Time tracking apps · BusyBusy vs SmartCrew

busybusy alternative

Andrew Drish, founder
Published October 22, 2026. Updated November 3, 2026

BusyBusy is a GPS time tracking app with a free plan and add-on modules, sold to concrete, electrical, painting, landscaping, janitorial and snow removal companies, among others. SmartCrew is built only for heavy civil and dirtwork companies with 5 to 100 employees: time, machines, haul tickets, daily reports and job profit in one app. If you're tired of running the rest of the business on spreadsheets and other apps, that's what SmartCrew is for.

BusyBusy is better for other trades. SmartCrew is built for dirtwork.

BusyBusy's industries page and trades page list concrete, electrical, painting, landscaping, restoration, snow removal, janitorial services, property management, fire protection, and installation and moving. Excavation is on there too, as one trade on a long list. For those other trades, BusyBusy is the better pick.

SmartCrew is built for one thing: heavy civil and dirtwork contractors with 5 to 100 employees. Excavation, grading, sitework, underground utilities, paving, road construction, demolition, septic, directional drilling and land clearing. That's all we do.

Where BusyBusy falls short on a dirtwork job:

• Sold in pieces. Daily reports and messaging are on higher plans. Safety, work orders and equipment GPS are modules priced through a demo.
• Not listed: haul tickets or DOT inspections. We couldn't find either on BusyBusy's pricing, feature, module or integration pages.
• Per user, plus an admin fee. $11.99 per user a month on Pro and $17.99 on Premium, billed monthly, plus a $40 admin license.

What BusyBusy is, and who it's for

BusyBusy is a GPS time tracking app for construction and other field trades. It was started in 2010 in Southern Utah by Isaac Barlow, who comes from excavating, landscaping, masonry and land development. In December 2023 it was bought by AlignOps, the company behind ToolWatch, and it's now sold as part of that bigger family of products.

So BusyBusy knows dirt. It even has an excavation page that talks about machine hours and equipment GPS. But it sells to a lot of trades: concrete, electrical, landscaping, painting, snow removal, janitorial and more. The core is the timecard: GPS clock-ins, projects, cost codes and equipment hours.

It's a good tool for a crew that wants accurate hours by job at a low price per guy. The trade-off is everything else a heavy civil company runs on. Inspections, work orders, safety, messaging and daily reports are sold as higher plans or add-on modules.

How much does BusyBusy cost?

BusyBusy publishes its prices, which is more than most do. Here's what its pricing page listed on October 22, 2026.

Paid plans add a $40 admin license (first user included). Source: BusyBusy pricing, October 22, 2026. Plans and promotions change.

Two fine-print items matter. BusyBusy's fair billing page has a 90-day money-back guarantee, but it leaves out setup fees, integration fees and GPS or telematics hardware, which has its own signed order agreement. And the modules a dirtwork company would want most (Operations for work orders and inspections, Safety for JSAs and incidents) don't have a published price.

SmartCrew starts at $99/month, and it's built to be well below the cost of enterprise construction software. Contact us for team pricing. (And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.)

The key difference: a time tracking app vs one app for the whole company

When we went looking for software for our own family business, we found the same thing every dirtwork owner finds. Time tracking apps were too basic. Enterprise software was too complicated, confusing, and expensive. BusyBusy is one of the better time tracking apps. Here's where that line shows up on a heavy civil job.

Machines and the shop

BusyBusy tracks machine hours on every plan, which is great. But the Operations module, the part with equipment inspections and work orders, is a separate paid add-on with no published price. In SmartCrew, the machine record, DOT and daily inspections, service requests from the field and the shop queue come with Fleet Management. Your operator reports a leaking hose from the cab, and the shop sees it with the urgency.

Trucks and loads

If you haul, the load is the unit of work. SmartCrew's hauling log keeps every ticket with the truck, the project, import or export, the material, the yards and the pit. Snap a photo of a paper ticket or a receipt and the AI reader enters the data for you. We didn't find haul or load tickets on BusyBusy's pricing, feature, module or integration pages.

Knowing your profit every day

BusyBusy's GPS time tracking is its strength, and its Pro and Premium plans add budgets. SmartCrew treats the hour as one piece of the job: labor, materials, equipment, other costs and change orders against the bid, with the job's profit updated daily. You find out a job is going sideways while there's still time to fix it.

What the crew has to do

Our crews aren't tech savvy. And they don't need to be. In SmartCrew one phone app does the clock-in (job, activity code and machine), the inspection, the haul log and the daily report. With BusyBusy, how much of that lives in the app depends on the plan and modules you buy.

In SmartCrew, the same phone app handles the clock-in (job, activity code, machine), the DOT inspection and the haul log. (Demo account.)

A SmartCrew job page with budget against actual cost, and a dump truck's record with its inspection log. (Demo data.)

BusyBusy vs the other time tracking apps

BusyBusy, ClockShark, WorkMax, ExakTime and QuickBooks Time are all built around the timecard. They're good at it, and they're more alike than different. Here's how each one lines up against SmartCrew's full feature list, from each company's own website.

When BusyBusy still makes sense

The best BusyBusy alternatives in 2026

It depends on what you're trying to fix. If BusyBusy's hours are fine and the rest of your business is the mess, you want a different kind of software, not a different time clock.

1. SmartCrew, for dirtwork and heavy civil companies with 5 to 100 employees that want time, machines, loads, reports and job profit in one app. That's us, so read the rest of this page with that in mind.
2. ClockShark, another time tracking app, with scheduling and a construction focus. See ClockShark vs SmartCrew.
3. WorkMax, time tracking with equipment and field forms, from AboutTime. See WorkMax vs SmartCrew.
4. ExakTime, time tracking with a rugged hardware time clock for the job site. See ExakTime vs SmartCrew.
5. QuickBooks Time, if you live in QuickBooks and only need the timecard. See QuickBooks Time vs SmartCrew.
6. HCSS HeavyJob, if you're a large heavy civil contractor and want the enterprise suite. See HCSS HeavyJob vs SmartCrew.

If the hours are fine and the rest of the heavy civil day is the problem, read the hcss alternative, the b2w alternative, and heavy civil construction software. Sales follow-up is dirt work software with crm.

Switching from BusyBusy

We do the heavy lifting for you. Most companies are up and running within a few weeks, and you can start with the features you need most.

1. Keep your jobs and cost codes

   Our team sets up your account, moves your information over and organizes your workflows, so your jobs and cost codes carry across.

2. Start with the crew's phones

   Your guys clock in, pick the job, the activity and the machine, and the office sees live crew locations from day one.

3. Add the rest when you're ready

   Equipment and inspections, haul tickets, daily reports and job costing come next. We train your people as you go.

Questions people ask

Sources

1. BusyBusy industries checked October 28, 2026
2. BusyBusy trades checked October 28, 2026
3. BusyBusy pricing checked October 22, 2026
4. BusyBusy modules checked October 22, 2026
5. BusyBusy Operations module checked October 22, 2026
6. BusyBusy fair billing checked October 22, 2026
7. BusyBusy GPS time tracking checked October 22, 2026
8. BusyBusy integrations checked October 22, 2026
9. BusyBusy about us checked October 22, 2026
10. BusyBusy excavation timesheet app checked October 22, 2026
11. AlignOps: BusyBusy acquisition (Dec 5, 2023) checked October 22, 2026
12. BusyBusy on Capterra checked October 22, 2026
13. BusyBusy on the US App Store checked October 22, 2026