QuickBooks Time is a businesses already using quickbooks online for accounting tool starting at $20/mo base. Clock Deck takes a different approach: flat-rate pricing with unlimited employees on every plan, starting at $29/mo.
What is QuickBooks Time?
QuickBooks Time, the product formerly known as TSheets, is Intuit's time tracking solution for businesses that already use QuickBooks Online. It's a well-known name, partly because Intuit's marketing budget is enormous and partly because the TSheets product it was built from genuinely earned a strong reputation before the acquisition. For businesses that live and breathe QuickBooks for their accounting, having time tracking that syncs directly into payroll and invoicing sounds like a no-brainer.
But there's a catch. Actually, there are several. QuickBooks Time doesn't work as a standalone product anymore. You need an active QuickBooks Online subscription just to use it. That means your "time tracking" cost is really two subscriptions layered together. Then the per-user pricing starts stacking on top. For a 15-person team, you can easily cross $170/mo before you've enabled any premium features.
That's why a growing number of businesses are looking at alternatives like Clock Deck. Not because QuickBooks is bad at tracking time, but because the total cost of ownership keeps climbing and the product has gotten more fragmented since the TSheets acquisition. If you're evaluating your options, this article breaks down exactly what QuickBooks Time costs, what it does well, and where Clock Deck offers a simpler and cheaper path.
We're going to be specific with numbers, honest about strengths on both sides, and direct about who each product is actually built for.
QuickBooks Time at a glance
QuickBooks Time started life as TSheets, a standalone time tracking app that built a loyal following among contractors, field service companies, and professional services firms. Intuit acquired TSheets in 2018 and gradually rebranded it as QuickBooks Time, folding it deeper into the QuickBooks ecosystem. Today, it's positioned as the time tracking layer for any business that uses QuickBooks Online for accounting.
The product still has the core features that made TSheets popular: mobile clock-in, GPS tracking, project-level time logging, and solid timesheet management. The Elite plan adds geofencing and mileage tracking, which are meaningful features for field teams. The integration with QuickBooks Online is, unsurprisingly, the tightest in the market. Time entries flow directly into payroll, invoicing, and job costing inside QBO without any manual export steps.
The trade-off is that QuickBooks Time has become harder to use as a focused tool. The time tracking experience is now split across the QuickBooks Workforce app and the main QBO interface. Some features live in one place, some in another. And the mandatory QBO subscription means you can't just buy time tracking on its own anymore. If you don't need full-blown double-entry accounting software, you're paying for a product you may not use just to unlock the time clock.
Pricing: QuickBooks Time vs. Clock Deck
QuickBooks Time uses a base-fee-plus-per-user pricing model, and it requires a QuickBooks Online subscription on top of that. Let's break down what this actually costs in practice.
The Premium plan charges $20/mo as a base fee, then $8/mo for every user. For a 15-person team, that's $20 + (15 x $8) = $140/mo just for time tracking. For 25 employees, it's $20 + (25 x $8) = $220/mo. And remember, you need QuickBooks Online to use it. QBO's Simple Start plan runs about $30/mo, so your real cost for 15 employees is closer to $170/mo total, and for 25 employees it's around $250/mo.
The Elite plan bumps the base to $40/mo and the per-user fee to $10/mo. That gets you geofencing, mileage tracking, and project estimates. For 15 employees, that's $40 + (15 x $10) = $190/mo. Add QBO and you're at $220/mo. For 25 employees on Elite, you're looking at $40 + (25 x $10) = $290/mo, or $320/mo with QBO. These are real numbers that real businesses pay every month.
The per-user model means every new hire directly increases your software costs. Seasonal businesses feel this acutely. Bring on 10 extra workers for the summer and your time tracking bill jumps $80-$100/mo instantly, even if those workers are only part-time. There's no bulk discount, no "unlimited employees" tier. The meter runs per head.
Now compare that to Clock Deck. The Basic plan is $29/mo for unlimited employees. The Pro plan with GPS and photo verification is $59/mo for unlimited employees. The Enterprise plan is $129/mo for unlimited employees and includes geofencing, departments, manager role permissions, and QuickBooks integration. At every level, hiring more people doesn't change your bill. A 15-person team on Clock Deck Pro pays $59/mo. That same team on QuickBooks Time Premium plus QBO pays $170/mo. That's a $111/mo difference, or over $1,300 per year. Scale to 25 employees and the gap gets even wider: $59/mo vs $250/mo. The math speaks for itself.
Requires separate QuickBooks Online subscription (~$30/mo).
Feature comparison
| Feature | Clock Deck | QuickBooks Time |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited employees | ||
| Flat-rate pricing | ||
| No required add-on subscriptions | ||
| Employee scheduling | Elite plan | |
| Clock in/out | ||
| Break tracking | ||
| GPS tracking | Pro plan | |
| Photo verification | Pro plan | |
| Immutable audit logs | Pro plan | |
| Departments | Enterprise plan | |
| Manager roles & permissions | Enterprise plan | |
| Geofencing | Enterprise plan | Elite plan |
| QuickBooks integration | Enterprise plan | Native (built-in) |
| CSV export | ||
| Offline mode | Limited | |
| Mobile app | ||
| Job location tracking | ||
| Payroll-ready timesheets | ||
| Time-off tracking | ||
| Mileage tracking | Elite plan | |
| Project time tracking | ||
| Kiosk mode |
Where QuickBooks Time shines
If your entire back office runs on QuickBooks Online and your accountant or bookkeeper manages everything through QBO, QuickBooks Time is genuinely the path of least resistance for time tracking. The data syncs automatically. Timesheets show up in payroll without an export step. Job costs update in real time. For businesses where QuickBooks is the center of gravity, that seamless connection has real value.
The mileage tracking on the Elite plan is another legitimate strength. If you have employees driving between job sites and you need to track that for reimbursement or billing, having it built into the same app where they log hours is convenient. Most time tracking competitors, Clock Deck included, don't have native mileage tracking. If that's a must-have, QuickBooks Time deserves a look.
Project-level time tracking is also well-implemented. Professional services firms, consultancies, and agencies that bill clients by the hour benefit from being able to assign time entries to specific projects and then pull that data directly into invoices. The workflow from "employee logs 3 hours on Client X" to "Client X receives an invoice" is short and clean inside the QuickBooks ecosystem.
If your bookkeeper or accountant already lives in QuickBooks, the time data flows directly into payroll and invoicing with zero export steps. It's the tightest integration available because Intuit owns both products.
The Elite plan includes automatic mileage tracking through the mobile app. For businesses that reimburse driving or bill clients by the mile, this is a genuine time saver that most competitors don't include.
QuickBooks Time lets employees log hours against specific projects and clients. This feeds directly into QBO for invoicing and profitability reporting, which is helpful for professional services firms.
The Elite plan includes geofencing, which can automatically remind employees to clock in or out when they enter or leave a job site. Clock Deck now offers geofencing on its Enterprise plan as well, but QuickBooks Time's version has been around longer and ties into their broader location features.
Where Clock Deck wins
The most obvious win for Clock Deck is the total cost of ownership. QuickBooks Time's per-user pricing plus the mandatory QBO subscription creates a bill that grows with every hire. Clock Deck's flat rate doesn't. For a 15-person team, you could pay $59/mo for Clock Deck Pro (with GPS and photo verification) or $170/mo for QuickBooks Time Premium plus QBO. That's not a marginal difference. That's nearly triple the cost for a product that actually gives you fewer accountability features.
Photo verification is a feature that QuickBooks Time simply doesn't have. When an employee clocks in on Clock Deck Pro, a photo is captured and attached to the punch record. This is a direct counter to buddy punching, which the American Payroll Association estimates costs businesses 2-5% of gross payroll. For a landscaping crew, a janitorial team, or any business where employees work at client sites without a supervisor present, photo verification isn't a nice-to-have. It's the difference between trusting and verifying.
Clock Deck's Enterprise plan now includes geofencing, departments, and manager role permissions. You can organize employees into departments, control what your managers can see and do, and enforce location-based clock-in rules. All of that for $129/mo flat, with no per-user charges. On QuickBooks Time, you'd need the Elite plan at $40/mo base plus $10/user to get geofencing alone.
Clock Deck also doesn't force you into a second subscription. QuickBooks Time cannot function without QuickBooks Online. If all you need is time tracking and scheduling, you're paying $30+/mo for accounting software you might not use. Clock Deck works on its own. And if you do want QuickBooks integration, it's available on the Enterprise plan, so your time data still syncs to QBO without needing QuickBooks Time as the middleman.
The offline capability is another practical advantage. QuickBooks Time's mobile app needs a network connection to sync reliably, and users in areas with poor service report frequent sync issues. Clock Deck's offline mode stores punches locally and syncs them when connectivity returns. For construction sites, rural job locations, and warehouse environments with spotty WiFi, this means fewer missed punches and less time spent on manual corrections.
QuickBooks Time requires an active QuickBooks Online account just to function. That's an extra $30+/mo before you even track a single hour. Clock Deck works on its own with no dependencies.
QuickBooks Time charges $8-$10 per user per month on top of a base fee. Adding 5 employees adds $40-$50/mo to your bill. Clock Deck charges one flat rate for unlimited employees, so hiring never increases your time tracking costs.
Clock Deck's Pro plan captures a photo at every clock-in. QuickBooks Time has no photo verification feature at any tier. For field service, construction, and cleaning businesses, this is a critical tool for proving who was on site.
Clock Deck logs every punch and every edit in an immutable record that can't be altered after the fact. QuickBooks Time stores time data, but it doesn't provide the same level of tamper-proof auditing.
QuickBooks Time is part of Intuit's sprawling product ecosystem, which means navigating between the Workforce app, QBO dashboard, and time tracking features. Clock Deck is purpose-built for time tracking and does one thing well without the complexity.
The verdict
QuickBooks Time is the right choice if you're deeply embedded in the QuickBooks ecosystem, your accountant specifically wants time data flowing into QBO without any manual steps, and the per-user cost doesn't bother you. The mileage tracking and project billing features are genuine differentiators for certain industries. If those specific capabilities are in your must-have list and you're already paying for QBO, QuickBooks Time does the job.
For everyone else, Clock Deck is the better deal. The flat-rate pricing saves real money at any team size over a handful of employees. The photo verification and immutable audit logs provide accountability features that QuickBooks Time doesn't offer. The offline mode works where QuickBooks Time's connection-dependent app stumbles. And you don't need to buy a second product just to use it.
If you're spending $150-$300/mo on QuickBooks Time plus QBO and wondering whether that budget could stretch further, give Clock Deck a try. The 14-day free trial includes your full team with no per-user charges. You might be surprised how much simpler time tracking can be when you stop paying by the head.