Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. Trackpilots' Basic plan is permanently free with no time limit and no credit card required. It supports unlimited users and includes screenshots every 20 minutes, attendance tracking, app and website monitoring, and productivity dashboards — all at zero cost, forever.

The free Basic plan includes: unlimited users, automatic screenshots every 20 minutes, app and website usage tracking, automatic attendance logging (shift start/end), daily and weekly productivity dashboards, and inactivity detection. There is no user cap and no expiry date.

The Starter Pack is priced at $3.99/user/month (₹399/user/month for India). It adds 1-minute screenshots, stealth/invisible monitoring mode, inactivity alerts, role-based access control, and extended data retention (1 year activity / 3 months screenshots).

Only on the Starter Pack — $3.99 per user per month. The Basic plan is completely free for any number of users with no per-user charge.

Yes. You can downgrade from the Starter Pack to the free Basic plan at any time. Your account will revert to 20-minute screenshots and the stealth mode will be disabled, but all your existing users and attendance history remain intact.

Yes. Trackpilots automatically captures screenshots of each employee's screen at configurable intervals — no manual action needed from employees or managers. Screenshots are uploaded securely to the manager dashboard and stored with timestamps.

On the free Basic plan, screenshots are captured every 20 minutes. On the Starter Pack, you can configure intervals down to 1 minute per employee or team. Managers can adjust frequency at any time from the dashboard.

On the Basic plan and standard Starter Pack mode, yes — the Trackpilots agent is visible in the system tray so employees are aware tracking is active. On Starter Pack with stealth mode enabled, the agent runs invisibly with no system tray icon or notification. Either way, employers must inform employees of monitoring in their employment contract or acceptable-use policy.

Yes. Trackpilots stealth mode (available on the Starter Pack) works across all three supported platforms: Windows, macOS, and Linux. The agent runs in the background with no visible indicator on any of these operating systems.

Trackpilots monitors all applications running on the device and all browser domains visited during work hours. Managers can categorise apps and websites as productive, unproductive, or neutral based on the employee's role. The dashboard shows time spent per application and per domain, broken down by day and week.

No. Trackpilots does not log individual keystrokes or capture typed content. It measures keyboard activity as a signal for active vs inactive time — detecting whether the keyboard is being used — but never records what is being typed. This protects employee privacy and avoids capturing passwords or personal messages.

Yes. Managers can configure work schedule hours per team or per employee so that Trackpilots only tracks activity during the defined shift window. Activity outside scheduled hours is not recorded, ensuring monitoring is limited to contracted work time.

No. Trackpilots is a desktop monitoring solution for Windows, macOS, and Linux computers. It does not currently support mobile device monitoring (iOS or Android). It is designed exclusively for computer-based work.

Yes. Employee monitoring on company-owned devices is legal in India under the IT Act 2000 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023. The key requirement is disclosure — employees must be informed that monitoring is in place, either through their employment contract or an acceptable-use policy. Monitoring personal devices without explicit written consent is not permitted.

In most countries, explicit individual consent is not required — but prior written disclosure is mandatory. Employees must be informed that monitoring software is deployed, what it captures, and how the data is used, before tracking begins. This is typically done via an employment contract clause or an IT acceptable-use policy. Check your local jurisdiction's requirements, as EU (GDPR), UK, and Australian laws have specific rules.

Stealth monitoring is legal in most countries when employees have been informed of its existence in their employment contract or company policy — even if they cannot see the agent running. What is illegal in most jurisdictions is monitoring employees without any prior disclosure whatsoever. Always include a monitoring clause in employment contracts before enabling stealth mode.

Trackpilots stores: active time logs, app and website usage data, attendance records (login/logout times), productivity scores, and screenshots. On the free plan, screenshot data is retained for 3 months and activity data for 1 year. On the Starter Pack, retention periods are extended. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest, stored in enterprise-grade data centres. Trackpilots does not store keystroke content, webcam footage, or personal device data.

Trackpilots supports Windows (Windows 7 and later), macOS (10.11 and later), and most Linux distributions. All three platforms receive full feature parity including screenshots, app tracking, stealth mode, and attendance logging.

Yes. Trackpilots records all activity data locally on the device when there is no internet connection. Once the device reconnects, all offline data — activity logs, screenshots, and attendance records — syncs automatically to the cloud dashboard. No data is lost during internet outages.

Download the Trackpilots Windows installer from the manager dashboard or the downloads page. Run the .exe file, follow the two-step installation prompt, and log in with your employee credentials. The agent starts automatically and begins tracking immediately. Installation takes under 3 minutes and requires no technical expertise.

There is no user limit on either plan. The free Basic plan supports unlimited users at no cost. The Starter Pack is priced per user but has no hard cap — you can add as many employees as needed and pay only for those on the paid tier.

No. The Trackpilots desktop agent is designed to be extremely lightweight — it consumes less than 1% CPU under normal operation and typically uses under 50MB of RAM. It runs silently in the background without interfering with employee workflows or slowing down applications.

The main differences are: (1) Trackpilots has a free plan for unlimited users — Hubstaff's free plan covers only 1 user. (2) Trackpilots includes stealth monitoring — Hubstaff has no invisible mode at any price tier. (3) Trackpilots costs $3.99/user/month — Hubstaff starts at $7+/user/month. Hubstaff has an advantage if GPS field tracking is required — Trackpilots does not offer GPS. For desk-based and remote teams without GPS needs, Trackpilots covers every Hubstaff use case at a lower price.

Yes — Trackpilots is the best free alternative to Time Doctor. Time Doctor has no free plan (only a 14-day trial) and starts at $6.70/user/month. Trackpilots offers a permanently free plan for unlimited users that includes screenshots, app tracking, attendance, and productivity dashboards — everything most businesses use Time Doctor for, at zero cost.

For most small businesses, Trackpilots is the better choice: it is free for unlimited users, includes screenshots on the free plan, supports stealth mode, and runs on Linux. DeskTime's free plan covers only 1 user, screenshots require the Pro plan ($6.42/user/month), and there is no stealth mode or Linux support. DeskTime has been around longer and has a slightly simpler UI, but Trackpilots delivers more features for less cost at every team size.