Best time tracking apps for freelancers (2026)

Disclosure: We build Sandtime.io and publish this guide, so our first-place ranking is not independent. Sanddev, the company behind Sandtime.io, works with freelance developers and bills clients by the hour, and we track that work in Sandtime.io every day. We explain our criteria, link to each vendor’s own pricing page, and say plainly where another product is the better fit.

The best time tracking app for a freelancer is the one that gets every billable hour recorded against the right client, at the right rate, and turns it into numbers you can put on an invoice without rebuilding the week from your calendar. For most freelancers that means five things: a fast timer and easy after-the-fact entries, a rate per client that keeps its history, rounding that matches your contracts, a report or export your invoice can come from, and a price that does not jump when you hire your first subcontractor.

Compare the 10 best time tracking apps for freelancers

The Billing features column names the plan that unlocks billable rates, rounding, or invoicing, because that is usually what a freelancer ends up paying for. Use the product links to jump to the full review.

Rank and app	Best for	Billing features	Free plan	Paid from	Main tradeoff
1. Sandtime.io	Freelancers who bill several clients by the hour	Rates with history, rounding, Invoices report, all free	Unlimited users	$0	Does not send invoices or take payments; needs a connection
2. Harvest	Invoicing clients from tracked time	Invoicing on every plan, including Free	1 seat, 2 projects	$9/seat/month	The free plan stops at two projects
3. Toggl Track	The most polished timer	Billable rates on Starter; rounding on paid plans	Up to 3 users	$9/user/month	Approvals need Premium, $16
4. Bonsai	Running the whole freelance business in one app	Invoices and payments on Essentials	7-day trial	$9/seat/month	Invoicing starts at $19; the most expensive here
5. Clockify	The cheapest paid plan with invoicing and rounding	Billable rates on Basic; invoicing and rounding on Standard	Up to 5 users	$3.99/seat/month	Free plan exports PDF only
6. My Hours	A low-cost plan with invoicing and approvals	Rate per project on Free; invoicing and rounding on Pro	Up to 5 active users	$4/user/month	Invoicing and Excel export need Pro, $8
7. TimeCamp	Free unlimited users with automatic desktop tracking	Invoicing on Starter; rounding on Premium; billable rates on Ultimate	Unlimited users	$3.99/user/month	Billable rates need Ultimate, $9.99
8. Everhour	A timer inside Asana, Trello, or ClickUp	Billing, budgeting, and invoicing on Team	Up to 5 seats	$8.50/seat/month, 5-seat minimum	A solo freelancer still pays for five seats
9. Timing	Automatic time tracking on a Mac	Billing status and report rounding on every plan	30-day trial	$9/month	Mac only; reconstructs time from activity
10. Timely	AI-drafted timesheets from automatic tracking	Billable hours reporting from Starter	14-day trial	$9/user/month	Starter caps 20 projects and 5 users

Prices are public U.S. list prices per user or seat per month on annual billing, checked on September 29, 2026, except Timing’s individual plans, which are per person. They exclude taxes and promotions. See what a freelancer pays per month below.

Why freelancers need a different kind of time tracker

A freelancer’s week is split across clients, calls, revisions, admin, and the small favors that never feel worth logging. The tracker that works for a salaried team, where one manager reviews everyone’s hours, does not match that shape. You are the person tracking, the person reviewing, and the person sending the invoice, so every minute the tool costs you comes out of billable time.

What goes wrong is rarely dramatic. A 20-minute client call goes unlogged, a revision round gets billed at last year’s rate, or the monthly total is rounded in your head instead of by the rule in the contract. Our guide to spotting billable leakage shows how quickly those small gaps add up. The right app makes the correct entry the easy one and keeps the numbers you invoice from.

There is also a line worth drawing early. Some apps record declared time: what you say you worked on, and for how long. Others reconstruct time automatically from the apps and websites you used. Both can support billing, but they suit different people, and this guide says clearly which is which.

How we researched and ranked these apps

We started from apps freelancers repeatedly shortlist and checked every price, plan name, free-plan limit, and tiered feature against the vendor’s own pricing page on September 29, 2026. Where a pricing page did not show which plan holds a feature, we used the vendor’s help center, or left the claim out. The ranking is an editorial judgment, not a numeric score.

We separate three kinds of evidence. Vendor facts such as prices and plan contents come from linked official pages. First-hand experience applies only to Sandtime.io, which Sanddev uses daily for its own client work. Editorial judgments include the ranking and the best-for labels.

Each app was assessed on six freelancer questions:

1. Can I record time the moment I remember it? A timer, entries after the fact, and apps on the devices you actually use.
2. Can each client have its own rate? Rates per client or project, what happens to past reports when a rate changes, and currencies.
3. Does rounding follow my contract? The increment, the direction, and whether the original entries stay intact.
4. How does tracked time reach the invoice? Built-in invoicing, an invoice-ready report, or an export to your invoicing tool, and on which plan.
5. What happens when I hire a subcontractor? Whether they can see only your shared client, how their hours are reviewed, and what the extra person costs.
6. Does it record declared time or monitor activity? Screenshots, activity capture, and what a client would think if they saw how the hours were recorded.

The order favors freelancers who bill several clients by the hour and want clean, invoice-ready numbers, because that is the problem Sandtime.io solves for us. A freelancer who wants the tracker to write and send invoices should weigh Harvest or Bonsai higher, and the reviews say so.

The 10 best time tracking apps for freelancers

1. Sandtime.io: Best for freelancers who bill several clients, free for unlimited users

Sandtime.io is built around one project per client, each with its own revenue rate and currency. Start a timer when work begins, or add the call or revision round you forgot afterwards with a start and end time, and mark each entry as billable or non-billable. You can run several timers at once, which helps when a client call overlaps with a task you are still timing. Entries come from the web app, Windows, macOS, iPhone, and Android (all apps), the Chrome extension, Slack slash commands, and, for developers, AI assistants such as Claude Code or Cursor through the free MCP server and REST API.

The billing side is where freelancers save the most time. Rates keep their history, so raising your rate in January does not change what last quarter’s reports say you earned. Time rounding rounds to the nearest interval, always up, or always down, in 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minute blocks or a custom interval, and the recorded time stays what it was. At month end, the Invoices report template lists time, hourly rate, net revenue, tax, and total revenue per project, and exports to Excel or CSV so you can copy the totals into your invoicing tool.

Why it ranks first: everything above is free for unlimited users, with no credit card and no seat price. When you bring in a subcontractor, they join as a User on the client project they work on, see only the projects they are assigned to, and fill a weekly timesheet that you approve in one click and lock once it is billed. A cost rate per person shows your margin on their hours next to the revenue you bill. Sandtime.io records self-reported time only, with no screenshots or activity monitoring, and production data is hosted in the EU on OVHcloud.

Tradeoff: Sandtime.io does not send invoices, take payments, or track expenses; it produces invoice-ready reports and exports for the invoicing tool you already use. It also does not capture activity automatically, and its apps need an internet connection: they show an offline screen rather than recording time without one, so time worked offline goes in afterwards as an entry with a start and end time. Freelancers who want invoicing inside the tracker should look at Harvest or Bonsai.

2. Harvest: Best for invoicing clients from tracked time

Harvest connects tracked time, expenses, and invoices, so the path from a logged hour to a sent invoice has no export step. Its free plan covers one seat and two projects and already includes time tracking, invoicing, and expense tracking. Teams costs $9 per seat per month on annual billing ($11 monthly) and adds unlimited seats, billable and cost rates for teams, and accounting and payment integrations with tools such as Stripe, QuickBooks Online, and Xero. Enterprise costs $14 ($17.50 monthly) and adds timesheet approvals and profitability reporting. Harvest’s pricing page also notes that, as a team grows, additional invoices, projects, clients, and tasks are billed based on usage.

Why it ranks second: for a freelancer who wants to invoice from the tracker and get paid online, it is the most direct path in this list, and a freelancer with one or two clients can start on the free plan.

Tradeoff: the free plan stops at two projects, which most freelancers outgrow, and approvals for subcontractor hours sit on Enterprise. See our Harvest alternative comparison.

3. Toggl Track: Best timer experience

Toggl Track is one of the easiest trackers to adopt, with timers on the web, desktop, mobile, and in the browser, calendar integrations, and a focus mode. The free plan covers up to 3 users, and the pricing page’s FAQ says it is free for teams of up to three users. Starter costs $9 per user per month on annual billing ($12 monthly) and adds billable rates. Premium costs $16 ($24 monthly) and adds timesheet approvals, fixed-fee projects, and profitability reports. Toggl’s help center says rounding is a paid plan feature. The pricing page also lists the Toggl API and an MCP server.

Why it ranks third: timer polish lowers the barrier to daily tracking, which is where most freelance billing leaks.

Tradeoff: billable rates, the first feature a freelancer needs, start on Starter, and approving a subcontractor’s hours needs Premium. Our Toggl Track alternative page maps the difference.

4. Bonsai: Best all-in-one freelance business app

Bonsai is a business suite for freelancers and agencies in which time tracking sits next to proposals, contracts, invoices, payments, and a client portal. Basic costs $9 per seat per month on annual billing ($15 monthly) and includes time tracking, projects, a CRM, and iOS and Android apps. Essentials costs $19 ($25 monthly) and adds invoices and payments, proposals and contracts, scheduling, the client portal, and expense tracking. Premium costs $29 ($39 monthly), and Elite costs $49 ($59 monthly) with a three-user minimum and adds timesheet locking. There is a 7-day trial, and Bonsai charges processing fees for online payments.

Why it ranks fourth: a freelancer who wants to send a proposal, sign a contract, track the work, and get paid without stitching tools together gets the most complete package here.

Tradeoff: invoicing starts on Essentials, so the realistic price is $19 a month for one person, the highest entry point in this list, and time tracking is one module among many rather than the core of the product.

5. Clockify: Best low-cost paid plan with invoicing and rounding

Clockify’s free plan covers up to five users. Its pricing page lists report export in PDF only on Free, a one-month data range for reports, and API access at 30 requests per hour. Basic costs $3.99 per seat per month on annual billing ($4.99 monthly) and adds billable rates and CSV and Excel export. Standard costs $5.49 ($6.99 monthly) and adds invoicing from tracked time and expenses, rounding up, down, or to the nearest interval, and timesheet approvals. Pro costs $7.99 ($9.99 monthly).

Why it ranks fifth: Standard delivers invoicing, rounding, and approvals at the lowest per-seat price among the paid options here.

Tradeoff: the free plan is limited for billing: billable rates start on Basic, and invoicing and rounding on Standard. The Clockify alternative page compares both.

6. My Hours: Best low-cost plan with invoicing and approvals

My Hours is a straightforward project time tracker, and its pricing page names freelancers in the description of its Pro plan. The free plan is limited to five active users and already includes a billable rate per project and PDF report downloads. Basic costs $4 per user per month on annual billing ($5 monthly). Pro costs $8 ($9 monthly) and adds invoicing of billable time, automatic rounding of billable time, billable rates per user or task, timesheet approvals, auto-locking of time logs, and Excel reports. There is a 14-day Pro trial.

Why it ranks sixth: Pro puts invoicing, rounding, and subcontractor approvals in one inexpensive plan.

Tradeoff: the billing features that matter at invoice time all sit on Pro. See our My Hours alternative page.

7. TimeCamp: Best free plan with automatic desktop tracking

TimeCamp’s free plan covers unlimited users and includes a timer, a weekly timesheet, auto tracking, and PDF report export. Its pricing table lists invoicing and Excel export from Starter, at $3.99 per user per month on annual billing ($5.49 monthly), time rounding from Premium, at $6.99 ($9.99 monthly), and billable rates and timesheet approvals from Ultimate, at $9.99 ($13.99 monthly). Ultimate also adds screenshots.

Why it ranks seventh: a freelancer who wants automatic desktop tracking and unlimited free users has a credible, inexpensive option.

Tradeoff: billable rates sit on Ultimate, the same plan that adds screenshots, so a freelancer billing by the hour pays the top tier. The TimeCamp alternative page covers the difference.

8. Everhour: Best for a timer inside Asana, Trello, or ClickUp

Everhour puts a timer inside project management tools, and its pricing page names integrations such as Asana, Trello, ClickUp, and GitHub. The free plan covers up to five seats with time tracking, projects and tasks, reports, and data export. The Team plan costs $8.50 per seat per month on yearly billing with a five-seat minimum and adds native integrations and billing, budgeting, and invoicing. There is a 14-day trial of all features.

Why it ranks eighth: a freelancer who manages client work in Asana or Trello gets tracking where the tasks already live.

Tradeoff: the five-seat minimum means a solo freelancer pays $42.50 a month for the integrations and invoicing. See our Everhour alternative page.

9. Timing: Best automatic time tracking on a Mac

Timing is different from most tools here: its homepage says it automatically tracks every app, document, and website you use on your Mac, and it groups that activity so you can turn it into time entries in a few clicks, alongside timers and manual entries. Professional costs $9 per month on annual billing ($11 monthly) for one person on one Mac, Expert $11 ($14 monthly) for two Macs, and Connect, the plan for teams and AI workflows, $16 per user ($20 monthly). Every plan lists billing status tracking, report rounding, and a GrandTotal invoicing integration, and there is a 30-day trial.

Why it ranks ninth: for a freelancer who forgets to start timers and works on one Mac, reconstructing the day from activity recovers hours that would otherwise go unbilled.

Tradeoff: it runs only on the Mac, and automatic capture is a different approach from declared time: you still review and assign the activity before it becomes a billable entry.

10. Timely: Best for AI-drafted timesheets

Timely records activity across apps and websites and uses AI to draft timesheets from it. Starter costs $9 per user per month on yearly billing ($11 monthly) for up to 20 projects and five users. Premium costs $16 ($20 monthly) for unlimited projects and up to 50 users, and adds accounting integrations and budgets, and Unlimited costs $22 ($28 monthly). There is a 14-day trial.

Why it ranks tenth: it is a strong fit for a freelancer who wants tracking to happen in the background.

Tradeoff: Starter’s 20-project cap is tight for a freelancer with many small clients, and like Timing it reconstructs time from activity, which is a different product from a declared timesheet.

What freelancers should check before choosing

Track one real client for one full invoicing cycle before you commit. The moment that matters is the end of the month, when the hours have to become an invoice, and a demo never shows it.

Billable rates per client

Check that each client can have its own rate, that non-billable admin stays out of the invoice total, and what happens to past reports when you change a rate. In Sandtime.io, rates carry the period they applied to. Billable rates start on a paid plan in Toggl Track (Starter), Clockify (Basic), and TimeCamp (Ultimate), while My Hours includes a rate per project on its free plan. Our guides on setting your freelance rate and billable vs non-billable hours cover the numbers behind the setting, and the freelance rate calculator works back from the income you want.

Rounding

If your contract bills in 6, 15, or 30 minute increments, the tool should apply that rule once rather than leaving you to round in your head. Check the increment, the direction, and whether the original entries stay intact. Sandtime.io includes rounding for free; Clockify puts it on Standard, TimeCamp on Premium, and My Hours on Pro.

Invoicing, or an export to your invoicing tool

Decide where invoices should live. Harvest, Bonsai, Clockify Standard, My Hours Pro, TimeCamp Starter, and Everhour Team create invoices from tracked time. Sandtime.io does not; its Invoices report and Excel or CSV export give you the totals for the invoicing tool or accountant you already use. If you need a quick one-off invoice, our free invoice generator and invoice template are separate from the app.

Working across devices

List where you will record time: a laptop, a phone after a client call, a browser tab next to the client’s tools. Check that each app works with the same entries. Timing runs only on the Mac, while Sandtime.io, Toggl Track, and Harvest list web, desktop, and mobile apps.

Working offline

If you work on trains or at client sites with poor Wi-Fi, check what happens without a connection. Sandtime.io’s apps need a connection and show an offline screen instead of recording, so offline time goes in afterwards with a start and end time. Timing’s homepage says tracked times are stored locally on the Mac unless you opt into sync. Test your own setup during the trial rather than relying on a feature list.

Privacy

A client who asks how the hours were recorded should get an answer you are comfortable giving. Screenshots and activity scores rarely help a freelancer, and they sit badly with subcontractors. Sandtime.io records self-reported time only; the help center explains what it does and does not track. TimeCamp adds screenshots on Ultimate, and Timing and Timely capture activity by design, with you deciding what becomes a time entry.

When you hire a subcontractor

The first subcontractor changes the job. You need them to see only the client they work on, to submit hours you can review before you invoice, and to cost as little as possible to add. In Sandtime.io, they join as a User on one project, with approvals and locking included for free. Elsewhere, approvals sit on Toggl Track Premium, Clockify Standard, My Hours Pro, TimeCamp Ultimate, and Harvest Enterprise, and every added person is another seat.

What a freelancer pays per month, alone and with two subcontractors

The figures below price the lowest plan that holds billable rates and, where the tool invoices, invoicing, on annual billing and excluding taxes. The team column assumes a freelancer plus two subcontractors, each taking a seat.

Two adjustments matter once subcontractors join. If you want to approve their hours before invoicing, Toggl Track moves to Premium ($48 a month for three people) and Harvest to Enterprise ($42), while Clockify Standard and My Hours Pro already include approvals. Harvest also bills additional invoices, projects, clients, and tasks based on usage as a team grows. These tools include things Sandtime.io leaves out, such as sending invoices, online payments, or automatic capture, so the fair comparison is the bill against the features you will actually use. The freelance take-home calculator helps put any of these costs in context.

Frequently asked questions

Final verdict

For most freelancers, the expensive failure is not a missing feature. It is a month-end where the hours are incomplete, a rate is out of date, and the invoice is rebuilt from memory. Sandtime.io ranks first because it keeps every client’s hours, rates, and rounding in one place and turns them into an invoice-ready report, free for unlimited users, including the subcontractors you hire later.

Choose Harvest if invoices must come from the tracker, Bonsai if you want the whole freelance business in one app, Toggl Track for the most polished timer, and Timing or Timely if you want time reconstructed from your activity. For more on the setup, see time tracking for freelancers, or compare Sandtime.io directly with Harvest, Toggl Track, Clockify, My Hours, TimeCamp, and Everhour.