May 18, 2026 · ShiftFlow Editorial Team · Time Tracking · 8 min read

Time Tracking Software Pricing Explained for Philippine Small Businesses

Time tracking software pricing for Philippine SMEs in 2026. Five pricing models compared, real PHP math by team size, and the hidden costs that catch buyers.

There are five ways time tracking software gets priced in 2026, and picking the wrong model can mean paying three to five times more for the same feature set. 99.63% of Philippine businesses are MSMEs employing 5.6 million people (DTI/PSA, 2024 MSME Statistics in Brief), and most of them shop on the headline “starts at $4.99 per user” without checking the base fee, the add-on stack, or the FX risk. Below: the five models, real PHP math for a 15-person team, and the hidden costs that catch buyers.

The five pricing models you will actually encounter

Flat per-seat

One price per worker per month. Every feature included. No base fee, no per-location charge, no add-ons. ShiftFlow at ₱99 per seat is the cleanest example to budget against. 15 staff is ₱1,485. 50 staff is ₱4,950. The math just scales. Annual plans save about 16% (₱1,000 per seat per year). The upside is predictability. The downside is that at very small scale (under 5 staff), a free plan probably covers you for less.

Freemium

Free forever for unlimited users with a real feature set, paid upgrades for specific capabilities. Jibble is the clearest PH example. GPS, kiosk, facial recognition, automated timesheets all live on the free tier. Geofencing past two locations and advanced scheduling sit on Premium at ≈₱228 per seat. Clockify works the same way for project-based work. Genuinely zero cost for small teams. But the free-to-paid jump is sharp, and the upgrade is usually a per-seat charge that scales hard past 10 staff.

Tiered Starter / Pro / Enterprise

Multiple plans at climbing per-seat prices, each unlocking a wider feature set. Hubstaff is the canonical example. Starter at $7 monthly ($5.83 annual, ≈₱399). Grow at $9 monthly ($7.50 annual, ≈₱513). Team at $12 monthly ($10 annual, ≈₱684). Enterprise custom-quoted. Two-seat minimum on paid plans. You can start small, sure. But the feature you actually need almost always lives one tier up from where you started, and every tier jump multiplies the bill by 1.5x to 2x.

Per-location

Charged per work site, not per worker. Homebase is the headline name in retail and F&B. Essentials at $24.95 per location per month (≈₱1,420), with worker count effectively unlimited up to the plan cap. Works fine for a single outlet. Sometimes cheaper than per-seat at one site with a tiny team. Catastrophic for multi-outlet chains. A boba shop going from one outlet to three sees the bill triple overnight even if headcount only grew by 20%.

Modular and quote-based

A base subscription plus per-module charges, often with custom pricing on top. Sprout Solutions is the PH-native version. Payroll Starter from about ₱10,000 a month, with attendance, time, leave, performance, and the other modules priced separately. ZipHR (KAMI Workforce) is the lighter cousin. $30 monthly base plus $1 per user plus ≈$1 per add-on module per user. You pay for what you use, and PH compliance comes built in. The catch is opacity at signup, plus real bill creep once you turn on three or four modules.

What a 15-person Philippine SME actually pays per month

Headline starting prices look comparable. The real monthly bill diverges fast once you add base fees, required add-ons, and the features you actually need (GPS, scheduling, payroll export).

Tool	Pricing model	Plan needed for GPS + scheduling	Monthly bill (PHP)
Jibble	Freemium	Free (with 2-geofence cap)	₱0
ShiftFlow	Flat per-seat	Single plan	₱1,485
Connecteam	Tiered (flat ≤30 users)	Basic	≈₱1,650
Sling	Freemium	Free (scheduling only, no GPS)	₱0 (limited)
Homebase	Per-location	Essentials, 1 outlet	≈₱1,420
Hubstaff	Tiered	Grow (GPS + scheduling)	≈₱7,695
Clockify	Freemium → Tiered	Standard (GPS unlock)	≈₱5,977
Time Doctor	Tiered	Standard (full feature)	≈₱11,970
ZipHR	Modular	Core + Time + Payroll	≈₱4,000
Sprout	Quote-based	Payroll Starter (custom)	≈₱10,000

USD-billed competitor prices converted at ≈₱57/USD. Note that the headline starting price for Hubstaff ($7 monthly Starter) and Clockify ($4.99 Basic) doesn’t include GPS. Clockify’s GPS unlocks at Standard ($6.99/user/mo monthly). Hubstaff field-team features sit at Grow. Both multiply the bill once you actually need them.

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The hidden costs that catch Philippine buyers

1. Base fees. Some tools price as “$X per user” but quietly add a flat monthly base. Buddy Punch’s $5.49 per user comes with a $19 monthly base, which makes the real per-user cost on a 5-staff team $9.29, not $5.49. Workyard’s $6 per user adds a $50 base. Look for ”+$X base” in the fine print before signing.

2. FX volatility on USD-billed tools. Hubstaff, Time Doctor, Clockify, Connecteam, Toggl, and Buddy Punch all bill in USD. The peso has bounced between ₱55 and ₱59 to the dollar over the last 18 months. Budget for the high end. ShiftFlow at ₱99 per seat removes this risk entirely. PH-native suites (Sprout, ZipHR) also bill in PHP.

3. Feature gating into higher tiers. “Starts at $4.99” is marketing. The features your business actually needs (GPS, geofencing, scheduling, payroll integration, multi-language) almost always sit one or two tiers up. Read every plan column carefully before you decide which tier to budget for.

4. Per-location vs per-seat math. One outlet on Homebase is fine. Three outlets is 3x the bill regardless of staff count. If you’re multi-outlet now, or could be inside 12 months, flat per-seat (ShiftFlow, ZipHR) beats per-location every time. Best time tracking app for Philippine retail and F&B businesses covers the multi-outlet math in depth.

5. Add-on creep on modular HRIS. Sprout’s Payroll Starter at ₱10,000 covers payroll. Attendance, leave, performance, recruitment, and learning each add to the bill. The published starter price is the floor, not the typical bill. Always ask for a quote that includes every module you actually want to turn on.

Why TCO matters more than sticker price

The monthly software bill is rarely the biggest line. Three other costs show up in every PH SME setup.

Setup time. A “free” stack that takes three weeks to configure costs the founder or HR coordinator three weeks of their time. At a typical ₱40,000+ monthly salary for that role, the free setup costs ₱30,000 in labor. A consolidated suite (Sprout, ZipHR, BrioHR via demo) goes live in three days at a higher monthly cost but cheaper TCO when setup time is counted.

Monthly reconciliation time. Tools with native PH payroll integration (Sprout, ZipHR) save 2 to 4 hours per pay period vs CSV-import setups. Two cycles a month is 4 to 8 hours of HR time. At ₱200+ per hour, that’s ₱1,600 a month saved. Sometimes more than the entire bill of a focused tool.

Cutover and migration cost. Every PH SME we’ve talked to that picked wrong and had to migrate mid-year reports 4 to 6 weeks of HR and accounting time burned on the switch. Getting the choice right costs nothing. Getting it wrong costs a quarter.

How Philippine SMEs track employee attendance without manual timesheets covers the full operational setup.

What to ask a vendor before signing

Five questions catch most pricing gotchas.

What is the all-in monthly bill for [my team size] with [my required features], in PHP, with FX assumptions stated?
Are there base fees, location fees, or required add-ons I need to budget for beyond the per-seat number?
Does the price quoted include GPS, kiosk, scheduling, and CSV export for payroll, or do those live in a higher tier?
If I grow to [1.5x my current headcount] or add [N outlets], what does the bill look like?
What is the annual discount, and is there a refund policy if we cancel mid-year?

Vendors who answer all five cleanly are easy to budget against. Vendors who hedge usually have pricing surprises baked into the fine print.

When flat per-seat is not the right model

Three scenarios where ShiftFlow’s flat ₱99 per seat doesn’t win on price.

5 or fewer staff, single outlet, no growth plans. Jibble Free at ₱0 covers attendance, GPS, kiosk, and facial recognition for unlimited users. ShiftFlow at ₱99 × 5 = ₱495 means paying for features (multi-week scheduling, more than 2 geofences) you won’t touch.
20+ staff that need BIR / SSS / PhilHealth / Pag-IBIG filing inside the same product. Sprout or ZipHR consolidates time and statutory. Flat per-seat saves money on the tracker, but you pay separately for filing. At 30+ staff, consolidation usually wins on TCO.
Single mall outlet, no expansion, older POS-integrated time clock. Homebase free at one location works. ShiftFlow’s flat per-seat is overkill if there’s no multi-outlet plan and no field staff.

For everyone else, flat per-seat in PHP is the simplest model to budget against in 2026.

How to pick by scenario

For PH SMEs running 5 to 50 staff, the easiest model to budget against is flat per-seat in PHP. Predictable, no add-ons, no FX risk. ShiftFlow at ₱99 per seat sits at that end. If you want zero monthly cost and the free feature set covers you, Jibble Free is the real alternative (just plan around the two-geofence cap). For chains that need BIR / SSS / PhilHealth / Pag-IBIG filing inside the same product, ZipHR’s modular pricing is the lighter path. Sprout is the institutional pick at 30+ headcount. Avoid per-location pricing (Homebase) if you have more than one outlet. And avoid tiered USD pricing (Hubstaff Grow, Time Doctor Standard) if you haven’t budgeted for the tier-jump math. Best Time Tracking Software in the Philippines (2026 Guide) runs the full comparison.