It depends on how many machines, on what you need to do with them and — above all — on how much of the advertised price is actually the final price.
This article answers with numbers. Every figure was checked on 31 August 2026 on each vendor's official pricing page.
The quick answer
For most companies, monitoring one computer costs between $2.60 and $18 per machine, per month. The range is wide because three very different things are sold under the same name:
| What you want | Typical range | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Just record attendance and activity | $0 to $4 per machine | Jibble (free), ActivTrak free plan |
| Real monitoring (screen, apps, sites, productivity) | $4 to $10 | Vigilioo, Kickidler, DeskTime, Hubstaff, Time Doctor |
| Monitor and control the device | $3.30 to $18 | Vigilioo, Kickidler DLP, Teramind |
The jump between the second and third rows is where almost every price comparison goes wrong. More on that below.
Simulation: 2 computers
The small office, the practice, the operation that is just starting.
| Tool | Monthly cost | Per machine |
|---|---|---|
| ActivTrak (free plan, up to 3 users) | $0 | $0 |
| Vigilioo Basic | $10.00 | $5.00 |
| DeskTime Pro (annual) | $12.84 | $6.42 |
| Kickidler Time Tracking | $14.00 | $7.00 |
| Kickidler Employee Monitoring | $19.98 | $9.99 |
| Hubstaff Team | $20.00 | $10.00 |
| Teramind Starter (5-seat minimum) | $70.00 | $35.00 |
Two things stand out. First, licence minimums dominate the bill in small operations: Teramind charges for five seats regardless of team size. Second, ActivTrak's free plan is unbeatable on price — as long as you only want to observe, and only up to three people.
Simulation: 15 computers
The most common scenario among small and mid-sized companies.
| Tool | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Per machine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vigilioo Pro | $60.00 | $48.00 | $4.00 |
| Kickidler Employee Monitoring | $149.85 | $82.50 | $9.99 |
| DeskTime Pro | — | $96.30 | $6.42 |
| Monitask Pro | $119.85 | $97.35 | $6.49 |
| Controlio Basic | — | $100.05 | $6.67 |
| Time Doctor Basic | $120.00 | $100.05 | $6.67 |
| Insightful Workforce Analytics | — | $120.00 | $8.00 |
| ActivTrak Work Activity | — | $150.00 | $10.00 |
| Hubstaff Team | $150.00 | — | $10.00 |
| Teramind Starter | $210.00 | — | $14.00 |
| Kickidler DLP (with blocking) | $225.00 | $123.75 | $15.00 |
| Veriato UAM | — | $270.00 | $18.00 |
The important reading is not the first line, but the distance to the last: for 15 machines, the gap between the cheapest option with device control and the most expensive is over $200 per month — $2,500 a year, in the same operation.
Simulation: 30 and 100 computers
| Tool | 30 machines | 100 machines |
|---|---|---|
| Vigilioo | $99.00 (Enterprise) | $449.00¹ |
| Monitask Pro | $194.70 | $649.00 |
| Kickidler Employee Monitoring | $299.70 | $999.00 |
| Hubstaff Team | $300.00 | $1,000.00 |
| ActivTrak Work Activity (annual) | $300.00 | $1,000.00 |
| Teramind Starter | $420.00 | $1,400.00 |
| Kickidler DLP | $450.00 | $1,200.00² |
¹ Enterprise (30 devices) plus 70 additional devices at $5 each. Above 30 machines it is worth asking for a quote rather than stacking add-on devices. ² The 100–199 licence band for DLP drops to $12 per licence/month.
Note the scale effect running in opposite directions: some vendors reduce the unit price by volume (Kickidler tiers its DLP pricing), while per-seat products keep the price linear — and the bill grows proportionally.
The seven places where the bill grows
1. Licence minimums
The most expensive number in this market is the minimum. Teramind requires 5 seats; several regional vendors require 10 users. A three-person team pays for ten or for five. Before comparing unit prices, check the floor.
2. Blocking sold as a separate module
This is the item that distorts comparisons most. At Kickidler, blocking a USB drive, restricting sites and shutting a computer down remotely all live in the DLP licence — $15 per licence/month for up to 99 licences, against $9.99 for Employee Monitoring.
So the honest comparison against a platform that already includes those controls is not against the $9.99. It is against the $15.
3. Add-ons that look like details
- Time Doctor — software cost insights at $3 per user/month; native HR and payroll integrations at $200 per integration/month.
- Insightful — insider threat detection at $4 per seat/month; on-demand screenshots at $3 to $4.
- Monitask — higher screenshot frequency is paid: $2.40 to $7.20 per licence/month.
- ActivTrak — AI Insights add $4 per user/month.
Three $4 add-ons across a 20-person team come to $240 a month. That is another product hidden inside the same invoice.
4. Annual billing only
ActivTrak sells on annual billing only. Not a bad thing in itself — the discount usually justifies it — but it changes the commitment: you are not trying it for a month, you are signing for twelve.
5. Currency exposure
If you are buying outside the United States, a product priced in dollars has its price reset every month by the FX market. A 10% currency swing is a 10% increase in your tool, with no notice and no negotiation.
6. The server nobody added up
In Kickidler's pricing table, the Employee Monitoring and DLP licences are listed for installation on your own server. That means hardware, an operating system, backups, updates and someone in IT looking after it — real cost that never shows up in a per-licence comparison.
7. Storage and history retention
How long do you keep screenshots and reports? Several vendors differentiate plans on exactly this (ActivTrak's free plan keeps 30 days; paid tiers, 6 months to a year). Finding the limit after you need the history is expensive in a different way.
How to work out your own case in five minutes
- 1Count machines, not people. Someone with two devices consumes two licences at most vendors.
- 2List what you need to happen — not features, outcomes. "Know how many hours the team worked" is different from "stop a file leaving on a USB stick".
- 3Mark which of those items are paid add-ons at each candidate.
- 4Multiply by the floor, not by your number: if the minimum is 10 and you have 4, your cost is 10.
- 5Multiply by 12. A $4 per-machine difference becomes $720 a year across 15 machines.
Where Vigilioo stands
Vigilioo charges by device allowance, with everything included in the plan: $10/month for 2 devices, $60 for 15 and $99 for 30, with 20% off annually. That works out to between $5 and $2.63 per device/month depending on the plan.
What changes the comparison is not the number, but what it covers. Screen monitoring, apps and sites, shifts and attendance from real activity, productivity and cost per person, location — and, at the same price, USB and Bluetooth port blocking, site and program blocking by policy, precautionary device lock, fleet inventory and role-based access control. No separate module, no per-feature add-on, no server to maintain.
If your case is purely attendance tracking, cheaper options exist and we will say so plainly: start with ActivTrak's free plan or a dedicated time tracker. If at some point you will need to prevent something, compare against the price that includes that capability — and the ranking changes.
See the full tool-by-tool comparison in the 10 best remote employee monitoring tools in 2026, or our plans.
Conclusion
Monitoring software isn't compared by number, it's compared by scope. A $6.49 product that only observes and a $4 product that observes and controls are not the same product at different prices — they are different categories on the same shelf.
Add up the licence floor, the add-ons and the currency exposure before deciding. In most operations, that is where the order of the list changes.
Sources
Prices checked on 31 August 2026 on the vendors' official pages.
