Best Time Tracking Software for Freelancers
Use the free calculator below to find the hourly rate you actually need to charge. Time tracking sounds like the easy part of freelancing until you're staring at a blank invoice trying to remember how many hours you actually spent on revisions three weeks ago. Whether you're currently tracking nothing, jotting hours in a notes app, or ready for something that turns tracked time straight into a sent invoice, the goal is the same: bill for the time you actually worked, for every client, without the manual math. Below is a free generator that calculates the hourly rate you need based on your income goal, along with how the top time tracking tools compare and when it's worth moving to one that handles invoicing and clients too.
Free Freelance Rate Calculator
What Hourly Rate Do You Actually Need?
Enter your numbers below. Leave any field at 0 if it doesn't apply.
What Freelancers Actually Need from Time Tracking Software
Most freelancers don't need a complicated system, they need one that removes a step from getting paid. A timer that starts and stops is table stakes. What actually saves time is whether that tracked time is tagged to the right client and project automatically, and whether it can turn into a sent invoice without you opening a second app and re-typing the same numbers.
Freelancers who skip tagging time to a client or project end up with a pile of hours that's accurate in total but useless in detail, no way to tell which client ate the week, which project ran over its estimate, or which type of work is actually worth taking on again. Tagging at the moment you log time is what turns raw hours into something you can bill from and learn from.
Methods for Tracking Time as a Freelancer
There are a few common approaches, and which one fits depends mostly on how many clients you juggle and whether you bill hourly, by project, or both.
| Method | Works Well When | Breaks Down When |
|---|---|---|
| Memory / End-of-Week Guess | One client, very predictable hours | Any variation in your week, or more than one client |
| Spreadsheet or Notes App | A few clients, comfortable rebuilding invoices by hand | Invoicing starts taking longer than the work itself |
| Standalone Timer App | Need accurate hours fast, don't mind a separate invoicing step | Tracked time and invoices live in two different places |
| Connected Platform | Multiple clients and projects, want time to flow straight into invoices | Rarely breaks down, but more than a free timer alone |
The honest answer for most freelancers is that a standalone timer is a fine starting point, and it stops being enough the moment invoicing turns into its own weekly chore: re-adding hours by client, double-checking nothing was missed, formatting a document from scratch. That's usually the first real sign that tracked time and invoicing need to live in the same place.
How We Evaluated These Tools
Full disclosure up front: Updoot publishes this site, and it's included in the comparison below. To keep that honest, every price and feature claim for every tool, including Updoot, was checked against each company's current pricing page or independently verified third-party sources as of June 2026, and we're transparent about where a tool genuinely wins on a given criterion, even when it isn't Updoot.
For freelancers specifically, we weighted five things: how much a solo operator actually gets on the free tier, how directly tracked time turns into a sent invoice, whether time can be tagged to a specific client and project without extra steps, whether pricing is published and predictable at the size a single freelancer would realistically pay for, and day-to-day usability on mobile.
Free Plans: What You Actually Get Without Paying
Since most freelancers start on a free tier, it's worth knowing exactly where each one stops short. Toggl Track's free plan covers up to 5 users with unlimited time entries and projects, but billable rates aren't included, so you can track hours without ever seeing what they're worth in dollars. Harvest's free plan is capped at 1 user and 2 projects, which is restrictive, but uniquely includes basic invoicing even for free, unusual in this category. Clockify has the most generous free tier of the group, unlimited users and projects at no cost, but invoicing and billable-rate reporting sit behind a paid tier. Everhour is free for up to 5 users but excludes all integrations, which matters since Everhour's main value is showing up inside another tool like Asana or Trello.
How the Top Time Tracking Tools Compare
| Tool | Starting Price | Best For | Where It's Limited for Freelancers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Updoot ⭐ | $5/user/month | Freelancers who want time, invoicing, projects, and customers in one connected system | More than a bare-bones timer if all you want is a stopwatch |
| Harvest | Free (1 user, 2 projects); paid from ~$10.80/user/mo | Freelancers who want timers and invoicing in one app from day one | Acquired by Bending Spoons in 2025; some users report steep renewal price increases via usage fees, worth checking current terms |
| Toggl Track | Free (5 users, no billable rates); paid from $9/user/mo | Simple, fast start/stop timers across devices | Billable rates and invoicing-ready reports require the paid Starter tier or higher |
| Clockify | Free (unlimited users); paid from ~$5/user/mo | Tracking time for free with no per-user cost | Invoicing, billable rates, and deeper reporting sit behind paid tiers |
| Everhour | Free (5 users, no integrations); Team $8.50/user/mo (5-seat minimum) | Freelancers already working inside a project management tool | 5-seat minimum on the paid plan means a solo freelancer pays for 5 seats (~$42.50/mo) regardless of team size; iOS only, no Android app |
Editor's Pick
Why Updoot Tops This List for Freelancers
Harvest comes closest to matching Updoot on the core idea, time and invoicing in one app, but it caps the free tier at one client and carries renewal-pricing uncertainty since its 2025 acquisition. Toggl and Clockify are excellent timers but leave invoicing to a separate tool by design. Everhour's value depends on already using a project tool it integrates with. Updoot ties time, invoicing, projects, and customer history together at a flat $5/user/month with no seat minimums, which is what tips it for a freelancer who wants the fewest possible steps between logging an hour and getting paid.
None of these are wrong choices. If your main need is a fast, polished timer and you don't mind invoicing separately, Toggl or Clockify's free tier will cover you for a while. If invoicing-from-day-one matters more than price, Harvest's free plan is the only one of the four that includes it. The deciding question is how many separate tools you're willing to keep in sync to get from a tracked hour to a paid invoice.
How Updoot Handles Invoicing, Projects, and Customers
Updoot is built around the idea that time tracking shouldn't live in a different app than the work it's billing for. Every timer entry is logged directly against a customer and a project, so there's never a separate step to figure out who or what an hour belongs to after the fact. Each customer has its own record with its own projects, contact details, and billing history, so you can see at a glance how much time and revenue any single client represents without digging through old invoices.
Projects in Updoot hold their own budget and rate, whether that's hourly, flat-fee, or a mix across tasks, and every tracked hour rolls up automatically into that project's totals. That makes it easy to catch a project running over its estimate while there's still time to flag it with the client, instead of finding out at the end.
Invoicing pulls straight from the time already tracked: select a customer, choose the date range or project, and Updoot builds the invoice from logged hours and rates with nothing to re-enter by hand. Invoices can mix billable time with flat project fees on the same document, and once sent, they're tied back to the customer record so payment status and history stay in one place rather than scattered across email threads. The same time tracking and invoicing data also feeds Updoot's budgeting and reporting tools, so a freelancer can see profitability by client or project, not just a running list of hours, all included in the platform at $5 per user per month.
Related Reading
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Frequently Asked Questions
The best option is whichever one removes a step from your billing process, not just the one with the most features. For freelancers juggling a few clients, a simple timer that turns directly into an invoice usually beats a tool that tracks time beautifully but leaves you to build invoices by hand. Once you're managing several active projects and clients at once, the value shifts toward tools that connect time, projects, and invoicing in one place.
If you bill by the hour, yes, since guessing at hours worked almost always means underbilling. Even on fixed-price projects, tracking time is what tells you whether a project type is actually profitable once you compare hours spent against what you charged for it.
Yes, most time tracking tools offer a free tier that covers a single user tracking time against a handful of projects. The limits usually show up around invoicing, multiple clients, or reporting, which is where free plans start pushing freelancers toward a paid tier.
At minimum: a start/stop timer or manual entry, the ability to tag time to a specific client and project, and a way to turn tracked hours directly into an invoice. Beyond that, billable-vs-non-billable tracking, simple project budgets, and per-client reporting are what separate a basic timer from something that actually runs the business side of freelancing.
It should be, if you bill hourly. Tracking time in one app and rebuilding an invoice by hand in another is where freelancers lose hours worth of billable time every month and where small errors, a missed entry, a rounded-down hour, quietly creep in. When tracked time flows straight into an invoice, what you bill matches what you actually worked.
By marking each time entry as billable or non-billable at the moment it's logged, usually tied to a specific project. This matters because unpaid time, like scoping calls, revisions, or admin work, adds up fast, and freelancers who don't separate it out often underestimate how much of their week isn't actually generating revenue.
It depends on your target income, expenses, and how many hours a week are actually billable rather than spent on admin, marketing, and unpaid client work. A common mistake is calculating a rate off 40 billable hours a week, when most freelancers bill closer to 20 to 30 once everything else is accounted for, which means the real rate needed is usually higher than it first looks.
Final Takeaway
The best time tracking software for freelancers isn't the one with the most features, it's the one that turns tracked hours into a sent invoice without an extra step in between. Use the calculator above to check your hourly rate against what you're actually billing, and if there's a gap, that's usually a sign either your rate or the way you're tracking time needs a second look.