Hubstaff pricing in 2026: plans, add-ons and seat minimums
Hubstaff Starter costs $4.99 per seat per month billed yearly ($7 monthly), Grow $7.50 ($9), Team $10 ($12) and Enterprise $25, billed annually. Starter, Grow and Team have a 2-seat minimum. Six add-ons cost between $1.67 and $3.33 per seat on yearly billing, and the cheaper plans cap screenshots and app tracking. The pricing page offers a 14-day trial rather than a free plan.
What does each Hubstaff plan cost?
Hubstaff sells four plans, priced per seat per month in US dollars. Yearly billing is cheaper, and Enterprise is only sold yearly. Every plan includes the timer, timesheets, activity levels, client invoices and two-factor sign-in; the differences are in how much monitoring, management and payroll each one adds.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Minimum | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $4.99 per seat | $7 per seat | 2 seats | Timer, timesheets, activity levels, 500 screenshots and 500 apps and URLs per seat a month, up to 5 clients, client invoices |
| Grow | $7.50 per seat | $9 per seat | 2 seats | 1,500 screenshots and apps and URLs per seat a month, idle timeout, unlimited clients, project budgets, expenses, Hubstaff Tasks, one integration |
| Team | $10 per seat | $12 per seat | 2 seats | Unlimited screenshots and app tracking, timesheet approvals, scheduling and attendance, time off, overtime, payroll and payments, client budgets, work breaks, unlimited integrations, chat support, a 3-month Insights trial |
| Enterprise | $25 per seat | Yearly only | None stated | Insights, Silent app and Locations included, SSO, SCIM, HIPAA and SOC 2 compliance, account provisioning, an assigned account rep |
The toggle on Hubstaff's page reads "2 months free" for yearly billing. That is exact for Grow and Team, where ten months of the monthly price equals a year on the yearly price. Starter is a slightly better deal than advertised: $59.88 a year against $84 paid monthly.
Some team-size examples at seat prices alone:
- A freelancer on their own: Starter still bills two seats, so the floor is $9.98 a month on yearly billing, or $14 a month paid monthly.
- Five people on Team: $50 a month ($600 a year) billed yearly, or $60 a month paid monthly.
- Ten people on Grow: $75 a month ($900 a year) billed yearly, or $90 a month paid monthly.
- Twenty people on Enterprise: $500 a month, $6,000 a year, paid up front.
Who counts as a paid seat in Hubstaff?
Almost everyone. Hubstaff's billing help says every member is a paid seat except the Project Viewer role. Owners and managers count even if they never start a timer, and members who are inactive or have tracking switched off still count. The minimum billed is two seats.
That changes the maths for small teams. A three-person agency where the owner only reviews time still pays for three seats. Hubstaff's own pricing FAQ makes the same point: if two of three team members use the tracking features, you pay for all three. The free Project Viewer role can view activity reports, so a manager who only reads them can be switched to it. The owner always counts.
Changing headcount mid-term follows two rules:
- Adding people: on monthly billing a new member is charged the full month, with no proration. On yearly billing the new seat is prorated to the end of the term. Hubstaff's example is a Team seat added in July of a January term, charged $60 for the remaining six months.
- Removing people: there is no refund or credit. The seat stays open for someone else until the next term starts, when open seats drop off.
Add-ons are the one place empty seats are not charged. Hubstaff's help centre says add-ons bill only filled seats.
Which monitoring features does each plan pay for?
Monitoring is what Hubstaff's price ladder is built around. Activity levels, which score keyboard and mouse activity as a percentage of tracked time, are on every plan. Screenshots and app and URL tracking are capped on the two cheapest plans and unlimited from Team up. The deeper analytics, silent tracking and GPS sit higher still or cost extra.
| Monitoring feature | Starter | Grow | Team | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Activity levels | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Screenshots | 500 per seat a month | 1,500 per seat a month | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Apps and URLs tracking | 500 per seat a month | 1,500 per seat a month | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Idle timeout | No | Yes | Yes, customisable | Yes, customisable |
| Auto-discard idle time | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Silent background app | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on | Included |
| GPS and geofencing (Locations) | Not available | Not available | Add-on | Included |
| Insights activity analytics | Add-on | Add-on | 3-month trial, then add-on | Included |
The caps are counted per seat per month, and Hubstaff's plans article says deleting screenshots does not give you room back, because the daily count is not recalculated. Standard screenshot settings allow up to three captures per ten-minute interval, of every connected display, and owners and managers can see them along with apps, URLs and activity percentages.
Insights is Hubstaff's analytics layer: activity benchmarks, and labelling apps and URLs as core work, non-core work or unproductive. Hubstaff's comparison table also lists suspicious activity detection, smart notifications for unusual activity, behavioural highlights, focus time and a team leaderboard as add-on features from the Team column up. Team includes a three-month Insights trial, and Hubstaff's billing help says add-ons are charged once their trial ends. Enterprise includes it.
For some teams this is the point. A remote employer that needs proof of work for contractors, or a field team that clocks in at job sites, is paying for exactly the features it wants. For a team that bills clients for hours and has never wanted to look at a screenshot, most of the price difference between plans is monitoring it will switch off or ignore.
How much do Hubstaff's add-ons cost?
Six add-ons are sold per seat per month, from $1.67 to $3.33 on yearly billing and $2 to $4 monthly. Which ones you can buy depends on the plan, and Hubstaff's FAQ says add-ons are included automatically on its higher plans.
| Add-on | Yearly | Monthly | Where it is sold or included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insights (activity analytics) | $2.50 | $3 | Paid on Starter and Grow, a 3-month trial on Team, included on Enterprise |
| Tasks (Hubstaff Tasks boards) | $2.50 | $3 | Paid on Starter, included from Grow up |
| More screenshots | $2.50 | $3 | Paid add-on, included on Enterprise |
| Silent app | $2.50 | $3 | Paid on Starter, Grow and Team, included on Enterprise |
| Locations (GPS, geofencing, work orders) | $3.33 | $4 | Not on Starter or Grow, paid on Team, included on Enterprise |
| Data retention | $1.67 | $2 | Paid on every plan |
Price add-ons by the capability you need. Grow at $7.50 plus More screenshots at $2.50 costs the same as Team, but the packages are not equivalent. Team includes unlimited monthly screenshot volume, while the More screenshots add-on increases capture frequency to up to ten screenshots per ten minutes. If you only need more monthly volume, Team also adds approvals, scheduling and payroll. If you need the higher capture frequency, include the add-on when comparing plans.
There is also a support charge that grows with the bill. Hubstaff's pricing comparison lists VIP support "Enhanced" at $29 a month per organization, automatically applied to subscriptions between $275 and $400 a month, with a higher VIP tier above $400. Twenty-three people on Team billed monthly is $276, which is enough to cross that line.
Is there a free Hubstaff plan?
Not for a team. Hubstaff's pricing page answers "Can I use Hubstaff for free?" with its 14-day trial, which needs no credit card, and adds a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans that does not cover the trial. No free plan appears among the plan cards.
Hubstaff's help centre describes two plans the pricing page does not show:
- Free: one seat, taken by the organization owner, meant for a freelancer who needs to show proof of work. It includes time tracking, timesheets, activity levels and 100 screenshots a month, with limited clients, invoices and payments, no scheduled reports and limited data retention. One free organization per Hubstaff account.
- Small Business Essentials: a flat $144 a year, paid up front, for three paid seats plus the owner, so up to four people. It has unlimited screenshots and app and URL tracking, client invoices and up to three clients. It is for new organizations only, has no monthly or quarterly option, takes no add-ons or coupons, and is capped at three paid seats. New users who qualify may see it recommended during signup.
Essentials works out to $3 per person per month with four people, which undercuts Starter's two-seat floor once there are three or four of you. It stops at four people: a fifth person means moving to Grow or Team at full per-seat prices.
When do you need Team for invoicing and payroll?
When you pay people through Hubstaff or approve their hours. Client invoices are on every plan, but team invoices, timesheet approvals, overtime, time off and full payroll and payments start on Team. Starter and Grow have limited payments, which Hubstaff's help centre defines as no payroll and no option to send payments.
The billing features line up like this:
- Starter: client invoices, but only five clients, and no expenses or project budgets.
- Grow: unlimited clients, expense tracking and project budgets.
- Team: team invoices, payroll and payments, client budgets and timesheet approvals before payroll runs.
- Enterprise: adds paying Hubstaff by bank debit and higher public API limits.
For an agency that invoices clients for hours, Grow is usually the realistic floor because of the five-client cap on Starter. That puts a five-person agency at $37.50 a month on yearly billing, mostly paying for screenshots, app tracking and activity scoring it may never open.
When are Hubstaff's paid features worth the cost?
Hubstaff is good value when monitoring, payroll or GPS is the reason you are buying. It is poor value when all you want is accurate hours by client and an invoice at the end of the month.
Worth it -> remote teams paying contractors by the hour who want proof of work, field crews that need GPS and geofenced clock-ins, and companies running payroll and time off inside the time tracker. For them Team at $10 a seat is a fair price for a lot of operational tooling.
Compare simpler options -> if you only need hours by client, reports and invoices, monitoring features may not justify their cost. Include the seat minimum, paid managers and invoicing tier when comparing Hubstaff with a simpler tracker.
Timen is built for the second group. It is free for the whole team, with no limit on users, projects or time entries, and it does not take screenshots, score activity or track location. It covers the timer, manual entries, a calendar view, reports by project, client, tag and person, and invoices built from tracked time that download as a PDF or CSV or go straight to QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks or Wave. It also imports from Hubstaff by signing in, bringing clients, projects, people, time entries and invoices across, with Hubstaff tasks arriving as tags.
It does not replace the first group's Hubstaff. Timen has no timesheet approvals, no payroll or payments, no scheduling or attendance, no GPS and no payment collection on invoices. If you need any of those, compare the Hubstaff alternatives that keep them, or read Timen against Hubstaff for the two-tool view. If you are already leaving, the notes on exporting Hubstaff data cover what comes out and what does not.
Hubstaff pricing questions
- How much does Hubstaff cost per user?
- Hubstaff Starter costs $4.99 per seat per month billed yearly or $7 monthly, Grow $7.50 or $9, and Team $10 or $12. Enterprise is $25 per seat per month, billed annually. Starter, Grow and Team have a 2-seat minimum, and add-ons such as Insights, Silent app and Locations cost extra per seat.
- Does Hubstaff have a free plan?
- Hubstaff's pricing page offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card. Its help centre also describes a free plan for one seat, the organization owner, with 100 screenshots a month, limited clients and invoices, and no scheduled reports. There is no free plan for a team.
- What is Hubstaff Small Business Essentials?
- Small Business Essentials is a flat-fee plan described in Hubstaff's help centre. It costs $144 a year, paid up front, for 3 paid seats plus the owner, so up to 4 people. It is for new organizations only, has no monthly option, and does not support add-ons.
- Do I pay for Hubstaff managers who do not track time?
- Yes. Hubstaff counts owners and managers as paid seats even if they never run the timer. Only the Project Viewer role is free, and inactive members still count.
- Is there a cheaper way to track hours without Hubstaff's monitoring?
- If you only need hours, reports and invoices, a tracker without monitoring is usually cheaper. Timen is free for the whole team, with no screenshots, activity levels or GPS, and it can import Hubstaff data directly.
Choosing a Hubstaff plan without overbuying
Start from the features you need, then count seats honestly, including every manager. Add the add-ons you would buy, and check whether the next plan up costs the same. Team at $10 a seat billed yearly is often the real price for a team that wants unlimited screenshots or approvals.
If the monitoring is not what you want, you do not need to pay for it to get accurate hours. Timen is free for the whole team, with invoicing included.