QuickBooks Time is $10+ per user per month plus a base fee — for 10 employees that is over $1,200 a year, forever, and your wage data lives in their cloud. Punchcard is the core of it self-hosted: clock in/out with breaks, a PIN kiosk, audited timesheets, an approval queue and payroll CSV export. $29, once.
This is the full pricing breakdown: what QuickBooks Time actually costs over one, two and three years, what Punchcard gives you for $29 paid once, and the honest cases where the subscription is still the right call.
What QuickBooks Time actually costs you
QuickBooks Time prices per user — $10/user/mo — so the subscription grows with every user you add. The comparison below uses the catalog's annual figure of $1,200, which works out to roughly 10 users at that rate; the per-user table underneath shows how the bill scales either way.
| Punchcard | QuickBooks Time | |
|---|---|---|
| Sticker price | $29 once | $10/user/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $29 | $1,200 |
| Cost after 2 years | $29 | $2,400 |
| Cost after 3 years | $29 | $3,600 |
QuickBooks Time bills per user, so the total scales with headcount:
| QuickBooks Time users | Per year | Over 3 years |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $120 | $360 |
| 5 users | $600 | $1,800 |
| 10 users | $1,200 | $3,600 |
Three years in, the gap is $3,571 — and every year after that adds another $1,200 to the subscription side of the ledger.
Punchcard vs QuickBooks Time, feature by feature
Price is only half the story — here's how the two line up on the things that decide day-to-day use:
| Punchcard | QuickBooks Time | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 once | $10/user/mo |
| 10 employees, 1 year | $29 | $1,200+ |
| Clock in/out + breaks | Yes | Yes |
| Kiosk PIN punch | Yes | Yes |
| Timesheet approval + audit | Yes | Yes |
| Overtime flagging | Yes | Yes |
| Payroll CSV export | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted, data stays yours | Yes | No |
What you get for $29, once
Self-hosted punch clock, PIN kiosk, approval queue and payroll CSV — no per-user fees. The highlights:
- ⏲️ Clock in / out / break — One-click punch board per employee; daily hours computed from punch pairs with breaks deducted.
- 🔢 PIN kiosk mode — A big-button PIN pad at /kiosk for a shared tablet or front desk; one tap toggles in/out, no admin session, disable it in settings.
- 🗓️ Weekly timesheets — Hours by day with punch-level detail; edits require an audit note recording who changed what and why, in integer cents.
- ✔️ Approval queue — Submit, then approve or reject with a comment (required on reject), bulk approve, full decision audit trail.
Less than one month of QuickBooks Time for a 10-person crew pays for Punchcard forever.
Switching is 3 steps
- Buy once on Whop. One payment of $29 gets you the packaged Windows installer with updates, or clone the MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/timesheet-approval-mvp and run it free.
- Run desktop or deploy. Run npm run desktop (great for a front-desk kiosk), or docker compose onto a $5 VPS when you need it public.
- Start punching. Employees clock in from the punch board or the /kiosk PIN pad, and managers approve the weekly timesheets.
When paying QuickBooks Time is still the right call
Being straight about it: the subscription earns its keep in three situations. If your team is large enough that QuickBooks Time's collaboration features, permissions and admin controls are genuinely load-bearing; if your workflow is built on its integrations and leaving means rebuilding that plumbing; or if you have enterprise requirements — SSO, audit logs, SLAs, a vendor to call — that a pay-once app doesn't come with. Everyone else is paying $10/user/mo for a job that runs fine on hardware they already own.
If that's you, Punchcard is $29, once. For the deeper dive, read the Punchcard vs QuickBooks Time head-to-head.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Punchcard is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/timesheet-approval-mvp. The $29 buys the packaged Windows installer and updates; building from source is free.
Where does my wage data live?
In a SQLite file on your own server — wage and payroll data never leaves your box.
Is this a subscription in disguise?
No. $29 once, no renewal, no per-user monthly fee.
More on QuickBooks Time pricing
Punchcard — product page, demo & full feature list · All OneTimeSuite pricing breakdowns
Try Punchcard — $29, once
Self-hosted punch clock, PIN kiosk, approval queue and payroll CSV — no per-user fees.