The 9 Best Online Time Clocks: Ranked and Rated

ByEric Czerwonka Last Updated

If you’re currently using paper timesheets, spreadsheets, or mechanical punch clocks to track employee time, upgrading to an online time clock can significantly reduce the amount of time you have to spend getting your data ready for payroll.

But with hundreds of time clock apps available on the market, how do you choose which one is best for your team? To help you put together a shortlist quickly, we’ve scoured the market to find the nine best online time clocks based on their features, pricing, and customer reviews.

1. Buddy Punch

Buddy Punch is an online time clock that you and your team can use from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. It comes with advanced features that will help you track time accurately and prevent time theft and buddy punching. Plus, Buddy Punch makes it easy to track paid time off and run payroll. Let’s take a look at some of its most unique features.

Geofencing

With geofencing, you can set up a radius around a location from which your employees are required to punch in and out. 

If an employee attempts to submit a punch outside of that geofence (i.e., from a parking lot or from their home), they will be presented with an error message.

This feature is especially useful for businesses where employees are out in the field, such as construction.

GPS tracking

With GPS tracking, every time an employee punches in or out, you’ll be able to review (and verify) their GPS coordinates.

This feature is best suited for businesses where employees are constantly on the move (i.e., salesmen who arrive at 10+ locations throughout the day).

In contrast, the aforementioned geofencing feature is best suited for businesses where employees typically punch in from the same location(s).

Photos on punch

With Photos on Punch, employees take a photo of themselves each time they submit a punch. You can then review those photos and verify that employees didn’t have a coworker punch in for them.

Payroll

You can use Buddy Punch as your one-stop payroll provider and processing system. This means you don’t need to deal with multiple software to handle time tracking and payroll.

Buddy Punch will handle all local, state, and federal taxes. You can add additional earnings (such as bonuses or a per diem) to someone’s time card. You can pay your employees through direct deposit or by check. Plus, your team can log into their account and update their bank info and tax withholdings.

But if you have a payroll provider you want to stick with, keep reading to learn about how you can use both Buddy Punch and your current system.

Payroll integrations

Instead of having to manually transfer your timesheet data to your payroll provider, you can use one of Buddy Punch’s integrations — available for platforms like QuickBooks, ADP, Gusto, and many more — to automatically transfer that data to your payroll provider!

Time off tracking

Buddy Punch offers various features that help with time off tracking.

For example, employees can request time off (paid or unpaid) within the app, and it is then sent to the business owner or manager for approval. The manager can see the total hours someone is requesting off, along with the time off dates.

Employees and admins can also see exactly how much time off they’ve accrued, used, and have available.

Track hours by jobs, projects, or locations

If you have employees who work on different client projects — or who work at different locations of your business — you can run reports showing exactly how many hours were spent on your different projects or at your different locations. This makes it easy to invoice customers and calculate labor costs per location.

Additional features

This is just a small number of the features Buddy Punch offers to make tracking time and running payroll easier than ever. If you want to learn more or see the platform in action, you can read about all of its features, take an interactive tour of the product, request a personalized demo, or start a free trial — no credit card required!

2. OnTheClock

OnTheClock is a great option if you need something focused on just being a time clock. It has multiple different options for clocking in, as well as multiple different features that make controlling when and how exactly your employees are clocking in much easier. 

This all makes employee responsibility much easier, and you can eliminate time theft quickly and easily with OnTheClock. 

Key features

OnTheClock has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 543 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“What I appreciate the most is the ability to be able to break down the time tracking by projects, and then have a big picture of the time spent on each project. Furthermore, at the end of each week, a performance analysis is generated which allows me to keep track of my work pace and understand if I have slowed down.”

3. Jibble

Jibble is a great free option for an online time clock, as many of its features are totally free forever. Jibble also has a high rating on Capterra, making it absolutely something you can rely on. Jibble has a lot of features in general, but some highlights are its offline time tracking and clocking permissions that give you total control of your time clock needs.  

Key features

Jibble has an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 1129 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“Jibble is a fantastic app for time tracking and attendance management. It’s user-friendly with a clean interface that makes tracking work hours effortless. The integration with payroll systems and real-time reporting features is super helpful for teams and managers.”

4. Time Clock Wizard

Time Clock Wizard is a great general time clock option. It includes multiple communication and scheduling tools that make it a strong option for any kind of business. 

One great part of it is the fact that employees can add notes, images, and files to tasks as well as the amount of time spent on it so you can know exactly what your employees are doing when they’re at work — and even where they did that work with the clock points feature. 

Key features

Time Clock Wizard has an overall rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 89 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“Using Time Clock Wizard allows my staff an easy way to sign in and out from a client’s home, allowing them to put notes in for what they helped with that day. I can look at the GPS to make sure where they are if necessary. Customer service is fantastic: very knowledgeable and courteous. And the application is very simple to use!”

5. Clockify

Clockify is a great option for remote workers with features largely targeted towards tracking and increasing productivity. It has multiple activity timers that your employees have control over so they can report their progress accurately. 

There are also scheduling reports and employee activity reports included so you can make sure that employees are being honest with their time and keep them accountable. 

Key features

Clockify has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 9075 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“It’s easy to use and has an interactive UI, a wide range of integrations, and multi-platform availability. One extraordinary thing that I like about Clockify is its unlimited users in the free plan, setting it as a highly flexible tool for both personal and business use.”

6. Homebase

Homebase is a great option if you need to increase communication between you and your employees. Its communication app has everything that you and your employees would need to keep each other updated on their scheduling needs and conflicts. It even includes easy background checks you can use when hiring new employees.  

Key features

Homebase has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 1051 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“I really appreciated the user-friendly interface of Homebase. It made scheduling and time tracking incredibly easy and efficient. The ability to communicate with my team directly through the app was also a huge plus, as it streamlined our workflow and reduced the need for multiple communication tools.”

7. Connecteam

Connecteam is a great option for team communication, but it’s also great for businesses that need to keep their information in one place consistently. 

This is made possible through Connecteam’s unique knowledge base feature that allows you to keep important documents in one place, so if someone needs to learn something important or if you need to see an employee’s information, it’s all in one place for you to access. 

Connecteam also has multiple survey options, which can be useful for communication as well. 

Key features

Connecteam has an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 341 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“If you are looking for a platform that can be your one-stop shop for your employees, Connecteam seems to be the best application, from easy chats and updates to scheduling and time clock, plus knowledge bases and courses. The platform has been easy to pick up by all staff, young and old.”

8. Lathem PayClock Online

Lathem PayClock Online is a great simple option for time clocks, as it has multiple different clocking-in options as well as GPS tracking to make sure you have exactly what you need. 

Other unique features make the time clock even better — such as the real-time wage management feature that shows you how much you’re going to spend on labor, and the reporting feature so you can keep up with everything all at once. 

Key features

Lathem PayClock Online has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 98 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“This was the first and only program that I found that was able to accommodate multiple departments with varying payroll rules, e.g., part-time, full-time, PRN, shift differentials, salaried versus nonsalaried, etc.”

9. TimeDoctor

TimeDoctor is a great option if you need to track the time your employees are spending and keep detailed track of the work that is being done. TimeDoctor’s workforce, productivity, and operations analytics provide exact and involved details of how the work is getting done and how productive each employee is towards each project. 

If you need this kind of precision, TimeDoctor is a great option for just that. 

Key features

TimeDoctor has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars on Capterra across 530 reviews. Here’s what customers like about the platform:

“It is easy to use. It allows us to keep track of the time in each software development task that we need to take into account. It gives us data to be able to optimize the tasks. It has a very good development in this sense and that is why we love using it.”

How to choose the right online time clock for your business

There are four factors you should consider when choosing an online time clock for employees.

First, make sure that the app has all of the features you need to track time easily and keep employees accountable. You should have the option to restrict punches to a certain location, require employees to take a picture of themselves when punching in and out, and so on.

Second, make sure that the app with help you save time on payroll. For example, you should be able to download an Excel report with all the punch you need — or to integrate with your payroll provider directly. There should also be features related to time off tracking and overtime.

Third, if you reach out to customer support, you should receive a quick and helpful response from a knowledgeable representative. While this may seem like a given, there are several options on the market that make you wait for days to get a response. Also, the person replying to your email may not be able to answer your question.

Finally, you’ll want to make sure to choose something that’s easy to use and intuitive. Many companies have employees who aren’t incredibly tech-savvy, so make sure to save yourself the headache of having to train people on the time clock over and over again by choosing an app employees will never struggle to use.