The Best Time Tracking Apps With Job Costing for Contractors (2026)

This page is an honest comparison of six time tracking apps with job costing for contractors: Clox, busybusy, Workyard, ClockShark, QuickBooks Time, and Clockify. Every price and feature comes from the vendor's own pricing page, with the date we read it. Clox is ours, and it is held to the same standard as the other five.

01

How we compared

We checked the usual things for a field crew: an offline punch, geofenced sites, a kiosk, payroll exports, the price for 6 users, and the contract term. Then we looked harder at job costing, because on a pricing page it can mean anything from a project dropdown to a labor cost report.

02

What a tool needs to deliver labor cost per job

The number an owner wants is labor cost per job compared with the bid. Four things have to be true of the time clock for that number to be real; the method is in Job Costing for Small Contractors.

1. A job on every punch. Hours get tagged when the worker clocks in or switches jobs during the day, rather than allocated from a weekly total on Friday.
2. Task or cost code granularity. A job total tells you the job ran over. A task total tells you it was the trim and not the rough-in. The smallest code set that works is in Cost Codes for Small Crews.
3. Burdened rates. Wages alone understate the cost; payroll taxes, workers' comp, and benefits ride on every hour. The multiplier is worked out in How to Calculate Labor Burden.
4. A report a bookkeeper can reconcile. Hours by job by worker, with regular and overtime split, in a file that ties to payroll.

03

Worked example: labor cost per job

Take a $28 an hour worker, a 1.25 burden multiplier, and 46 hours tagged to one job. The bid line is an example.

If some of those 46 hours are overtime, the premium adds on top, and the tool needs to carry that split. The full method is in How to Calculate Labor Cost per Job, and pricing the next bid from it is in bidding from your own labor data.

04

Price and features for 6 users

Monthly prices for 6 users on the tier named, at annual rates where both are published. Read dates: September 8, 2026 for Clox, Workyard, and QuickBooks Time; August 9, 2026 for busybusy and ClockShark; July 28, 2026 for Clockify.

05

Clox

In Clox every hour is tagged to a job and a task, with clients and categories above them, and labor cost per job is a number on the Reports page. A worker picks the job at clock-in and switches jobs mid-shift without clocking out, so rough-in and trim on the same house land on two tasks. Multi-rate pay per job means a worker paid a different rate on one job carries that rate into the report. Setup is in Projects, clients, and tasks.

Reports export as CSV, Excel, or PDF with columns for Regular, Overtime, Double-time, and pay amounts, so the bookkeeper's file and the job report come from the same records. Clox reports hours and pay amounts; you apply the burden multiplier in the spreadsheet. The price is $29 a month for the first 3 users, then $6 per user, so 6 users is $47, month to month with no contract.

06

busybusy

busybusy's free plan is for unlimited users, and per its pricing page, verified August 9, 2026, it includes GPS time tracking, job costing, equipment tracking, overtime, and offline mode. That's the one free plan in this list with job costing on it, and equipment hours next to labor hours matter for a dirt or concrete outfit. Pro is $9.99 per user per month annually plus a $40 admin license and adds GPS breadcrumbing, scheduling, a kiosk, and time off, so 6 users is $99.94.

Ask how far job costing goes on the free plan: task or cost code level, burdened rates, and the export your bookkeeper gets, none of which the page states. Our busybusy comparison has more.

07

Workyard

Workyard's pricing page, read September 8, 2026, says "Plans start at $6 per user / month, billed annually", with monthly billing available and per-tier prices unpublished. Starter lists GPS tracking, a time clock, break and overtime compliance, and payroll integrations; Pro adds scheduling, task management, geofencing, unlimited projects, project tracking, labor cost reporting, and accounting integrations.

Labor cost reporting is a Pro feature, and the Pro price is the one to ask for; 6 times $6, or $36 a month, is a floor for Starter, which doesn't list it. Our Workyard comparison has the questions for the quote.

08

ClockShark

On ClockShark's pricing page, verified August 9, 2026, Standard is $40 a month plus $9 per user and Pro is $60 plus $11 per user, which puts 6 users at $94 or $126. The Standard feature list is time and attendance, GPS, jobs and tasks, drag and drop scheduling, manager roles and approvals, and integrations. The Pro list adds paid time off, multi-department and multi-office controls, advanced job costing, and shift wrap-up and compliance forms. There's a 14-day trial, and the page states: "Contract term of three (3) years applies to all pricing plans."

So jobs and tasks come with Standard at $94, and advanced job costing is $126 a month for 6 users, on a three-year term either way. Ask what "advanced" adds, whether cost codes sit under jobs, and which payroll file you get, since the page names integrations without formats. Our ClockShark comparison covers the rest.

09

QuickBooks Time

Per QuickBooks Time's pricing page, read September 8, 2026, Time Premium runs $20 a month base plus $10 per user and Time Elite runs $40 plus $12 per user. Six users is $80 or $112, on top of the QuickBooks Online account you need. Project tracking and estimates vs actuals are Elite features, along with geofencing and timesheet signatures. There's a 30-day trial.

Estimates vs actuals is the comparison this page is about, so a company already inside QuickBooks Online should price Elite at $112 and ask whether the report carries burdened cost or wages only. Our QuickBooks Time comparison has the detail.

10

Clockify

Clockify's free plan, per its pricing page verified July 28, 2026, covers 5 users or fewer with basic tracking and no GPS. Basic, at $3.99 per seat annually ($4.99 monthly), adds a kiosk. Standard is $5.49 ($6.99) and adds time off, approvals, overtime, and QuickBooks. Pro is $7.99 ($9.99) and adds scheduling, GPS tracking, a kiosk photo, budgets, and expenses. For 6 users, Pro is about $48 a month at the annual rate.

Clockify is built for office and billable-hours teams, and its budgets are the job costing equivalent for that world. The pricing page we read doesn't list geofencing on any tier. Where it fits is in the cheapest time clock apps for small crews.

11

How to choose for a contractor

• A job on every punch. Clox and busybusy's free plan put the job on the punch; ClockShark lists jobs and tasks on Standard; Workyard and QuickBooks Time put project tracking on a higher tier.
• Tasks or cost codes. Ask whether tasks sit under jobs and show up in the report. Clox does; ClockShark lists tasks without saying how they report.
• Burden. No page in this list states that it applies a burden multiplier, so plan to apply yours to the exported hours.
• The bookkeeper's file. Clox lists its payroll formats and QuickBooks Time requires QuickBooks Online; the other pages don't name formats.

12

FAQ

Clox's trial is 14 days, no card required, and there is a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first paid subscription. Start a free trial, set up two jobs with tasks, and compare one week of real hours against the bid.