TL;DR: pick in 60 seconds
- HR team that also runs payroll: HavernHR
- Field crews on multiple job sites: Connecteam or ClockShark
- Free plan and facial recognition: Jibble
- QuickBooks payroll: QuickBooks Time
- Hourly shifts in retail or restaurants: Homebase
- Leave and PTO in Slack or Teams: Vacation Tracker
HavernHR is our own product, and it sits at number one on this list. I’ve asked it the same questions I asked every other tool, and I’ve listed its gaps next to its strengths. Every other tool is linked to its own site so you can check my numbers.
The best attendance tracking software records who worked, when, and where, then hands clean hours to payroll without anyone retyping a timesheet. That sounds basic, but it’s where most small and mid-sized teams lose time every month. Hours live in one place, leave lives in another, and payroll gets a spreadsheet that someone cleaned by hand.
I compared ten tools on published pricing, product pages, release notes, and public review data. This guide covers what each one does well, where it gets expensive or limited, and who should pick it. If you only want the short version, jump to the comparison chart. If you want to understand the trade-offs, read the reviews.
How I Chose These Software
I scored each software on six things I’d want if I were buying for my own company: how people clock in, how timesheets get approved, how leave is handled, how lateness and absence get flagged, how hours reach payroll, and how good the reporting is. Then I looked at what sets each one apart, such as geofencing, facial recognition, offline mode, and whether pricing stays predictable as the team grows.
I did not give any tool credit for claims I couldn’t find on its own pages or in recent review data. Where a vendor doesn’t publish something, I say so. Prices are in US dollars and were checked in October 2026. Vendors change pricing often, so confirm on their sites before you buy.
What Is Attendance Tracking Software?
Attendance tracking software records when employees start and stop work, takes leave and absence requests, and produces records for payroll and compliance. Some tools do only that. Others sit inside an HR or payroll platform. It overlaps with time tracking, which logs hours against tasks and projects, and with scheduling, which plans who works when.
Attendance Tracking Software Comparison Chart
| Tool | Best for | Free option | Starting price |
| HavernHR | Attendance feeding payroll | Free demo | Quote on request |
| Connecteam | Deskless teams, GPS | Free plan up to 10 users | $29/month/30 users |
| Jibble | Unlimited users on a free plan | Free forever plan | $2.99/user/month |
| Buddy Punch | Time off and punch verification | 14-day free trial | $4.99/user/month + $19 base fee |
| Factorial | HR suite with a time module | Free demo | From $8/user/month |
| Homebase | Hourly single-site teams | Free plan, 1 location | $30/location/month (24 annually) |
| QuickBooks Time | QuickBooks users | Free trial | $19/month base |
| ClockShark | Field crews, job costing | Free trial | $42/month base + $9.5/month/user |
| Hubstaff | Remote teams, activity data | 14-day free trial | $4.99/seat/month billed annually, 2-seat minimum |
| Vacation Tracker | Leave in Slack and Teams | Free plan | $2/active user/month, $50 monthly minimum |
Best Attendance Tracking Software Reviews
Each review below covers who the tool suits, why I picked it, the features that matter, and the pros and cons. I’ve left a spot for a dashboard screenshot under each tool so readers can see the interface before they click.
1. HavernHR
Best for attendance that flows straight into payroll
- Free demo available
- Pricing: quote on request
[Image]
HavernHR is an HR and payroll platform with a built-in time and attendance module. The point is simple: hours are recorded on the same employee record that payroll reads, so there is no export, clean-up, and paste step at month-end.
Who Is HavernHR Best For?
Companies that run, or want to run, attendance and payroll in one system. It suits teams on fixed hours, rotating shifts, or several sites, and finance teams who are tired of reconciling timesheets against payslips.
Why I Picked HavernHR
Most attendance tools stop at the timesheet. HavernHR keeps going: approved hours, overtime, and leave are already in the payroll run when it opens. I also like that leave balances and requests sit next to attendance, so absence and hours can’t disagree. Managers approve exceptions in one workflow rather than chasing people for corrections.
HavernHR Key Features
- Mobile check-in and check-out: Employees clock in from the app and the entry lands on their record straight away.
- Shift publishing and picking: Managers publish the rota, and people choose shifts that suit them.
- Break logging: Breaks are logged in the same app as shifts.
- Leave balances and requests: Employees see their own balance and request time off; approved leave flows into payroll.
- Overtime and corrections approval: Exceptions are signed off once, in one place.
- Attendance reporting and audit trail: Reports cover attendance and absence, and every change is logged.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Hours and pay come from one record, so payslip lines match what employees see in their app
- Attendance, leave, and payroll share the same permissions
- Full audit trail on every change
Cons:
- Pricing isn’t listed publicly, so you need a demo to get a number
- The product page doesn’t mention geofencing, kiosk, or biometric clock-in, so ask about these if you need them
- Value is strongest if payroll runs through HavernHR too
2. Connecteam
Best for GPS attendance with deskless teams
- Free plan for up to 10 users
- From $29/month/30 users
Capterra rating: 4.6 out of 5 from more than 5,000 reviews.
[Image]
Connecteam is a mobile-first app for teams that don’t sit at desks. The time clock, scheduling, team chat, tasks, and training all live in one app, which is why it shows up so often in construction, cleaning, retai,l and hospitality.
Who Is Connecteam Best For?
Small and mid-sized businesses with hourly or shift-based staff spread across job sites.
Why I Picked Connecteam
Geofenced clock-in is the main reason. You can restrict punches to a job site, which cuts down on buddy punching and manual corrections. A recent update in October 2026 added flexible break thresholds, auto-end options, and an exceptions report, so the product is clearly still being built out.
Connecteam Key Features
- GPS and geofencing: Verify where people clock in.
- Kiosk mode: PIN or selfie verification on a shared device.
- Digital timesheets: Generated from punches, then reviewed and approved before payroll.
- Time off and chat: Requests, approvals, and shift-group messaging in the same app.
Integrations
QuickBooks, Gusto, Xero, ADP, Square and BambooHR, among others.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- A free plan that includes the core features for very small teams
- Time clock, chat, and HR documents in one app
- Strong location controls
Cons:
- Pricing is per hub, so using the operations, communications, and HR hubs together stacks the cost.
- No native payroll processing
3. Jibble
Best free attendance tracking software
- Free forever plan with unlimited users
- Paid plans from $2.99/user/month billed annually
Capterra rating: 4.8 out of 5 from more than 1,800 reviews.
[Image]
Jibble is built around a generous free tier. You get unlimited users, GPS tagging, facial recognition, and kiosk mode without paying anything, which is rare in this category.
Who Is Jibble Best For?
Small teams and growing businesses that want real attendance verification without a per-seat bill.
Why I Picked Jibble
Free plans in this space are usually a demo in disguise. Jibble’s isn’t. Facial recognition and GPS on a free plan solve the biggest attendance problem most small businesses have, which is trusting the punch. When you outgrow it, the paid tiers are some of the cheapest I found.
Jibble Key Features
- Facial recognition and GPS: Included on the free plan, with two geofences.
- Shared kiosk: One tablet for a whole site.
- Unlimited work schedules and geofences: On Premium at $2.99/user/month billed annually.
- Higher tiers: Ultimate is $5.99/user/month annually, and Enterprise is $7.99. Monthly billing costs more, around $5.99 for Premium and $10.99 for Ultimate.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Truly free for unlimited users
- Facial recognition included
- Low paid-tier prices
Cons:
- The free plan caps you at two geofences
- Group management, leave accruals, and unlimited schedules require a paid plan.
- Some reviewers mention thin support on the free tier.
4. Buddy Punch
Best for time-off requests and punch verification
- 14-day free trial, free demo available
- From $4.99/user/month plus a $19/month base fee
[Image]
Buddy Punch is a cloud time clock for on-site, remote, and hybrid teams. It’s straightforward, and its time-off handling is better than most.
Who Is Buddy Punch Best For?
Small and mid-sized businesses that want to get off spreadsheets without a steep learning curve.
Why I Picked Buddy Punch
PTO requests go from the employee to the manager with instant notification, approved leave syncs with the schedule, and accrual tracking tells people their balance before they ask. For punch verification, it offers GPS, facial recognition, QR codes, and a kiosk.
Buddy Punch Key Features
- Starter ($4.99/user): Mobile and web time tracking, GPS on punches, time off, alerts, payroll integrations.
- Pro ($7.99/user monthly, $6.99 annually): Adds offline mode, basic geofencing, QR punches, kiosk, webcam photos, scheduling.
- Advanced ($13.99/user monthly, $12.99 annually): Adds advanced reporting, SSO, real-time GPS, and dedicated support.
Integrations
QuickBooks, ADP, Gusto, Paychex, Paycor, Paylocity, Workday, and Rippling.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Clear, published pricing
- Several ways to verify a punch
- Good time-off workflow
Cons:
- The $19 base fee hurts teams under about ten people
- Geofencing, kiosk, and offline mode need Pro
- Add-ons such as real-time GPS and scheduling cost extra on lower plans
5. Factorial
Best for attendance inside a full HR suite
- Free demo available
- From $8/user/month
[Image]
Factorial is a modular HR platform. Time tracking, shifts, and time off are add-on modules on top of a core HR system with an employee directory, documents, and onboarding.
Who Is Factorial Best For?
Small and mid-sized companies, particularly in Europe, that want one HR system rather than separate tools.
Why I Picked Factorial
It puts planned hours next to worked hours, shows absences on a team calendar, and gives HR a reporting layer for spotting patterns. If you already need HR documents, onboarding, and leave, adding attendance to the same system is sensible.
Factorial Key Features
- Clock-in on mobile and web
- Shift management: With team, role, and department filters.
- Time-off policies and approvals
- Analytics and reports: Headcount, absences, and hours worked.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Attendance, leave, documents, and onboarding in one place
- Planned versus worked hours is easy to see
- Wide integration list
Cons:
- Module pricing beyond the $8 core isn’t published, so budgeting takes a sales call.
- Payroll depth varies by country
- More tool than you need if you only want a time clock
6. Homebase
Best for hourly, single-location businesses
- Free plan for one location
- Paid plans from $30/location/month24 billed annually
[Image]
Homebase is aimed at restaurants, shops, salons, and similar hourly businesses. It does scheduling, time clock, team messaging, and payroll, and it charges per location instead of per employee.
Who Is Homebase Best For?
One-site hourly teams, especially where headcount is high and margins are thin.
Why I Picked Homebase
Per-location pricing is a gift if you have many staff at one site. The free Basic plan covers scheduling and time tracking for one location, with a cap of around ten employees. Shift trading and claiming, overtime alerts, and POS integrations suit retail and food service.
Homebase Key Features
- Plans: Basic is free. Essentials is $30/location/month, Plus is $70, and All-in-One is $120. Annual billing brings these down to $24, $56, and $96.
- Scheduling and shift swaps
- Labor cost tracking
- Payroll add-on: $39/month base plus $6 per employee.
Integrations
POS systems such as Square, Toast, Clover, and Shopify, plus ADP, Paychex, and QuickBooks.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Free plan for a single site
- Flat per-location price regardless of headcount on paid plans
- Built for hourly work
Cons:
- Costs climb with every extra location
- Payroll is billed separately even on the top plan
- The free plan has an employee cap
7. QuickBooks Time
Best for teams already on QuickBooks
- Free trial available
- From $19/month base
[Image]
QuickBooks Time, the product formerly known as TSheets, is a GPS time clock with scheduling, job tracking, and tight links to QuickBooks accounting and payroll.
Who Is QuickBooks Time Best For?
Small businesses already running their books or payroll in QuickBooks.
Why I Picked QuickBooks Time
The QuickBooks connection is the draw. Hours flow into payroll and job costing without re-entry. Elite adds mileage tracking, project estimates against actuals, and timesheet signatures.
Pricing and Features
- Time Premium: $20/month base plus $10 per user.
- Time Elite: $40/month base plus $12 per user. Adds geofencing, mileage, and project tracking.
- Price rise: Intuit raised the per-user fee by $2 on both plans on July 1, 2026.
- Bundles: Time is also sold with payroll in the Workforce plans.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Large user base and deep QuickBooks integration
- Mobile app and kiosk mode
- Project and mileage tracking on Elite
Cons:
- The base fee plus per-user charge makes small teams expensive per head
- Recent price increase
- Intuit’s pricing page mentions a QuickBooks Online requirement in some cases, so confirm before signing up.
8. ClockShark
Best for field crews that need job costing
- Free trial available
- From $42/month base plus $9.5/month/active user
[Image]
ClockShark is a time clock for contractors and field service companies. It ties hours to jobs and tasks, so you can see what each project costs in labor.
Who Is ClockShark Best For?
Construction, landscaping, and trades businesses with ten or more field workers.
Why I Picked ClockShark
Job and task tracking, GPS, and drag-and-drop scheduling all sit in one tool built for crews. Only active users are billed, which helps in slow seasons.
ClockShark Key Features
- Standard ($40 base + $9/active user): Time and attendance, GPS, job and task tracking, scheduling, approvals.
- Pro ($60 base + $11/active user): Adds paid time off, multi-office controls, advanced job costing and compliance forms.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Purpose-built for field work
- Billing only for active users
- Strong scheduling for a time clock
Cons:
- Paid time off is locked to Pro
- The base fee makes very small teams costly
- Some independent reviews report mobile app reliability issues
9. Hubstaff
Best for remote teams that want activity data
- Free trial available
- Starter from $4.99/seat/month billed annually
Capterra rating: 4.5 out of 5 from more than 1,600 reviews.
[Image]
Hubstaff began as a remote time tracker and has grown into a workforce platform with GPS, scheduling, and payroll. Its edge is activity data: screenshots, app and URL usage, and idle detection.
Who Is Hubstaff Best For?
Distributed teams and agencies that bill by the hour and want visibility into how time is spent.
Why I Picked Hubstaff
If your team works on computers across time zones, attendance alone doesn’t tell you much. Hubstaff pairs clock-ins with activity, project budgets, and payroll.
Hubstaff Pricing
- Starter: $4.99/seat/month annually
- Grow: $7.50
- Team: $10
- Enterprise: $25
- Minimums: Paid plans require at least two seats, and owners and managers count as seats.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Deep activity and project reporting
- Payroll and invoicing built in
- Many integrations
Cons:
- Screenshot and app tracking caps on lower plans, with several features sold as per-seat add-ons
- Monitoring can feel heavy-handed, so be clear with your team about it
- Overkill if you only need to log shifts
10. Vacation Tracker
Best for leave tracking inside Slack and Teams
- Free plan available, 7-day trial of paid plans
- Core from $2/active user/month with a $50 monthly minimum
[Image: Vacation Tracker dashboard. Caption: Vacation Tracker shows pending requests and scheduled absences.]
Vacation Tracker is an absence tool, not a time clock. I’ve included it because many teams don’t need to clock hours at all. They need to know who’s off, when, and how much leave is left.
Who Is Vacation Tracker Best For?
Small and mid-sized teams that live in Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Workspace and mostly need leave management.
Why I Picked Vacation Tracker
People request time off inside the chat app they already use, and managers approve it there. It supports accrual rules, hourly leave, carry-over, and custom leave types.
Pricing
Core is $2 per active user per month with a $50 monthly minimum. Complete is $4 per user with a $100 minimum.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Setup inside Slack or Teams takes minutes
- Flexible accruals and leave types
- Affordable
Cons:
- No clock-in or clock-out, so hourly teams need a separate time clock
- Reviewers report the Slack integration can be buggy at times
- Monthly minimums apply on paid plans
Trends in Attendance Tracking
- Mobile and geofencing: Phones are now the main time clock for deskless work, and location checks are becoming standard.
- Facial recognition: Selfie and face checks are replacing PINs to stop buddy punching, and Jibble now offers it on its free plan.
- Exception-based management: Tools are moving from showing every punch to flagging only what’s off, like Connecteam’s new exceptions report.
- Attendance tied to payroll: More vendors are joining time and pay so hours don’t get copied between systems.
- AI features: Anomaly alerts and natural-language questions are appearing in several products. Judge them on whether they save you work, not on the label.
Which Attendance Tracking Software Is Right for You?
Quick Picker
| Your situation | Start with |
| Attendance, payroll, and compliance in one system | HavernHR |
| Crews across several job sites | Connecteam or ClockShark |
| Free plan for a small team | Jibble or Connecteam |
| Stop buddy punching | Jibble, Buddy Punch, or QuickBooks Time |
| QuickBooks payroll | QuickBooks Time |
| Hourly shifts in retail or restaurants | Homebase |
| Remote team with GPS | Hubstaff |
| Leave and PTO in Slack or Teams | Vacation Tracker |
| Absence analytics | Factorial |
| Staff in more than one country | HavernHR [confirm countries] |
Six Questions to Ask Before You Buy
- Do employees clock in on phones, a shared kiosk, or both?
- Does it apply your overtime and break rules automatically?
- Does it sync with your payroll provider, or only export a file?
- Does it work offline if your sites have a weak signal?
- What will it cost at 50 and 200 employees, including add-ons?
- Do you need leave and PTO in the same system?
How to Choose Attendance Tracking Software
Start with the problem, not the feature list. Here is how I’d work through it.
- Who clocks in, and where? Office staff, field crews, and remote workers need different tools. Field teams need GPS and geofencing. Remote teams may need activity data. Shift workers need scheduling.
- Where do the hours go next? If they go to payroll, check how the tool connects. Native payroll in the same system removes a whole step.
- How will pricing grow? Per-user, per-location, and base-plus-user models behave differently. Work out your bill at your current headcount and at double it.
- How do you handle leave? If absence and hours sit in different tools, they will disagree sooner or later.
- What will employees accept? Facial recognition, screenshots, and GPS are useful, but tell people what you track and why.
Run a trial with a real team before committing. Fifteen minutes in a demo hides problems that a week of real punches will expose.
Benefits of Attendance Tracking Software
Accuracy is the first one. Hours recorded at the moment they happen are less disputed than hours remembered on Friday. The second is time saved: managers stop chasing timesheets, and payroll stops retyping them. Third, you get a record that stands up if someone asks about overtime or breaks. And fourth, you get patterns, such as the same absence every Monday or overtime piling up on one team, which are invisible in a pile of spreadsheets.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is attendance tracking different from time tracking?
Slightly. Attendance tracking records whether and when someone worked. Time tracking records what they worked on. Most tools in this guide do both, but Vacation Tracker only handles absence, and Hubstaff leans toward project time.
What is the best free attendance tracking software?
Jibble has the most generous free plan, with unlimited users, GPS, and facial recognition. Homebase and Connecteam both have free plans for small single-site teams. Vacation Tracker is free for basic leave tracking.
Can attendance software help with labor law compliance?
It helps by keeping accurate records of hours, overtime, breaks, and leave, and by alerting you before limits are crossed. It doesn’t replace legal advice, so check your local rules.
Do I need geofencing?
Only if people work off-site and you need proof of location. For a single office, a mobile or kiosk clock-in is usually enough.
How do I stop buddy punching?
Use facial recognition, selfie punches, or geofences. Jibble, Buddy Punch, and Connecteam all support at least one of these.
Why connect attendance to payroll?
Because every manual handoff is a place for errors. When approved hours flow directly into the payroll run, the payslip matches what employees already saw in their app. That’s the idea behind HavernHR.