EU-hosted7 sub-processorschecked 12 August 2026

TimerOS vs Hubstaff: no screenshots, and a client portal from €8

No screenshots. No keystroke logging. Neither exists in the product, so there is nothing to ask your team to agree to. The same €8 subscription carries projects, invoicing and a branded client portal. Tracking is Windows only. No free tier, card at signup.

For freelancers billing by the hour and teams of three to fifteen. Both buy with a card, no sales call.

Vezoft EOOD makes TimerOS. Every Hubstaff fact below was read off their own pages on 12 August 2026 and links to the page it came from.

Card at signup; nothing is charged for 14 days, then billing starts unless you cancel from the Subscription page in your dashboard. Billed annually: €8 a month for one seat, €96 for the year, or €15 per user for a team. Full pricing.

Stay on Hubstaff if
  • Budget is the binding constraint: Starter is $4.99 per seat / month on annual billing, against our €8 for one seat and €15 per user for a team. Starter carries a two-seat minimum, so on one person the two are close. From three people up it is a different bracket, and these are dollars against euros, not converted. [src]
  • You need tracking off Windows. Hubstaff’s pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app” on every plan. [src]
  • Integrations decide it: its pricing page lists one on Grow and unlimited on Team, where ours are on Enterprise and not shipped. [src]
Switch to TimerOS if
  • You want your team to accept it. No screenshots and no keystroke logging exist in the product at all, and the timer sits in a bar they can see all day.
  • You bill clients and want them to see something that looks like a company: a branded portal at your own address with their projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat, from the €8 Freelancer tier, with no seat or licence billed for the client.
  • A client’s procurement asks where their data is processed and you want a short answer: databases, application compute and uploaded files in the EU on every plan, an EU contracting entity, and seven sub-processors published for them to read.
EU vs US

where each stores by default. Ours: databases, application compute and uploaded files, on every plan. Hubstaff “retains customer data in the United States”. [src]

Windows only

is where TimerOS tracking runs. Hubstaff’s pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app”. [src]

7 vs 34

sub-processors on each company’s published list. [ours] [theirs]

Neither the location nor the count is a verdict on anyone’s security. Both companies publish a sub-processor list, both carry SCCs, and both can sit inside a lawful GDPR setup. What differs is the default and the paperwork it generates. Every figure here is sourced in the rows below.

Head to head

12 rows, each one sourced, so you can check all of it without taking our word for anything. Where a fact could not be established from Hubstaff’s own documentation the cell says so instead of guessing, including where the gap is ours.

TimerOS
Hubstaff
What you can actually do with itThe work between tracking an hour and getting paid for it. We chose these rows, so they favour us.
Project management
Projects, tasks, budgets and a whiteboard the client approves work on. From the Freelancer tier up. [features]
Project management
“Project budgets” from Grow; “Tasks / To-dos” capped at 500 on Starter and 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team. [src]
Client portal
A branded client portal at your own address (your-slug.timeros.ai): projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat, with no seat billed for the client. Every tier. [features]
Client portal
Its pricing page lists “Clients” (5 on Starter, included above) and “Client invoices”, but no client-login row. [src] Its help centre does document giving a client access: you may add clients and assign them a “Project viewer” role. [help centre]
Invoicing
Invoices raised from tracked hours in the same workspace, on every tier. Full P&L including payroll is Enterprise. [our pricing]
Invoicing
“Client invoices” on all four plans; “Team invoices” on Team and Enterprise only. [src]
Support desk for your clients
Support tickets and incident war rooms your client can be brought into, on every tier. [features]
Support desk for your clients
Not stated on the pages checked: the pricing page’s “Support” section covers Hubstaff’s own support to you: help center, chat support, email SLA. Not a helpdesk you operate. [src]
Integrations
None shipped. Integrations are listed on Enterprise but are not built yet. [roadmap]
Integrations
One integration on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. [src]
What it does to the people using itWhat is recorded, and what your team has to agree to.
Where tracking runs
Windows 10 and 11 only, as a desktop app, with the timer visible in a bar the tracked person can see at all times. Projects, invoicing, approvals and everything else run in a browser at app.timeros.ai, and your clients sign in separately at your own branded portal address. [download]
Where tracking runs
Its pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app” on every plan, and location tracking on mobile as a paid add-on. [src]
Screenshots
None. The feature is not built, so there is nothing to switch off. The Windows app reads the active window title, application name and browser host in memory to classify the time; what reaches the server is the label, its confidence and hours per day. If you correct a classification, that app and title are saved on your own machine.
Screenshots
On every plan: 500 per seat per month on Starter, 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. [src] Can be switched off: “You can disable screenshot capture across an entire organization, or for specific users only”, by an Owner or Manager. [src]
Keystroke logging
None.
Keystroke logging
“it never logs keystrokes or records video or webcam footage”. [src]
What it costsEntry price, and what happens when the trial ends.
Entry price
  • Freelancer €8 / month billed annually, €10 month to month. One seat.
  • Startup €15 per user / month billed annually, €18 monthly. Up to 50 seats.
  • Enterprise is early access and not self-serve.
  • No free tier. The 14-day trial takes a card at signup. Nothing is charged if you cancel. [our pricing]
Entry price
  • Starter $4.99 per seat / month billed annually, $7 monthly, with a two-seat minimum.
  • Grow $7.50 / $9.
  • Team $10 / $12.
  • Enterprise $25, annual only.
  • Free 14-day trial, no card required. [src]
Where your data livesThe part your client’s procurement team asks about.
Where data lives, and on whose infrastructure
EU. Databases on MongoDB Atlas pinned to AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) and eu-west-1 (Ireland); application compute on Render in Frankfurt; uploaded files in Cloudflare R2 created with the EU jurisdiction restriction. [our list]
Where data lives, and on whose infrastructure
United States. “Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States.” [src] Amazon Web Services is listed as “Infrastructure Hosting”, jurisdiction US, and Cloudflare for hosting and content delivery, jurisdiction Global. [src]
EU region option
Default on every plan. There is no region toggle, because there is no other region.
EU region option
Not stated on the pages checked: the data-transfer page, the privacy policy and the trust centre state US retention and name no regional alternative. [src]
Sub-processors
Seven. Two are EU companies processing EU-to-EU (Lettermint B.V. and Zoho Corporation B.V., both Netherlands). Stripe and Google LLC involve US processing; Google only for Play distribution and push on the Android build. [our list]
Sub-processors
34 listed. Every entry shows jurisdiction US except Cloudflare (Global) and four with no jurisdiction shown. The list includes OpenAI and Anthropic under “AI Services”. [src]
What you can actually do with itThe work between tracking an hour and getting paid for it. We chose these rows, so they favour us.5
Project management
TimerOS
Projects, tasks, budgets and a whiteboard the client approves work on. From the Freelancer tier up. [features]
Hubstaff
“Project budgets” from Grow; “Tasks / To-dos” capped at 500 on Starter and 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team. [src]
Client portal
TimerOS
A branded client portal at your own address (your-slug.timeros.ai): projects, approvals, tickets, invoices and chat, with no seat billed for the client. Every tier. [features]
Hubstaff
Its pricing page lists “Clients” (5 on Starter, included above) and “Client invoices”, but no client-login row. [src] Its help centre does document giving a client access: you may add clients and assign them a “Project viewer” role. [help centre]
Invoicing
TimerOS
Invoices raised from tracked hours in the same workspace, on every tier. Full P&L including payroll is Enterprise. [our pricing]
Hubstaff
“Client invoices” on all four plans; “Team invoices” on Team and Enterprise only. [src]
Support desk for your clients
TimerOS
Support tickets and incident war rooms your client can be brought into, on every tier. [features]
Hubstaff
Not stated on the pages checked: the pricing page’s “Support” section covers Hubstaff’s own support to you: help center, chat support, email SLA. Not a helpdesk you operate. [src]
Integrations
TimerOS
None shipped. Integrations are listed on Enterprise but are not built yet. [roadmap]
Hubstaff
One integration on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. [src]
What it does to the people using itWhat is recorded, and what your team has to agree to.3
Where tracking runs
TimerOS
Windows 10 and 11 only, as a desktop app, with the timer visible in a bar the tracked person can see at all times. Projects, invoicing, approvals and everything else run in a browser at app.timeros.ai, and your clients sign in separately at your own branded portal address. [download]
Hubstaff
Its pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app” on every plan, and location tracking on mobile as a paid add-on. [src]
Screenshots
TimerOS
None. The feature is not built, so there is nothing to switch off. The Windows app reads the active window title, application name and browser host in memory to classify the time; what reaches the server is the label, its confidence and hours per day. If you correct a classification, that app and title are saved on your own machine.
Hubstaff
On every plan: 500 per seat per month on Starter, 1,500 on Grow, unlimited on Team and Enterprise. [src] Can be switched off: “You can disable screenshot capture across an entire organization, or for specific users only”, by an Owner or Manager. [src]
Keystroke logging
TimerOS
None.
Hubstaff
“it never logs keystrokes or records video or webcam footage”. [src]
What it costsEntry price, and what happens when the trial ends.1
Entry price
TimerOS
  • Freelancer €8 / month billed annually, €10 month to month. One seat.
  • Startup €15 per user / month billed annually, €18 monthly. Up to 50 seats.
  • Enterprise is early access and not self-serve.
  • No free tier. The 14-day trial takes a card at signup. Nothing is charged if you cancel. [our pricing]
Hubstaff
  • Starter $4.99 per seat / month billed annually, $7 monthly, with a two-seat minimum.
  • Grow $7.50 / $9.
  • Team $10 / $12.
  • Enterprise $25, annual only.
  • Free 14-day trial, no card required. [src]
Where your data livesThe part your client’s procurement team asks about.3
Where data lives, and on whose infrastructure
TimerOS
EU. Databases on MongoDB Atlas pinned to AWS eu-central-1 (Frankfurt) and eu-west-1 (Ireland); application compute on Render in Frankfurt; uploaded files in Cloudflare R2 created with the EU jurisdiction restriction. [our list]
Hubstaff
United States. “Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States.” [src] Amazon Web Services is listed as “Infrastructure Hosting”, jurisdiction US, and Cloudflare for hosting and content delivery, jurisdiction Global. [src]
EU region option
TimerOS
Default on every plan. There is no region toggle, because there is no other region.
Hubstaff
Not stated on the pages checked: the data-transfer page, the privacy policy and the trust centre state US retention and name no regional alternative. [src]
Sub-processors
TimerOS
Seven. Two are EU companies processing EU-to-EU (Lettermint B.V. and Zoho Corporation B.V., both Netherlands). Stripe and Google LLC involve US processing; Google only for Play distribution and push on the Android build. [our list]
Hubstaff
34 listed. Every entry shows jurisdiction US except Cloudflare (Global) and four with no jurisdiction shown. The list includes OpenAI and Anthropic under “AI Services”. [src]

Your team’s workspace, and your client’s

One subscription runs both. Your team works in the first; your client signs in at your own branded address and sees their side of the same job: projects, approvals, tickets and invoices. No seat, no licence, nothing to install.

Your team desktop app + web

The workspace your team works in, live and clickable. Shown here as the Windows desktop app, which is where tracking runs; the web app at app.timeros.ai is the same workspace without it.

Your client your-slug.timeros.ai

The same work from the client’s side: their projects, their invoices, their tickets. Included from the €8 Freelancer tier up.

The client’s side, at your own address. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Watch on YouTube.

What the hosting difference actually changes

hubstaff.com/data-transfer-compliance

On its data-transfer page, Hubstaff says:

Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States.
Read it on Hubstaff’s sitechecked 12 August 2026
Where TimerOS stores your data
European Union
Where Hubstaff says it stores data
United States

Hubstaff retains customer data in the United States. It is documented and framework-covered, but it means your record of processing lists a US transfer, your transfer impact assessment considers US access law, and the works council question starts from “why is our staff’s activity data in America?” With TimerOS the databases, the application compute and the uploaded files are in the EU, so that part of the assessment is short.

The second difference is surface area. Thirty-four sub-processors is what a company with a full marketing and analytics stack looks like when it publishes honestly. But each name is one your DPO may have to review. Ours is seven, two of them EU companies processing EU-to-EU with no transfer mechanism required at all.

What one TimerOS subscription covers

Hours on their own are not worth much. They matter once they become an invoice, a project margin and something a client can see, which is usually where a team buys three more tools.

Two tiers you can buy with a card. Freelancer is one seat, not a stripped demo. The branded client portal, invoicing and support tickets are all inside it, and the client who signs in costs you no seat and no licence. Startup adds the parts a team needs. Enterprise covers payroll, an org chart and single sign-on, but it is early access rather than self-serve, and several items on that list are not shipped. There is no free tier, and the 14-day trial takes a card at signup.

Freelancer
€8 / month billed annually · €10 monthly · one seat
  • Projects and tasks
  • Invoicing and billing
  • Basic expenses and a basic profit overview
  • Support tickets
  • A branded client portal — chat, whiteboard approvals, incident war rooms
Startup
€15 / user / month billed annually · €18 monthly
  • Everything in Freelancer
  • Team management, with hours per person in one workspace
  • Shifts and scheduling
  • Time-off approvals and leave balances
  • Company goals, awards and team performance

Up to 50 seats. Beyond that is Enterprise, which is early access and not self-serve.

Enterprise
Early access — not self-serve
  • Full payroll
  • Unlimited departments and a company-wide org chart
  • Custom roles and permissions
  • Full expenses (vendor bills, approvals)
  • Full P&L including payroll

Single sign-on, an audit log, integrations and dedicated support are on this tier’s list but are not shipped yet — they are on the roadmap.

What the person being tracked sees all day: a bar that stays on top, showing the state it is recording and the running total. Nothing is hidden from them — there is no silent mode, and no screenshots to review afterwards.

About a minute, from signing in to a tracked day. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play. Watch on YouTube.

What switching actually involves

  • Install is per machine. The Windows app on the machines being tracked; nothing to install for managers or for clients.
  • There is no bulk import. No CSV import today. Teams start on a period boundary and keep the old tool read-only for history.
  • Your clients get their own address. A branded portal at your own subdomain, not a login to our dashboard.
  • There is no SOC 2 report. No Type I, no Type II. If a client’s security review begins with that document, we will not pass it.
  • Cancelling is self-serve. The workspace owner cancels from the Subscription page; nothing is charged if you do it inside the 14 days.

Where Hubstaff is the better choice

If one of these is a dealbreaker, Hubstaff is the right purchase.

Stay on Hubstaff if
$4.99 per seat / month, annual

Per seat it is cheaper, and on a team by a lot

$4.99 per seat per month on annual billing, against our €8 for a single seat and €15 per user on the team tier. Starter carries a two-seat minimum, so the smallest possible bill is $9.98 and a solo buyer lands near our €8. But at five people it is $24.95 against €75, and we quote euros against dollars without converting. If entry price is the binding constraint, this ends here.

Stay on Hubstaff if
Multi-platform timer app

It tracks on platforms we do not

Our tracking runs on Windows only. Hubstaff lists a multi-platform timer app, and mobile location tracking as a paid add-on. A field team on phones, or a studio on Macs, is not a team we can serve today.

Stay on Hubstaff if
Unlimited, on Team

Unlimited integrations on the Team plan

Its pricing page lists one integration on Grow and unlimited on Team. Ours are on Enterprise and are not shipped. If pushing timesheets into your existing payroll or PM tool is why you are buying, we have no answer.

Stay on Hubstaff if
Invoices, expenses, scheduling

It covers a lot of the same ground

Its pricing page lists client invoices, expense tracking, project budgets, scheduling and attendance, time off, overtime and payments. If you expected us to call Hubstaff a monitoring tool and nothing more, it is not. The breadth argument above is narrower than it looks, and what its plans do not list is a client-facing portal.

If none of those describe you
You give up a lower entry price and a wider platform list. You get your databases, application compute and uploaded files in the EU by default, 7 sub-processors instead of 34, an EU contracting entity, Vezoft EOOD in Bulgaria, and the billing and client side of the work in one subscription.

Questions people ask before signing up

Does it take screenshots of my screen, or log what I type?

No. Not even as a setting you switch off. Neither feature exists in the product, so there is nothing to disable and nothing to review afterwards. The Windows app reads the active window title, the application name and, in a browser, the site’s domain, in memory, to work out what the time was spent on; what reaches the server is the label, how confident the classification is, and hours per day. If you correct a classification, that app and title are saved on your own machine, not ours. The timer itself lives in a bar the tracked person can see all day. There is no silent mode.

Is there a free plan, and does the trial take a card?

There is no free tier, and yes, the 14-day trial takes a card at signup. Nothing is charged during the trial, the card is captured through Stripe, and the workspace owner can cancel from the Subscription page in the dashboard before day 14. After that it is €8 a month billed annually for Freelancer (€10 month to month, one seat), or €15 per user per month billed annually for Startup (€18 monthly, up to 50 seats).

I work alone. What do I get for €8, and does my client have to pay?

Projects and tasks, invoicing and billing, basic expenses and a basic profit overview, support tickets, and the full branded client portal at your own address, where your client sees their projects, approvals, tickets, invoices, chat, a whiteboard they approve work on, and incident war rooms. Your client does not consume a seat or a licence and pays nothing. Team management, shifts, approvals and goals sit on Startup, not on the €8 tier. Full expenses and a full P&L are on Enterprise, which is early access and not self-serve.

What does my client actually see, and does a client cost me a seat?

Your client signs in at your own branded portal address, not our dashboard, and sees their projects, the approvals waiting on them, their tickets, their invoices, a chat thread with you, a whiteboard where they sign off work, and incident war rooms if something breaks. A client account consumes no seat and no licence, so adding clients does not raise your bill, and the portal is included from the €8 Freelancer tier upward. It is a separate address from app.timeros.ai, where your side of the workspace runs. Do not send clients there.

Can I tell whether a client is making or losing money?

Up to a point. Hours attach to projects and tasks that carry budgets, and those hours become invoices in the same workspace, so you can compare what a client took against what it billed. Freelancer and Startup include basic expenses and a basic profit overview. Full expenses with vendor bills and approvals, and a full P&L including payroll, are on the Enterprise tier, which is early access and not self-serve.

Half of us are on Macs. Can we use it?

Not for tracking. Automatic tracking runs on the Windows desktop app and nowhere else. No macOS, no Linux, no mobile tracking. It starts when the machine is signed in to and classifies activity on the device itself. Everything else runs in a browser: your team at app.timeros.ai, which does everything except tracking, and your clients at your own portal address. Managers and clients install nothing. A mixed team can share the workspace: a Mac-based designer can be assigned work, approved and invoiced. Their hours will not track themselves. If tracked hours off Windows are the point of the purchase, buy something else; check each vendor’s own platform page, linked in the comparison above.

My client asks where the data is processed. What do I send them?

Databases on MongoDB Atlas in Frankfurt and Ireland, application compute on Render in Frankfurt, uploaded files in Cloudflare R2 created with the EU jurisdiction restriction. Your contract is with Vezoft EOOD, an EU company, under EU law [imprint], and the full sub-processor list is seven names, published, alongside our DPA [our DPA]. You can send links instead of writing an answer. We will not hand you a line saying nothing ever leaves the EU. The Cloudflare CDN edge that serves the pages is global, and Stripe and Google involve US processing. Both are on the same published list. The accurate version is scoped: databases, application compute and uploaded files. And we do not hold SOC 2.

The other tool is cheaper per seat. Why should I pay more?

Sometimes it is cheaper. The price rows in the table above are quoted from each vendor’s own pricing page, in the currency each one publishes, with the date we checked. We have not converted anything. Two things to check first: whether the plan has a seat minimum, which changes what one person actually pays, and which of the things you need are on that entry plan rather than a higher one. Client login, invoicing and support tickets sit in our €8 tier; if you buy those from someone else today, add what they cost before comparing per-seat prices. And if entry price is the binding constraint, buy the cheaper plan. Better that than cancelling in month two.

What do the other tools have that you do not?

Integrations: none are shipped. They appear on the Enterprise tier list and are not built. SOC 2: we do not hold it, in any form. If procurement begins there, that is a real reason to choose something else. Screenshots and keystroke logging: neither feature exists in the product, so if you need visual evidence of work we cannot produce it. Tracking on anything other than the Windows desktop app. Payroll, unlimited departments, a company-wide org chart, single sign-on and an audit log: all Enterprise, which is early access and not self-serve. And a free tier: there is none, and the 14-day trial takes a card. The comparison rows above cite each vendor’s own page, with the date we checked it, for the facts we can verify; for anything they do not cover, read the vendor’s page rather than take our word for it.

Compare the others

  • TimerOS vs Time Doctor

    Where each company says it stores data, what its published sub-processor list contains, how monitoring is configured, and what the entry plan costs.

  • TimerOS vs ActivTrak

    Where each company says it stores data, what its published sub-processor list contains, how monitoring is configured, and what the entry plan costs.

  • Toggl vs Harvest vs Clockify: where each one stops

    The same treatment for the three tools people usually shortlist when monitoring is not what they are shopping for.

Try it against Hubstaff with your own week of work

Fourteen days is enough to track a real week on a Windows machine, raise one invoice from it and let a client into the portal. The card is taken at signup, nothing is charged if you cancel from the Subscription page before day 14, and there is no free tier to fall back on. €8 a month billed annually for one seat, €15 per user for a team.

Card at signup; nothing is charged for 14 days, then billing starts unless you cancel from the Subscription page in your dashboard. Billed annually: €8 a month for one seat, €96 for the year, or €15 per user for a team. Full pricing.

Sources and trademarks
Hubstaff is a trademark of its respective owner. TimerOS is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Netsoft Holdings, LLC or Hubstaff. Every claim above was checked on 12 August 2026 against these pages and may have changed since: Data transfer compliance, Privacy policy, Trust centre / sub-processors, Pricing, Disabling screenshots. Prices are quoted in the currency each vendor publishes and are not converted. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.