Compare · Employee monitoring
WorkMonitor vs ActivTrak
Workforce analytics that classifies app and website use into productivity dashboards for coaching.
Written from public materials and reviewed September 7, 2026. Check anything here against ActivTrak’s own site before you decide, and everything below about WorkMonitor is read from the same catalogue as our product pages.
Watching people work, or proving the work happened
workmonitor.vsScreenshot-based monitoring
What the evidence is
With WorkMonitor
A work-edge record built from commits, tickets, documents and active-tab URLs, with no pixel capture in the proof path.
Screenshot-based monitoring
Screenshots on an interval, plus an activity percentage derived from keyboard and mouse events.
Showing a client
With WorkMonitor
A signed, timestamped certificate they verify on a public page, disclosing only the fields you choose.
Screenshot-based monitoring
Export the screenshots into a deck, which exposes the client’s own data to prove you worked on it.
What "productive" means
With WorkMonitor
Focus and deep-work stretches with category overrides you control, and every score opens into its breakdown.
Screenshot-based monitoring
Input volume, which rewards fidgeting and penalises reading, thinking and pair work.
When a decision is challenged
With WorkMonitor
A transparency view of their own record, a dispute route with a right to human review, and a log of who looked — so the decision holds up when somebody pushes back on it.
Screenshot-based monitoring
Data collected about a person that the person cannot see and cannot contest, which is where the argument starts.
Capture cadence
With WorkMonitor
Randomised cadence, plus integrity signals that detect simulated input and downgrade any proof built on it.
Screenshot-based monitoring
A fixed interval, which everybody learns within a week and works around.
Operating across borders
With WorkMonitor
Capture policy per region, consent recorded against a version, and written guidance for 32 jurisdictions.
Screenshot-based monitoring
One policy applied everywhere, and a legal review that starts from scratch in each new market.
The question we get asked
We use this for coaching, not policing. Does adding a proof layer change the tone with our team?
It tends to change it in the direction you want. The thing that makes monitoring feel like policing is data collected about someone that they cannot see and cannot contest; every person here gets their own view of their record, an appeal route, and the log of who looked. The analytics you are coaching from stay — they just stop being one-directional.
App categories — how apps are classified, and your overrides
What WorkMonitor ships, with its real status
- WORM-anchored certificates (from a finalized invoice)
- Public no-login verifier
- Selective disclosure
Switching
Your ActivTrak history comes across
Nobody switches tools if it means abandoning a year of history. The importer carries a mapper for ActivTrak exports, so the CSV you already have is the CSV we take — and it lands on the same ledger as everything captured after it.
What the importer reads from a ActivTrak export
useremailusernamedate- date
durationtotal timetimeactive time- minutes
- not in this export
- project
- not in this export
- task
activitydescription- note
Durations arrive as a clock duration like 1:30:00 and are parsed into whole minutes. First matching header wins, so a renamed column still lands.
After the import
Where your ActivTrak history lands
Imported hours sit on the same ledger as everything captured after them, so a week from before the switch and a week from after it are read the same way. 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.
What We See — every person's own view of their record
When ActivTrak is the better answer
You want analytics only, with no timesheet, billing or payroll layer, and a large body of benchmarking data behind the dashboards.
If that is the deciding requirement, buy that instead. Nothing on this page is worth reading if the unflattering half is missing from it, which is also why every capability above carries its real status rather than a tick.
Questions
Moving from ActivTrak
Answered about what WorkMonitor does, including where the answer is no.
- Can I import my ActivTrak data into WorkMonitor?
- Yes. The importer carries an ActivTrak mapper: it reads user, email or username for the person, date for the day, and duration, total time, time or active time for the length, parsing clock durations into minutes, with the activity or description column kept as the note.
- Does WorkMonitor classify apps and websites into productive and unproductive?
- It classifies them, and the classification is yours to override per category and per team. The shared app directory fetches each app’s name, icon and vendor once, so a category you correct stays corrected rather than reverting on the next unknown binary.
- Is WorkMonitor just analytics, or does it do timesheets and payroll too?
- Both sit on one ledger. The same captured hours that feed the analytics feed timesheets, multi-stage approval, invoicing and a payroll run — which is either the reason to move or an unwanted layer, depending on whether you want the seams gone.
- Can I see productivity without tracking individuals?
- Yes. Capture policy is set per team and per region, and team-level analytics work without individual capture turned on. The jurisdiction guidance covers 32 countries where that distinction is the difference between a lawful programme and an unlawful one.
- Does WorkMonitor offer productivity benchmarks?
- Not against an external dataset. Comparisons are against your own org’s history and your own weekly targets, with status evaluated when the page is read, so a target you change is reflected immediately rather than at the next batch job.
- Does WorkMonitor charge extra for the analytics features?
- The analytics are part of the platform rather than an add-on tier. Two seats are free, everything above that is published per-seat pricing, and the full tier list is on the pricing page.
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.
Pick a question above and WorkMonitor AI will answer from your team's real numbers.
Also comparing
Other employee monitoring tools
- WorkMonitor vs HubstaffTime tracking with screenshots, activity rates and GPS, aimed at distributed teams that bill by the hour.
- WorkMonitor vs Time DoctorWorkforce analytics and performance reporting built around tracked time and distraction alerts.
- WorkMonitor vs InsightfulTime and activity tracking for hybrid teams, with visible and stealth monitoring modes.
- WorkMonitor vs ProdoscoreA single productivity score derived from activity across the business tools a team already uses.
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.