GST input credit
A GST invoice from an Indian entity, which changes the effective cost for an Indian business in a way the headline number does not show.
Comparison · Cost
A cheaper Hubstaff alternative, with the arithmetic
Cloud plans start at ₹59 per user per month and the self-hosted licence is flat by headcount band. Below is what that comes to at four common team sizes, and where per-user billing stops being the cheaper model.
- 7-day trial
- Self-hosting available
- No keystroke logging
- INR pricing published
What each product is
Employee Desk
Employee management with time tracking attached
Attendance, leave, holidays, employee records, projects, tasks and daily work reports, with an optional desktop time tracker on top. Available as a cloud subscription or as a licence you install on your own server. Built in India, priced in rupees.
- Attendance and leave are core, not an add-on
- Self-hosted and private cloud are first-class options
- No keystroke content is ever recorded
- Employees see everything recorded about them
Hubstaff
Per-user, per-month, in USD
Hubstaff prices per seat per month in US dollars, with a published minimum seat count and tiered plans. We are deliberately not restating their numbers here, because they change and a stale price on a comparison page is worse than none. Check their pricing page.
What is worth comparing is the shape of the cost: a per-seat subscription in a foreign currency that grows linearly with headcount, versus a rupee subscription that does the same at a lower rate, or a flat annual licence that stops growing entirely.
Feature comparison
Compared on facts that can be checked from public documentation. Where something is genuinely unclear it is marked rather than guessed at.
| Employee Desk | Hubstaff | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per user monthly, or flat annual licence | Per user monthly |
| Currency | INR | USD |
| Cost grows with headcount | Cloud yes; self-hosted no | Yes |
| Minimum seats | 10 | Check their site |
| Annual discount | 20% | Usually available |
| One-time licence option | Yes | No |
| Free trial | 7 days, no card | Yes |
| Setup fee | Cloud none; self-hosted ₹25,000 | None |
| Forex markup on your card | No | Usually applies |
| GST input credit | Yes | Overseas invoice |
Check Hubstaff’s own site before you decide. Software changes. Everything on this page is written from Hubstaff’s public documentation and pricing pages at the time of writing, we do not restate their prices here because they move, and we correct this page when we are told it is wrong. If you find something inaccurate, email contact@digitalgeniussolution.com and we will fix it.
Where Employee Desk is stronger
01
03
04
05
06
A flat licence exists
The self-hosted band price does not move when you hire. Per-user billing does, every single month, forever.
Self-hosted → 02No currency exposure
A rupee price is the price. No exchange-rate movement between the quote and the invoice, and no card markup.
Pricing →Attendance and leave included
If the alternative is buying a tracker plus a separate attendance product, compare the pair rather than the tracker alone.
Product →A perpetual option
Buy the licence outright at 2.5× the annual price. The software keeps running whether or not you renew maintenance.
Published prices
Every number is on the site. No call required to find out what it costs, and the same number appears on every page.
Where Hubstaff may be stronger
Written plainly, because a comparison page that finds no fault with itself is not worth reading.
Cheapest is not the only question
If you need GPS, invoicing or forty native integrations, buying the cheaper product and then buying a second tool to fill the gap is not a saving.
Self-hosting has hidden costs
A server, and someone to patch and back it up. If that person does not exist, the flat licence is not actually cheaper than a subscription.
Scale economics
A larger vendor can discount at volume. Above a few hundred seats, ask both of us for a number rather than reading a page.
Which should you choose?
Under 25 people: cloud, almost certainly. A flat licence plus a server plus a setup fee is more than a small team should spend, and our cloud starts at ₹59 a user.
25 to 60 people: it depends on whether you have compliance pressure. Without it, cloud usually wins on total cost once you count the server. With it, the licence is worth paying for on its own merits.
60 to 250 people: the flat self-hosted licence is normally the cheaper line item, and by a widening margin as you hire.
Above 250: ask for a quote. The published bands stop being the right instrument and a negotiated number is better for both sides.
Pricing
| Employees | Cloud Growth, annual billing | Self-hosted licence | Lower of the two |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | ₹23,760 | ₹40,000 | Cloud |
| 50 | ₹47,520 | ₹70,000 | Cloud |
| 100 | ₹95,040 | ₹1,20,000 | Cloud |
| 250 | ₹2,37,600 | ₹2,25,000 | Self-hosted |
Add the one-time ₹25,000 setup fee to the first year of any self-hosted licence, plus your own server cost and the time of whoever patches it. Cloud figures above assume annual billing at the 20% discount on the Growth plan.
₹59per user per month, cloud entry plan
₹40,000per year, self-hosted from
~60employees, where the licence overtakes cloud
20%off for annual billing
Frequently asked questions
Is Employee Desk cheaper than Hubstaff?
For an Indian company paying in rupees, on the equivalent plan, generally yes — and the gap widens with headcount because a flat licence stops growing. Do the comparison on your own numbers rather than on ours: take your headcount, look at their current published price, and compare it against the table on this page.
Are there hidden costs?
On cloud, no: the per-user price is the price and GST is added on the invoice. On self-hosted, the honest list is the ₹25,000 setup fee, your server, and the time of whoever maintains it.
Do you discount for annual payment?
Yes, 20% off the monthly rate for cloud plans paid annually. Self-hosted licences are annual by default.
Do you discount for non-profits or education?
Ask. We would rather have you as a customer than hold the line on a list price.
What is the cheapest way to run this?
The Starter plan at ₹59 per user per month, which covers attendance, leave and holidays with no desktop tracker. Plenty of companies never need more than that.
Run both for a week
A 7-day trial with your real team is a better comparison than any table. Install the tracker on two machines and look at what the reports actually say.
- 7-day trial
- No credit card
- Cancel anytime