The short version
Choose Hubstaff if you need visual proof of work. That is a legitimate requirement in some businesses — agencies billing clients by the hour who are asked to substantiate it, or teams working with people they have no basis to trust yet. Hubstaff does this thoroughly and has done for years.
Choose ClockBaseif the thing you actually need is a clean payroll record and you would rather not install surveillance on your team's machines to get it. The record ClockBase keeps is hours, breaks, departments, tasks, and notes — enough to pay people correctly and settle a disagreement about a timesheet, and nothing more.
Side by side
| ClockBase | Hubstaff | |
|---|---|---|
| Screenshots | None. The capability does not exist in the product. | Yes, on the standard plans, with more frequent capture available as a paid add-on. |
| Activity scoring | None. No keyboard or mouse measurement of any kind. | Activity levels derived from keyboard and mouse input. |
| App and website tracking | None. | Records the applications and URLs used during tracked time. |
| What the record shows | Shift, break, department, task, and the note the employee wrote, plus a short self-reported status. | Tracked time with visual and behavioural evidence attached. |
| Payroll preparation | Gross pay, paystubs, effective-dated exchange rates, and Wise batch payouts. Included on the $8 plan. | Payments tied to hours tracked, with its own supported payout methods. |
| Pricing shape | $5 or $8 per employee per month. Free for one person. No add-ons. | Lower entry price per seat, with several capabilities sold as separate add-ons. |
Hubstaff capabilities are as described on their own product pages as at 4 August 2026. Their plans include separately priced add-ons, so confirm your own combination on their pricing page.
What monitoring actually costs you
The licence fee is the cheap part. The expensive part is what screenshot software does to the relationship with the person being screenshotted.
Once a screen is being captured every few minutes, people manage the capture. They leave a document open. They keep the mouse moving. They stop stepping away to think, because thinking does not register as activity. You end up measuring compliance with the tool rather than the work, and the good people — the ones with options — quietly start looking elsewhere. Hiring a replacement assistant costs considerably more than a year of any of these subscriptions.
None of that makes monitoring wrong. It makes it a decision with a price, and the price is not on the pricing page. If you are choosing between these two, that is the thing actually worth thinking about.
What ClockBase records instead
- The shift. Start, end, and every break, with unpaid break time subtracted from the payable total.
- The department. Chosen before clocking in, so hours are already attributed when the period closes.
- The task and the note. Written by the employee, editable during the shift.
- A short self-reported status. Progress, finished, or blocked — asked during the shift, and never used to calculate pay.
- The exceptions. Missed clock-outs and open shifts are flagged for review rather than quietly paid, and an edited shift stays marked as edited.
That is a record that protects the employee about as often as it protects you, which is the point of keeping one.
Where ClockBase is the wrong choice
- A client contractually requires screenshots. ClockBase cannot produce them and will not be adding them.
- You need project budgets, client invoicing, or a large integration catalogue. Hubstaff has all three; ClockBase has none of them.
- You need mobile GPS tracking for field staff. ClockBase records no location data at all.
- You want to start today without talking to anyone. ClockBase is early, and we still set each workspace up on a call.
Common questions
- Does ClockBase take screenshots like Hubstaff?
- No. ClockBase has no screen capture, no keystroke logging, no mouse or activity scoring, no app and URL tracking, and no webcam. This is not a setting an administrator can switch on — the capability does not exist in the product.
- How do I know my team is actually working, then?
- You see what they clocked into, which department it belongs to, the task they are on, and the note they wrote. ClockBase also asks for a short self-reported status on the work during a shift. It is a weaker proof of keystrokes and a stronger record of output, which is the trade this product is making deliberately.
- Is Hubstaff cheaper?
- Its entry tier is priced lower per seat, but several capabilities — extra screenshots, insights, GPS, task management, longer data retention — are separately priced add-ons, so the amount you actually pay depends on which of them you turn on. Check their pricing page for your combination.
- Can Hubstaff pay my team overseas?
- Hubstaff has its own payments feature tied to hours tracked. ClockBase approaches it from payroll instead: an agreed rate in one currency, a payout in another, an explicit exchange rate recorded for that pay period, paystubs, and one international batch payout. Which fits depends on whether you are reimbursing hours or running something closer to a payroll.
- Will my team object to being monitored?
- Often, yes — it is one of the most common reasons people look for an alternative to screenshot-based tools. But be honest with yourself about which problem you have. If you genuinely cannot tell whether work is happening, changing software will not fix that.