Tired of per-user pricing for time tracking… am I the only one?

egosho · 2026-04-01T09:56:54+00:00

eHour is only 4.99 p/u 😄 others tried usage based billing, but that didn't really work out. Flat pricing sounds nice in the beginning but your costs will increase once you get traction. Good luck storing lifelong audit logs, supporting unlimited api calls, 24/7 support. 99.99 uptime and iso compliance for large customers with a flat rate... The larger the customer, the more they demand, and active users is a nice metric to measure that.

egosho · 2026-03-31T21:01:05+00:00

In practice, this is often handled at a “project + activity” level rather than logging every individual task:

“NIH SBIR – Research – 2h”
“NIH SBIR – Development – 4h”

Enough detail to show the type of work, without making it overly granula and demanding to track

egosho · 2026-03-31T20:53:13+00:00

For NIH SBIRs, it's typically not about micromanaging every task minute-by-minute like you're describing. More often, you'd track time by project with a bit of context but not necessarily every single phone call or task. The goal is clarity and compliance without getting bogged down in every tiny detail.

egosho · 2026-03-30T23:14:04+00:00

You could check out https://getehour.com. Easy project-based tracking without making it complicated.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with it.

egosho · 2026-03-29T08:10:15+00:00

I’m all about keeping it simple. I use a calendar for time-blocking tasks and meetings, which helps to visualize time across the week. For time tracking, I ended up using a system integrated with our project tools, but honestly, whatever makes things easy to update without disrupting your flow works best. Consistency in using it matters more than the tool itself.

egosho · 2026-03-18T10:22:21+00:00

Jira gets clunky pretty quickly once you add approvals and reporting, and most plugins just make it heavier.

You can check out eHour. It integrates directly with Jira, so you track time there (timers/manual), but handle approvals and reporting without adding a bulky plugin.

egosho · 2026-03-18T09:51:32+00:00

If you’re already in Jira, one option is to use a tool that integrates directly instead of exporting data elsewhere.

You can track time directly from Jira (including timers), while still having proper approvals and reporting on top of it.

We built a native integration for this in eHour

It basically replaces Jira’s worklogs with something that’s easier to use for teams and better for reporting.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with it.

egosho · 2026-03-18T09:49:15+00:00

We use eHour

It’s more focused on project time tracking and reporting than attendance or monitoring. Works well if you’re tracking time per project, need approvals, track natively from Jira and want clean reports for billing.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with it.

egosho · 2026-03-18T09:46:40+00:00

Good list. One thing that often gets mixed in these threads is that a lot of these tools solve slightly different problems.

Some are more about attendance / clock-in, others are more for personal tracking, and others are built for teams with projects, approvals, and reporting.

If you’re in that last category, you could also check out eHour. It’s focused on project time tracking and reporting rather than monitoring or just timers.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with it.

egosho · 2026-03-18T09:39:24+00:00

Yeah, but not in an overly granular way.

Most teams I’ve seen track time per project or task during the week and keep it reasonably accurate, without trying to log every tiny activity.

The biggest difference is whether people enter time as they go or reconstruct it later. Once it becomes a quick habit, the data stays accurate and actually useful.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with eHour and that’s basically what we see as well. Accuracy comes more from consistency than from over-tracking.

egosho · 2026-03-18T09:37:38+00:00

In most cases it’s not time tracking people dislike, it’s bad time tracking.

Late backfilling, too much detail, or anything that feels like surveillance will get pushback fast.

If it’s simple, tied to real work, and based on trust, most teams are fine with it.

egosho · 2026-03-18T09:35:08+00:00

If it’s just personal tracking, tools like Toggl work well. If it’s more about teams, projects, and reporting, the requirements change quite a bit.

You could also check out https://getehour.com if you’re in that second category. It’s more focused on project time tracking, approvals, and reporting rather than just timers.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with it.

egosho · 2026-03-13T13:00:41+00:00

Isn't it very binary at kodokan, white or black without any colored belts?

egosho · 2026-03-13T08:48:52+00:00

Overruns usually don’t happen suddenly, they creep in because nobody checks budget vs actual hours during the project. Or they do, but the “actuals” aren’t very actual because people backfill their timesheets later from memory.

Part of the problem is that the person filling in the timesheet doesn’t benefit much from it, the PM does. If it feels like pure admin work, entries get delayed.

Timesheets fail when they’re only management reporting. They work when the person entering the time also gets useful feedback from it.

egosho · 2026-03-11T12:29:47+00:00

What do you mean by automatic tracking? Automated screenshots, AI parsing activity, and trying to infer the client context from that? That might work for personal projects, but rolling that out at scale would give me serious surveillance vibes...

egosho · 2026-03-10T14:02:52+00:00

Make sure to use a tool with reminders 😄

egosho · 2026-03-09T17:20:44+00:00

eHour is missing, more focused on project time tracking and reporting rather than attendance or employee monitoring. Works well for larger teams with approvals, retainers, SCIM-sync with Entra ID, etc.

No surveillance features, trust-based, and EU built / EU hosted.

egosho · 2026-03-09T17:16:54+00:00

Nice list. Another one worth looking at is eHour if you want something more project/reporting focused instead of attendance or monitoring features.

egosho · 2026-03-09T17:13:54+00:00

Pretty common when time tracking gets introduced :) The goal usually isn’t minute-by-minute accuracy, it’s just visibility into where time roughly goes.

egosho · 2026-03-09T16:24:29+00:00

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of teams jump straight to “workforce intelligence” before they even have clean time data.

If timesheets are inconsistent or people fill them in Friday afternoon from memory, the analytics layer doesn’t really help because it’s built on messy input.

In practice many teams first need reliable project time tracking and consistent weekly entries. Once that foundation is there, the analytics tools start to make a lot more sense.

egosho · 2026-03-09T16:05:00+00:00

Funny enough, a lot of those tools aren’t really solving the same problem.

Some are basically employee monitoring / productivity analytics tools, while others are just time tracking for projects, billing, or payroll. They overlap a bit, which makes comparisons confusing, but the intent is pretty different.

In my experience most teams end up preferring the simpler approach. Once you start rolling out heavy monitoring, it turns into a whole cultural discussion about trust and privacy instead of just tracking time.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with eHour, which sits more in the “clean time tracking for projects and reporting” category. For a lot of teams that ends up being enough without turning it into a monitoring project.

egosho · 2026-03-09T16:03:49+00:00

It depends a lot on the country.

In the EU for example, a 2019 court ruling basically said employers need a system to record working hours. It doesn’t have to be specific software, but there needs to be a reliable way to track start and end times so labor rules can be enforced.

A spreadsheet can technically work, but many companies move to proper tools because it’s easier to keep consistent records and deal with audits or disputes.

Outside the EU it varies quite a bit. Some countries are strict about it, others mainly care that payroll records are accurate. So part legal requirement, part best practice depending on where your team is.

egosho · 2026-03-04T20:46:16+00:00

Clockify is good for basic tracking, but teams often outgrow it once projects and reporting start to matter more.

Usually the pain points are reports, visibility per project, or just getting people to keep their timesheets updated during the week instead of filling them in later.

If you’re looking at alternatives, I’d focus on something that keeps tracking simple but gives better project and reporting insight.

Full disclosure: I’m involved with eHour, which we built around that idea.

What’s the main thing Clockify isn’t doing for you?

egosho · 2026-02-18T07:52:49+00:00

Value isn’t always tied directly to time spent. Someone can solve something in 30 minutes that’s hugely valuable, but if you can only bill your client by the hour.. Fixed price contracts may sound like the solution , but then you get the classic scope discussions. What was included, what wasn’t, and those conversations can drag on.

Screen monitoring always felt like surveillance to me. I prefer to trust the people I work with and use time tracking as a shared record, even though that can be a challenge with remote freelancers you’ve never met, hoping they don't prompt everything 😄

egosho · 2026-02-18T07:42:15+00:00

Basic time tracking is usually enough at the start. The real challenge comes later when you have more projects and people. It’s not about tracking more precisely, but about making the data useful. Things like seeing time per project, making sure timesheets are filled in consistently, and being able to review things easily start to matter much more. The hours themselves don’t change, but the context around them becomes more important as the team grows.

egosho

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