The clockin alternative without an add-on bill
Shift planning, personnel files and onboarding are included in the MetronHR plan, not as an add-on package with its own monthly price. And no platform fee for small teams.
All information about clockin comes from the official provider pages. As at:2. September 2026.
Features in detail
Sources and notes (8)
- 1. clockin, Traffic-light account (warning levels with an automatic alert): The feature overview mentions automatic calculation of overtime and absences as well as staff analytics. Warning levels with an automatic alert are not stated there (clockin.de/funktionen, retrieved 14 September 2026).
- 2. clockin, Working-time models (part-time, flexitime, trust-based working time): The package overview lists working time administration and work schedules. Freely configurable models for flexitime, trust-based working time or alternating weekly patterns are not listed there as a separate feature.
- 3. clockin, Allowances / hour packages: clockin bills projects and jobs and connects Lexware Office for invoicing. Client-linked hour packages with periodic renewal and carry-over are not documented.
- 4. clockin, Onboarding and offboarding workflows: Checklists and forms are part of project documentation from the Expert package. Joining and leaving processes with tasks, owners and deadlines per employee are not documented.
- 5. MetronHR, Application hosted in Germany: The application and customer data run at Hetzner Online GmbH in Nuremberg and Falkenstein, exclusively in Germany.
- 6. clockin, Application hosted in Germany: clockin advertises "100 % Made in Germany". Its privacy policy names no server location for the application; it describes the website and its services. So what stands here is not an assurance but a note that the information is missing.
- 7. 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.
- 8. clockin, Hosting operator without a US parent company: No operator is documented for the application. For the website and delivery the privacy policy names Webflow, Inc. (USA) and Amazon CloudFront via Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL, Luxembourg, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc.
~ = 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. clockin 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
clockin
- Server location of the application
- Not documented. The privacy policy describes the website and the app delivery, but names no data centre and no country for the application itself. The home page and pricing page carry a „100 % Made in Germany“ seal.
- Operator and legal jurisdiction
- Not named for the application. The provider is clockin GmbH from Münster, with a 10 million euro Series A round since October 2025.
- Processors outside Germany
- For the website and operations the privacy policy lists, among others, Webflow, Inc. (USA), Amazon CloudFront (Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL, Luxembourg, a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc.), Google Workspace, HubSpot, Stripe, OpenAI and Mailjet, based on EU standard contractual clauses and the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
- Source
- Data protection at clockinabgerufen 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.
Connections to other software
clockin
- DATEV, without LODAS
- Lexware Office
- sevdesk
- Personio
- Sage
- weclapp
- Single sign-on, only on the Enterprise plan
Personio is the connection point to personnel administration here: the time tracker feeds the suite, the suite feeds payroll. Customers still name the missing LODAS connection as a gap.
Source: The provider's feature overview, retrieved on03.09.2026.
MetronHR
MetronHR connects to no other software today. What exists: the export as Excel and CSV for every report, plus an iCal feed that carries absences and the duty plan into Outlook and Google. Lexware Office and sevdesk come next.
A long list of connections is not the price of entry in this market: two of the five providers surveyed name only two to four connections themselves.
What MetronHR does better
What ends up on the invoice
A business with eight people that needs time tracking, project time, a personnel file and a shift plan pays 8 times 6.29 euros at clockin for the Pro package plus 27 euros for the shift planning add-on, 77.32 euros a month in total, tied to 24 months. At MetronHR it is 8 times 10 euros on Professional, so 80 euros, cancellable monthly and with the personnel file, onboarding workflows and client allowances included. The difference is not the base price but what is included without extra line items.
Onboarding and offboarding as a process, not as a form
clockin is strong on documentation at the site: checklists, forms, photos and signatures on the building site. What is missing is the process around the person: employment contract, access, tool issue, mandatory instruction, probation review and, on leaving, the way back. MetronHR sets up reusable workflows for this, assigns tasks with a deadline and an owner automatically and records progress traceably.
Client allowances with carry-over instead of pure job billing
clockin records time against projects and jobs and hands it to Lexware Office for invoicing. That covers job-based work. Anyone selling hour packages instead, say 20 hours of maintenance a month, renewed monthly, with unused hours carried over, keeps that calculation elsewhere. MetronHR represents such allowances per client, shows usage with a progress bar and renews them automatically.
Server location with evidence instead of a seal
„100 % Made in Germany“ appears on clockin's home page. Where the application runs and who operates it is not in the privacy policy; that describes the website and names Webflow in the USA and Amazon CloudFront via the Amazon subsidiary in Luxembourg. At MetronHR the operator is named in the Trust Center: Hetzner Online GmbH, Nuremberg and Falkenstein, a German company with no US parent, and therefore beyond the reach of the CLOUD Act and FISA 702.
Price comparison
clockin quotes its package prices for a 24-month term. Here they stand next to what does the same at MetronHR with no commitment.
| Service | MetronHR | clockin |
|---|---|---|
| Time tracking and absences | Team 5 euros | Starter 3.59 euros |
| + project time, client management, personnel file | Professional 10 euros | Pro 6.29 euros |
| + shift planning | included in Professional | Add-on from 27 euros a month, on top of the package |
| + onboarding and offboarding workflows, client allowances | included in Professional | not available |
| Teams under five users | no flat fee | Platform fee of 10 euros a month on top |
| Term for the price quoted | terminable monthly, one price | 24 months; 5 % more at 12 months and 10 % more at one month |
Time tracking and absences
- MetronHR
- Team 5 euros
- clockin
- Starter 3.59 euros
+ project time, client management, personnel file
- MetronHR
- Professional 10 euros
- clockin
- Pro 6.29 euros
+ shift planning
- MetronHR
- included in Professional
- clockin
- Add-on from 27 euros a month, on top of the package
+ onboarding and offboarding workflows, client allowances
- MetronHR
- included in Professional
- clockin
- not available
Teams under five users
- MetronHR
- no flat fee
- clockin
- Platform fee of 10 euros a month on top
Term for the price quoted
- MetronHR
- terminable monthly, one price
- clockin
- 24 months; 5 % more at 12 months and 10 % more at one month
Prices per clockin.de/preise, retrieved on 2 September 2026, per user per month, plus VAT. Both providers offer a 14-day trial without payment details.
No credit card needed · cancellable monthly
Fromclockin moving to MetronHR
Your data comes with you.clockin 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
Atclockin export
- Employee, client, project and mobile device data as a file
- Hour lists per month, person or department as Excel or CSV
- Reports as PDF or CSV
- 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 fromclockin according to clockin support, exporting data, 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 clockin to MetronHR.
clockin quotes Starter 3.59 euros, Pro 6.29 euros and Expert 8.99 euros per user per month, each on a 24-month term and plus VAT. On 12 months the price is 5 per cent higher, on a monthly term 10 per cent. Below five users a platform fee of 10 euros a month is added. Shift planning costs from 27 euros a month extra, the AI features between 25 and 35 euros a month. MetronHR costs 5 euros on Team and 10 euros on Professional, with no flat fee, no add-on prices, cancellable monthly. As at 2 September 2026.
For trades and construction with documentation duties on site. Photos, sketches, checklists, forms, digital signatures and the project export for the client are core product at clockin and absent at MetronHR. Anyone who has to document the site completely will find more there. Anyone who needs personnel work, time management and planning in one system will find it more complete at MetronHR.
Onboarding and offboarding workflows with tasks, owners and deadlines, client-bound hour packages with automatic renewal and carry-over, project budgets with a target-actual traffic light and freely configurable working-time models for flexitime, trust-based working time and alternating weekly patterns. At MetronHR shift planning is part of the Professional plan; at clockin it is an add-on with its own monthly price.
The home page says „9,000+ businesses“, the testimonials page „over 8,500 teams“, the page title „8,000 + customers“, all retrieved on the same day. Discrepancies like that arise when figures are maintained in several places. That is why we quote no customer number for MetronHR until we can evidence it, and prefer to write who actually uses us.
Yes. clockin exports hour lists for DATEV and project data for clients. From those you carry over employee master data, hour balances and holiday balances. Project documentation with photos and forms cannot be carried over, because MetronHR does not keep that site documentation. Anyone who needs it should check before switching.
Question not answered here? Every step is explained in the help centre.
Ready to switch?
Start for free and see for yourself, no credit card.
Up and running in 5 minutes