How to Track Freelance Time and Pay a Remote Team with Hubstaff

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Tracking hours is the easy part. The hard part is turning those hours into accurate timesheets, fair payouts and client invoices without rebuilding a spreadsheet every Friday.

If you run a small agency, manage a few virtual assistants, or freelance with a handful of subcontractors, Hubstaff time tracking can connect the whole chain: hours tracked on desktop or mobile, timesheets that managers approve, payroll sent through a payment provider, and invoices generated from billable time. This guide walks through the setup step by step, based on Hubstaff’s official product pages and help center.

We will cover how to create your organization, add clients and projects, invite your team, set pay and bill rates, track time, approve timesheets, set up payments, invoice clients and pull reports. We also cover which features sit on which plan, and how to handle screenshots fairly.

What this guide covers

• What Hubstaff does for freelancers and remote teams
• Hubstaff pricing as of October 2026
• How to set up Hubstaff time tracking: 9 steps
• Activity tracking, screenshots and privacy
• Keep SOPs and client docs in Notion
• Common setup mistakes to avoid
• Frequently asked questions

What Hubstaff does for freelancers and remote teams

Hubstaff describes itself as time tracking software for hybrid, modern and global workforces, with “integrated employee time tracking, productivity metrics, and automated payments.” In practice that means three jobs in one place: capturing hours, checking them, and turning them into money owed or money billed.

For a solo freelancer, the main value is billable time per client and invoices built from it. For a small business paying contractors, the main value is the payroll chain: tracked hours become timesheets, a manager approves them, and Hubstaff calculates what each person is owed from their pay rate.

Hubstaff’s apps run on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, plus a Chrome extension and a Firefox add-on, according to its download page. Team members pick a project, start the timer, and the hours flow into timesheets automatically.

Hubstaff pricing as of October 2026

Pricing as of October 2026, taken from Hubstaff’s official pricing page. Hubstaff charges per seat, so you pay for each team member in the organization. The pricing page also says you pay for your own seat even if you don’t track time, though people who only view reports can be given the free Project Viewer role.

Plan	Per seat / month (billed annually)	Per seat / month (billed monthly)	What the pricing page lists
Starter	$4.99	$7	Time tracking, timesheets, activity levels, limited reports, limited payments, clients & invoices, limited screenshots, limited app & URL tracking
Grow	$7.50	$9	Everything in Starter, plus full reports, 1 integration, idle timeout, project budgets, work breaks, expenses. Tasks add-on included
Team	$10	$12	Everything in Grow, plus payments & payroll, unlimited integrations, teams, unlimited screenshots and app & URL tracking, auto-discard idle time. Insights and Tasks add-ons included
Enterprise	$25 (contact sales)	Contact sales	All Team features, plus higher public API limits, pay by bank debit (ACH), HIPAA compliance, SOC 2 Type II compliance, SCIM provisioning. Silent app, Locations, Insights and Tasks add-ons included

Which plan do you need for payroll and invoicing?

This is the part to read carefully. The pricing page lists “limited payments” and “clients & invoices” on Starter, and “payments & payroll” on Team. Hubstaff’s help center is stricter: its Payroll Overview says “the payroll feature is available on Team plans and up,” and its client invoicing guide says invoicing is available on Team and Enterprise plans.

Our recommendation: if you want to run the full workflow in this guide, with automated payroll, client invoices and unlimited integrations, plan on the Team tier. If you only need hours and timesheets for now, Starter or Grow can work. Use the 14-day trial to confirm which features your organization can see before you commit, and check the current details on the official Hubstaff pricing page.

Add-ons and other pricing details

Lower plans can buy add-ons that higher plans include. The pricing page lists these per seat per month (monthly / annual billing):

• Insights: $3 / $2.50, covering unusual activity detection, unproductive apps and URLs, focus and meeting time.
• Tasks: $3 / $2.50, adding Kanban and timeline views, task comments and due dates.
• More screenshots: $3 / $2.50, allowing up to 10 screenshots every 10 minutes.
• Locations: $4 / $3.33, for mobile location tracking, geofenced job sites and work orders.

The pricing page also mentions a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans (separate from the trial), and prorated charges when you add seats mid-way through a quarterly or annual plan.

How to set up Hubstaff time tracking: 9 steps

The steps below follow the order Hubstaff’s own Quick Start Guide for owners and managers uses, with payroll and invoicing details from the relevant help center articles. Menu names are as the help center describes them, and they can change as the product updates.

1. Create your organization
2. Add clients and projects
3. Invite your team
4. Set pay rates and bill rates
5. Track time on desktop, mobile or browser
6. Turn on timesheet approvals
7. Set up payroll and payments
8. Invoice your clients
9. Review reports

Step 1: Create your organization

In Hubstaff, an organization holds your clients, projects, tasks and team members. When you sign up with a new account, the help center says to choose “I’m a business owner” to create one. In an existing account, open the organization dropdown in the top right, go to the Organizations menu and click Add organization.

Name the organization, optionally add your website, invite members (you can also do this later), then pick a billing period and plan or choose to pick a plan later. Choosing a plan starts subscription fees after the 14-day trial.

Two rules to know before you decide on structure:

• Each organization supports one currency. The Quick Start Guide suggests a separate organization for each currency if you pay people in different currencies.
• Each organization needs its own subscription. For most small teams, one organization with clients and projects inside it is simpler and cheaper.

Step 2: Add clients and projects

Projects are what your team picks before starting the timer, so set them up before you invite anyone. Go to Project management > Projects and click Add project. You can add several projects at once by putting each name on its own line, mark each one as billable or not, and choose whether activity is recorded.

Next, add clients under Project management > Clients > Add client. Hubstaff’s Managing Clients article explains the tabs:

• General: client name and address, which appear on invoices.
• Contact info: phone and email. Client invoices go to this email.
• Projects: link the client’s billable projects. Each project can have only one client.
• Budget: a cost or hours budget, with an email alert at a percentage you choose.
• Invoicing: notes, net terms and optional recurring invoices.

A simple structure for freelancers and VA teams is one project per client retainer, or one project per client deliverable if you bill separately. You can also import clients and projects from a CSV, XLS or XLSX file if you are moving from another tool.

Step 3: Invite your team

Go to People > Members and click Add members. Enter one or more email addresses, choose a role and the projects each person should join, and click Send. Each invitee gets an email, creates a personal Hubstaff account, and lands in your organization.

For larger batches, Hubstaff’s invite guide describes invite links. Each link is pre-set with a role (User or Project viewer), projects and teams, an expiry date, a usage cap and an hourly pay rate. That makes it easy to onboard, say, a group of new contractors for one client project with the right settings from day one. Bulk imports via spreadsheet are limited to 200 invites per day.

Use the “User” role for most team members. Give clients or stakeholders who only need to see reports the free Project Viewer role, so they don’t use a paid seat.

Step 4: Set pay rates and bill rates

Hubstaff keeps two numbers for every member: the pay rate (what you pay them) and the bill rate (what you charge clients for their time). Getting both right now saves a lot of rework later.

According to the help center, go to People > Members and click the pencil icon in the Payment column. From there you can:

• Choose the pay period (weekly, bi-weekly, twice per month, monthly, or none).
• Choose hourly or fixed pay.
• Enter the pay rate and an effective date, with an optional note for the rate history.
• Switch to Bill rate to set the client-facing rate.
• Toggle “Require timesheet approval” on or off.

Rates set on the Members page are the defaults. If a client pays a different rate, open that project and set project-specific pay and bill rates. Those override the defaults for that project only, which suits agencies with premium clients or rush work.

Step 5: Track time on desktop, mobile or browser

Team members download the Hubstaff app for their device: Windows, Mac and Linux desktop apps, iOS and Android mobile apps, or the Chrome extension and Firefox add-on for web-based work. They select a project (and optionally a task) and start the timer.

Hubstaff’s How Tracking Works page says team members decide when to start and stop the timer, and that screenshots, app and URL tracking and activity rates are only captured while time is being tracked and only when the organization has turned them on.

Mobile is useful for field or on-site work. The download page describes GPS time tracking and geofenced job sites that clock people in and out automatically. On the pricing page, geofencing sits in the Locations add-on, which is included on Enterprise and paid extra on lower plans.

Before go-live, consider two limits in member settings: a weekly hour limit (useful for capped retainers) and daily limits. Both stop people tracking more hours than a client has budgeted.

Step 6: Turn on timesheet approvals

Hubstaff creates timesheets from tracked time automatically. Approvals add a review step before anyone is paid. Hubstaff’s help center lists several benefits, including catching incorrect clock-ins or double entries and keeping a formal record of agreed hours in case of disputes.

To set it up, per the “Setting up Timesheet Approvals” article:

1. Go to Settings > All settings > Enable/disable features and click Enable under Approve timesheets.
2. For each person, go to People > Members, choose Actions > Edit payment details, tick “Require timesheet approval” and save.
3. Timesheets are then generated for each member based on their pay period.
4. Managers review them under Timesheets > Approvals, in the Open tab. Each timesheet shows total hours, manual time, activity percentages, overtime, PTO, holidays and amounts owed.
5. Use Actions > Approve or Actions > Deny. With the “modify time” setting enabled, managers can also edit, split or delete time entries.

Tell your team how this works up front. The help center notes that submitting a timesheet early locks it, so the person can’t track more time for that pay period. If someone required to submit doesn’t, they won’t be paid when the period ends until it’s sorted out.

Step 7: Set up payroll and payments

This is where Hubstaff stands out from basic timers. Its Payroll Overview says Hubstaff converts tracked hours into payments, automatically or manually, through supported providers: Wise, PayPal, Payoneer and Bitwage, plus HRIS integrations with Deel, Gusto and Remote. The help center notes the payroll feature is available on Team plans and up.

One important detail: Hubstaff does not store any funds. Payments go directly from the organization owner’s payment account to each team member’s receiving account. The setup runs from Financials > Overview > Get started now (organization owners only) and has three parts:

1. Payment workflow. Choose Hubstaff payment providers, Calculate & Export (calculate in Hubstaff, pay outside it), or an HRIS integration. Then connect your payer business account.
2. Organization-level settings. Choose automatic or manual payments, set the default pay period and payment method for new members, and configure policies for work breaks, time off, overtime, bonuses and deductions.
3. Member settings. Add members to payroll, confirm pay rates and invite each member to connect their receiving account with the chosen provider.

Payroll stays locked until you click “Finish setup and start payroll” and confirm. Members show a status of Ready (automatic), Ready (manual) or Missing data, so you can see who still needs to connect a payout account.

Automatic vs manual payments

With automatic payments, payroll runs at the end of each pay period. Timesheet approvals are on by default and Hubstaff recommends keeping them on, so only approved time is paid. There is also a Payment Approval Window, two days by default, between the end of the pay period and when payments go out, giving managers time to review.

With manual payments, you trigger each payment yourself and approvals are optional. Note the help center’s caveat that fixed rates can only be paid through automatic payments or timesheet approvals, not manual payments.

Some contractors prefer to bill you instead. Hubstaff’s Team Invoices feature lets members create invoices for their own work, including line items generated from tracked time. Owners review them under Financials > Invoices > Team and can send payment from there once payroll and a payment integration are connected.

Step 8: Invoice your clients

Client invoicing turns billable hours into invoices using the bill rates you set in Step 4. The help center says invoicing is available on Team and Enterprise plans and requires clients to be added to your organization.

Based on the “How to Invoice Clients in Hubstaff” guide, the workflow is:

1. Go to Financials > Invoices > Clients > Invoice settings and add your address, logo, tax ID, tax rate, payment terms, notes and an optional PayPal email.
2. Click New invoice, then select the client, issue date, due date, invoice number and optional PO number.
3. Click Generate line items. Choose the date range, projects, members and to-dos, then pick a layout: detailed by project, detailed by to-do, or a one-line summary.
4. Optionally include non-billable time or expenses. Overtime is added as separate line items.
5. Save as a draft or save and send. The client receives an email with a View invoice button.

For retainers, set up recurring invoices on the client’s Invoicing tab. You can bill from hourly bill rates or a fixed price, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, with an optional delay and a reminder after the due date. Hubstaff notes a limit of 20 invoice recipients per hour.

Step 9: Review reports

Hubstaff’s Reports Overview lists report categories for time and activity, daily totals, apps and URLs, manual time edits, timesheet approvals, expenses, amounts owed, payments, weekly limits, project and client budgets, time off, client and team invoices (including aging), and shift attendance.

A practical weekly routine for a small team:

• Time & Activity: hours per client and project, plus spent and billable amounts.
• Manual time edits: spot time added by hand so you can ask questions before approval.
• Amounts owed: check payroll totals before the approval window closes.
• Client budgets: catch retainers about to run over.
• Client invoices aging: follow up on unpaid invoices.

Reports can be filtered, exported as CSV or PDF, and emailed. The help center says scheduled reports are available on Grow plans and up, and some reports, such as client budgets and client invoices, are only visible to owners and managers.

Activity tracking, screenshots and privacy

Hubstaff includes productivity monitoring: activity levels, app and URL tracking, idle time detection and optional screenshots. These features are useful for some teams and uncomfortable for others. Contractors in particular may expect less oversight than employees. Decide on purpose, not by default.

What Hubstaff says it does and doesn’t track

• Activity levels are calculated from mouse and keyboard use as a percentage of tracked time. Hubstaff says it does not log what you type, only whether you are typing or moving the mouse.
• Screenshots are optional. The Quick Start Guide says owners can disable them or set 1, 2 or 3 per 10 minutes. The More screenshots add-on raises this to up to 10.
• Screenshot blur, available on paid plans, blurs images on the device before upload and cannot be reversed. It can be set organization-wide or per person.
• Hubstaff’s How Tracking Works page states there is no keystroke logging, no email monitoring and no webcam or camera access, and that team members get alerts when screenshots are captured.
• Team members can see their own tracking data, which Hubstaff says is the same data management sees.

A fair monitoring policy

Whatever you choose, write it down and share it before anyone installs the app. Local laws on workplace monitoring vary, so check what applies where your team lives, especially for employees rather than contractors. A sensible starting point for many small teams:

• Track time and timesheets for everyone, since that’s what payroll and invoices need.
• Leave screenshots off, or turn them on with blur, unless a client contract requires proof of work.
• Use activity levels as a conversation starter, not a score. Calls, reading and planning naturally show low keyboard activity.
• Turn off activity recording on projects for meetings or calls (a per-project option).
• Explain who can see screenshots and how long data is kept.

Keep SOPs and client docs in Notion

Hubstaff handles hours, approvals and money. It’s not the place for the knowledge your team needs to do the work: client onboarding notes, SOPs, tool-access checklists, brand guidelines and project briefs. Many teams pair Hubstaff with Notion as the shared workspace for that documentation.

A simple way to connect the two: use the same client and project names in both tools. Each Hubstaff project then maps to a Notion page with the brief, SOPs, deliverables and meeting notes. When a new VA joins through an invite link, send them the matching Notion page in the same message.

If you’d rather not build that workspace from scratch, Create Digital Tools has two templates that fit this setup:

• Freelancer Business Kit: a Notion system for freelancers to organize clients, projects and the business side of their work, alongside the hours you track in Hubstaff.
• Notion Template for Virtual Assistants: built for VAs and VA teams who juggle several clients and need one place for client details, tasks and recurring processes.

Common setup mistakes to avoid

• Forgetting bill rates. Invoices are generated from bill rates, not pay rates. Without them, automatic line items won’t reflect what you charge.
• Turning on automatic payments without approvals. Hubstaff itself recommends keeping timesheet approvals on so only reviewed time is paid.
• Not explaining the timesheet lock. Team members should know that submitting early locks the period.
• Rolling out screenshots without notice. Share your monitoring policy before install day.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hubstaff free?

Hubstaff’s pricing page answers “Can I use Hubstaff for free?” with its free 14-day trial, which needs no credit card. Paid plans start at $4.99 per seat per month billed annually (Starter) as of October 2026.

Which Hubstaff plan includes payroll?

The pricing page lists “payments & payroll” on the Team plan, and the help center says the payroll feature is available on Team plans and up. Starter lists “limited payments.” If paying your team through Hubstaff is the goal, plan on Team or Enterprise.

Does Hubstaff hold the money it pays out?

No. According to the Payroll Overview, Hubstaff does not store funds. Payments go directly from the organization owner’s payment account (for example Wise or PayPal) to each team member’s receiving account. You can also pay outside Hubstaff and mark hours as paid, or export the calculations.

Can I bill clients a different rate than I pay my team?

Yes. Each member has a pay rate and a bill rate, set at the organization level or overridden per project. Client invoices use the bill rate when generating line items from tracked time.

Do I have to use screenshots?

No. Hubstaff describes screenshots as optional. Owners can disable them, change the frequency, or blur them on paid plans. Activity levels and app and URL tracking are also only captured while the timer runs and when the organization enables them.

Does a client who only views reports need a paid seat?

Not necessarily. Hubstaff’s pricing FAQ says people who only want to view reports can be assigned the free Project Viewer role. Everyone who tracks time, including you if you track, uses a paid seat.

Can my team track time on their phones?

Yes. Hubstaff has iOS and Android apps. GPS tracking and geofenced job sites that clock people in and out automatically are part of the Locations add-on on the pricing page, included on Enterprise and available as a paid add-on on other plans.

Get started with Hubstaff

If you spend hours each pay period copying time from one tool into payouts and invoices in another, Hubstaff time tracking is worth a trial. Set up one organization, add your clients and projects, invite two or three team members, and run a full pay period with approvals switched on before you invite everyone.