workmonitor.
Best for teams that bill for their time and want captured hours, live project margin and a payroll run that balances before it is exported.
- No timers to forget
- One engine for invoice and payroll
- Margin, live
VSTime tracking · For managers and finance
TMetric alternatives
Rates, approvals, payroll and proof on the ledger your hours already live on.
- Free for two seats
- No card
- TMetric history imports by CSV
Updated October 3, 2026. TMetric details reviewed September 7, 2026 from public materials — check them against its own site before you decide.
workmonitor.
versusTMetricWhere WorkMonitor wins
- No timers to forgetHours are captured as the work happens, so the forgotten ones get billed too.
- One engine for invoice and payrollApproved hours bill and pay from the same rates, balanced to the cent.
- Margin, liveBudget burn updates as hours land — not when the invoice is drafted.
Where TMetric winsBroad integrations at a low price
The difference that matters
Timers record what people remember. WorkMonitor bills what they worked.
One rate engine pricing both the invoice and the payroll run, approvals that refuse a self-approval, and contractor pay runs a named person signs off before anything goes out.
The real product — not a screenshot. Click a tab.
AK
Projects
Run client work.
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Northlight Studio · sample
Projects
Budget burn and margin, live
TOTAL BUDGET
$486,5006 projects
BURNED
59%$286,200
HOURS TRACKED
2,382h
OVER 90% BURN
1project
PROJECTBUDGET BURNHOURSMARGIN
- AKBrand systemHarbour Foods · Fixed fee93%$78,100 of $84,000Over 90%648h12%
- JMNorthlight redesignKestrel Labs · Time & materials74%$45,500 of $61,500379h34%
- RPMobile app buildOrbit Retail · Fixed fee66%$84,500 of $128,000704h41%
- LMPackaging refreshHarbour Foods · Time & materials52%$19,800 of $38,000165h29%
- SDDesign retainerVela Health · Retainer41%$29,500 of $72,000246h46%
- TVData platform UXRidgeway Group · Time & materials28%$28,800 of $103,000240h38%
Burn is computed from tracked hours, so it is current rather than reconstructed at month end.6 projects · 5 clients
What it returns
What WorkMonitor returns on your own team
Your headcount and loaded cost, the subscription already subtracted.
$
Salary plus everything on top of it.
ESTIMATED ANNUAL RETURN
- Time recovered from idle and drift6% of paid time, back in the week$228,000
- WorkMonitor, 40 people at $10 a month−$4,800
Net, over a year
$223,200
Estimated net return $223,200 a year.
47.5×
the subscription, returned
1 mo
to pay it back
96
hours a week, across the team
Arithmetic on your figures at the calculator’s low-end assumption of 6% of paid time recovered — not a measurement of your team. Itemise it by region and add-on
A timer records what people remember. The invoice should carry what they worked.
workmonitor.vsTimer-based time tracking
6differences, worked through below
Hours that never get entered
With WorkMonitor
Captured as the work happens and attributed to the project, with idle split out rather than rounded in, so the sheet is drafted before anyone opens it.
Timer-based time tracking
Somebody forgets the timer or rebuilds the week on Friday from memory — and an hour nobody entered is an hour nobody bills.
From hours to invoice and payroll
With WorkMonitor
Approved hours seed the invoice and the payroll run directly, priced by one shared rate engine, so the two cannot disagree.
Timer-based time tracking
Export, reformat, paste into payroll or invoicing, then reconcile to find what got mangled on the way.
Project margin
With WorkMonitor
Budget burn and margin update as hours land, in hours and in money, so an over-running project shows while there is still time to act.
Timer-based time tracking
Discovered when the invoice is drafted, after the over-run has already been paid for.
Payroll errors
With WorkMonitor
A cent-exact pre-flight that has to balance before a run can be exported, with idle already split out of the hours it prices.
Timer-based time tracking
Spreadsheet arithmetic, found at audit as a recurring few pence — or a paid idle hour nobody caught.
Who signs off the money
With WorkMonitor
Multi-stage approval that refuses a self-approval rather than warning about it.
Timer-based time tracking
Whoever has the file, which is usually more people than anyone intended.
When a client disputes the bill
With WorkMonitor
A finalized invoice seeds a certificate the client checks themselves, without an account.
Timer-based time tracking
A line item and a total. The client accepts it or opens a thread about it.
The question we get asked
We chose our tool on integration breadth and price. How does this compare on both?
On price, Pro and Business are published per seat on one page with no minimums, and Enterprise is the only tier quoted. On breadth, the catalogue lists only connectors that are built and working, which usually reads shorter than a logo wall — and the comparison worth making is against the stack of tools the approval, payroll and proof layers replace.
Invoices — backed by recorded work
What a manager gets, in one platform
- Projects, clients, tasks & budgets (rate cards, burn)
The shortlist
The 5 TMetric alternatives managers shortlist
WorkMonitor first, because this is our page. The other TMetric competitors in their own words, each with its own head-to-head.
QuickBooks Time
Time tracking and scheduling inside the QuickBooks ecosystem, with clock-in, GPS and direct payroll handoff.
WorkMonitor vs QuickBooks TimeDeputy
Shift scheduling, rostering and time clock for hourly teams, with award interpretation and labour-cost forecasting.
WorkMonitor vs DeputyConnecteam
An all-in-one operations app for deskless teams: time clock, checklists, training and internal communication on mobile.
WorkMonitor vs ConnecteamHomebase
Scheduling, time clock, hiring and payroll for small hourly businesses — retail, hospitality and local services.
WorkMonitor vs Homebase
Switching
Bringing your TMetric history across
Nobody switches tools if it means abandoning a year of history. Export yours as CSV and the importer maps it onto our columns. There is no dedicated TMetric preset yet, so expect to line the columns up once rather than not at all.
The columns your export needs to line up with
- date
- minutes
- project
- task
- note
Six columns, mapped once on the first import. Rows that cannot be normalised still pass through, so the importer reports exactly which ones need attention rather than rejecting the file.
After the import
Where your TMetric history lands
Imported hours sit on the same ledger as everything captured after them, so last quarter’s cost and margin read the same way as next quarter’s. Corrections append with an author and a reason rather than overwriting, which is what lets you answer why a number changed long after anyone remembers.
Payouts — a payroll run built from approved hours
When TMetric is the better answer
You want broad integration coverage at a low price and nothing beyond time and billing.
If that is the deciding requirement, buy that instead.
Questions
TMetric alternatives: what managers ask
Answered about what WorkMonitor does, including where the answer is no.
- How do I move my TMetric data into WorkMonitor?
- Export it as CSV and the importer maps it onto our columns — email, date, minutes, project, task, note. There is no dedicated preset for this vendor yet, so the columns get lined up once on the first import. Rates are not imported — they are set once here in the shared rate engine that feeds both invoicing and payroll, so the two cannot drift apart afterwards.
- What is the best TMetric alternative for teams that pay contractors from tracked hours?
- One that carries the hours through to the pay run. WorkMonitor prices approved time on the same rate engine as the invoice, and on Business runs contractor payouts that a named person approves before anything is dispatched — so the hours billed and the hours paid come from one source.
- Does WorkMonitor support different billing rates per person and project?
- Yes, through one shared rate engine feeding both invoicing and payroll, so the billed rate and the paid rate come from the same source rather than from two places that drift apart.
- Is WorkMonitor more expensive than a basic time tracker?
- Per seat, usually yes — it carries approval, payroll and proof layers a basic tracker does not. Two seats are free, and the comparison worth making is against the cost of the tools and the month-end hours those layers replace.
- What does WorkMonitor add beyond time and billing?
- Approval that refuses a self-approval, an append-only correction history, a payroll run with a cent-exact pre-flight, and a certificate the client verifies without an account — the layers between the hour and the money.
- Can I export my data out of WorkMonitor?
- Yes, as a first-class surface rather than a support request, and every export is itself audited so there is a record of what left and who took it.
Ask AI
Ask anything about your team
Plain-language answers about your own workforce data, with the figures behind them. Pick a question to see how it reads.
Who's most at risk of burnout?
Pick a question above and WorkMonitor AI will answer from your team's real numbers.
Take these with you
The software is the easy part of a rollout
Here is what we would send a manager doing one for the first time: how to read a productivity number, what to say to a remote team before anything is installed, and a policy you can adopt as written.
Point it at one team for a week.
Create the account, put the agent on a handful of desks, and leave it alone. On Friday you read the week instead of reconstructing it: hours against their projects, focus and idle per person, and the timesheets already filled in.
Free for two seats. No card, and no sales call to sit through.