Can't decide between Hubstaff and Toggl Track? That's a good problem to have, as both tools are great time trackers.
- Toggl Track keeps it lightweight and flexible. It’s built for individuals and small teams that want clean billable tracking with a sleek interface.
- Hubstaff is for mid-level and enterprise-grade teams looking to connect tracked time to payroll, invoicing, workforce analytics, and team operations.
TL;DR: Choosing between structure and simplicity
Choose Hubstaff if:
- Tracked time needs to support payroll, invoices, project budgets, and cost reporting
- You manage remote, hybrid, distributed, or field teams that need visibility into how work gets done
- You need workforce analytics like focus time, capacity planning, industry benchmarks, and unusual activity detection.
- Scheduling, attendance, overtime, time-off, and PTO management need to work hand in hand with time tracking.
Choose Toggl Track if:
- You want simple, trust-based time tracking backed by an explicit anti-surveillance policy.
- You're a freelancer, consultant, or small project-based team.
- Your team doesn't need payroll, scheduling, attendance, or operational workforce intelligence.
140k global users trust Hubstaff for time tracking
Hubstaff vs. Toggl Track: Compared
How do these two tools stack up against each other? Before we get into an in-depth breakdown, here are some key features of these time tracking software worth comparing:
| Category | Hubstaff | Toggl |
|---|---|---|
Core focus | Time tracking connected to payroll, workforce analytics, and team operations. | Lightweight time tracking with flexible reporting. |
Best for | Remote, hybrid, distributed, agency, BPO, and operational teams. | Freelancers, consultants, agencies, SMBs, and autonomy-focused teams. |
Free plan | 14-day free trial; no permanent free plan. | Free for up to 5 users with unlimited tracking, projects, clients, and invoicing. |
Starting price | $4.99/user/mo billed annually ($7 monthly); 2-seat minimum. | $9/user/mo billed annually ($10 monthly). |
Time tracking | Desktop, web, mobile, manual, and automatic timers. | Web, desktop, mobile, browser extension, calendar view, manual, and timer-based tracking. |
Monitoring | Optional and configurable: activity levels, app and URL tracking, idle time, screenshots (adjustable or off entirely); no keystroke logging or screen recording. | No screenshots, screen recording, webcam, keystroke, or location tracking; background Timeline data stays private to the user. |
Workforce analytics | Utilization, capacity planning, role benchmarks, focus vs. meeting time, unusual activity detection, remote vs. in-office comparisons. | User-built reports: profitability, revenue, workload, and productivity views. |
Payroll/payments | Built-in global payments, payroll workflows, invoicing, pay and bill rates, project budgets. | No native payroll; billable rates and profitability reporting; invoicing available. |
Scheduling & attendance | Shifts, attendance, overtime rules, time-off and PTO management, late and missed shift alerts. | Not included. |
Integrations | 35+ deep integrations across PM, payroll, accounting, and CRM. | 100+ integrations, primarily via browser extension. |
Best fit | Teams that need time to become visibility and support operations. | Freelancers and small teams that want flexible, trust-based tracking. |
Key feature comparison
Let's explore how Hubstaff and Toggl Track compare across the features that make each one distinct. Both tools track time well, but the differences show up in what follows.
Structured time tracking vs. lightweight tracking
Hubstaff
Hubstaff does time tracking well, but it’s only the first step in a powerful workflow. Hours are tracked across web, desktop, and automatic tracking on company-owned devices. From there, the time is assigned to projects, tasks, clients, and teams. That time data is then used to automatically generate timesheets, budgets, invoices, and payroll.
Toggl Track
Toggl Track starts from a different assumption: that the biggest obstacle to accurate time tracking is the tracking itself. That’s why Toggl tracking is as frictionless as possible, with one-click timers across web, desktop, mobile, and a browser extension. There's no context-switching just to track time.
Summary: Hubstaff structures tracked time for operations, while Toggl keeps tracking light and flexible.
Configurable visibility vs. anti-surveillance
Hubstaff
Hubstaff's productivity monitoring features are optional, configurable, and built around visibility that the whole team can see and trust. While the timer runs, Hubstaff can capture activity levels, app and URL usage, idle time, and optional screenshots. Each of these can be disabled, blurred, or frequency-adjusted by job role or project. More importantly, Hubstaff never logs keystrokes or records screens. Every team member can see their own data, and users can delete screenshots at any time.
Toggl Track
Toggl publicly stands by an anti-surveillance policy that rules out screenshots, screen recording, webcam monitoring, keystroke tracking, and location tracking entirely. The background Timeline feature does record app and website activity automatically, but that data stays on the user's device and never reaches a manager unless the user decides to convert it into a time entry.
Summary: Hubstaff offers visibility that teams configure together, while Toggl offers tracking that’s private to the individual.
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Workforce analytics vs. flexible reports
Hubstaff
Hubstaff's workforce analytics are great for reporting, but even more powerful as Insights that build a live picture of time, activity, and project data. You’ll be able to see utilization rates, capacity planning, focus time versus meeting time, remote versus in-office performance comparisons, unusual activity detection, and role-level benchmarks for better decision-making.
Toggl Track
With Toggl, teams can build fully customized reports with flexible filtering and profitability views at the project, client, task, and team level. You can also schedule deliveries and see revenue versus cost breakdowns. Toggl Track gives you the tools to answer questions your team has about how they work without prescribing the structure.
Summary: Hubstaff puts operational workforce insights front and center out of the box, while Toggl gives teams the reporting tools to get the answers they need.
Time-to-payroll vs. billable hours
Hubstaff
For teams that need tracked time that converts to payments seamlessly, Hubstaff handles the whole chain in one place. Hours are automatically converted into timesheets. Approvals then trigger automatic payments via integrations with Deel, Gusto, Wise, PayPal, Payoneer, and Bitwage. Hubstaff also includes built-in invoicing capabilities, allowing teams to set bill rates and project budgets, track expenses, and generate client invoices. All team members have to do is track time.
Toggl Track
Toggl Track enables teams to assign billable rates, generate invoices, track profitability at the project and client level, and export timesheet data for payroll processing. That said, it doesn’t have payroll capabilities, so you’ll need to look outside Toggl for those workflows. For freelancers and agencies primarily concerned about accurate billing and reporting, that's rarely a problem.
Summary: Hubstaff turns hours into payroll, invoices, and budgets natively, while Toggl Track turns hours into billing and profitability data.
Scheduling, attendance, and time off
Hubstaff
Hubstaff handles scheduling, attendance, overtime, and PTO in one solution. Managers can build schedules, track attendance, set overtime rules, and approve time-off requests without complex integrations or exports.
Toggl Track
Toggl Track doesn't include scheduling, attendance, or leave management. This means teams that need those capabilities will have to pair Toggl Track with dedicated HR or workforce management tools.
Summary: Hubstaff integrates scheduling, attendance, and time off into the same system that tracks time, while Toggl Track requires separate tools.
Integrations & ecosystem
Hubstaff
Hubstaff's 35+ integrations are built for end-to-end workflows. Connect time tracking to project management tools like Jira, Asana, and ClickUp, payroll and payment providers like Gusto, Wise, and PayPal, accounting tools like QuickBooks, CRMs like Salesforce, and more platforms. Hubstaff’s integrations are designed to reduce the number of separate tools a team needs to run operations smoothly.
Toggl Track
Toggl Track's supports over 100+ integrations, but they work mostly differently from Hubstaff’s. The browser extension embeds a live Toggl Track timer directly inside the interface of whatever tool someone is already using. For instance, if your team lives in Notion, GitHub, Jira, or Todoist, the tracker just shows up there. It's a real advantage for teams that want time tracking to fit around an existing stack instead of reorganizing around a new one.
Summary: Hubstaff has more built-in features around time tracking, but Toggl offers significantly more integrations.
Pricing comparison
| Plan tier | Hubstaff | Toggl Track |
|---|---|---|
Free | No free plan. 14-day free trial, no credit card required. | Free for up to 5 users. Unlimited projects, clients, invoicing, and browser extension access. |
Entry | Starter: $4.99/user/mo annual (2-seat minimum). Includes time tracking, activity levels, app and URL tracking, screenshots, invoicing, and basic support. | Starter: $9/user/mo annual. Includes billable rates, project estimates, alerts, and team-level reports. |
Mid | Grow: $7.50/user/mo annual. Includes expense tracking and project budgets. | — |
Advanced | Team: $10/user/mo annual. Includes scheduling, attendance, payments, overtime, and unlimited integrations. 3-month Insights trial included. | Premium: $18/user/mo annual. Includes profitability and utilization reports, fixed-fee projects, timesheet approvals, scheduled reports, Jira and Salesforce syncs, SSO. |
Enterprise | Enterprise: $25/user/mo annually. Includes custom setup, account provisioning, dedicated support. | Custom pricing: Personalized onboarding, custom integrations, volume discounts. |
Summary
Toggl Track's free plan is the strongest no-cost entry point in this comparison. With five users, unlimited tracking, projects, clients, and invoicing, all with no expiration, it is hard to beat, especially for freelancers and very small teams.
It’s a different verdict for larger teams, though. At higher tiers, Toggl Track Premium runs $18 per user against Hubstaff Team's $10. Hubstaff’s plan includes payroll, scheduling, and attendance at that price point — capabilities Toggl Track doesn't offer at any tier.
Ease of use and support
The differentiating factor between Hubstaff and Toggl Track comes down to how much structure a team needs from their tools, and how much they're willing to configure upfront in exchange for operational depth later.
Hubstaff
- According to a G2 comparison, users appreciate Hubstaff’s powerful automated workflows.
- Verified reviews highlight the dashboard as intuitive and easy to navigate — one reviewer noted that "the dashboard for tracking activity levels is intuitive as well, and it makes it easy to stay on top of my own productivity."
- Initial setup involves configuring projects, roles, permissions, and tracking policies, with optional layers for payroll, budgets, and approval workflows.
- Teams with defined workflows get more out of Hubstaff over time. The upfront configuration pays off as the platform starts connecting time data to operations automatically.
Toggl Track
- Toggl Track is designed to get out of the way as quickly as possible. Most teams are tracking time within minutes of signing up, with essentially no configuration required.
- The privacy-first approach means employees don't need to be convinced the tool is safe to use, which makes adoption faster and more consistent across a team.
- Advanced controls like timesheet approvals, required fields, and locked time entries only appear at Premium, so smaller teams on lower tiers get a deliberately simpler experience.
Hubstaff is designed for teams that want time tracking to connect to a more complete workflow, which includes components like payroll, scheduling, workforce analytics, and project budgets.
Toggl Track's experience is the opposite by design: get in, start the timer, and let the data speak for itself without asking anyone to change how they work.
Hubstaff vs.Toggl: Which tool fits your team?
Choosing between Hubstaff and Toggl Track comes down to how your team works, what you need the time data to do, and how much operational infrastructure you want inside a single platform.
Hubstaff is best suited for:
- Remote, hybrid, distributed, and field teams that need more than time entries.
- Agencies, BPOs, and outsourcing companies managing clients, costs, payroll, and utilization across multiple projects.
- Teams that need tracked time for payroll, invoicing, budgets, and workforce analytics purposes.
- Organizations that want productivity insights built on transparency rather than invasive surveillance.
Hubstaff is the right fit for teams that need time tracking to be the foundation of operational workflows. It is an excellent tool for keeping accurate records of hours, but it also gives teams a system that connects those hours to decisions, payments, and performance.
Toggl Track is best suited for:
- Freelancers, solopreneurs, and independent consultants who need accurate billing without the overhead.
- Design, marketing, and development teams that want clean billable tracking inside the tools they already use.
- Teams that value autonomy and have explicitly chosen not to implement monitoring.
- Companies with an existing tool stack that want time tracking to fit around it.
Toggl Track is the right fit for teams where trust is the operating model and simplicity is the point.
Each month, Hubstaff tracks:
Why customers are choosing Hubstaff
“We work in a lot of different industries, so I can’t always know what’s a 45-minute task and what’s a four-hour task. With tools like Hubstaff, you can tell. You then decide if a whole project should’ve taken 16 hours or if someone is just not the right fit.”
OneIMS President and Founder
“We believe — just like Hubstaff — that talent is everywhere and people should be able to work any time, anywhere, even in their pajamas,” says Kothari. “As a company, we believe in the same future of work as Hubstaff, which is great because our values align.”
Co-founder at Tallyfy
Final thoughts: Hubstaff vs. Toggl Track
If your team needs time tracking to be the foundation of other operational processes like payroll, budgeting, and workforce analytics, Hubstaff is designed for that. It’s a highly accurate time tracker at its core, but its value compounds when you factor in an integrated and powerful feature set that keeps workflows confined to one tool.
On the other hand, if your priority is accurate but lightweight tracking that stays out of everyone's way, respects employee privacy by design, and fits neatly inside the tools your team already uses, Toggl Track does that really well.