Idle Pilot vs Stay Green On Teams

Both are cloud services. Stay Green On Teams uses a Chrome extension to read your Teams session from the browser; its servers then keep a presence connection to Microsoft open and refresh presence signals the way a Teams client does. Idle Pilot links once in desktop Google Chrome with its extension, and its servers keep your Slack or Teams presence Available during your saved Work Hours.

Teams changes your status on its own. Microsoft says a user on a computer becomes Away after a few minutes of inactivity or when the computer is locked, and Offline when it enters sleep mode. Microsoft also says you can set a duration for any status except Available. A cloud service keeps presence for your account from a server instead, so both tools keep working with the laptop closed, asleep, or off. For Token Protection accounts, the vendor describes roughly four-hour stretches and periodic Teams or extension use rather than unattended coverage for every account.

Stay Green On Teams costs less. Its pricing page lists one plan at $3.99 per month or $29.99 per year, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card. Idle Pilot costs $9 per month or $60 per year. Its offer is a 3-day free trial · No credit card, which starts at your first Slack or Teams connection, or 7 days if you connect within 3 hours of sign-up.

Idle Pilot covers one Slack workspace or one Microsoft Teams account at a time, and you can switch platforms on the same plan. Stay Green On Teams covers Teams; Slack is a sister product, Stay Green On Slack, at the same price. Its pages do not say whether one subscription covers both. Stay Green says it supports personal Microsoft accounts and most work and school accounts.

Stay Green is upfront about one limit. For work accounts whose employer enforces Conditional Access Token Protection, it offers partial coverage only, in roughly 4-hour stretches while you open Teams with its extension. It checks your account when you connect. Whichever service you pick, use its free trial to confirm that your own Teams account stays Available.

Setup is similar. Stay Green asks you to open Teams in Chrome, install its extension, and click Connect; you can also paste tokens by hand. Idle Pilot uses its extension in desktop Chrome once, and you can remove it after linking; mobile-only linking is not supported. Stay Green schedules work hours, chosen days, a time zone, lunch breaks, or 24/7. Idle Pilot schedules per-day Work Hours, a Lunch Break, and Vacation Mode.

No presence tool can promise that your company will not notice it. Stay Green is marketed as hard to detect and says the connection looks like a normal Teams session to an IT admin, yet its terms give no warranty that the service will operate without detection and say its use may conflict with Microsoft's or your employer's rules. With Idle Pilot, admins and security tools can inspect sessions, devices, and network origins. Check your workplace rules before you connect either tool.

Pricing caveat: the vendor advertises $29.99 per year, while its annual card also says $47.88 billed annually. We did not verify a checkout charge; confirm the final amount before subscribing.