Time Tracking Alternatives
Compare Sandtime.io with the tools teams usually outgrow when they need cleaner billing, better project visibility, unlimited users, and no surveillance.
Find the situation you are actually in
Most people arrive here because something changed: a free plan shrank, a renewal jumped, or a tool started watching the team. Start from what happened rather than from a feature list.
Their free plan ran out
The most common reason people arrive here. Each of these caps the free tier, or moves the part that closes the month onto a paid plan.
Clockify Alternative
Clockify capped its free plan at 5 users in April 2026. Sandtime.io stays free for unlimited users, with approvals, reminders, and locking included.
- Free for unlimited users, not 5
- Approvals and reminders included free
- Multi-currency and historical rates
- No screenshots or GPS on any plan
Toggl Alternative
Toggl Track charges per seat beyond a small free plan and puts approvals and locking on Premium. Sandtime.io keeps the whole workflow free for unlimited users.
- Free for unlimited users
- Approvals and locking included free
- Multi-currency and historical rates
- Both companies are European
TrackingTime Alternative
TrackingTime is free for unlimited users too, but approvals, locking, rates, and CSV exports sit on its paid plans. Sandtime.io includes them free and hosts data in the EU.
- Both free for unlimited users
- Approvals, locking, and rates free, not on Pro
- EU hosting instead of United States
- Honest about TrackingTime's task and invoicing scope
Traqq Alternative
Traqq is a privacy-first operations suite with invoicing, expenses, PTO, and offline desktop tracking. Sandtime.io offers unlimited free users, mobile apps, API and MCP access, and documented EU hosting.
- Free for unlimited users, not 3
- Mobile apps plus public API and MCP
- Both reject screenshots and keystroke logging
- Honest about Traqq's broader operations suite
TMetric Alternative
TMetric is free for two seats and keeps free-plan data for seven days. Sandtime.io is free for unlimited users and keeps the record.
- Free stops at two seats there
- Seven-day history on their free plan
- Team timesheets two tiers up
- Honest about their integration catalog
My Hours Alternative
My Hours is free for five users and puts approvals, auto-locking and rates on Pro. Sandtime.io includes all of it for unlimited users.
- No sixth-person cliff
- Approvals and locking included free
- Historical rates included
- Honest about invoicing
Beebole Alternative
Beebole has the deepest reporting in the long tail, but its free plan stops at five users and rates, currencies, and multi-level approvals start on Essential. Sandtime.io keeps rates, approvals, and locking free for unlimited users.
- Free for unlimited users, not 5
- Rates and currencies free, not on Essential
- Native iPhone and Android apps
- Honest about Beebole's budgets and planning
actiTIME Alternative
actiTIME is free for three users, then per user. Sandtime.io has no user limit, though actiTIME adds leave management and an off-the-shelf self-hosted license.
- Free stops at three users there
- No user limit here
- Approvals and locking included free
- Honest about leave and licensing
Everhour Alternative
Everhour keeps its integrations off the free plan and starts paid at five seats. Sandtime.io is free for unlimited users with no minimum.
- Integrations are paid-only there
- No five-seat minimum here
- Approvals and locking included free
- Honest about the Asana and Jira gap
Time tracking with monitoring attached
These bundle timesheets with screenshots, activity scoring or location tracking. Sandtime.io replaces the timesheet half on purpose and has none of the rest.
Hubstaff Alternative
Hubstaff tracks with screenshots, activity levels, and GPS. Sandtime.io has none of that on any plan and stays free for unlimited users.
- No screenshots, activity levels, or GPS
- Free for unlimited users, no seat minimum
- Approvals and locking included free
- Honest about when to keep Hubstaff
Time Doctor Alternative
Time Doctor has no free plan and starts screenshots on its cheapest tier. Sandtime.io has no monitoring at any price and is free for unlimited users.
- No free plan on their side
- Screenshots from the entry tier
- No monitoring here at any price
- Honest about BPO proof requirements
DeskTime Alternative
DeskTime tracks automatically and sorts the day into productive and unproductive. Sandtime.io records what people report and grades none of it.
- No productivity scoring
- No background tracking at all
- Free for unlimited users
- Honest about automatic capture
Insightful Alternative
Insightful, formerly Workpuls, captures apps, websites, idle time, and screenshots for productivity analytics, priced per tracked seat. Sandtime.io keeps only the timesheet, reported by each person and approved weekly.
- No screenshots or app tracking
- No Stealth mode, nothing runs in the background
- Free for unlimited users
- Honest about Insightful's monitoring depth
The price changed under you
Pricing models that shifted after teams had already built their billing around them.
Harvest Alternative
Move from Harvest’s seat-plus-usage pricing to free time tracking for unlimited users, with reminders, approvals, locking, and invoice-ready reports.
- Free for unlimited users
- No seat or usage charges
- Approvals, reminders, and locking included
- Invoice-ready reports and exports
Built for a particular world
Strong products aimed at a specific market. Worth reading before assuming a general tracker is the upgrade.
ZEP Alternative
ZEP is German project time tracking for consultancies, with no free plan and three editions. Sandtime.io covers the timesheet chain free.
- No free plan, only a trial
- Built for consultancies, priced by edition
- Honest about expenses and DATEV
- Free for unlimited users
Clockodo Alternative
Clockodo records working time, breaks, and absences for German compliance, with projects and rates on Pro. Sandtime.io covers project time only, free for unlimited users, hosted in the EU.
- Project time and rates free, not on Pro
- Free for the whole team, not one user
- EU hosting, not German hosting
- Honest that Clockodo wins on attendance
timr Alternative
timr bundles attendance, project time, and a GPS mileage log, hosted in Germany. Choose it for clock-ins, field staff, or vehicles; Sandtime.io keeps approved project timesheets free for unlimited users.
- Project timesheets free, not per user
- Rates without the Plus account fee
- Approvals, reminders, and locking included
- Honest that timr wins on attendance and mileage logs
Jibble Alternative
Jibble is free attendance tracking with clock-ins, face recognition, GPS, and pay-period approvals for payroll. Sandtime.io is free project timesheets that each person submits weekly and an administrator approves and locks.
- Both free for unlimited users
- People submit their own week, then it locks
- No screenshots, GPS, or face scans
- Honest that Jibble wins on attendance
ClickTime Alternative
ClickTime is a paid labor-cost suite with approvals from Team and budgets and resource planning on Premier. Sandtime.io replaces the timesheet layer only, free for unlimited users, and suits nonprofits reporting hours per grant.
- Approvals free, not from Team
- No 25 or 200 user caps
- Hours per grant for nonprofits, free
- Honest about ClickTime's budgets and planning
Timesheet Portal Alternative
Timesheet Portal is a UK pay-and-bill platform sold per module and per user, with expenses, invoicing, leave, and client approvals. Sandtime.io covers internal project timesheets only, free for unlimited users, hosted in the EU.
- No price per module or per user
- Approval that locks the week, included free
- EU hosting on OVHcloud
- Honest that agencies need Timesheet Portal's pay and bill
Productive Alternative
Productive is an agency suite with budgets, resource planning, invoicing, and CRM, priced per user, with timesheet submission and time locking on Ultimate. Sandtime.io covers the timesheet layer only, free for unlimited users.
- Submit, approve, and lock the week, free
- No three-seat minimum
- MCP server and REST API included
- Honest about Productive's agency suite
TimeCamp Alternative
Looking for a TimeCamp alternative? Sandtime.io includes timesheet approvals, reminders, and historical rates free - no paid tier required.
- Approvals included for free
- No surveillance features
- Historical rates on the free plan
- Automatic timesheet reminders
Kadromierz Alternative
Kadromierz manages schedules, attendance, leave, and Polish work-time records. Compare it with Sandtime.io when the real decision is attendance versus project reporting.
- Honest workflow comparison
- Shift scheduling versus project time
- Attendance and GPS are Kadromierz strengths
- Free project timesheets for unlimited users
Or build it yourself
Owning the software instead of renting it: a custom build, or open source on a server you run.
Build vs Buy
Thinking of building your own time tracking tool? See the real five-year cost, what you would have to build, and when building is the right call.
- The full five-year cost, not just the build
- What AI did and did not change
- When building is genuinely right
- Or extend Sandtime.io through the API
Kimai Alternative
Kimai is open source and free if you run the server; Kimai Cloud is priced per user. Sandtime.io is hosted in the EU and free for unlimited users, with approvals and apps included.
- Hosted and free, no server to run
- Approvals without a plugin or Professional plan
- First-party mobile and desktop apps, API and MCP
- Honest about Kimai's invoicing and 30+ languages
Pick the comparison route that matches the real buying problem
Most comparison journeys actually start with one of four questions: are we leaking billable time, do we need a better client-work workflow, does pricing still fit, or do we simply need a clearer buyer view?
Measure billable leakage first
When the problem is hidden in lost billable work and you want proof before comparing another feature list.
Open the calculatorSee the core commercial page
The buyer-facing page for time tracking software, built around billing, visibility, and trust.
See the overviewSee the agency workflow
For teams billing client work through retainers, scoped delivery, and project-based execution.
See the agency pageSee the freelancer workflow
For underbilling, juggling several clients, and reconstructing time before an invoice goes out.
See the freelancer pageOther time tracking tools worth knowing about
Sandtime.io does not have a full comparison for every tool in this category. These are the ones buyers most often shortlist alongside it, grouped by what they actually do.
European time trackers
European products competing on the same data-residency ground. Free plans and EU hosting rarely appear together here.
solidtime
Open source under AGPL-3.0, built in Vienna and EU hosted, so the code can be audited or run on your own server. The free and unlimited promise applies to the version you host yourself, and the managed cloud is priced separately, so compare the hosted tiers rather than the GitHub page.
Timeular
Austrian, and sold around a physical eight-sided cube you flip to switch tasks. The hardware is the point, so if a desk object is what makes tracking stick, no software-only tracker replaces it.
Tyme
German and Apple only, a good fit for one person who wants a native Mac and iPhone app rather than a browser tab. Running a team's timesheets is not what it is for.
Automatic activity trackers
These capture activity automatically from apps, windows, and documents. Sandtime.io does not, by design, so they solve a different problem rather than the same one.
Timely
Norwegian. Records which applications and documents were active and drafts timesheets from that history rather than asking anyone to fill one in.
Timing
German and macOS only. Captures activity in the background and leaves you to reconstruct the billable day from it afterwards.
Memtime
German, and it runs offline with the captured activity kept on the machine rather than sent to a server, which is the version of automatic tracking that survives a works council conversation.
ManicTime
Captures activity locally and stores it on the machine by default, so the recording exists without a vendor holding it.
RescueTime
Attention and focus reporting rather than timesheets. It tells someone how their own time went; it does not produce anything you can bill from.
Other timesheet tools
Real substitutes that do not have a full comparison here yet. The note says who each one actually suits.
Trackabi
Bundles leave management and gamification with employee monitoring and GPS, so the timesheet arrives attached to surveillance features. Worth knowing before a team is asked to install it.
Lucen Track
Formerly Timeneye, now part of Lucen Software in Texas. Built around the Microsoft stack, with tracking inside Teams, Outlook, Planner and Azure DevOps, which is the reason to pick it and the reason it makes little sense elsewhere.
Tick
Deliberately minimal and built around one question: is this project over the hours it was sold for. Little else is in the box.
eHour
A small, plain timesheet tool for a team that wants recording and reporting without a wider product wrapped around it.
Paymo
Project management first, with time tracking and invoicing attached. Sensible when the projects and the hours should live in the same tool.
Avaza
Projects, time and invoicing in one product, aimed at a small firm that would rather run the whole client workflow in a single place.
ClickUp
A work management suite where time is one module among many. Not a like-for-like substitute, but it is often what a team already has when the question of tracking comes up.
Why teams choose Sandtime.io
Free without seat tax
Sandtime.io is free for unlimited users, so the team can track time together without rationing access or triggering per-seat pricing pressure.
Trust-first instead of surveillance-first
No screenshots, no keystroke logging, and no invasive monitoring. Teams get accountability without the adoption penalty of bossware.
Built for client-ready reports
Turn tracked time into reports clients, managers, and finance can actually use without rebuilding hours from memory.
Catch margin drift earlier
See scope creep, retainer burn, and lost hours before the invoice is late and before project profitability has already disappeared.
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