The Crewmeister alternative without a module kit
Time tracking, holiday, shift roster, personnel file and onboarding in two plans instead of four separately billed modules. Hosted by a German operator.
All information about Crewmeister comes from the official provider pages. As at:2. September 2026.
Features in detail
| Feature | MetronHR | Crewmeister |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert) | 1 | |
| Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time) | ~2 | |
| Project time tracking / budgets | ~3 | |
| Allowances / hour packages | 4 | |
| Digital Employee File | 5 | |
| Onboarding and offboarding workflows | 6 | |
| Analytics & reports | ~7 | |
| Hosting operator without a US parent company | 8 | 9 |
| API | 10 | 11 |
Sources and notes (11)
- 1. Crewmeister, Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert): The help article on the time account describes calculation, history, correction and payout of the overtime balance. A warning or alert when a limit is exceeded is not listed there (support.crewmeister.com, article „Das Zeitkonto“, retrieved 14 September 2026).
- 2. Crewmeister, Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time): The feature overview mentions an overtime account, automatic break deduction and time off in lieu. Freely configurable working-time models with flexitime, trust-based working time or alternating weekly patterns are not listed there (crewmeister.com/de/funktionsuebersicht, retrieved 2 September 2026).
- 3. Crewmeister, Project time tracking / budgets: The packages mention „project reporting“ and, in the Pro package, „extended project time tracking“. Project budgets with a target-actual comparison, client hourly rates and billable activities are not named in the feature overview.
- 4. Crewmeister, Allowances / hour packages: The feature overview lists project reporting, the time account and time off in lieu. It does not mention client-bound hour packages with renewal and carry-over (crewmeister.com/de/funktionsuebersicht, retrieved 3 September 2026).
- 5. Crewmeister, Digital Employee File: Crewmeister manages employee master data for time tracking. Contracts, salary data, document upload with expiry reminders and employee self-service are not part of the documented scope.
- 6. Crewmeister, Onboarding and offboarding workflows: The feature overview mentions a free setup service for the business. A joining or leaving process per person, with tasks, owners and deadlines, is not listed (crewmeister.com/de/funktionsuebersicht, retrieved 3 September 2026).
- 7. Crewmeister, Analytics & reports: Excel export, project reporting and a live view for administrators are included. In OMR reviews, rigid reports without flexible filters are the most frequently named criticism.
- 8. MetronHR, Hosting operator without a US parent company: The operator is Hetzner Online GmbH, a German company with no US parent. This marketing website is hosted with Vercel, Inc. (USA) in the Frankfurt region, where no employee data is processed.
- 9. Crewmeister, Hosting operator without a US parent company: The operator is Amazon Web Services, a US group. Crewmeister names AWS as a sub-processor in its own GDPR statement.
- 10. MetronHR, API: The open REST API v1 is part of the Professional plan: readable are employees, departments, clients, services, projects, time entries, absences and published shifts, while clients, services, projects, time entries and absences can be changed, each secured by keys with permissions per resource. Outgoing webhooks and the MCP server for AI assistants also belong to Professional. Sign-in via Microsoft Entra ID comes with every plan. Further integrations are agreed individually in the Enterprise offer.
- 11. Crewmeister, API: Crewmeister lists the DATEV connection as its only interface. An open API for your own connections is not documented in the feature overview.
~ = available with limits, the notes are below the table. – = no verified information is available for this provider on this feature. That is not a no: we only record a negative where we can cite a source.
An overview of which features exist at all, regardless of plan. The price-performance comparison is on the pricing page, the individual features in detail under Features.
Feature comparison as at September 2026. Information about competitors comes from publicly available sources, in each case the official provider pages with the date retrieved, and can change. Crewmeister is a trademark of its respective owner.
MetronHR is also available as a native app for iOS and Android:
Where the data sits
Server location and operator are two different questions. A data centre in Germany does not remove the data from US law: providers with a US parent company fall under the CLOUD Act and the surveillance powers of FISA 702, regardless of where the servers stand. Microsoft's chief legal officer in France testified under oath before the French Senate's committee of inquiry on 10 June 2025 that he could not guarantee that data from European data centres would not go to US authorities (record of the Sénat). That is why both are shown side by side here, each with the source it comes from.
What is compared is what the provider documents for its own application, not the infrastructure of its marketing website. More about our own hosting is in the Trust Center.
MetronHR
- Server location of the application
- Hetzner Online GmbH, Nuremberg and Falkenstein. All servers stand exclusively in Germany.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Hetzner Online GmbH, a German company with no US parent and therefore beyond the reach of the CLOUD Act and FISA 702. No US provider sits in the data path for the application.
- Processors outside Germany
- None for the application. Payment is handled by Stripe Payments Europe (Ireland). This marketing website is hosted with Vercel, Inc. (USA, Frankfurt region), and analytics run through PostHog Cloud EU and the reverse proxy cdn.metronhr.de with a Cloudflare edge. No employee data is processed there.
- Source
- MetronHR privacy policyAs at 08/2026
Crewmeister
- Server location of the application
- Amazon Web Services, central European zone. Crewmeister names Frankfurt am Main as the location of the data centre and undertakes that no data is transferred to non-EU countries.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Amazon Web Services, a US group, and therefore within the scope of the CLOUD Act and FISA 702. The controller is ATOSS ALOUD GmbH, a company of ATOSS Software SE.
- Processors outside Germany
- The GDPR page lists Amazon Web Services and 1Blue Hosting as sub-processors and states that processors from the USA are certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. The full list is in Annex III of the data processing agreement.
- Source
- Crewmeister, GDPR and data processingabgerufen 02.09.2026
All information comes from the providers' publicly available privacy policies and security pages, and the date retrieved is on every card. Providers can change their infrastructure and their processors at any time. The adequacy decision on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework still applies, but is under legal challenge.
What MetronHR does better
A digital personnel file, not provided for by Crewmeister
Crewmeister keeps employees as users of the time tracking: name, team, time account. The feature overview knows no contracts, no salary data, no document upload and no expiry reminder for residence permits, driving licence checks or occupational health screening. Anyone who has to keep those documents does so alongside, in a folder or on a drive. MetronHR creates the full file per person, with self-service for employees, role and permission control and reminders before a deadline expires.
Joining and leaving as a workflow instead of a checklist in someone's head
A new person in the business means this at Crewmeister: create a user, assign a team, done. The employment contract, keys, access, mandatory instruction, probation review and, on leaving, collecting the devices all run alongside. MetronHR stores reusable onboarding and offboarding workflows with tasks, owners and deadlines, assigns them automatically when someone joins and documents who did what and when.
One price instead of a module kit
The entry price of 1.50 euros applies to pure time tracking with annual billing and from 50 employees. Holiday and overtime cost from 2 euros in the Easy package, the shift planner from 2 euros extra, the DATEV connection from 0.60 euros extra. A business with a shift roster and payroll transfer therefore starts at 5.60 euros per user per month, without a personnel file. At MetronHR, time tracking, absences and overtime are included in the Team plan at 5 euros, and shift planning, the personnel file, onboarding and project time in Professional at 10 euros. Two lines instead of a module calculation.
Project time with budget, client and hourly rate
Crewmeister mentions project reporting and, in the Pro package, extended project time tracking, but documents neither project budgets with a target-actual comparison nor client hourly rates or client-bound hour packages. Anyone billing services keeps the calculation alongside in Excel. MetronHR records time against client, project and activity, shows budget usage with a traffic light and keeps allowances with automatic renewal and carry-over of unused hours.
Price comparison
Crewmeister bills per module. So that the comparison holds, this is not entry price against entry price but the same scope against the same scope.
| Service | MetronHR | Crewmeister |
|---|---|---|
| Time tracking with an app and a terminal | Team 5 euros | Go from 1.50 euros |
| + holiday, sickness, overtime account | included in Team | Easy from 2 euros |
| + shift planning | Professional 10 euros | Pro from 3 euros plus the shift planner from 2 euros, from 5 euros together |
| + personnel file, onboarding workflows, client allowances | included in Professional | not available |
| Billing and term | terminable monthly, the same price from the first user | the prices quoted apply with annual billing, and "from" refers to 50 employees |
Time tracking with an app and a terminal
- MetronHR
- Team 5 euros
- Crewmeister
- Go from 1.50 euros
+ holiday, sickness, overtime account
- MetronHR
- included in Team
- Crewmeister
- Easy from 2 euros
+ shift planning
- MetronHR
- Professional 10 euros
- Crewmeister
- Pro from 3 euros plus the shift planner from 2 euros, from 5 euros together
+ personnel file, onboarding workflows, client allowances
- MetronHR
- included in Professional
- Crewmeister
- not available
Billing and term
- MetronHR
- terminable monthly, the same price from the first user
- Crewmeister
- the prices quoted apply with annual billing, and "from" refers to 50 employees
Prices per crewmeister.com/de/preise, retrieved on 2 September 2026, each per user per month and plus VAT. On the same page Crewmeister points out that package prices are negotiated by features, user numbers and payment method. Both providers offer a 14-day trial without payment details.
No credit card needed · cancellable monthly
FromCrewmeister moving to MetronHR
Your data comes with you.Crewmeister hands them over as a file, MetronHR reads people, personal data, hours and absences out of it, and before anything is taken over you see row by row what will happen. For a team under thirty people that is a matter of one to two hours, most of it spent putting the file together.
- 1
AtCrewmeister export
- All recorded times as an Excel file, either for the whole workforce or per person
- 2
Load the template and map the columns
The template comes as Excel and as CSV, with a second sheet that states for every column whether it is required, its format, an example and the permitted values. If your file's header row matches, the mapping falls away entirely. Otherwise the assistant proposes the mapping and marks everything that did not match word for word.
- 3
Check, then take it over
The dry run is mandatory and writes nothing. It shows for every row whether it will be created, changed, skipped or rejected, naming the column and the value behind the finding. Only the second click takes it over, in one transaction. The default is "create new ones only", and an empty cell never changes a value that has been maintained.
Export routes fromCrewmeister according to Crewmeister support, Excel export, retrieved on06.09.2026.
Comes with you
- People, with staff number, work address and employment contract
- Remaining holiday and the overtime balance as an opening value per person
- Departments, clients, services and projects
- Time entries and absences for the current year
- Public holidays, including regions that differ
Does not come with you
- Files from the old personnel file, they are uploaded again
- The history of an hours account, MetronHR starts from the opening value
How the move works in detail, what the dry run shows and why no invitation email goes out with it is set out on the page switching time tracking.
Frequently asked questions
What you need to know about switching from Crewmeister to MetronHR.
Crewmeister quotes three packages per user per month with annual billing: Go from 1.50 euros, Easy from 2 euros, Pro from 3 euros, each plus VAT. The shift planner costs from 2 euros extra, the DATEV connection from 0.60 euros extra. Crewmeister itself explains that the word „from“ refers to 50 employees and that the price is higher for smaller teams. A business with 15 people needing time tracking, holiday, a shift roster and payroll transfer therefore pays more than the figures quoted and negotiates them in a sales conversation. MetronHR costs 5 euros per user on the Team plan and 10 euros on Professional, from the first user, without negotiation, cancellable monthly. All figures as at 2 September 2026.
By its own account Crewmeister stores the data at Amazon Web Services in Frankfurt am Main and undertakes that nothing is transferred to non-EU countries. The server location is therefore in Germany, but the operator is a US group. For companies that pay attention to the CLOUD Act and FISA 702 that is a difference: a data centre in Germany does not remove the data from US law as long as the operator belongs to a US parent. MetronHR runs at Hetzner Online GmbH in Nuremberg and Falkenstein, a German company with no US parent.
A digital personnel file with contracts, documents and expiry reminders, onboarding and offboarding workflows, client-bound hour packages with automatic renewal, project budgets with a target-actual traffic light and freely configurable working-time models for flexitime, trust-based working time and alternating weekly patterns. All of that is missing from Crewmeister's feature overview.
Yes. Crewmeister offers an Excel export of working times in every package. From that you carry over employee master data, hour balances and holiday balances into MetronHR. You create the personnel file once from scratch, because Crewmeister does not keep one, and after that it sits in the same system as the time tracking. From 30 employees we help with mapping the fields, at no extra charge.
For day-to-day work, not at first. It does explain the fit, though: Crewmeister is designed for businesses up to around 50 employees, and above that the website points to the corporate solution ATOSS. Anyone who grows therefore switches product within the group. MetronHR is one product for the whole range, from a five-person team to over a hundred employees, with no system change along the way.
Question not answered here? Every step is explained in the help centre.
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