DoneThat vs ActivTrak

The short answer

ActivTrak sits at the more defensible end of workforce analytics. Screenshots are a paid add-on rather than a default, the framing is aggregate rather than per-person proof of work, and there is a genuinely free tier for three people.

It is still an employer-side tool: the administrator decides what is collected. DoneThat inverts that — the person doing the work chooses the tool, sets what is captured, and decides what anyone else sees. If you are buying for an organisation, ActivTrak. If you are buying for yourself, most of what ActivTrak does is aimed past you.

Credit where it is due

Comparison pages in this category tend to treat every monitoring tool as identical. ActivTrak is not.

Screenshots are not the default. They require the Screen Details add-on, priced on request. That is a real design choice, and it puts ActivTrak in a different position from tools that ship screenshots on their entry tier.

The framing is aggregate. Organisation productivity insights, workload balance, AI adoption metrics. The unit of analysis is closer to the team than the individual keystroke.

There is a free tier. Up to 3 people with 30 days of history. Rare in this part of the market.

The top tier points somewhere constructive. "Performance coaching opportunities" is at least an attempt to make the data lead to a conversation rather than a reprimand.

Where it is still an employer's tool

The account administrator configures what is collected. That is the whole architecture, and no amount of aggregate framing changes who holds the switch. Someone tracked by ActivTrak did not choose ActivTrak.

The metrics also measure activity patterns — active and passive time, break identification, schedule adherence, location validation — rather than whether the work was any good. That is not a flaw in the implementation; it is what is measurable from the outside.

DoneThat's team model puts the switch in a different place: dashboards on high-level summaries, relative trends shareable instead of absolute per-person hours, visibility chosen per summary by the person it belongs to, and optional mood tracking so what a lead sees is burnout risk rather than activity volume.

And on capture: screenshots are never stored. Processed in real time and immediately deleted; only the derived structured activity persists. Excluded apps are redacted on your machine before anything is sent. With your own Gemini or OpenAI-compatible model, raw activity never reaches our servers. The desktop app is open source.

The honest limit: this model cannot give an employer assurance about an individual. If that is what you need, ActivTrak is built for it.

Pricing

ActivTrak pricing, as of 11 August 2026, per worker per month billed annually:

Add-ons stack: AI Insights +$4 per worker, Screen Details priced on request, and extra history at $1 per worker per month per additional year, up to three years total. A 14-day full-featured trial needs no card.

Two things to weigh. History is short by default — six months on the middle tiers — so if you want to compare this quarter against last year, budget the extension. And the add-on model means the real price is usually above the tier price; $17 plus AI Insights plus screenshots plus history extension is a very different number from $10.

DoneThat is subscription-based with a 14-day free trial; current prices are on the DoneThat download page.

Platform support

Where ActivTrak is the better choice

• You are an employer who needs workforce-level visibility.
• You want analytics without screenshots. The default posture here is better than most of the category.
• Workload balance is the question. Whether the team is over- or under-loaded is what it measures.
• You need attendance and schedule adherence.
• You have three people and no budget. The free tier is real.

Where DoneThat is the better choice

• You are tracking yourself, and want a tool whose output is aimed at you.
• You are on Linux.
• You want coaching during the work. Don nudges you onto goals, blocks calendar time, flags low-value work while you can still fix it, checks your mood, reminds you of meetings, suggests breaks. ActivTrak's coaching is a report a manager reads.
• You want long history without a per-year surcharge.
• You want AI tools to have your work history through MCP and an API.
• You want peer accountability rather than management oversight. Follow others, share summaries, Slack and Discord, accountability groups — all opt-in.

How we compared these

Everything stated about ActivTrak comes from its public pricing page, read on 11 August 2026 and linked below. Claims about DoneThat are first-hand: we build it.

ActivTrak has a free tier and we do not, and its screenshots-as-add-on default deserves credit rather than the blanket treatment monitoring tools usually get on vendor comparison pages. The disagreement is about who the tool answers to, not about whether its analytics are sound.

Questions people ask about ActivTrak

Does ActivTrak take screenshots?

Only if you buy the Screen Details add-on, priced on request. Screenshots are not part of the base tiers, which is a meaningfully better default than competitors that include them on every plan. DoneThat never stores screenshots at all — they are processed in real time and immediately deleted.

Is ActivTrak free?

There is a free plan for up to 3 people with 30 days of data history and no screenshots. Paid tiers start at $10 per worker per month billed annually, and there is a 14-day full-featured trial with no card required.

How much data history do I get?

30 days on the free plan, 6 months on Work Activity Tracking and Workforce Management, and 1 year on Productivity Optimization. Additional history costs $1 per worker per month for each extra year, up to three years total — worth costing if you want long-run trends.

ActivTrak vs DoneThat?

ActivTrak if you are an employer wanting aggregate workforce analytics, with the option of not collecting screenshots. DoneThat if you are the person doing the work and want reconstruction, coaching against your own goals, and history an AI assistant can query. ActivTrak's coaching is a management report; Don is a coach that reaches out during the work.