Time tracking in monday.com: the column, the plan it needs, and the gaps

Time tracking in monday.com is done with the Time Tracking Column, a start and stop timer on each item, and it is only available on the Pro and Enterprise plans. Hours are then totalled with the Time Tracking Widget on a dashboard, exported to Excel, or turned into billable amounts with a Formula Column. That is the native route. For anything beyond it, such as weekly timesheets with approval, teams add a marketplace app or a separate time tracker.

This article walks through each of those pieces using monday.com's own help center articles and pricing page, all checked on October 8, 2026. It covers the plan cost, the exact setup steps, what the column records, the limits monday.com lists itself, and how to decide whether the native setup is enough.

Which plan includes time tracking, and what it costs

The help center article for the Time Tracking Column states that the feature is only available on the Pro and Enterprise plans. The pricing page for monday work management agrees: Time tracking appears in the list of what Pro adds on top of Standard.

Prices from the pricing page, in US dollars per seat per month:

Plan	Billed yearly	Billed monthly	Time Tracking Column
Free	$0 (up to 2 seats)	$0	No
Basic	$9	$12	No
Standard	$12	$14	No
Pro	$19	$24	Yes
Enterprise	Contact sales	Contact sales	Yes

The pricing page also notes that prices do not include tax and that the price is determined by the billing country, so a team outside the United States may see different numbers. It asks for a team size before it shows a total, because seats are sold for the team as a whole rather than for selected people.

For a team of 10 on yearly billing, the step from Standard to Pro is $7 per seat, or $840 a year. That money buys more than the timer. Pro also raises automations and integrations from 250 actions a month to 25,000, adds private boards and docs, advanced board views and advanced columns, and lifts the API allowance from 1,000 to 10,000 calls a day. If the team would use those anyway, time tracking comes along at no extra cost. If the timer is the only reason, the comparison is with a separate time tracking tool rather than with Standard.

Check the product, too. monday.com sells work management, CRM, dev and service on the same pricing page with different prices. The table above is for work management only.

How to add the Time Tracking Column

The steps below follow the names used in monday.com's help center.

1. Open the board and click the + icon at the right end of the column headers.
2. Select More columns to open the column center.
3. Choose Time Tracking.

To use it, click the play button in a cell to start the timer and click again to pause. Starting it again continues the same item's record. Every start and stop is also written to the board's Activity Log.

To record time after the fact, click a cell and choose Add session manually. Future times cannot be entered.

The column shows seconds by default. To display minutes instead, open the arrow next to the column title, choose Column settings, and untick Show seconds.

For work broken into smaller steps, the same column can be added to subitems. In the subitem column settings, Show Summary on Parent Item rolls the subitem totals up to the parent item.

What the column records and how entries are edited

Clicking a cell opens the history and log for that item. It lists each session with its time range and the person who recorded it.

All entries can be edited. Clicking a time lets a user enter a different date and time, and edited values turn red, so a reviewer can see which sessions were typed in rather than timed. Hovering over an entry shows an X that deletes it.

That red marking is the only built-in signal of a changed record. There is no separate approval status in the column itself, and neither the column article nor the widget article describes a step where a week of hours is submitted, reviewed and locked. Entries stay editable after the fact. For internal planning that is usually fine. For hours that go on a client invoice or into payroll, teams typically decide on a rule, such as exporting every Monday and treating the export as the record.

Exporting to Excel

The help center gives two export routes:

• Whole column: open the column menu and choose Export Column Data to Excel. The file includes the item name, the user who recorded the time, and totals at item and board level.
• One item: click the item's cell and choose Export to Excel at the top right of the time tracking window.

To export only certain items or groups, save a board filter first and then export the column.

Totals, billable hours and the Time Tracking Widget

The column does not sum itself across items. monday.com's suggested fix is a Formula Column with {Time Tracking#Hours}, which shows the total in the group summary. Wrapping it in ROUND({Time Tracking#Hours},2) rounds to two decimal places.

For billing, add a numbers column for the hourly rate and use:

ROUND(MULTIPLY({Time Tracking#Hours},{Hourly Rate}),0)

One detail matters here. While a timer is running, the formula does not update. Only when the session is paused or stopped is the time included.

The Time Tracking Widget

For totals per person or per week, monday.com points to the Time Tracking Widget on a dashboard.

1. Click +Add widget and choose Time Tracking from the widget center.
2. Open the three dots on the widget and select Settings.
3. Under Boards, choose up to 5 boards, then choose the groups.
4. Pick which Time Tracking Column to use and how to group the time.

The grouping choice decides what the numbers mean. Grouping by the People Column shows time on items assigned to each person. Grouping by time tracking sessions shows time actually logged by each person, regardless of who was assigned. For billing and payroll, the session grouping is usually the right one.

Under More settings options, the timeframe can be set to day, week, month or year, and a threshold can highlight anyone above a set number of hours. The widget displays as a total, as a table, or in split mode. Filters can be saved so the same view opens next time.

The widget totals items only, not subitems. To include subitem time, the help center describes showing the subitem summary on the parent item and then adding a Formula Column with DIVIDE(SUM({Subitems Time Tracking}, {Time tracking}),3600), charted on a dashboard.

The limits monday.com lists itself

The column article ends with a limitations section. Three points are worth reading before building any process on it.

• Running sessions are not logged in real time. Time counts only after a session is paused or stopped.
• Threshold automations do not fire while a timer is running. An alert such as "notify if someone logs more than 4 hours" can only act on committed time.
• Time tracking data does not move with automations. The column cannot be mapped when an automation creates or moves items to another board.

Put together with the earlier points, the native setup has a clear shape. It is strong for recording time against tasks and showing totals per board, per person or per week. It is weaker where time has to cross boards through automation, where subitems need to appear in the widget without a formula, and where a week of hours needs a submitted and approved state.

monday.com itself names marketplace apps for more advanced time tracking: Tracket, Time Reporting Solution and TMetric. Those add cost and another account to manage, so price them in the same calculation as the Pro upgrade.

A setup that holds up for a small team

Most of the friction with native time tracking comes from setting it up item by item without a plan. The setup below uses only the features described above and fits a team of up to about 10 people.

On each board that needs hours:

1. Add one Time Tracking Column and give it the same name on every board, for example "Time". The widget lets you pick which column to read, and a consistent name makes that choice obvious.
2. Add a People Column for the assignee, so the widget can compare planned work with logged work.
3. If the work is billed, add a Numbers column called "Hourly Rate" and a Formula Column using the billable hours formula above.
4. If subitems carry the real work, add the time column to subitems as well and switch on Show Summary on Parent Item.

On one dashboard:

1. Add a Time Tracking Widget per group of up to 5 boards.
2. Group by time tracking sessions, set the timeframe to weeks, and set a threshold at the weekly hours that should trigger a conversation.
3. Save a filter for each client or project so the same view opens every week.

Every week, on a fixed day:

1. Ask everyone to stop running timers before the cut off, since running sessions are not counted.
2. Look for red entries in each item's log. Those are the hand edits worth a quick question.
3. Export the column to Excel and file the export. That file becomes the record for the week, because the board itself stays editable.

This routine covers most of what a dedicated timesheet does, apart from a formal approval step. If the team finds it skipping the weekly routine, that is usually the sign that a separate tool with submission built in is worth the extra cost.

Choosing between the native column and a separate tool

The choice usually follows from what the hours are used for.

What the hours are for	Native column on Pro	Separate timesheet or tracker
Seeing which tasks take longest	Works well	More than needed
Weekly totals per person	Works through the widget, up to 5 boards	Works
Client invoices from hourly rates	Works through a Formula Column and export	Works, often with invoice output
Contractors paid by the hour	Possible, but no submit and approve step	Usually built for it
Time across many boards	Widget limit of 5 boards per widget	Usually not tied to boards

A team already planning to move to Pro for automations or private boards should start with the native column. Set it up on one board, run it for two weeks, and export the results. If the export answers the questions asked of it, nothing more is needed.

A team on Standard that wants time tracking and nothing else in Pro has a different calculation. Compare the per seat Pro uplift for the whole team with the price of a tracker that charges only for the people who log hours. For teams where only a few people record time, the second option is often lower.

For a full feature comparison with another project management tool, see the monday.com comparison, and the features page lists how timesheets work outside a board column.

What to change first

Decide what the hours are for before choosing the setup: task insight, invoices or contractor pay. If it is contractor hours with weekly approval, compare the Pro upgrade with a timesheet that charges only the people who enter time, such as the add-on listed on Pinateca's pricing page.

Q1. Is time tracking available on the monday.com Standard plan?

No. monday.com's help center states the Time Tracking Column is only available on the Pro and Enterprise plans. On Standard, hours have to be recorded outside the native column, for example in a separate time tracking tool.

Q2. How do you see total hours per person in monday.com?

Add the Time Tracking Widget to a dashboard, choose up to 5 boards in its settings, and group the time by time tracking sessions. That shows hours actually logged by each person. Set the timeframe to weeks to get a weekly view.

Q3. Can time tracking entries be edited after they are recorded?

Yes. Clicking a cell opens the log, where each entry's date and time can be changed or deleted. Edited values are shown in red, which is how a reviewer can tell which entries were changed by hand.

Q4. Why does the total not include a timer that is still running?

monday.com commits time only when a session is paused or stopped. Until then, Formula Column totals and threshold automations do not include the running session. Pause the timer and the totals update.

Q5. Does the Time Tracking Widget include subitems?

Not directly. The widget sums items only. To include subitem time, turn on the subitem summary on the parent item and add a Formula Column that adds subitem and item time together, then chart that column.