visibility the smaller platforms do not attempt.
Aspire publishes no price for the platform itself and quotes against revenue instead. Implementation is a substantial project rather than a setup task, and the platform assumes an operations team to run it.
A small landscaping business evaluating Aspire is almost always solving a problem that a $29 crew clock and a spreadsheet would solve for the season. It is listed here so you recognize what it is when it appears next to a time tracking app.
What this costs for a 12-person crew
A crew of twelve with an office administrator pays nothing to about $160 a month for a GPS crew clock and $199 to $648 for a field service platform, once base fees, admin licenses, and tier caps are counted. This is the arithmetic the affiliate lists in this category rarely publish.
| Option | How it is priced | Monthly at 12 | What you are actually buying |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jibble Free | Free, unlimited users | $0 | GPS punches, geofencing, kiosk, and offline mode |
| busybusy Free | Free tier | $0 | Clock in and out, GPS, breaks, signed timecards |
| Connecteam Basic | $29 flat per hub to 30 users | $29 | Time clock, scheduling, and checklists in one hub |
| Timeero Pro | $7.50 per user | $90 | Basic caps at 10 users, so 12 needs Pro |
| QuickBooks Time Premium | $10 per user plus $20 base | $140 | Hours land in QuickBooks payroll with no export |
| ClockShark Standard | $9 per user plus $40 base | $148 | Crew clock, scheduling, job and task costing |
| busybusy Pro | $9.99 per user plus $40 admin license | $160 | Adds supervisor tools, photo verification, kiosk |
| Hubstaff Team with Locations | $13.33 per user | $160 | GPS, job sites, live map, and scheduling |
| Service Autopilot Pro | $199 flat, annual contract | From $199 | Two mobile licenses included, more priced on request; GPS and QuickBooks are add-ons |
| Jobber Connect | $229 for 10 users, $29 each after | $287 | Quotes, scheduling, invoicing, and payments |
| LMN Professional | $648 flat for 15 crew licenses | $648 | Starter at $297 covers five crew; onboarding fee extra |
Two things fall out of the table. Free is genuinely free for a crew this size on two products, and neither is a crippled trial. And the gap between the cheapest paid clock at $29 and the cheapest full platform at $199 reflects scope rather than quality: one records hours, the other replaces how you quote and invoice.
The crew app has to work for the crew
The most common cause of failure in this category is the crew rather than the software: the people expected to use the app cannot or will not. Two specific things drive that, and the first is whether the app works in the language your crew speaks and keeps working without signal.
The second driver is how many taps a job switch takes. A crew hitting nine properties makes eight switches, and if each one takes four taps on a phone in a work glove, they will stop doing it by Wednesday and you are back to daily totals.
A crew clock that a foreman operates for the whole team in one action solves this structurally rather than through training, which is why it is worth weighting heavily in the trial.
Dwight SchruteSales3 people
Darryl PhilbinWarehouse1 person
Kelly KapoorCustomer Service1 personWhat has to happen before anyone clocks in
Every product on this page assumes the person punching in is already an employee. In a seasonal business that has to be set up again from scratch every spring, and time tracking software produces none of the paperwork, training, and records in the table below.
| What has to happen | When | Why it matters for a seasonal crew |
|---|---|---|
| Signed offer or work agreement | Before the first day | Terms, pay rate, and seasonal end date in writing |
| Form I-9 with document review | Within three business days of start | Federal, every hire, no company size exemption |
| Form W-4 and state withholding | Before the first paycheck | Payroll cannot calculate correctly without it |
| State new hire reporting | Usually within 20 days of start | Deadline and filing method vary by state |
| Handbook and policy acknowledgment | Before or on the first day | Needed as evidence if a policy is later disputed |
| Safety and equipment training | Before operating anything powered | Mowers, trimmers, blowers, chippers, trailers |
| Chemical handling training | Before any application work | Applies to anyone near herbicides or pesticides |
| Driver record and vehicle policy | Before driving a company truck | Insurance frequently requires it on file |
| Record retention after departure | Years, not months | Retention clocks keep running once the season ends |
Three of those rows run on federal clocks. Under the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services handbook for employers, Section 2 of Form I-9, where the employer reviews the documents a new hire presents, is due within three business days of the first day of work.
New hire reporting is the second: federal law requires each new hire to be reported to the state within 20 days, sooner where a state sets a shorter deadline.
Retention is the third. Federal wage-and-hour rules require employers to keep payroll records for three years and time cards for two, so the punches a seasonal crew leaves behind in November still have to be retrievable long after the accounts are deactivated.
The reason this belongs in a software comparison is arithmetic. A crew that turns over heavily runs this list several times a season, and the cost of replacing an hourly worker includes the hours somebody spends on exactly these steps, not just recruiting fees.
Safety training records matter separately: if an inspector or an insurer asks whether a crew member was trained on the equipment that injured them, the answer has to be a signed record with a date, not a recollection.
The verdict by operation type
A single ranking assumes every landscaping business has the same problem. In practice the right answer depends on how you operate, and it changes across the six kinds of operation below.
| Your operation | What usually fits | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Two trucks, first software purchase | busybusy or Jibble free tier | Annual contracts before you know what you need |
| One to three crews, hours are the problem | Connecteam at $29 flat, or ClockShark for deeper job costing | Field service platforms; you are buying quoting you did not need |
| Route-heavy maintenance, drive time matters | Timeero, where mileage is first-class data | Clocks that record only arrival and departure |
| Books already in QuickBooks | QuickBooks Time, if hours are being retyped each run | It, if payroll already works; the premium buys nothing |
| 100 or more recurring accounts | Service Autopilot, budgeting for the GPS add-on | Assuming the $49 tier covers a crew; it covers two users |
| Design-build bidding on commercial contracts | LMN, with the onboarding fee in the budget | A crew clock alone; your problem is estimating, not punches |
The uncomfortable summary is that most small landscaping businesses are solving a timesheet problem and are well served by a crew clock costing nothing to about $160 a month, while the platforms marketed hardest in this industry are priced for an operation two or three sizes larger.
Before you choose
FirstHR handles much of the hiring layer described above: it is an HR platform for small US businesses that turns hiring paperwork into first-day tasks with deadlines and keeps the completed forms in each employee file. The GPS punch, the crew clock, and job costing come from the eleven tools above.
The platform also stores onboarding documents with expiry dates, collects e-signatures on offer letters and acknowledgments, and builds training courses from your own files with completion records, at a flat $98 a month for up to 10 people or $198 for 11 to 50.
The reason to settle the HR side at the same time as the time clock is seasonality. A crew business runs the paperwork list several times a year rather than once, and a flat fee that changes only at a plan boundary behaves differently from per-seat pricing when headcount triples in April and falls back in November.
Whichever time clock you pick, decide where the signed documents and training records live before the next season starts rather than during it.
How to choose landscaping time tracking software
Five questions settle this, and the first eliminates most of the market before you open a trial.
A closing note on sequencing: run one full pay period through your two finalists before committing to an annual contract, ideally a busy week rather than a quiet one. Most of these are free or on trial long enough to allow it, and a real week surfaces what a feature list cannot, particularly whether the crew punches without being chased and whether the hours land where overtime gets calculated correctly.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is landscaping time tracking software?
Software that records crew clock-ins with a GPS location and ties hours to a specific property rather than to the day. That last part is what separates it from general time tracking: a crew visiting six to fifteen properties needs hours attributed to each account, because a daily total tells you nothing about which jobs are profitable.
How much does landscaping time tracking software cost?
For twelve crew plus an administrator, a GPS clock runs from nothing to about $160 a month. busybusy and Jibble have free tiers, Connecteam is $29 flat, Timeero Pro $90, QuickBooks Time $140 with its base fee, ClockShark $148 with its $40 base fee, and busybusy Pro or Hubstaff with GPS about $160. Field service platforms run $199 to $648 at that size.
What is the difference between a time clock and a field service platform?
A time clock answers how many hours the crew worked and where. A platform answers what the job was quoted at and whether it made money. The first costs tens of dollars and installs in a day. The second costs hundreds, takes weeks, and replaces your quoting and invoicing too. Buying the second when you needed the first is the expensive mistake here.
Does landscaping time tracking software work without cell signal?
The better ones do, and it matters here. Offline mode stores punches on the device and syncs when signal returns, preserving the original timestamp rather than the sync time. Offline behavior is claimed widely and implemented unevenly, so test it by putting a crew phone in airplane mode and clocking in and out during the trial.
How do I track hours per property instead of per day?
You need job codes selected at the punch and a crew clock a foreman can move for the whole team in one action. Without both, crews forget to switch codes or stop bothering. Knowing the crew worked nine hours is operationally useless; knowing one account consumed two and a half of them tells you whether to reprice it next season.
What should I look for if my crew speaks Spanish?
A crew app fully translated into Spanish rather than a translated marketing page. Vendors advertise Spanish support and deliver a help center, a partial translation, or a genuinely bilingual interface. Test it by switching a crew phone to Spanish and completing a full day including a break and a move between properties.
Do seasonal crew members change what software I should buy?
They change the pricing model more than the feature list. Per-user subscriptions bill on peak headcount, so a business running twenty in July and six in January pays for empty seats. Look for per-active-user billing, deactivation without losing history, or flat pricing to a cap covering your seasonal peak.
Does time tracking software handle payroll for a landscaping business?
Most export approved hours rather than running payroll. QuickBooks Time is the tightest case, with hours landing inside QuickBooks payroll and no export step. Others offer named connectors or a payroll-formatted file. Confirm the connector against your specific payroll product rather than accepting a general compatibility claim.
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