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.
- 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]
- 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.
where each stores by default. Ours: databases, application compute and uploaded files, on every plan. Hubstaff “retains customer data in the United States”. [src]
is where TimerOS tracking runs. Hubstaff’s pricing page lists a “Multi platform timer app”. [src]
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.
app.timeros.ai, and your clients sign in separately at your own branded portal address. [download]- 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]
- 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]
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]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
What it does to the people using itWhat is recorded, and what your team has to agree to.3
app.timeros.ai, and your clients sign in separately at your own branded portal address. [download]What it costsEntry price, and what happens when the trial ends.1
- 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]
- 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
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]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.
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.
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
On its data-transfer page, Hubstaff says:
“Hubstaff retains customer data in the 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.