QuickBooks Time Pricing Explained (2026): Premium, Elite, and the Base Fee

This post explains the QuickBooks Time pricing model as it appears on the QuickBooks Time pricing page, read on September 8, 2026. The table below carries the verified numbers, so the prose covers how the bill is built and what to confirm on the demo. Our QuickBooks Time vs Clox page has the short side-by-side; this is the longer read on the bill.

01

What the price includes

Both plans follow the same shape: a flat monthly base fee plus a per user monthly rate for every person who tracks time. Elite has a higher base and a higher per user rate than Premium. Per our comparison page, verified August 9, 2026, the base includes one admin.

Premium's list on the pricing page includes the Workforce app, payroll and invoicing, time off, alerts, photo attachments, a time kiosk, and support. That is the basic job of a time clock, with the hours going into QuickBooks Online.

Elite adds mileage tracking, project tracking, project estimates versus actuals, an activity feed, and timesheet signatures. Geofencing is also an Elite feature, per Intuit's help article Use geofencing in QuickBooks Time, read on September 8, 2026. Project tracking and geofencing are the two features a field crew usually asks about first, and both are on Elite, so price Elite if you need either one.

The page shows a 30-day free trial and a "save 50 percent for 3 months" introductory offer. The discount is temporary, and the number to budget is the full rate in the table above.

02

The QuickBooks Online requirement

A QuickBooks Online account is required. That means the QuickBooks Time bill is added to a QuickBooks Online subscription you either already pay for or need to start. If you already run the company on QuickBooks Online, the base plus seats is the true added cost. If you don't, you're buying two products to get one time clock, and the table above only covers the time plans.

Our post on QuickBooks time tracking for field crews covers what the connection does once it's set up; this post is only about the bill.

03

What costs extra

The first extra is Elite itself. Geofencing, project tracking, estimates versus actuals, mileage, the activity feed, and timesheet signatures are Elite features, so a Premium subscriber who wants any of them pays the Elite base and the Elite per user rate. Ask whether that applies to the whole crew or whether seats can be mixed.

The second is the end of the introductory offer. The 50 percent discount runs for 3 months; after that the full rate applies, so ask for the month 4 total at your headcount in writing. The third is the QuickBooks Online subscription described above. Fourth, the base includes one admin, so ask what another admin costs.

What Elite geofencing does, per Intuit

Geofences attach to a job or customer. Intuit's help article says "Notifications appear on a team member's phone when they enter or leave a geofence." It also says "A team member can choose to clock in and out as normal and disregard the geofence notification." On size: "The default and minimum radius size is 100 meters and can go up to 1000 meters", and team members only get notifications for jobs they're assigned to.

Intuit's GPS tracking FAQ, read September 8, 2026, describes geofencing as reminders to clock in when workers arrive and out when they leave. It says GPS points are gathered while clocked in and not on breaks, and that an admin can set "require location to track time" per employee.

In plain terms, QuickBooks Time geofencing is a reminder rather than a gate, by Intuit's own description, and GPS runs while a worker is clocked in. A crew that wants off-site punches stopped is buying a different behavior.

04

Questions to ask on the demo

1. Which plan includes geofencing today, and is it only on Elite?
2. When a worker is outside the geofence, does the app stop the punch or send a notification the worker can disregard?
3. Is GPS collected the whole time a worker is clocked in, and for which employees?
4. What is the full monthly total at our headcount after the 3-month introductory discount ends?
5. How many admins does the base fee include, and what does another admin or an approving manager cost?
6. Which QuickBooks Online plan do we need, and does the time subscription bill on the same invoice?

05

When QuickBooks Time is the right choice

QuickBooks Time is the right choice for a company that already lives in QuickBooks Online payroll, wants a native connection built by the same vendor, and doesn't need geofences that block a punch. If the crew is fine with GPS while clocked in, the Intuit product keeps time and payroll inside one vendor, and the base plus seats may be worth that. It's also a reasonable pick for a company that wants mileage tracking in the same tool as the time clock, since that's an Elite feature and Clox doesn't track mileage.

It's a weaker fit for a crew that isn't on QuickBooks Online at all, because the required subscription is a second bill. It's also a weaker fit for a crew whose main problem is off-site clock-ins, because the geofence notifies and the worker can disregard it. Our guide to QuickBooks Time alternatives for contractors goes deeper on that decision.

06

How Clox compares

Clox has one plan. It's $29 a month for the first 3 users and $6 per user per month after that, so a 6-person crew is $47 a month and a 10-person crew is $71. Annual billing is $240 a year for the first 3 users and $60 per user per year after that, about 20 percent off. There's no introductory rate that expires, no second plan to step up to, and no separate subscription required to use it.

Geofencing, project and task costing, the PIN kiosk with an optional photo, schedules, time off, overtime rules, and every export are included. The pricing page lists everything, and the time clock app cost post shows the math across vendors.

The geofencing behavior is the clearest difference for a field crew. Each worksite in Clox has a GPS coordinate and a radius; the default radius is 200 meters, and the docs say to start generous and tighten later. You turn geofencing on per employee. When a geofenced worker tries to clock in outside every worksite assigned to them, Clox blocks the punch and tells them to get on site. Location is read only at the moment of the punch; Clox never tracks anyone between punches and has no live map.

A geofence is a deterrent, since the location comes from the worker's phone. What Clox adds on top is record integrity: every punch is signed and hash-chained, and anyone can verify a record at getclox.com/verify. That proves the record hasn't changed since capture, and it does not prove the GPS reading was true.

On the QuickBooks side, Clox doesn't require a QuickBooks Online subscription. It exports a CSV that QuickBooks Online imports, and there's an optional live sync (the in-app Push to QuickBooks connection). QuickBooks Desktop gets an IIF file. If payroll isn't in QuickBooks, the same export menu produces CSV files for ADP RUN, ADP Workforce Now, Paychex Flex, and Gusto, plus a universal payroll summary; the export payroll docs show the formats.

Intuit's connection is native, so if the fewest steps into QuickBooks Online payroll is the whole decision, QuickBooks Time is the closer fit. Clox bills month to month, with a 14-day trial that needs no card, a 30-day money-back guarantee on the first paid subscription, no sales call, and no onboarding fee.

07

FAQ

The Clox trial runs 14 days with no credit card, and a 30-day money-back guarantee covers the first paid subscription. Start a free trial, add your jobs and crew, and run one payroll week through the QuickBooks Online import before you decide.