Best time tracking apps for freelancers: three trackers, one set of scores
Every time tracker a freelancer shortlists has already been tested on this site — head to head, against the rival it is most often weighed against. This page is the roundup those comparisons add up to: the three dedicated trackers we test, ranked on the overall scores we have already published, with their free plans and first paid tiers set side by side. Nothing here is scored fresh. If a number on this page disagrees with one of our comparison guides, the guide is the one that is right — and this page repeats the guides.
The ranking, for the record: Toggl 8.2, Clockify 8.1, Harvest 7.8. Treat that order as the starting point, not the answer. These three are not the same product wearing different logos — one is a pure timer, one is a free-first tracker that learned to invoice, and one is a billing chain that starts with a timer. So after the tables, this page is organised the way the choice actually arrives: four verdicts by the job — the best free tier, the best billing from tracked time, the best solo default, and the best buy for a small team.
How these scores work
The score beside each tool is its overall score from our published head-to-head comparisons, repeated unchanged — Toggl carries the same 8.2 here as it does against Clockify and against Harvest, and the other two likewise. The category scores underneath each total live in the pairings; the five categories all three tools share are repeated in the second table below, identically. Prices are list prices, checked against each vendor’s pricing page in November 2026. Harvest’s seat price is a base: its Flex billing adds usage charges at rates Harvest does not publish, so every Harvest total on this page is labelled base — no honest total exists beyond the seat price.
Our verdict
Toggl leads the field at 8.2 — the pure tracker is still the best all-round answer for a solo — but the most useful lines on this page are further down the table. Clockify’s free plan is the deepest free tier we score, five users deep. Harvest, last on points at 7.8, owns the one job the other two cannot do at any price: it turns tracked time into an invoice the client can pay, on every plan including free. And the first paid tier in this field costs $47.88 a year — Clockify Basic — less than half the $108 the other two charge to start, Harvest’s as a base.
All three, side by side
One spine runs through the table: what the free plan really gives you, and the first tier you would actually pay for. Read the free column carefully — the three free plans are walled in three different places.
| Tool | Our score | Free plan | First paid tier (per seat, billed annually) | Invoicing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toggl | 8.2 | $0 — up to 3 users, unlimited projects; no billable rates | Starter — $9/mo ($12 monthly) | Not offered at any tier |
| Clockify | 8.1 | $0 — up to 5 users, unlimited tracking & projects; no billable rates | Basic — $3.99/mo ($4.99 monthly) | From Standard ($5.49) — built from tracked time; no payment collection |
| Harvest | 7.8 | $0 — 1 seat, 2 projects; invoicing included | Teams — from $9/mo ($11 monthly), base | Every plan, free included — client pays via Stripe or PayPal |
Three readings of that table are worth more than the ranking above it. First, the solo’s first paid year: Clockify Basic costs $47.88, and its Standard — the tier that invoices — $65.88, while Toggl Starter and Harvest Teams both start at $108, Harvest’s as a base that Flex usage can raise. Second, the free plans are not smaller versions of one another: Clockify meters people (five users), Toggl meters people lower (three) but not projects, and Harvest meters projects (two) but not the billing chain — which free plan is “biggest” depends on which wall you would hit first. Third, invoicing is the real border in this field: one tool never offers it, one sells it from $5.49 a seat, and one gives it away free inside a two-project fence.
The scores underneath
The five categories all three tools share, repeated from the pairings unchanged. Each pairing also carries its own extra rows — the full tables live in the comparisons themselves.
| Category | Toggl | Clockify | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 9.0 | 7.8 | 8.5 |
| Tracking & reporting depth | 8.7 | 8.0 | 7.9 |
| Free-plan value | 7.6 | 8.8 | 7.2 |
| Billing chain (rates → invoice) | 6.5 | 8.4 | 9.3 |
| Pricing clarity & true cost | 9.2 | 7.5 | 6.1 |
| Overall (published) | 8.2 | 8.1 | 7.8 |
Two rows explain the ranking better than the totals do. Toggl’s billing chain, 6.5, is the lowest score on this page — the honest price of a tool that stops at the report — while Harvest’s 9.3 is the highest, because its chain never leaves the building. And pricing clarity runs exactly backwards to billing power: the tool that finishes the job, Harvest at 6.1, is the one whose bill nobody can compute in advance.
The verdicts, by the job you actually have
Best free tier — Clockify (8.1)
Free-plan value is the one category with daylight in it: Clockify scores 8.8, Toggl 7.6, Harvest 7.2 — and the shape matches the score. Up to five users track unlimited projects at $0, which makes Clockify the only free plan here a small team can actually grow inside. Its walls are stated on its own ladder: billable rates wait for Basic at $3.99, and free reports reach back one month, so the free year is deep but its memory is short. Two narrower free wins deserve naming. Harvest Free is the only free plan that finishes the job — invoicing and online payment inside a fence of one seat and two projects. Toggl Free is the free plan people actually keep using, three users deep, because the timer asks almost nothing of them. They meet directly in our Clockify vs Toggl and Harvest vs Clockify comparisons.
Best for billing from tracked time — Harvest (7.8)
If the point of tracking is the invoice at the end of it, this verdict is not close. Harvest’s billing chain scores 9.3 — rates, timesheet, invoice, online payment via Stripe or PayPal, and a sync into QuickBooks or Xero on paid plans — on every plan, the free one included. No other tool here collects the money at any price: Clockify’s Standard tier builds the invoice from tracked time but leaves the payment to you, and Toggl leaves the whole step to another tool. The price of the finished chain is the meter behind it: Teams is a $108 base for a solo year, and Flex usage charges — at rates Harvest does not publish — are added on top; Harvest’s own help centre shows a renewal jumping from $44 to $404 once they applied. Buy the chain with the meter priced in. The chain is priced link by link in our Harvest vs Toggl comparison.
Best solo default — Toggl (8.2)
For a solo who tracks in one tool and invoices from another — the most common shape of freelance admin — Toggl is the default this page keeps coming back to. It has the field’s best timer (ease of use 9.0) and its deepest reporting (8.7), and its price is the whole price: Starter at $108 a year turns on billable rates, Premium at $192 a year adds approvals, labour costs and profitability, and neither tier hides a usage meter. What it never does is send the invoice — that step belongs to a dedicated tool, and our roundup of invoicing software scores seven of them. Toggl is priced against the free-first tracker in our Toggl vs Clockify comparison.
Best for a small team — Clockify (8.1) on price, Toggl Premium on polish
Teams feel the per-seat maths first, and the maths here are lopsided. Five seats on Clockify Standard — the tier with invoicing and approvals — cost $329.40 a year, and that is the full price. Five seats on Toggl Starter cost $540, and on Premium, with the approvals and profitability reporting a team actually wants, $960. Five seats on Harvest Teams are a $540 base before Flex usage adds whatever it adds. So the team verdict splits by what the seats are for: Clockify Standard is the value buy — approvals at $5.49 a seat, where Harvest gates them behind Enterprise at $14 — while Toggl Premium is the polish buy, priced for the profitability reporting the others match only at their top tiers. Both reads are priced in our Clockify vs Harvest and Clockify vs Toggl comparisons.
Each tool in short
1. Toggl — 8.2
The pure tracker: a timer people keep using, wrapped in the deepest reporting in this field. Free covers up to three users with unlimited projects; Starter, $9 per user per month billed annually ($12 monthly), turns on billable rates and team reports; Premium, $16 ($24 monthly), adds timesheet approvals, labour costs and profitability reports; Enterprise is custom. Paid plans start with a 30-day trial.
The honest limit is the border at the end of the chain: Toggl does not invoice on any plan — its billing-chain score, 6.5, is the lowest on this page — so the hours it prices still need a second tool to become money. Read it against the free-first tracker in Toggl vs Clockify and against the billing chain in Toggl vs Harvest.
2. Clockify — 8.1
The free-first tracker: the deepest free plan in the field — five users, unlimited tracking and projects — over a ladder of cheap, flat tiers. Basic, $3.99 per seat per month billed annually ($4.99 monthly), turns on billable rates; Standard, $5.49 ($6.99 monthly), adds invoicing built from tracked time and timesheet approvals; Pro, $7.99 ($9.99 monthly), adds scheduling and profitability; Enterprise, $11.99 ($14.99 monthly), adds SSO and an audit log. Paid features can be trialled for 7 days, no card required.
The honest limits are the free plan’s short memory — reports reach back one month — and an invoice that stops at the document: Clockify does not collect the payment itself, so the money arrives by whatever route you arrange outside the tool. Its ease-of-use score, 7.8, is also the field’s lowest; the depth is bought with complexity. Read it against the polish in Clockify vs Toggl and against the chain in Clockify vs Harvest.
3. Harvest — 7.8
The billing chain that starts with a timer: time and expenses become an invoice the client can pay online, on every plan. Free covers one seat and two projects, invoicing included. Teams starts from $9 per seat per month billed annually ($11 monthly) and turns on billable and cost rates per person and project; Enterprise, from $14 ($17.50 monthly), adds timesheet approvals and profitability reporting. Paid features can be trialled for 30 days, no card required.
The honest limit is the price itself: the seat rate is a base. Flex billing adds usage charges for active projects, clients, tasks and invoicing beyond an included allowance, at per-unit rates Harvest does not publish — its help centre’s example runs from a $44 seats-only invoice to $404 once usage was added — and the fixed alternative, Unlimited billing, has to be chosen deliberately. The Pro and Premium plans older reviews describe are legacy names for accounts upgraded before November 2024. Read it against the pure tracker in Harvest vs Toggl and against the free tier in Harvest vs Clockify.
What a ranking cannot tell you
Totals compress different jobs into one number. Harvest’s 7.8 and Toggl’s 8.2 are not measurements of the same thing: one grades a chain that ends with money arriving, the other a tracker that ends with a report. A freelancer who invoices from their accounting tool needs the second; one who bills straight from the timesheet needs the first — and the tenth of a point between Toggl and Clockify settles nothing that the free plans do not settle better.
“Free” is three different fences. Clockify fences people at five and report history at a month. Toggl fences people at three. Harvest fences projects at two — while leaving the gate to invoicing wide open. The right free plan is the one whose fence you will not meet this year, which is a fact about your practice, not about the software.
And tracked time is not yet a rate. A tracker tells you where the hours went; it cannot tell you what an hour must earn. Set that number first — taxes, expenses and non-billable time included — with the freelance hourly rate calculator, and every report these three produce becomes a verdict on your pricing instead of a diary of your week.
Questions
Related: put the tracked hours to work
Work out the rate your tracked hours must carry with the freelance hourly rate calculator — then check it against what the timer says you actually did. If the hours run inside a retainer, our retainer hours tracker watches the block burn down.
Also compare: the two pure trackers head to head are Toggl vs Clockify; the billing chain against the free tracker is Harvest vs Clockify; and when the invoice itself is the question, the seven invoicing tools are ranked in our best invoicing software for freelancers roundup. Same scores everywhere — narrower questions.