Field Staff Tracking Apps in India Compared: Who Charges Extra Per Staff for Live Tracking

You shortlist three field staff tracking apps. All three say "track your employees" on the first screen. You sign up for the one with the lowest price per user, add your ten sales reps, and on day two you find that what you bought checks the phone's location once, at check-in, inside a circle drawn round the office. The live map and the route your rep took between customers are a separate line on the invoice, charged again for every person, every month.

This is the most common surprise in this category, and it is not hidden. It is on the vendors' own pricing pages, usually one table below the plan cards. We read those pages on 30 September 2026 and worked out what 10 and 25 field staff actually cost a year once live tracking is switched on.

Geofence at check-in, live map, route history: three different things

Vendors use "tracking" for three features that are priced very differently, so separate them before you compare a single number.

• Location at check-in. The phone records where it is at the moment the person checks in or out, and a geofence refuses or flags a check-in made outside a circle round the site. This proves an arrival. It says nothing about the next eight hours.
• Live map. During the shift, the owner sees where each person is right now.
• Route history. After the shift, the owner can replay the path the person took, stop by stop.

For a team that works in one building, the first is enough. For sales reps, service technicians, collection agents, delivery staff and home-visit workers, the first is almost useless: they check in once and then spend the day on the road. The question they settle is "did the visit happen, and when", and only the live map and the route answer it.

What each vendor charges for live tracking, read from their own pages

Every price below was read on 30 September 2026 from the vendor's own pricing page, in a browser, with the billing set to annual where the page offers a toggle. Prices exclude GST. Where a vendor does not publish a price, we say so and do not guess one.

Tracking is a per-staff add-on on top of a plan

greytHR. Growth is ₹4,495 a month and includes 50 employees and geo-fencing. "GPS Live tracking" is a separate ₹140 per user per month, available on Growth and Premium only. greytHR's own help pages show a map and timeline of the day, on Android and iOS. The page shows monthly prices and says an annual plan is available, without a separate annual rate.

SalaryBox. With the toggle on Annual, Starter is ₹1,000 a month plus ₹20 per user per month, and includes GPS-verified check-in and geofencing. "Live Location Tracking" is an add-on at ₹100 per user per month, with a location history report. Payroll is not in Starter: it starts at Business, ₹2,000 a month plus ₹50 per user.

Kredily. The plan table lists "Live Tracking, continuous GPS (Android only)" at ₹50 per user per month, and shows that price only in the Enterprise column, which is custom priced. Professional (₹1,749 a month for up to 25 employees) has selfie and GPS attendance. Because Enterprise has no published price, the bill cannot be worked out, and the Android-only note matters if anybody in your team carries an iPhone.

PagarBook. Tracking is a separate product, PagarBook Geo. Geo Basic is ₹5,999 per staff per year and needs an active App or Web plan on top (the App is ₹499 per staff per year). Geo Basic shows a live map, battery percentage and historic paths.

Truein. Everything sits on a ₹69,000 a year base fee. Advanced is ₹350 per user per year, and Live Tracking is a ₹200 per user per year add-on shown in the Advanced card. Truein's tracking page says tracking starts at clock-in, stops at clock-out, and keeps a movement history. The per-staff part is the cheapest here; the base fee is what you pay for.

TimeChamp. Professional is ₹300 per user per month. "Field Staff Tracking" (live location, geo-fence time tracking and location history) is an add-on that "starts at ₹200/- per user per month", only on Professional and above. The page also adds implementation and training at ₹350 per user license with a ₹6,000 minimum, without saying whether that is charged once or every year.

Tracking is the product, priced per user

Lystloc. Enterprise is ₹349 per user per month billed yearly, with geofenced attendance, route travelled and live tracking. Live tracking is capped at 360 hours per user per month on Enterprise and 480 on Suite (₹549); unlimited is only on the custom Elite plan.

TrackoField (TrackoBit). Priced in rupees per user per month by billing term: Annual ₹300 with a 10-user minimum, Half Yearly ₹275 with a 25-user minimum, Quarterly ₹350 with a 50-user minimum. Live tracking, path history and battery status are listed as core features. Every plan goes through "Contact Sales".

Unolo. Its own plan cards list real-time location tracking and historical location data on every plan, but show no price. SoftwareSuggest lists a starting price of ₹325 a month (last updated 27 September 2026) without saying whether that is per user, and Capterra India lists $5 per user (both read on 30 September 2026). Unolo does not publish its price.

Tracking is in a higher tier

Connecteam. Priced in US dollars per hub, not per user, with the first 30 users included. The GPS trail ("Breadcrumbs") is ticked only on Expert, $99 a month billed yearly. Basic ($29) and Advanced ($49) show clock-in locations on a map but no trail. The free Small Business plan, for fewer than 10 employees, does include it.

Zoho People. "Location tracking", which records location between check-in and check-out from the mobile app, starts at Professional, ₹96 per user per month billed annually, with a 5-user minimum. Its pages do not say whether this is a live map or a route you can replay, so ask before you buy it for a field team.

Keka. Publishes no price. "Continuous Location Punching" for field staff is listed under its Strength tier. Techjockey (read on 30 September 2026) lists Strength from ₹12,999 a month, and says it covers up to 100 employees.

Jibble. Publishes no price; its pricing page now redirects to the home page. Its free plan records GPS at clock-in and clock-out. Its help centre describes live locations with routes while staff are clocked in, on Android and iOS. A third-party review (Timely, 24 September 2026) puts live tracking in the Ultimate plan at $7.99 per user per month billed annually.

The bill for 10 and 25 field staff

Annual cost for the cheapest published way to get a live map plus route history, before GST.

How the numbers were built: greytHR is ₹4,495 plus ₹140 per person, times 12. SalaryBox is ₹1,000 plus ₹20 and ₹100 per person, times 12; with payroll (Business) it becomes ₹42,000 and ₹69,000. TrackoField at 25 uses Half Yearly because it is cheaper there than Annual (₹90,000). Truein is ₹69,000 plus ₹550 per person. PagarBook is ₹499 plus ₹5,999 per person. TimeChamp is ₹500 per person a month, times 12. Lystloc is ₹349 per person a month, times 12; check its minimum user count before you plan a team of ten.

Why the per-staff add-on matters more than the headline price

A field team rarely stays the size it was when you bought the software. You add two reps for the festive season, a technician for a new area, a collection agent when the book grows. With a per-staff tracking add-on, each of those hires costs you twice: once in the plan and again in the tracking line. At greytHR's rate the arithmetic is simple: ₹140 × 10 staff = ₹1,400 a month, and ₹140 × 25 staff = ₹3,500 a month. A per-staff add-on grows with every hire.

It also changes behaviour. An owner paying ₹140 a month per person for tracking starts switching it on for "only the people who really need it", and the one rep left off the map is the one whose visits are later disputed. Tracking everybody in the field should not be a monthly budget decision.

Three questions to ask any vendor before you sign:

How Shiftelio handles live tracking for field staff

In Shiftelio, Live Location Tracking and Location History are part of every plan. The pricing page lists both under "Everything an owner gets, included in every plan", and the plan you pick changes only the number of staff and locations, not the features.

What that looks like on a working day:

• A rep checks in on their own phone with a selfie, inside the geofence of the site or anywhere you allow for field roles.
• While they are checked in, the owner's live map shows where they are, updated through the day on Android and iPhone.
• After the shift, Location History replays the day's route point by point, so "did he go to the customer at all" has an answer.
• Tracking stops at check-out. Nothing is recorded after the shift ends.
• The same check-ins become the attendance and the salary, so the record you use to settle a dispute is the one you pay from.

Two things we charge for separately, so there is no surprise: Area Coverage, the report of how much ground a team covered drawn over the map, is a paid add-on (see How Much Ground Did Your Field Staff Actually Cover?). And a team over 100 people moves to Enterprise, which is custom priced.

Before you roll tracking out, tell staff in writing what is recorded and when. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 treats location as personal data: Section 5 requires a notice, and Section 7(i) covers processing for employment purposes. MeitY's data protection framework page has the current rules. Tracking that visibly stops at check-out is also the version staff stop arguing about.

If a phone's tracking keeps dropping in the afternoon, it is usually the phone's battery optimiser, not the app: Background Attendance Tracking on Android in India covers the fix. And if your staff check in at fixed sites rather than moving all day, a geofenced check-in may be all you need: see GPS Attendance Without a Biometric Machine.

For a wider ranking of attendance apps for staff who work away from one address, see Best attendance apps for field staff in India. For how Shiftelio's tracking, consent and payroll fit together, see the employee tracking app page.

Which app to use for tracking field staff

How we checked these prices

Every vendor figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 30 September 2026, in a browser, with the billing toggle set to annual where one exists (SalaryBox, Lystloc, TrackoField) and the currency set to rupees where the page offers it. greytHR, Kredily and TimeChamp show monthly prices with no annual toggle; PagarBook and Truein price per year. Where a vendor does not publish a price (Unolo, Keka, Jibble), the listing site and its date are named. Features were taken from each vendor's own pricing, feature and help pages. We have not used these products on a live account. FieldAssist and EFFORT by Spoors were left out of the bill table because neither page says which plan includes a live map. Prices change: check the vendor's page before you buy, and tell us at support if one of these has moved.