QuickBooks Time Pricing (2026): Base Fee Plus Per User, Explained

QuickBooks Time costs a base fee plus a per-user fee, billed monthly: Time Premium is $20 a month plus $10 per user and Time Elite is $40 plus $12, after a promotion that halves the base fee for the first three months. Both require a QuickBooks Online subscription, which is a separate cost. The per-user fees rose by $2 on July 1, 2026, and many competitor articles still quote the old $8 and $10. The structure makes it expensive for a crew of two and reasonable for a crew of fifty, and geofencing, the feature field employers buy it for, is Elite only.

This page sets out the October 2026 prices and the promotion rules, what Premium and Elite include, the Workforce payroll bundles that include time tracking, the billing rules, what teams of 1 to 100 actually pay, the price history back to TSheets, what customers complain about, and the per-user tools that cost less for small teams.

QuickBooks Time plans and prices, October 2026

QuickBooks Time is billed monthly only; no annual option appeared on the pricing page. The 50% promotion applies to the base fee for three months on new subscriptions and does not reduce the per-user fee; Intuit says it may end the offer at any time. The 30-day free trial covers the base fee only: per-user fees, state tax filing fees and add-ons are charged from the start. No credit card, contract or signature is required to start the trial. The per-user fees rose by $2 on July 1, 2026, from $8 and $10 to $10 and $12, and Intuit's own product page still showed a placeholder per-worker fee when we checked, so use the pricing page, not the product page or a third-party article, as the source. Prices were read from quickbooks.intuit.com/time-tracking/pricing on October 28, 2026.

What each plan includes

Geofencing is the feature that moves most field crews to Elite; the pricing page lists it under Workforce Elite and the earlier Time Elite feature lists, and did not list it under Time Premium. Project tracking, mileage and signatures are Elite only. Desktop monitoring, screenshots and activity tracking do not exist on any plan; QuickBooks Time is a clock and scheduler, not monitoring software.

The payroll bundles

Intuit sells time tracking two ways: as QuickBooks Time on top of a QuickBooks Online subscription, or inside QuickBooks Workforce, its payroll product. Workforce Premium at $13 per employee per month includes time tracking tools, time off and payroll with tax filing; Workforce Elite at $134 base plus $17 per employee adds geofencing, mileage, project tools, tax penalty protection, a personal HR advisor, performance management and unlimited HR workflows. The bundle is the cheaper route if you need payroll anyway: a ten-person team on Workforce Premium pays $130 a month for payroll and time together, against $120 for Time Premium alone plus a separate payroll product. The names changed in 2025 and 2026 from QuickBooks Online Payroll Core, Premium and Elite to Workforce tiers; third-party pages still describe the older bundles and prices. The standalone QuickBooks Online subscription that Time Premium and Elite require is a further cost: Simple Start, Essentials, Plus or Advanced, each with its own base fee.

Billing rules that change the price

• Base fee plus per user means the per-head cost falls with size: Time Premium is $30 a user for one person, $12 for ten, $10.20 for 100.
• Monthly only. There is no annual discount, which simplifies leaving but removes the 16 to 20% saving most competitors offer.
• The trial is of the base fee; users added during the trial are billed per user from day one.
• The promotion is three months and applies to the base fee only; the fourth invoice is the real price.
• Requires QuickBooks Online. A business on QuickBooks Desktop, Xero or another ledger cannot buy Time Premium or Elite standalone.
• Proration, refunds and cancellation terms are not on the pricing page; they follow Intuit's general subscription terms, which allow cancellation at any time with service to the end of the billed month and no refund of the current month.

What a team actually pays

Arithmetic from the list prices; the admin included in the base fee is not counted as a user. Add the QuickBooks Online subscription for Time Premium and Elite. The Workforce Premium base fee was not shown on the page and is omitted.

Price history

TSheets, which Intuit bought in January 2018, charged a $20 base plus $8 per user for Premium and $40 plus $10 for Elite for most of the period from 2020 to mid-2026, with the base fee discounted 50% for three months as a standing promotion. On July 1, 2026 the per-user fees rose by $2 to $10 and $12; the base fees did not change. The payroll bundles were renamed from QuickBooks Online Payroll to QuickBooks Workforce in 2025 and 2026 with new base and per-employee prices. Several competitor articles in October 2026 still quote $8 and $10.

What customers complain about

Trustpilot does not have a separate QuickBooks Time profile; the reviews below are from Intuit's QuickBooks profile and concern Intuit billing generally, so read them as the context a Time subscriber sits in rather than as Time-specific. Product-specific complaints about QuickBooks Time concentrate on the base-fee structure for small teams, the per-user price increase, geofencing being Elite only, and the QuickBooks Online dependency.

Cheaper and dearer at the same level

Tool	Price, October 2026	10 people a month	Difference from QuickBooks Time
Jibble	Free, unlimited users; paid quoted	$0	Free clock with GPS, geofences and kiosk; exports to QuickBooks
Connecteam	Free for 10; per hub $29 to $99 for 30 users	$0	Free for ten with GPS clock, kiosk and scheduling; exports
Clockify	$3.99 to $11.99 per seat annual; free for 5	$39.90 to $79.90	Cheaper; GPS on Pro; QuickBooks export
Time Champ	$3.90 per user annual	$39	Cheaper; desk-based attendance; see disclosure
Hubstaff	$4.99 to $10 per seat annual; 2-seat minimum	$49.90 to $100	Similar on Team; GPS job sites, payroll and QuickBooks sync
When I Work	$2.50 to $8 per user monthly	$25 to $80	Cheaper; scheduling-first; QuickBooks export
Deputy	$5 to $9 per user; $30 minimum	$50 to $90	Similar; compliance rules; QuickBooks export
Homebase	Free for 1 location; $30 to $120 per location	$0 to $120	Similar; own payroll; per location
TimeCamp	$3.99 to $9.99 per user annual; free for unlimited	$0 to $99.90	Cheaper; QuickBooks sync; automatic tracking
Harvest	$9 per seat annual	$90	Similar; invoicing; two-way QuickBooks sync

Our QuickBooks Time alternatives guide sorts these by the reason people switch, and the clock in clock out app review covers the field-crew features. Disclosure: I have done work for Time Champ; it appears in the table because it competes on price and is held to the same criteria.

How this was checked

Prices, the promotion terms, the trial terms and the feature lists were read from quickbooks.intuit.com/time-tracking/pricing on October 28, 2026 and on October 21, 2026. The July 1, 2026 per-user increase was confirmed against the October 21 reading and earlier 2026 checks. Trustpilot reviews are from Intuit's QuickBooks profile, read October 28. Intuit did not pay for this page and there are no affiliate links.

Key takeaways

• QuickBooks Time in October 2026: Time Premium $20 base plus $10 per user per month; Time Elite $40 base plus $12 per user; monthly billing only; base fee halved for the first three months of a new subscription; one admin included; requires QuickBooks Online.
• Per-user fees rose $2 on July 1, 2026 (from $8 and $10); the base fees did not change.
• Premium includes GPS at punch, scheduling, approvals, time off, alerts, kiosk with facial recognition and payroll sync; Elite adds geofencing, mileage, project tracking with estimates and timesheet signatures.
• The payroll bundles, QuickBooks Workforce Premium ($13 per employee) and Elite ($134 base plus $17), include time tracking and are the cheaper route if you need payroll anyway.
• The 30-day trial covers the base fee only; per-user fees are charged from day one.
• Ten people cost $120 a month on Premium ($110 during the promotion) and $160 on Elite; one person costs $30 and $52.
• No desktop monitoring, screenshots or activity tracking on any plan; it is a clock and scheduler.