This review covers:
- Overview
- What Do Users Like About Hubstaff?
- What Don’t Users Like About Hubstaff?
- What Pricing Plans Does Hubstaff offer?
- What are the Standout Features of Hubstaff?
- Selected Positive User Feedback
- Selected Negative User Feedback
- What are Hubstaff’s Review Ratings from Review Sites?
- What’s My Final Verdict on Hubstaff?
Overview
Hubstaff is an innovative time-tracking and work management tool that promises to help businesses improve productivity. But does it live up to that promise? Well, gather around the hub, folks, because today we’re talking about Hubstaff.
Hubstaff offers a ton of features that allow businesses to achieve better numbers and greater heights. These are grouped into four categories, namely Time Tracking, Workforce Management, Field Workforce Management, and my favorite, Employee Productivity (I’ll talk about why that’s my favorite further on, so be sure to keep on reading).
Hubstaff’s Time Tracking features are designed to streamline time tracking for any type of industry and combine work hours tracking and limiting, timesheet generation, and timesheet review and approval in just one tool. These features allow businesses to track how and where teams spend their hours and record worked time accurately using a web browser or through apps for desktop, iOS, and Android. They also help simplify payroll processes and give companies valuable, data-based insight through over 20 types of reports that suit any business need.
With its Workforce Management features, Hubstaff does all the administrative heavy lifting so businesses can focus on growth and the things that matter. These include invoicing and payroll, budgeting and expenses, time off, holidays, and break management, as well as schedule, attendance, and team management.
The Hubstaff Field Workforce Management features on the other hand help businesses keep an eye on remote and mobile teams in one dynamic platform with location-based tracking. Through mobile-based GPS tracking, companies can record locations and track hours on the road or on-site accurately, while geofenced job sites clock employees in and out automatically when they enter or leave job site perimeters. And with work orders and jobs, all locations, addresses, and timelines can be accessed with ease in one place.
Hubstaff’s Employee Productivity features are my personal favorite because it’s evident that they really put a lot of thought into making work as positive an experience as possible through a suite of features meant to empower both employee and employer. Designed to boost efficiency, build trust, and foster transparency and access, these include employee productivity tracking, app and URL monitoring, customizable screenshots, and the ability to discard idle time if an employee forgets to stop time tracking. But what really stands out the most for me are the achievement badges which recognize effort, boost morale, encourage better productivity, and best of all, makes employees feel seen.
Hubstaff also plays nicely with others — with over 30 integrations including heavy hitters like Basecamp, Trello, Asana, Github, and Paypal, Hubstaff has the potential to seamlessly fit into the existing workflows and IT ecosystems of any industry.
However, every rose has its thorns, and for Hubstaff, this includes high pricing (especially for businesses on a budget), pesky bugs and frustrating crashes, confusing UI elements that impede efficiency, and difficulties with some buttons. The well-intentioned screenshotting function can also feel too invasive and doesn’t fit into the workflows of some users, and the productivity reports and idle time tracking can be inaccurate at times and cost employees valuable worked time. The integrations can be very limited for users with more discerning needs and can be difficult to navigate sometimes as well.
But don’t get me wrong, folks. I still believe that Hubstaff is a solid choice for businesses seeking a powerful time-tracking and project-management tool, but you just might need to bring a little patience along for the ride.
What do users like about Hubstaff?
- Easy to use
- Wealth of features
- Actionable insights
- Accurate time tracking
- Smooth project management
- Easily customizable
Find more on what users love about Hubstaff.
What don't users like about Hubstaff?
- High pricing
- Inaccurate productivity and idle time tracker that costs employees
- Screenshotting feels invasive
- Plenty of bugs and glitches
- Occasional software crashes
- Confusing UI
- Limited integrations
Find more on what users hate about Hubstaff.
What Pricing Plans does Hubstaff offer?
Hubstaff offers one free plan and four paid plans with a free trial period of fourteen days and a 30-day money-back guarantee. Aside from the plans, they also offer a variety of add-ons that enhance functionality. Let’s take a closer look at the offers, features, and prices:
Hubstaff Free Plan
The Hubstaff Free plan is designed for a single user who needs to track hours and productivity. The most feature-limited plan among all the offers, this plan has time tracking, limited screenshots, timesheets, limited reports, activity levels, limited payments, clients & invoices, and limited support SLA.
Hubstaff Starter Plan
The Hubstaff Starter Plan is intended for small teams and has all the core features needed for tracking hours, reporting, payroll, invoicing, and employee monitoring. These include time tracking, timesheets, activity levels, limited screenshots, limited app & URL tracking, limited reports, limited payments, and clients & invoices. It also has two-day email support SLA.
This plan can be used by a minimum of two users and is available for $4.99 per user per month when billed annually, or at $7 per user per month if billed monthly.
Hubstaff Grow Plan
The Hubstaff Grow Plan is designed for medium-sized businesses poised for growth and with growing needs for enhanced employee monitoring and better insight. It has all of the features available in the Starter Plan plus reports, idle timeout, project budgets, work breaks, expenses, and one integration. It also comes with the Tasks add-on and one-day email support SLA.
This plan can be used by a minimum of two users and is available for $7.50 per user per month when billed annually, or at $9 per user per month if billed monthly.
Hubstaff Team Plan
The Hubstaff Team Plan is the most popular among the four and is designed for larger teams with enhanced team management, employee monitoring, scheduling, payroll, time off, and insight needs. It has all of the features of the Starter and Grow Plans, as well as unlimited screenshots, unlimited app & URL tracking, auto discard idle time, teams, payments & payroll, unlimited integrations, overtime, time off & holidays, scheduling & attendance, client budgets, timesheet approvals, and daily & weekly limits. It also comes with chat support and one-day email support SLA, as well as the Insights and Tasks add-ons.
This plan can be used by a minimum of two users and is available for a whopping $10 per user per month when billed annually, or an eye-watering $12 per user per month if billed monthly.
Hubstaff Enterprise Plan
The Hubstaff Enterprise Plan is designed for businesses with enterprise-level needs and offers the most comprehensive features suite among all the plans. It has all of the features of the other plans, as well as higher limits on public API, pay-by-bank debit (ACH), HIPAA compliance, SOC-2 Type II Compliance, enterprise deployment, account provisioning, and single sign-on. It also includes the Hubstaff Corporate app, Insights and Tasks add-ons, as well as the best support Hubstaff provides which features a concierge setup, an assigned account rep, and two-hour email support SLA.
This plan has custom pricing, and businesses need to communicate directly with Hubstaff for quotes.
Hubstaff Add-Ons
Hubstaff add-ons enhance the experience of users to meet specific needs with features that may not be available with their chosen plans. Let’s take a closer look at their features and prices:
Insights
This add-on allows users to have a deeper view of what captured data indicates to help with future actions and improve performances all around. Starting at $2 per user per month, Insights has categorized work time, smart notifications, focus and meeting time, suspicious activity detection, behavioral highlights, and work time classification.
Tasks
This add-on streamlines tasks for Hubstaff users. Starting at $3 per user per month, features include Kanban view, timeline view, task comments, start / due dates, and labels and attachments.
Data Retention
Starting at $2 per user per month, this add-on extends Hubstaff data retention to six years for time and activity data, calendar and limits, and finances.
Locations
This add-on allows admins to use GPS tracking to manage and monitor employees on-site or on the go. Starting at $4 per user per month, features include location tracking on mobile, job sites with geofences, work orders, and jobs.
Hubstaff Corporate App
Starting at $3 per user per month, the Hubstaff Corporate app allows businesses to track time and activity in the background on company-owned devices, add new members through account provisioning, and manage email notifications.
What are the Standout Features of Hubstaff?
1. Sprint Management
Sprints are a subfeature of Hubstaff Tasks that allow businesses to manage tasks that need immediate and focused attention. Just like a sprint run in sports, the Sprints feature focuses teams’ attention and energies with certain parameters such as time and the number of tasks to reach a desired goal. Sprints usually last from one to seven weeks, and users can have several tasks and projects simultaneously running in the Sprints dashboard at a time.
The dashboard, called the Sprints Overview screen, gives users a bird’s eye view of Hubstaff projects that they’ve added to the feature. It contains all the important information regarding projects that team members can easily see so that they can align their efforts more efficiently. These include viewing the organization users wish to see sprints for, showing completed sprints, sprint settings, adding and searching tasks, showing current and upcoming sprints, and sprint backlogs. The Sprints overview can be filtered to show individual or team-wide tasks with the Me, All, and Members views.
2. Work orders
Hubstaff’s Work Orders feature is a fantastic way of keeping teams’ efforts aligned with the big picture through specific scheduling of jobs and tasks to teams and individuals. Like its paper-based counterparts, this digitized system provides details to streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and establish proper record-keeping practices. But unlike paper-based systems, the Work Orders feature is a digital and mess-free solution that takes the chaos out of the process.
Using the Work Orders feature is as easy as entering details and checklists specific to one client such as names, job descriptions, locations, and timelines into the dashboard, scheduling team members for the job, managing task completion time with ease from a mobile phone, and getting real-time updates on team locations and project progress.
The Hubstaff Work Orders feature allows users to simplify the process of project creation, approval, assignment, completion, review, filing, and sending, saving time and money in the process.
3. GPS Location Tracking
Knowing exactly where employees are while they’re on the clock is a key need for most businesses, especially those in the construction, field service, retail, logistics, and transportation industries. Hubstaff tackles this need with its GPS Location Tracking feature that allows businesses to keep track of teams while they’re out and about doing tasks.
By installing the app on each team member’s mobile device, receiving permission for GPS tracking, and creating work orders and scheduling jobs, admins will be able to pinpoint exactly where every clocked-in employee is on a live map view, see their routes to each job site, and be on top of attendance all the time.
Geofenced perimeters around job sites mean that workers are automatically clocked in when they enter a site and automatically clocked out when they leave, so that correct and accurate payroll is ensured, eliminating the unsavory practice of padding hours rife in manual systems.
4. Payroll Tracking
Hubstaff cuts down on the agonizing hours traditionally required for payroll with its smart Payroll Tracking feature that automates the process by using data captured through its time tracking and GPS location features.
With the Payroll Tracking feature, users only need to set up payroll once and almost everything gets streamlined automatically, taking out the chaos and confusion in ensuring that timesheets are correct and accurate, and in managing the variety of bill and pay rates, payment frequency, and payment currencies and methods for individual team members.
This feature ensures that pay is never late ever again, as it sends automatic payments to local or international employees based on their rates and tracked hours, and simplifies manual payments processes as well.
Selected Positive User Feedback:
- “The experience is so good that I find me wanting to stay with Hubstaff regardless of whether my need for time tracking reduces.” – Ewan M. (Source Capterra)
- “I love the Hubstaff ecosystem, including the task management integration. It seamlessly connects to their task management web application.” – Justine Fred B. (Source Capterra)
- “The benefits of Hubstaff are very helpful for doing the remote job. It shows the overall time I’ve spent in an activity and browser. It is also user-friendly if ever the time stopped you can easily insert a lost time in your timesheet.” – Verified Reviewer in Marketing and Advertising (Source Capterra)
- “One of the most attractive things about any software is how easy it is to use. Hubstaff is not an exception, 100% intuitive, and the customer service is also really good. ” – Eduardo C. (Source G2)
- “Time tracking is foolproof, an excellent tool if you have remote teams working on your project. The screenshot feature is one of the best options that is not available in other tools” – Karthik V. (Source G2)
- “It allows you to start the employee timer based on location. So, if you are working remotely, you can be sure that your employees are in the field and working.” – Emine Ayşenur B. (Source GetApp)
- “I use Hubstaff daily to track my clients, tasks, and invoices. They’re always there to help and very easy to work with. 100% recommended for any virtual workers!” – Tia G. (Source Capterra)
- “I love how it’s so easy to use for any new team member. I can also teach a new manager quickly how to track those who are below them.” – Le-an Lai L. (Source Capterra)
- “The best thing that we’ve found out in Hubstaff is that by adding the tasks in Asana, they can appear in the time-tracking app. Also, after doing the tasks, the work time automatically gets posted in Asana. That’s a time savior.” – Verified Reviewer in Online Media (Source Capterra)
- “Since implementing Hubstaff, our team has gained so much insight into the time and effort that goes into our various projects and tasks.” – KyleKash (Source PlayStore)
- “I love that this software integrates seamlessly with Asana and allows me to track my time from anywhere. It’s been a great help to me as an SEO consultant, helping me be mindful of how I spend time on growing/maintaining my business.” – Tamara S. (Source G2)
“Review timing and control of tasks assigned to people is useful.” – Alfredo L. (Source GetApp) - “Not only can you monitor and organize the work of the team, but they can track time spent on each activity and improve their dead time.” – Andreea C. (Source G2)
Selected Negative User Feedback:
- “The price range is slightly higher than the other employee tracking software.” – Sumit S. (Source G2)
- “Software crashes in between. I would say that working with Hubstaff can get a little pressuring because of the activity system in place.” – Juan M. (Source Capterra)
- “When using the time tracker in the phone. Sometimes the internet connection will interrupt, and you didn’t notice the time tracker the timer won’t continue, hoping to change on that part.” – Justine Paulo Y. (Source GetApp)
- “I would really like it if more integrations were allowed within the Hubstaff standard program. The functionality for the price should be included.” – Zachary K. (Source Capterra)
- “The open project and play buttons were sometimes hard to press (too small a target) but, with the latest release, this has become even harder and the play button no longer changes to a stop so I don’t know if it registered my click.” – Google User (Source by Google Play)”
- “Far more complicated than it needs to be for basic things like processing weekly payments.” – Steve Stackman (Source Play Store)
- “Screenshotting is useless in practice. Sometimes does not connect to the tracker and there are sudden crashes in software.” – Aleksandr D. (Source G2)
- “Hubstaff totally depends upon the mouse and keyword activity, but they should also focus on the screen time. For content writers, always shows low activity due to their work. ” – Javed K. (Source G2)
- “This is just my opinion, but dashboard UI is somewhat difficult to navigate.” – Denis M. (Source G2)
- “Idle time is sometimes too quick, and screenshots don’t work every time.” – Pierre Claudin N. (Source G2)
- “High pricing. Aside from screenshots being taken a tad too often (which can feel invasive for users), the one improvement I’d suggest is more of a real-time update on the dashboard of reported hours. ” Tiana D (Source GetApp)
- “At a point in time, it gives different recorded times. A different time sent via email from the actual recorded times.” – Paul B (Source Capterra)
- “A little hard to figure out all the functions on the menu. Uses way too much battery power. Buttons don’t work well.” Jennifer (Source by Google Play)
What are Hubstaff's Review Ratings from Review Sites?
(As of December 2023)
- Capterra: 4.6/5
- G2: 4.3/5
- TrustRadius: 7.6/10
- GetApp: 4.6/5
- Software Advice: 4.6/5
- Google Play Store: 3.2/5
- App Store: 4.5/5
What's my Final Verdict on Hubstaff?
Let me start by saying that Hubstaff is a great tool for businesses with on-site teams or mobile workers. It’s GPS tracking and geofencing features make it absolutely easy to monitor your team’s activity and location in real time. The web dashboard and mobile app are user-friendly and offer in-depth timesheets, project management tools, and scheduling features, all of which truly help in fulfilling the Hubstaff promise of boosting productivity.
However, Hubstaff’s price point is a bit of a drawback. It’s definitely not a budget-friendly solution unlike other software of its league, especially for freelancers or small businesses. The UI needs some serious work, and the productivity and idle time tracker fails to take into consideration that not all work is done with a keyboard and mouse, so employees often lose out hard-earned money on doing non-keyboard tasks such as taking calls, attending meetings, sketching, and more. This makes Hubstaff seem to be geared against workers and work solely for the gain of employers, a perception that is guaranteed to create friction between employees and management. Yikes.
In conclusion, while Hubstaff does have its drawbacks, it remains a valuable option for businesses looking for smooth time tracking and team management tools. Its star features such as GPS tracking and geofencing, sprints, and payroll tracking make it stand out from the crowd. If you’re willing to look over its negative attributes, Hubstaff may just be the game-changer you’re looking for.
