Time Doctor Alternative Guide: Finding Your Best Software Solution

Lucija Bakić

January 12, 2024

A screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative software, depicting a task screen with a feed and time tracking tab, as well as fields for progress status, boards and assignees.

Are you looking to switch to a Time Doctor alternative?

As a specialized time tracking and productivity software, Time Doctor has a lot to offer. But if you’re looking for a more comprehensive tool, or simply a different billable hours tracker, keep reading to learn all about the best currently available options.

Why Look For a Time Doctor Alternative?

Time Doctor is an employee time management and productivity monitoring software. Some of its main features include an integrated timer, offline time tracking, alerts for idleness, screen capturing, and productivity-based insights.

Screenshot of a time tracking software interface showing statuses, users, and their logged work hours with timeline bars for activities.


SOURCE: TIME DOCTOR

Time Doctor has overall positive reviews, with a 4.4-star rating on G2 and a 4.6-star rating on Capterra. Despite this, users note some significant downsides, such as:

  • The tool can be disruptive due to the frequency of idle alerts and screenshots
  • Adding onto the above, certain reviewers noted that they felt micromanaged by the tool
  • Some users report time tracking inaccuracies and issues with synchronization across apps
  • Can be prone to performance issues and crashes, which can result in loss of data

Regarding the benefits, project managers generally feel that the tool has helped them manage their employee’s time and efficiency. Other positive reviews mentioned that they enjoy the variety of available integrations.

Top 10 Software Alternatives to Time Doctor

Here’s our list of some of the best currently available Time Doctor alternatives, with key features, benefits, and downsides based on user reviews.

1. Productive – The Best Time Doctor Alternative for Comprehensive Agency Management

Productive is an all-in-one agency management software for agencies of all shapes and sizes. Like Time Doctor, Productive offers time management functionalities, but it integrates this with more robust capabilities for operational support. This includes a sales pipeline, project budgeting and billing, resource planning, financial forecasting, and more.

If I had to choose the main benefit of switching to Productive, it would be having visibility of everything in one place: from sales through resources, projects to delivery, plus the time logging and profitability figures in one place—being able to track the end-to-end lifecycle of a project.

Jason Devoy,
Delivery Director at Joi Pollo

As a comprehensive tool, Productive can standardize your processes, support uniform data for easier project comparisons, and contribute to the reduction of IT overhead by replacing multiple solutions with a single platform. Agencies are mostly aware of these benefits, as survey results from G2 show that buyers prefer to work with fewer vendors (78%) and use a single solution instead of multiple tools (84%).

Now, let’s explore some of Productive’s key benefits as a Time Doctor alternative.

Time Tracking

Productive’s Time Tracking offers various methods of managing your time entries: this includes the standard timer, manual entry, as well as automatic creation through resource bookings. The final method can be suitable for agencies that need to keep track of billable and non-billable hours but also want to streamline repetitive tasks.

Screenshot of a top Time Doctor alternative software, Productive, showing the daily time tracking feature with two task entries, each with a play button for time logging and total time tracked displayed.


Streamline your time management

A user on Capterra has noted a particular downside of Time Doctor:

The user dashboard is nice but takes you out of your work environment; something more integrated into the workflow tools like a retractable side-panel drawer instead of a web URL you have to visit would be better.

Productive resolves this with a desktop widget that you can use to stop and restart your timer easily. Some features for project managers include simple time approvals and timesheet locking after a specified period of time. 

Learn more about the best time tracking practices for agencies:

Project Management

 Productive helps you manage your employees’ activities with streamlined project management capabilities. This includes:

  • The ability to switch between six different project views, including Kanban, Gantt, and List
  • Simple task dependencies, to-dos, and milestones to organize your progress
  • Customizable notifications that are stored in your inbox for easy access
  • Free client access with specific permissions to limit or expand the level of oversight
  • Project templates to maintain standardization and speed up the kickoff phase
Screenshot of a top Time Doctor alternative software, Productive, showing a project management interface with options for 'List view' and 'Board view'. Features tasks categorized under 'Not Started' and 'Done' with tags and user attributions.


Get full visibility into project progress

Additionally, Productive’s Project Management feature also provides detailed insights into productivity. For example, you can compare time estimates with actual time in order to see how efficient your employees are. With Productive’s light-weight CRM, you can also analyze your sales team performance with insights into each representative, reasons for lost deals, and more. 

Resource Planning

Productive’s Resource Planning takes employee and project insights to another level. By managing your team’s billable and non-billable hours, you can get utilization rate reports that show you which of your employees are being overloaded or underutilized. Productive also enables utilization forecasting, so you can support your business strategy by viewing which of your services are in high demand.

Screenshot of a top Time Doctor alternative software, Productive, showcasing a department-wise breakdown of billable and worked hours with percentage rates that show utilization.


Balance your team workloads

A core feature is the responsive resource plan, which makes viewing your agency capacity and allocating team members simple. To give you the full picture of your resources, Productive includes time off management — employees can request leave, and their status is depicted in your scheduling. You can also view overall absences with Productive’s time off reports.

Budgeting

Productive’s Budgeting feature combines three main capabilities in one:

  • Project accounting: Build your project budgets, whether fixed-price, hourly, retainer, or hybrid. Set up automatic warnings according to the percentage of billable time spent. Thanks to resource scheduling, you can also forecast your budget burn, profit margins, and revenue to enable informed decision-making.
  • Billing: Create brand-friendly invoices, attach your timesheets, and send them to clients. Productive provides insights into unpaid invoices and has automatic client notifications to streamline accounts receivable. Integrations with popular accounting tools such as QuickBooks and Xero provide workflow continuity.
  • Purchase Orders: Manage your external costs by sending orders to suppliers and tracking payments and delivery dates from one platform. Purchase orders help you get more accurate insight into your agency’s finances.
Screenshot of a top Time Doctor alternative software, Productive, displaying a new budgets insights graph with options to group data, showing visual representations of revenue and margin percentages without specifying company details.


Get full control over your agency’s budgets

Reporting

Productive’s Reporting uses data across all platform activities, including resourcing, budgeting, sales, time tracking, and more, in order to deliver real-time reports. Use custom fields to add specific parameters, turn reports into visualizations, organize them into a single dashboard, or have them scheduled to be sent to email. 

I’m probably saving 2 hours each week pulling the same capacity report. It used to be that I had to manually pull numbers from our intranet, copying and pasting them into a spreadsheet, and then reformatting all of the numbers. Now I just go to reports and my numbers are waiting for me!

Amy Nichols
Director of Operations AT Seven2

Additional features: Sales, Docs, Automations.

Integrations include: Xero, QuickBooks, HubSpot, Breathe, Zapier, Slack, Jira, and more.

Pricing

  • Plans start with the Essential plan at $9 per user per month, which includes essential features such as budgeting, project & task management, docs, time tracking, expense management, reporting, and time off management.
  • The Professional plan includes custom fields, recurring budgets, advanced reports, billable time approvals, and many more for $24 per user per month.
  • The Ultimate plan has everything that the Essential plan and Professional plan offer, along with the HubSpot integration, advanced forecasting, advanced custom fields, overhead calculations, and more for $32 per user per month.

Productive offers a 14-day free trial, so you can decide if it’s the right Time Doctor alternative for your agency.

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2. Hubstaff – A Popular Tool for Various Industries

Hubstaff helps remote and external teams track time and manage their productivity. The tool supports a variety of industries, including manufacturing, health care, real estate, and professional services agencies.

Key features:

  • Timesheet management
  • Automatic screenshots
  • Employee scheduling
  • Client invoicing 
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative software, depicting a team member activity dashboard with names, recent work focus, online status indicators, and activity level percentages for a seven-day span.


SOURCE: HUBSTAFF

Although users generally leave positive reviews for Hubstaff, there are some notable employee complaints. This includes the screenshots being too frequent and the productivity tracking requiring an unrealistic amount of activity.

As a Time Doctor alternative, Hubstaff can be a suitable option for agencies that are looking for more customizations when it comes to comprehensiveness, as it offers more pricing tiers. However, as its main features are team and time management, it can’t provide a holistic view of agency operations like all-in-one PSA software.

3. TimeCamp – A Good Time Doctor Alternative for Remote Teams

TimeCamp is a time tracker and productivity-based software for agencies with remote teams. The tool also provides project progress management with reporting and employee attendance features.

Key features:

  • Automatic time tracker
  • Productivity reports
  • Budget planning and billing
  • Expense tracking and management
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative displaying individual productivity metrics, including average daily work duration, total time worked, span between first and last time entry, ratio of productive to working days, and vacation hours taken.


SOURCE: timecamp

TimeCamp can be a suitable alternative for smaller agencies and startups, as it offers a free plan for unlimited users and projects. Users frequently comment that they find TimeCamp easy to use, as it “is really made specifically for time tracking” (Source: Capterra). The tool also offers some basic budgeting features, but for more robust financial oversight, consider a more comprehensive alternative.

TimeCamp is also a Harvest time tracking alternative, so you can head over to that article to learn more.

4. DeskTime – An Efficient Alternative for Productivity Tracking

DeskTime is a time tracker with additional features for a robust workforce planning strategy that supports teams in delivering high-performance results.

Key features:

  • Project tracking
  • Performance evaluation
  • Absence calendar
  • Integrations & API
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative displaying an overview of project analytics for a month. It includes total project time, the number of projects, costs, productivity percentage, and a pie chart distribution of different project categories.


SOURCE: DESKTIME

DeskTime has all of the essential features for simplified management of time entries. Some users have noted that certain capabilities are a bit unintuitive and rigid in their implementation. Another review mentioned that it would be good if DeskTime had basic task management functionalities to better integrate their workflows. Keep this in mind when considering it as your ideal alternative.

You can also check out our guide to the best agency management system for more comprehensive solutions.

5. Clockify – A Cost-Effective Solution for Basic Timekeeping

Clockify is a time tracker and team management software that helps companies across all industries simplify their workflow and improve productivity.

Key features:

Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative showing a daily activity log from a productivity tracking application, listing various work tasks along with their associated categories, time spent, and schedule slots for a single workday.


SOURCE: Clockify

Users frequently comment that Clockify is an easy-to-use software for smaller and growing agencies. When it comes to the downsides, multiple reviews have mentioned issues with Clockify’s reporting, especially when it comes to interpreting the data. Other than this, it can be a good Time Doctor alternative for users looking for similar features from a different vendor.

6. Toggl – A Time Tracking Tool With an Intuitive Interface

Toggl Track is a time tracking tool for remote employees and internal teams that is frequently praised for its user-friendly interface.

Key features:

  • Time tracking
  • Budgeting and billable rates
  • Project dashboards
  • Billing and payroll
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative, depicting a weekly time tracking report with bar charts for each day, a pie chart showing the distribution of billable and non-billable hours, and a detailed list of projects with corresponding times and percentages.


SOURCE: TOGGL

Toggl Track is a streamlined tool that can be a good fit for agencies that are looking to manage their employees’ daily activities without surveillance features. Toggl also offers project planning and hiring tools, making it an interesting solution for those who want to scale their IT support without working with multiple vendors. However, you might also want to consider software that integrates these features into one platform — for example, an end-to-end project management tool like Productive.

7. QuickBooks – A Fine Option for Small Business Accounting

QuickBooks is a project accounting tool for bookkeepers and small businesses. It offers features that help agencies support their cash flow management and invoicing.

Key features:

  • Expense tracking
  • Customizable invoicing
  • Third-party integrations
  • Time tracking with QuickBooks Time
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative, depicting a financial dashboard with reports section, showing net income, income, and expenses in euros, a line graph tracking profit and loss over time, and a menu of recommended financial reports for company snapshot and balance sheet.

SOURCE: Quickbooks

QuickBooks can be a good Time Doctor alternative for users who are mainly looking for financial management features. However, remember that the employee time tracking module, QuickBooks Time, is a separate solution that can be synced with QuickBooks Online and is included in certain plans. For a simpler alternative, consider an integrated software solution (we also have a QuickBooks vs Netsuite comparison you can check out).

8. ActivTrak – An Advanced Tool for Employee Monitoring and Analytics

ActivTrak is a workforce analytics tool that provides insights into employee behavior, productivity goals, and user activities.

Key features:

  • Personal insights dashboard
  • Workforce capacity planning
  • Website usage insights
  • Integrations with Outlook and Google Calendar
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative, depicting a 'Focus for the Selected Team(s)' analytics panel. It shows a 'Time Breakdown' bar chart with segments of 50%, 31%, and 19% in different colors, alongside a metric indicating an '11.4' average session length in minutes.


SOURCE: activtrak

ActivTrak can be a suitable Time Doctor alternative for agencies that want to increase their levels of employee monitoring, as it has robust activity-tracking features. However, some users reported issues with customer service and software performance. Other tools might offer a better balance of project management, time tracking, and team collaboration, but ActivTrak can be a good specialized option.

9. TMetric – A Versatile Time Tracking Solution for Agencies

TMetric is a time tracking and productivity app for businesses of various sizes, with a wide range of features such as billable hours tracking and budgeting.

Key features:

  • Expense tracking
  • Customizable invoicing
  • Third-party integrations
  • Time tracking with QuickBooks Time
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative, depicting an interface with colorful bar graphs showing computer usage, applications, and documents over a timeline from 6 AM to 6 PM.


SOURCE: tmetric

TMetric is a versatile solution with various features for project management, and it can be a good choice for users who want to expand the capabilities offered by their software. However, while more comprehensive than more focused time tracking tools, TMetric still lacks some advanced features offered by all-in-one software.

10. ManicTime – A Good On-Premise Alternative for Time Entries

ManicTime is a time and activity tracking software for business owners who are looking for detailed reports on employee productivity.

Key features:

  • Expense tracking
  • Customizable invoicing
  • Third-party integrations
  • Time tracking with QuickBooks Time
Screenshot of a Time Doctor alternative, depicting an interface with colorful bar graphs showing computer usage, applications, and documents over a timeline from 6 AM to 6 PM.


SOURCE: manictime

Since ManicTime offers both on-premise installation and a subscription service, it can be a good choice for agencies that are handling sensitive data. However, consider that on-premise installations are usually lengthier and require more technical knowledge. Additionally, some reviews reported that the user interface is somewhat outdated compared to similar tools.

Takeaway: Finding the Best Time Doctor Alternative

In this article, we’ve reviewed various popular tools for time tracking and productivity management. Each software solution can be a good choice to support your operations, depending on your specific needs and team composition.

However, for agencies that are looking to grow their operations and support each facet of their daily workflows, an all-in-one solution is usually the best choice. Even if you might not require robust features currently, investing in the right tool now can save you a lot of time and effort down the line.

If you’re interested in software that provides deeper insights and robust agency management, consider booking a demo with Productive.

FAQ

What is a Time Doctor alternative with screenshots?

A good alternative to Time Doctor is Productive, an all-in-one tool for agency management. Productive combines time tracking and productivity management with a wide range of features, including project accounting and resource planning. For a more specialized solution with employee surveillance and screenshotting features, you can consider tools like Hubstaff and Desktime.

Can I use Time Doctor for free?

Like Productive, Time Doctor offers a 14-day free trial, but doesn’t have a full free-to-use version. Certain time tracking tools such as Clockify offer a free version of their software, though with basic features or a limited number of users. 

What is the difference between RescueTime and Time Doctor?

RescueTime and Time Doctor share some core features, such as employee productivity management and automatic tracking. However, Time Doctor has more transparent pricing options, which can significantly simplify your decision-making process. Neither of the two tools offers the extensive project management and reporting capabilities of all-in-one software like Productive.

Is Time Doctor legit?

Time Doctor is a legitimate tool for time tracking and employee management. The tool has numerous reviews on reputable sites such as Capterra and G2 that show how users experience it.

Can Time Doctor see your screen?

Time Doctor can take screenshots of users’ screens at set intervals, which is part of its functionality for monitoring work activity levels. The feature can be configured for frequency as well as specific permissions rules.

Does Time Doctor take random screenshots?

The screenshotting and video recording features in Time Doctor are optional. They can also be configured for frequency and permissions.

How does Time Doctor track you?

Time Doctor can track users with keyboard and mouse activity, as well as screenshotting and screen recording features.

Can I use Time Doctor on my phone?

Yes, Time Doctor has a mobile app. However, users have reported issues with time not syncing between the desktop, mobile, and web browser versions of the tool, so keep this in mind when considering it as your ideal tracker.

What companies use Time Doctor?

Time Doctor can be used by various service providers such as development companies, consultancies, marketing agencies, and more. It’s a suitable option for agencies of all sizes, though some users do report that the pricing could be lower considering the features that are offered, especially for smaller companies.

Does Time Doctor need Internet?

According to Time Doctor’s website, the tool requires an internet connection to sync data to its servers. However, if the internet connection goes down, time is tracked and stored in the local cache and then synced once the connection is re-established.

What are the benefits of Time Doctor?

The benefits of Time Doctor include enhanced productivity through time tracking, employee monitoring capabilities like screenshot and activity tracking, and data analytics for managing team performance.

Can Time Doctor access my webcam?

Time Doctor’s monitoring capabilities include screen capture, keystroke, and mouse movement monitoring. 

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Lucija Bakić

Content Specialist

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