Time and Attendance Software: 10 Compared
Time and attendance software compared for teams of 5 to 50, with real cost at 10, 25, and 50 employees, pricing models, and setup time explained.
Time and Attendance Software Compared
Ten time and attendance tools compared for teams of 5 to 50, on the pricing model that decides your bill, real monthly cost at three sizes, and how long each one takes to set up
Most time and attendance comparisons rank features and skip the number that actually decides your bill. That number is the pricing model, and it can make the same time and attendance system the cheapest option for one business and the most expensive for another.
A ten-person team and a fifty-person team shopping for the same feature can pay wildly different amounts depending on whether a tool charges per user, per location, or a flat fee up to a cap. A per-user tool is cheap for a tiny team and climbs with every hire; a per-location tool charges one flat fee no matter how many people clock in. Knowing which model fits your shape decides whether the right answer costs $24 a month or $250.
This guide compares ten time and attendance software solutions for small businesses of five to fifty, explains the pricing models so you can tell which is cheapest for your headcount, gives real monthly totals at three sizes, and shows how long each one takes to set up. Whether you call it a time and attendance system, an attendance tracking app, or an online time clock, these are the same tools, and it also covers the part of the workforce problem a time clock does not solve.
What time and attendance software does
Time and attendance software sits between scheduling and payroll. It turns a planned shift into a verified, paid one.
The core jobs are clocking in and out, applying break and overtime rules automatically, tracking paid and unpaid time off, and exporting approved hours to payroll without re-keying, which is where most manual payroll errors come from. Employees can clock in several ways depending on the tool: a mobile app, a web browser, a shared tablet kiosk, or a biometric device that reads a fingerprint or face to confirm the right person is punching. Many tools add scheduling on the front end and GPS or geofencing for teams that work off-site. Where it differs from project time tracking is direction: attendance answers who was present and whether their hours are right, while project tracking answers where hours went for billing. A shift-based hourly team wants the first; a billable-hours firm wants the second. Our guide to time and attendance for small business covers the underlying concepts in more depth.
Older time and attendance systems were physical hardware: a punch clock on the wall, or a fingerprint terminal by the door. Most modern systems for a US small business are software instead, running on phones and tablets, with a biometric or kiosk option for teams that share a device rather than carry their own. This comparison covers the software systems that fit a team of 5 to 50, not standalone hardware terminals, since a software time clock with a shared tablet kiosk covers the same need at a fraction of the cost.
The pricing model decides your bill
This is the section that saves the most money, because the model, not the sticker rate, sets what you actually pay.
| Pricing model | How it works | Who it favors |
|---|---|---|
| Per user | A charge for each employee on the system | Small teams; cost grows with every hire |
| Per location | A flat fee per site, unlimited staff | Single sites with a larger headcount |
| Flat to a band | One fee up to a user cap, then tiered | Teams that fit under the cap |
| Base plus per user | A monthly base fee plus a per-head charge | Anyone past the point the base is absorbed |
| Modular PEPM | Per employee per month, priced by module | Mid-market buyers wanting one HR suite |
The mechanism is simple. Per-user pricing charges for every employee, so the bill grows with the roster and a fifty-person team pays five times what a ten-person one pays. Per-location pricing charges one flat fee per site with unlimited staff, so a busy single location pays the same at twenty people or sixty. A base fee sits on top of the per-user rate and hurts most at the smallest sizes, where it is a large share of a small bill. The result is that no single tool is cheapest for everyone, and the right model depends on your shape rather than a ranking.
10 time and attendance tools compared
Eight tools that fit a team of five to fifty, a genuinely free option, and one mid-market platform included to show where the SMB range ends and quote-only pricing begins.
| Tool | Best For | Entry Price | Time Clock | Scheduling | Free Plan | GPS | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homebase | Single-site hourly teams | Free / $24 location | Free tier | ||||
| When I Work | Cheapest per-user entry | $2.50/user + add-on | 14-day trial | ||||
| Deputy | Compliance-heavy scheduling | $5/user + $30 min | Free trial | ||||
| Connecteam | Deskless teams, flat to 30 | Free / $29 flat | Free tier | ||||
| Buddy Punch | Anti-fraud punch controls | $19 base + $4.49 | 14-day trial | ||||
| QuickBooks Time | QuickBooks-native households | $10/user + $20 base | 30-day trial | ||||
| Clockify | Free project time tracking | Free / $5.49 seat | Free tier | ||||
| Jibble | Genuinely free with GPS | Free / ~$4/user | Free tier | ||||
| Timeero | Field teams, GPS and mileage | ~$4/user | Free trial | ||||
| Rippling Time | Mid-market with full HR suite | Quote (modular) | Demo |
What to look for in a time and attendance system
Once the pricing model has narrowed your shortlist, the feature set decides the final pick. Most tools cover the basics; the question is which of the extras you actually need, because paying for features you never use is the most common way small businesses overspend here.
| Feature | What it does | When it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Clock-in methods | App, web, tablet kiosk, and biometric fingerprint or face | Match to how your team works: shared kiosk for one site, app for mobile |
| Overtime and break rules | Automatic calculation against federal and state rules | The single biggest source of manual payroll errors |
| PTO and time-off tracking | Accruals, requests, and balances in one place | Avoids a separate spreadsheet for leave |
| Scheduling | Build and publish shifts staff can see | Only if you run shifts rather than fixed hours |
| GPS and geofencing | Location stamped or restricted at clock-in | Only for teams that work off-site |
| Attendance and labor reports | Absence, lateness, and labor-cost visibility | Turns raw punches into decisions |
| Payroll integration | Approved hours export to your payroll system | The whole reason to leave paper timesheets |
For a typical small business, the non-negotiables are a reliable clock-in method, automatic overtime and break calculation, PTO tracking, and a clean payroll export. Everything else, GPS, biometric verification, advanced scheduling, and deep labor analytics, is worth paying for only if it maps to how your team actually works. A single-site salaried office needs far less than a multi-site hourly operation, and the right system is the one that matches your reality rather than the one with the longest feature list.
The tools in depth
Homebase
The strongest fit for a single-location hourly team, priced per location with unlimited employees, so a busy site pays one flat fee regardless of roster size. The free tier covers one location up to 20 employees, and paid tiers run $24, $56, and $96 per location monthly on annual billing, adding hiring, advanced scheduling, and HR tools. For a cafe, shop, or restaurant that clocks in a full roster at one address, the per-location model is hard to beat on cost.
When I Work
Built for simple, fast adoption at the cheapest per-user entry, around $2.50 per user monthly for scheduling plus a time-and-attendance add-on of roughly $1.50 to $2 per user, so a working time clock lands near $4 per user. Its strong mobile experience makes it a common first purchase for a team moving off paper schedules or group texts.
Deputy
The compliance-strong option at $5 to $9 per user monthly with a $30 monthly minimum, adding auto-scheduling, demand forecasting, and detailed break and overtime rule handling. For a business in a state with prescriptive break laws or a Fair Workweek city, that compliance layer earns its price, though the minimum spend penalizes the smallest teams.
Connecteam
A deskless workforce platform sold as hubs, with a free plan for up to 10 users and a flat rate of about $29 monthly for up to 30 users on annual billing. The flat-to-30 pricing is cost-effective for a small deskless team that wants time tracking, scheduling, and communication in one app rather than a standalone clock.
Buddy Punch
Built around anti-fraud punch controls, with facial recognition, PINs, QR codes, and GPS geofencing to stop buddy punching, priced at a $19 monthly base plus $4.49 per user on Starter, annual, rising to $6.99 and $11.99 on higher tiers. The base fee makes it costly for the very smallest teams but predictable, with no surprise add-on charges.
QuickBooks Time
The default when the business already runs QuickBooks, formerly TSheets, with GPS, scheduling, a kiosk mode, and the deepest native tie into QuickBooks payroll. Pricing is $20 base plus $10 per user on Premium and $40 base plus $11 per user on Elite, following a per-employee increase that took effect on July 1, 2026. Its edge is not the lowest price but that hours flow into QuickBooks with no reconciliation.
Clockify
The free answer for project-based time tracking rather than shift attendance, with unlimited users on a genuinely free tier and paid tiers from around $3.99 to $5.49 per seat. It excels at tagging hours to clients and projects for billing, which makes it a fit for agencies and professional services more than for an hourly shift team that needs a punch clock and scheduling.
Jibble
The genuinely free attendance option, with unlimited users on a free tier covering clock-in, GPS, facial recognition, and timesheets, and paid tiers around $4 per user adding deeper features. For a small team that mainly needs to record who worked and when, this can be permanently free, though it runs lighter on advanced scheduling and labor-cost reporting than the paid specialists.
Timeero
A GPS-first field tracker at roughly $3.66 per user monthly with no base fee, covering clock-in, offline mode, and route-based mileage tracking for teams reimbursed for miles between sites. It is the lowest-cost per-user option here with real field features, better suited to mobile teams than to a fixed single site.
Rippling Time
A mid-market module inside a full HR, payroll, and IT suite, with attendance priced per employee per month and bundled into the wider platform. It is powerful and deeply integrated, but priced and built for companies that want one system for everything, which is usually more than a team of five to fifty needs just to track attendance.
What you actually pay at 10, 25, and 50 employees
Here is the calculation most ranking pages skip, for a single-location team at three sizes.
| Tool | 10 employees | 25 employees | 50 employees | How the number is built |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jibble | Free | Free | Free | Free tier covers clock-in, GPS, and timesheets |
| Homebase | $24 | $24 | $24 | Per location, unlimited staff, single-site Essentials |
| Connecteam | $29 | $29 | $39 | Flat $29 to 30 users, then $0.50 per extra user, Basic annual |
| Timeero | $37 | $92 | $183 | Per user at $3.66, no base fee |
| When I Work | $40 | $100 | $200 | Roughly $4 per user with the time-clock add-on |
| Buddy Punch | $64 | $131 | $244 | $19 base plus $4.49 per user on Starter, annual |
| Deputy | $50 | $125 | $250 | Per user Lite, with a $30 monthly minimum |
| QuickBooks Time | $120 | $270 | $520 | $20 base plus $10 per user Premium, after July 2026 |
Watch the 50-employee column against the 10-employee one. The per-location and free tools barely move, sitting at or near their entry price whether the team is ten people or fifty, while the per-user tools climb from around $40 to $250 for the same job, and the base-fee tools climb higher still. This is the pricing model made concrete: at 10 employees several options are free or close to it and the gap is small, but by 50 the flat-rate tools cost a fraction of the per-user ones, which is the whole reason to work out your model before your shortlist.
How long each takes to set up
Implementation time is the factor most comparisons ignore, and it separates the SMB tools from the mid-market ones sharply.
| Tool | Typical setup time | What shapes it |
|---|---|---|
| Homebase | Same day | Self-serve; add staff and publish a schedule in an afternoon |
| When I Work | Same day | Fast setup, strong mobile adoption off paper or texts |
| Connecteam | 1 to 2 days | More to configure across hubs, but no vendor needed |
| Buddy Punch | Same day | Simple punch setup; rules and approvals added later |
| Deputy | A few days | Award and break rules take time to configure correctly |
| QuickBooks Time | 1 to 2 days | Fast if already on QuickBooks; longer to map jobs |
| Rippling Time | Weeks | Implementation project with payroll and HR modules |
For a team of five to fifty, the SMB tools are built to be set up without help, and most are running the same day: add staff, set pay rules, turn on clock-in, and publish. The main variable is rule complexity, since prescriptive break and overtime rules take longer to configure correctly, which is why a compliance-heavy tool like Deputy sits at a few days. The mid-market platforms are a different category: an implementation project across payroll and HR modules, measured in weeks, which is rarely justified for a team that only needs to track attendance.
How to choose time and attendance software
Before you choose
FirstHR is not a time and attendance tool. It has no punch clock, no scheduling, and no GPS clock-in, and a team that needs to track hours and attendance should buy one of the products above.
What every tool on this page assumes is that the person you are clocking in is already an employee: hired, verified, and ready to be assigned a shift. Getting each new hire to that point is a separate layer of work, and for a growing small team it recurs with every person you add rather than happening once.
That layer is what FirstHR covers: hiring workflows and applicant tracking, onboarding with deadline tracking, e-signature on the I-9, W-4, and offer letters, document management with retention and expiry tracking, training modules with completion records, and employee records with self-service, at a flat $98 per month up to 10 employees and $198 for 11 and above rather than per user. In a small business without a dedicated HR person, a flat fee behaves differently from per-head pricing, since the cost does not move every time you hire. We sit alongside your time clock rather than replacing it. Our comparison of time clock and payroll software covers the hours-to-paycheck side, and our comparison of employee onboarding software covers the onboarding layer against the alternatives.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is time and attendance software?
Software that records when employees start and stop work, tracks attendance and absences, and turns those hours into timesheets ready for payroll. Core jobs are clocking in and out, applying break and overtime rules, tracking time off, and exporting approved hours to payroll. Many tools add scheduling and GPS. It sits between scheduling and payroll.
What is the difference between time tracking and time and attendance?
They overlap but lean differently. Time and attendance centers on who was present and whether their hours are right for payroll, which suits hourly shift teams. Project time tracking centers on where hours went for billing, which suits agencies. Some tools do both, but a shift team wants attendance features while a billable-hours firm wants project tracking.
How much does time and attendance software cost?
For a small business, most tools land between free and about $10 per user monthly, and the model matters more than the rate. Per-user tools start around $2.50 to $5 and climb with headcount; per-location tools like Homebase are a flat fee from about $24; base-plus-per-user tools add a $19 to $20 base. Jibble, Clockify, Connecteam, and Homebase have free tiers.
Which pricing model is cheapest for my team?
It depends on headcount and sites. A single location with a larger hourly roster usually pays least on per-location pricing, since one flat fee covers everyone. A very small team pays least per user. Base-fee tools are punitive at the smallest sizes and competitive once headcount grows. Run your real numbers through each model before shortlisting.
Is there free time and attendance software?
Yes, and it is often enough for a small team. Jibble offers unlimited users with clock-in, GPS, and timesheets free. Clockify is free for unlimited users on core tracking. Connecteam is free to 10 users, and Homebase free for one location up to 20. The paid gates usually fall at advanced scheduling, reporting, and payroll rather than basic clock-in.
Does it integrate with payroll?
Almost all export approved hours to payroll, with varying depth. QuickBooks Time has the deepest native QuickBooks tie; Homebase, When I Work, and Deputy push hours into common payroll providers, and some run payroll as an add-on. Confirm the integration with your specific system, since a shallow one-way export can leave overtime and break adjustments to fix by hand.
How long does it take to set up?
Most small businesses self-serve in an afternoon to a couple of days: add staff, set pay rules, turn on clock-in. Compliance-heavy tools like Deputy take longer for break and overtime rules. Modular mid-market platforms like Rippling run as an implementation project in weeks, which is usually more than a team of 5 to 50 needs.
Does it handle hiring and onboarding?
Rarely beyond light features. A time and attendance tool assumes the employee is already hired and ready to be scheduled. The signed offer, I-9 within three business days, W-4, and required training are a separate layer that recurs with every hire. See our guide to new hire paperwork.
What is the difference between a time and attendance system and a time clock?
A time clock is the punch itself; a time and attendance system is the software around it that applies overtime and break rules, tracks time off, flags absences, and exports approved hours to payroll. Older systems were physical hardware like a punch clock or fingerprint terminal. Modern systems for a small business are software on phones and tablets, often with a kiosk or biometric option, at a fraction of the hardware cost.
Can it replace tracking hours in a spreadsheet?
Yes, and for most small businesses that is the main reason to buy it. A spreadsheet cannot verify who clocked in, apply overtime rules, track PTO, or export clean hours to payroll, so it quietly produces errors that cost money at payroll. The free tiers from Jibble, Clockify, Connecteam, and Homebase let a small team leave the spreadsheet behind at no cost.