Almost every "best monitoring software" list is written by one of the vendors, who puts itself first without explaining why.
This one is written by a vendor too: Vigilioo. The difference is that the criteria are in the open below, every price came from the vendor's own pricing page — with the date it was checked — and our own limitations are written before anyone else's.
If you want to skip ahead, the comparison table is in the third section.
How this list was built
Five criteria, in this order of weight:
- 1Price per device per month. Not per "user", because the allowance changes everything: a $60 plan covering 15 machines costs $4 per machine, and a $14.99 plan with a 10-user minimum costs $149.90 even if you have three people.
- 2What the tool does beyond watching. Seeing the screen is table stakes. Blocking a USB port, cutting a laptop's access in minutes or stopping a program from running is a different class of problem solved.
- 3How you buy it. Self-service sign-up with a free trial, or a sales process with a scheduled demo and a quote.
- 4Licence minimums and trial terms. This is what decides whether a four-person operation can start at all.
- 5Total cost with add-ons, not the headline number.
Figures were checked on 31 August 2026 on each vendor's pricing page. Where a vendor doesn't publish a price, it says "on request" — we don't estimate.
Software pricing changes. Before you subscribe to any product below, check the current figure on the vendor's own page.
What almost nobody compares: watching is not controlling
Before the table, the distinction that organises this entire market.
Most of these tools were built to answer "what did this person do during the working day?" — screenshots, apps used, sites visited, active hours, productivity reports. That is employee monitoring, and it is a well-served category: there are dozens of good, cheap options.
A minority answer the second question: "what is this machine allowed to do?" — block the USB port, stop a program, cut access remotely, apply policy by group, keep an inventory of the fleet. That is endpoint management, the territory of UEM, MDM and RMM, and it usually comes with a sales cycle, a contract and a rollout.
Companies that need both usually end up with two subscriptions. This is exactly where per-user price comparison misleads: comparing a tool that only watches with one that watches and controls is comparing different things.
Comparison table: price and minimums
Price per device (or per user, where that is how the vendor charges), per month.
| Tool | Monthly | Annual | Minimum | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vigilioo Pro (15 devices) | $4.00 | $3.20 | 2 devices | 7 days, no card |
| Vigilioo Enterprise (30 devices) | $3.30 | $2.63 | 2 devices | 7 days, no card |
| Kickidler · Time Tracking | $7.00 | $4.17 | 1 | 14 days |
| Kickidler · Employee Monitoring | $9.99 | $5.50 | 1 | 14 days |
| Kickidler · DLP | $15.00 | $8.25 | 1 | 14 days |
| DeskTime Pro | — | $6.42 | 1 | 14 days |
| Monitask Pro | $7.99 | $6.49 | 1 | 10 days |
| Controlio Basic | — | $6.67 | 1 | 14 days |
| Time Doctor Basic | $8.00 | $6.67 | 1 | 14 days |
| Insightful | — | $8.00 | 1 | yes |
| Hubstaff Team | $10.00 | — | 1 | 14 days |
| ActivTrak | — | $10.00 | 3 (free plan) | 14 days |
| Teramind Starter | $14.00 | — | 5 seats | yes |
| Veriato UAM | — | $18.00 | 1 | yes |
| Jibble | Free | Free | 1 | — |
Vigilioo charges per device allowance, not per seat: the Pro plan is $60 per month for up to 15 devices and Enterprise is $99 for 30. The table shows the monthly fee divided by the allowance. All annual plans carry a 20% discount.
Comparison table: what each one controls
The list gets short here. "Declared" means the feature appears in the vendor's documentation or product page; "not published" means we found no reference — not that the tool cannot do it.
| Tool | Live screen | USB blocking | Site and app blocking | Remote device lock | Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vigilioo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kickidler EM | Yes | DLP module only | DLP module only | DLP module only | Module runs on your server |
| Hubstaff | Screenshots | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Time Doctor | Screenshots and video | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| ActivTrak | Screenshots | Not published | Site alarms and blocking | Not published | Yes |
| Teramind | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| DeskTime | Screenshots | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Controlio | Yes | Not published | Yes | Not published | Yes |
Two readings come out of that.
First: almost no monitoring tool blocks the USB port. It is the shortest path for a file to leave the company, and most of the category simply doesn't address it.
Second: when it does, it charges separately. At Kickidler, removable-drive blocking, site blocking and remote shutdown live on the DLP module page, at $15 per licence/month for up to 99 licences — nearly four times the price of Vigilioo's Pro plan, which already includes those controls.
The 10 tools, one by one
1. Vigilioo — monitoring and control at the same price
Vigilioo answers both questions from the third section with one agent and one dashboard: screen monitoring (every 15 minutes, every minute or in real time depending on the plan), apps and sites used, shifts and attendance derived from actual activity, productivity per person and period, cost and compensation, location and geofence — and, on the control side, USB and Bluetooth port blocking, site and program blocking by policy, precautionary device lock, fleet inventory and role-based access control. On the Enterprise plan, screenshots are analysed with AI. Windows and macOS, on or off the corporate network.
Price: $10/month for 2 devices (Basic), $60 for 15 (Pro) and $99 for 30 (Enterprise), with 20% off annually. That is $5 per device at worst and $2.63 at best. Seven-day trial, no credit card, starting at 2 devices.
Who it's for: teams that need to see and act — IT responsible for laptops outside the office, companies with sensitive data sitting on endpoints, managers who want attendance and productivity without buying two products.
Limitations, honestly: there is no managed Android or iOS app — the platform is built for computers. Shift tracking derives working hours from real activity, but it is not a certified time-clock system under any specific national regulation: if you need statutory time records, that's a different product category. And the integration catalogue is smaller than the American veterans', who have a decade of connectors behind them.
2. Kickidler (KeepActive) — continuous video recording, sold in modules
One of the best-known tools in the category, with a long track record and strong content marketing. Its strength is continuous screen video recording and live monitoring, with solid violation analysis.
What often goes unnoticed is the purchasing structure: the product is sold as three separate licences. Time Tracking is the cheapest; Employee Monitoring adds recording and analysis; DLP is where removable-device blocking, site restrictions and remote shutdown actually live.
Price (official pricing page, 31/08/2026): Time Tracking at $7 per licence/month, Employee Monitoring at $9.99, DLP at $15 for up to 99 licences. Term discounts go up to −40% on a three-year commitment, and perpetual licences are available.
Who it's for: teams that need continuous screen video and have the IT capacity to run the server.
Limitation: the control features require the most expensive licence in the line, and comparing it directly against a product that already includes them tends to double or quadruple the bill.
3. Hubstaff — when the problem is paying for hours worked
Hubstaff solves one problem well: measuring hours and turning them into payment. Time tracking, screenshots, activity levels, GPS and routes for field teams, automated payroll and invoicing, and integrations with dozens of project tools.
Price: $10 per seat/month on the Team plan, per the official page; there are cheaper entry plans and a more expensive Enterprise tier. Some capabilities are sold as add-ons, which raises the real cost.
Who it's for: companies that pay by the hour — agencies, outsourcing, contractors, field teams.
Limitation: it is a time-and-payment product, not endpoint security. We found no port control or device lockdown in the public documentation.
4. Time Doctor — reporting and integrations
A category veteran, with detailed reports, productivity ratings, unusual-activity detection (including mouse jiggler detection on higher tiers), screen video recording and 60+ integrations.
Price: three plans between $6.67 and $16.70 per user/month annually ($8 to $20 monthly), according to market comparisons — the official page doesn't publish the figures in its HTML. Modules such as software cost insights cost $3 per user/month extra, and native HR and payroll integrations are billed at $200 per integration/month.
Who it's for: mid-sized companies that want reporting depth and connections to an existing stack.
Limitation: the sticker price climbs fast with add-ons, and initial configuration is famously fiddly.
5. ActivTrak — the best free plan
ActivTrak is the most analytical tool on the list: less surveillance, more reading of work patterns, team workload, benchmarks and recommendations. It has a genuine free plan for up to 3 users, with 30 days of history.
Price: $10, $15 or $17 per user/month, annual billing only. AI Insights add $4 per user/month.
Who it's for: HR and leadership who want to understand workload distribution and aggregate productivity, not catch individual behaviour.
Limitation: there is no monthly payment option, and the product assumes by default that you want to analyse, not intervene.
6. Teramind — the most complete, and the most expensive
If the problem is insider risk — leaks, fraud, investigations, compliance — Teramind is the reference on this list. Behavioural monitoring, DLP with OCR, session recording, automated response rules, device and application blocking.
Price: from $14 per seat/month on Starter, with a five-seat minimum; the user activity monitoring plan sits around $28. Volume discounts start in the hundreds of seats.
Who it's for: regulated companies, security teams, operations with critical data and the staff to maintain complex rulesets.
Limitation: price and complexity from another league. For a 15-machine operation that wants visibility and basic control, it is too much tool.
7. Insightful — workforce analytics
Successor to Workpuls, Insightful is strong on analysis: productivity, team comparison, process mapping and an insider-risk module.
Price: $8 per seat/month (Workforce Analytics) and $12 (Workflow Optimization) annually, or $16 bundled. Insider threat detection adds $4 per seat/month, and on-demand screenshots $3 to $4.
Who it's for: mid-sized companies making decisions from aggregate data.
Limitation: add-ons push the total close to the top of the table.
8. DeskTime — simple and direct
Latvian, with a clean interface and a short learning curve: time per application, productive/unproductive classification, attendance, absences and calendar integration.
Price: $6.42 (Pro) and $9.17 (Premium) per user/month annually.
Who it's for: small teams that want to measure focus without turning it into a project.
Limitation: it measures, and that's it. No device control.
9. Controlio — monitoring with alerts, at a fair price
Controlio sits between live monitoring and productivity analytics: live screen view, recording, site blocking, behaviour alerts and reporting, in cloud or on-premise.
Price: $6.67 (Basic) and $9.99 (Advanced) per user/month annually, with a 14-day free trial.
Who it's for: teams that want live view and alerting without moving up to a full DLP suite.
Limitation: the public documentation doesn't declare USB port control, so the "watching, not controlling" caveat applies.
10. Monitask — the light option
Straightforward time tracking with screenshots, activity levels, project tracking and invoicing.
Price: $6.49 per user/month annually ($7.99 monthly), up to $15.99 on higher tiers. Higher screenshot frequency is a paid add-on, from $2.40 to $7.20 per licence.
Who it's for: small teams and agencies billing by the hour.
Limitation: basic feature set — which is precisely the point.
Also worth knowing: Veriato, Jibble and the Brazilian market
- Veriato — $18 per user/month annually. AI-driven behavioural analysis and insider risk; the most expensive on this list.
- Jibble — a genuinely free plan with no user cap, face-recognition clock-in and GPS. If the problem is recording attendance and nothing else, start there.
- Buying in Brazil? Two local vendors are worth a look: Monitoo, at R$ 14.99 per user/month with a 10-user minimum, and fSense, strong in BPO and shared service centres, with pricing on request.
What if the problem isn't productivity, but the equipment?
If your pain is inventory, policy, patching and fleet security posture — rather than what each person does — the right category is none of the ten above. It is unified endpoint management: Microsoft Intune, Hexnode, Scalefusion, IBM MaaS360, Omnissa Workspace ONE.
Three practical notes about that side of the market:
- Sticker prices are competitive — Hexnode runs from $1 to $5 per device/month, Scalefusion from $2 to $6 (with a 10-device minimum) — but none of them delivers productivity monitoring, attendance or screen capture. Different problem.
- Buying is consultative. Self-service sign-up with an immediate trial is rare in that bracket.
- Cisco Meraki Systems Manager reached end-of-sale on 3 December 2025. If your company relied on it, migration is already an open project.
Vigilioo sits exactly between the two blocks: the controls from the right-hand side, the activity insight from the left, and the buying experience of the left.
How to choose: four questions before you subscribe
1. How many devices, today? Below 10, minimums remove part of the list (Teramind requires 5 seats; several Brazilian vendors require 10 users). Vigilioo starts at 2.
2. Do you need to prevent something, or only to know? If the honest answer is "only to know", there are cheaper options — DeskTime, Monitask, Controlio. If at some point you will need to block a port, cut an access or stop a program, compare prices with that capability included, not without it.
3. Will you have to defend this decision? Monitoring requires a written policy, prior notice and a lawful basis — see employee monitoring and data protection. A tool that encourages covert monitoring is a liability, not an advantage.
4. Do you want to test before talking to a salesperson? If so, rule out anyone who only sells through a scheduled demo.
Where Vigilioo stands
We are the only platform on this list under $5 per device/month that both monitors and controls the endpoint at the same price: screen, apps, sites, shifts, productivity and cost on one side; USB and Bluetooth blocking, site and program blocking, precautionary device lock, inventory and RBAC on the other.
Next to the direct competition, that means roughly half the price of Kickidler Employee Monitoring — with the controls that require its DLP module there — and well under half of Hubstaff, ActivTrak and Teramind.
We are not the cheapest tool in the market. Pure time trackers and free tiers exist, and for teams that only need to know how many hours were worked, they are a better fit. We are the one that delivers the most capability per dollar, and the only one that starts at 2 devices with a 7-day trial and no credit card.
Conclusion
There is no "best monitoring software" in the abstract. There is the question your operation needs answered.
If it is "how many hours did this team work", the market is generous and cheap. If it is "what is this machine doing, and what do I do when something goes wrong", the list shrinks sharply — and the price of the tools that do both stops being comparable to the price of the tools that do one.
Choose by the question. And check the price at the source before you sign.
Sources
Prices and features checked on 31 August 2026 on each vendor's official pages.
