Employee monitoring
Tockly vs Hubstaff
Hubstaff is the best-known monitoring-first time tracker: screenshots, keyboard and mouse activity rates, app and URL tracking, GPS, and payroll, sold per seat with a heavy add-on model.
Tockly is work tracking that reads AI activity: every minute scored as hands-on, agent running, steering, or idle. Here is how the two compare, line by line.
At a glance
| Capability | Tockly | Hubstaff |
|---|---|---|
| Classifies human vs AI-agent minutes | Every minute: hands-on, agent running, steering, or idle | No |
| Credits time supervising an AI agent | Reads agent activity directly and credits it as work | Low input reads as idle; can be flagged as unusual |
| Screenshots | Every 10 minutes, tied to the minute they capture | Capped per tier; stored 6 months at most |
| Activity tracking | Input event counts only, never keys or content | Keyboard and mouse rates drive productivity scores |
| App and site usage | Active app and window titles | Gated above Free, capped per tier |
| Invoicing from tracked time | Free for up to 3 clients, unlimited on Pro | Yes |
| Free tier | Full capture, unlimited activity history | 1 user, 100 screenshots/mo |
| Entry price (annual) | Free. Pro $12, Team $16 per seat/mo | $4.99/seat/mo, 2-seat minimum |
Hubstaff details verified against its public pricing and documentation as of July 2026. Products change; check Hubstaff's site for current numbers.
The minute Hubstaff can't see
Hubstaff's entire productivity model is built on keyboard and mouse movement as the proxy for work. When someone kicks off a coding agent and watches it run, their activity score collapses, and Hubstaff's unusual-activity detection can even flag the quiet stretch as suspicious. Its "AI tool usage" reporting only sees that an AI app was open. It cannot say whether the human or the agent was doing the work in any given minute.
Agent minutes score as nothing happening.
Hands-on, steering, and agent time, each credited for what it is.
Pricing
Tockly
- Personal: free. Full capture, invoicing for 3 clients, screenshots from this month and last.
- Pro: $12/seat/mo annual ($15 monthly). Unlimited clients, 12 months of screenshot receipts.
- Team: $16/seat/mo annual ($20 monthly). Org rollups, roles, per-person AI adoption.
Hubstaff
- Starter: $4.99/seat/mo annual ($7 monthly). 2-seat minimum, 500 screenshots per seat.
- Grow: $7.50/seat/mo annual ($9 monthly). 1,500 screenshots and app records per seat.
- Team: $10/seat/mo annual ($12 monthly). Unlimited screenshots, payroll, approvals.
- Add-ons stack on Team: Insights $2.50, more screenshots $2.50, GPS $3.33, silent app $2.50. A monitoring-complete seat lands near $18.
Which should you pick?
Pick Hubstaff if you need GPS and geofencing for field teams, built-in payroll across a large org, or a long list of integrations that Tockly does not have yet.
Pick Tockly if your team works with AI tools. Hubstaff scores work as keyboard and mouse movement, so minutes spent supervising an agent read as idle. Tockly reads agent activity directly and credits those minutes as work, labeled by who was driving.
Frequently asked
Does Hubstaff count time supervising an AI agent as work?
No. Hubstaff measures activity as keyboard and mouse movement rates. While an agent runs and you watch it, input drops, so those minutes score as low activity or idle. Its unusual-activity detection is built to flag exactly that pattern. Tockly reads the agent's own activity feed and classifies those minutes as agent running or steering, both credited as work.
What does Hubstaff actually cost per seat?
The advertised entry is $4.99 per seat per month billed annually, with a 2-seat minimum. The sticker understates it: productivity insights, extra screenshots, GPS, and the silent app are each per-seat add-ons, so a monitoring-complete Team seat is realistically about $18 per seat per month. Tockly Team is $16 per seat per month annual with the AI-work split included, not sold as an add-on.
Is Tockly a good Hubstaff alternative for developers?
Yes, that is the exact case it was built for. Developers using Claude Code or similar tools look idle to Hubstaff during their highest-leverage minutes. Tockly scores every minute as hands-on, agent running, steering, or idle, so AI-assisted work shows up as work with a label saying which kind.
More comparisons
See your own human/agent split today.
Install the app, work a normal day, and the record builds itself, minute by minute.