Every tool on this list can measure an hour accurately. That stopped being a differentiator years ago. What still separates them is the boring half nobody demos: whether an hour can be approved, whether it carries enough context to justify itself on an invoice, and whether anyone ever bills it.
So this is a ranking of what the hours become, not of how pleasant the timer is to start. Prices are entry prices for a single user, which is rarely the number a pricing page leads with.
How we ranked these
Four things decided the order, weighted roughly in this sequence:
- What an hour attaches to. A tracker that only knows projects produces vague invoice lines. One where time attaches to a task or a ticket lets the invoice cite the work.
- What happens at the end of the month. Approval, a report a client will accept, and ideally an invoice — without a spreadsheet in the middle.
- What one person actually pays. Not the headline figure, not the twenty-seat slider position: the cost of a single user on the cheapest paid plan.
- Whether the free tier is a product or a trial. A free plan with a real limit is worth more than one that expires.
What we did not score on
Integration counts, mobile app polish and AI features. Integration counts reward vendors for having many shallow connectors. Mobile polish changes twice a year. And in this category the AI features are, so far, a category of demo rather than a category of tool.
The shortlist at a glance
| Tool | Best for | From | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toggl Track | A team that wants no friction | $9 seat/mo, annual | Yes, limited seats |
| Clockify | The largest useful free plan | $3.99 seat/mo, annual | Up to 5 users |
| Harvest | Billing clients from tracked time | $9 seat/mo, annual | 1 seat, 2 projects |
| TimeCamp | Cheap tracking at any headcount | $3.99 user/mo, annual | Unlimited users |
| My Hours | Freelancers who want it simple | $4 user/mo, annual | Up to 5 active users |
| Everhour | Time inside an existing PM tool | $8.50 seat/mo, 5-seat minimum | Up to 5 seats |
| Timely | Automatic capture, no timers | $9 user/mo, annual | Trial only |
| Oplero | Hours that become an invoice | Free during beta | Everything, no seat limit |
The ranking, tool by tool
Rank 1:Toggl Track
Teams that need everyone to actually track, without a fight
From $9 per seat a month billed annually, or $12 monthly.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- The lowest-friction timer in the category, which is most of why people keep using it
- Reporting that a client will accept without reformatting
- Browser and desktop integrations that put a timer inside the tool people already work in
Trade-offs
- Projects are a reporting bucket, not task management — hours attach to a project, rarely to the specific piece of work
- The free plan's user limit is not stated on the pricing page or in the knowledge base
- Billing lives at the top of the price list, so the useful half of the workflow costs more than the headline
Verdict. Still the default, and deservedly so, as long as your invoice lines can say "design work" rather than naming the task. If a client argues line by line, you will outgrow it.
Rank 2:Clockify
Small teams that want to spend nothing and still get reports
From $3.99 per seat a month billed annually, $4.99 monthly. Free for up to five users.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- The most generous genuinely-free plan of the paid tools here
- Cheapest entry price once you do pay
- Approvals and timesheet locking arrive earlier in the plan ladder than most competitors allow
Trade-offs
- Invoicing only appears from the Standard tier up, so the entry plan stops at a report
- The interface has grown by accretion; finding a setting takes longer than it should
- Same digits, different currency by region — $3.99 from the US, €3.99 from the EU
Verdict. The right answer when the budget is zero and the team is under five. Past that, you are paying for a tracker and still invoicing somewhere else.
Rank 3:Harvest
Studios that bill hourly and want the invoice in the same tool
From $9 per seat a month billed annually, or $11 monthly. Free for one seat and two projects.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- Tracked time turns into an invoice without an export step — rare in this category
- Budget warnings that fire before a project is over, not after
- The free tier is a real product for a solo freelancer, not a countdown
Trade-offs
- Projects exist to hold time and budget, not to manage work
- The design has aged, and the mobile app more than the web app
- Two projects on the free plan is a hard ceiling that arrives quickly
Verdict. The best of the trackers-that-invoice, and the one to pick if hourly billing is the whole job. It is a billing tool with a timer, which is the right way round for an agency.
Rank 4:TimeCamp
Tracking a lot of people for very little money
From $3.99 per user a month billed annually, $5.49 monthly. Free for unlimited users.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- Unlimited users on the free plan, which nothing else here offers
- Automatic activity tracking for people who will not press start
- Attendance and billable time in one tool, which suits mixed teams
Trade-offs
- Invoicing is partial — enough to raise a document, not enough to run billing on
- Automatic tracking is the kind of feature you have to explain to a team before switching it on
- The pricing page carries an older price table inside its HTML; trust the rendered page, not a scrape
Verdict. Unbeatable on price per head, and the only sensible free option once you pass five people. The trade is an interface that assumes you are monitoring, not collaborating.
Rank 5:My Hours
Freelancers who want a timer, a rate and a report, and nothing else
From $4 per user a month billed annually, or $5 monthly. Free for up to five active users.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- You can learn the whole tool in an afternoon
- Per-client and per-task billable rates without a plan upgrade
- Clean, uncluttered client-facing reports
Trade-offs
- Billable time can be invoiced, but there is no real invoicing module behind it
- Little to grow into once the team passes a handful of people
- Integrations are thin compared with everything above it
Verdict. The honest choice for one person billing a few clients. It does not pretend to be a platform, and that is the reason to pick it.
Rank 6:Everhour
Teams already living in Asana, Jira or Trello
From $8.50 per seat a month billed annually — but the Team plan needs at least five seats, so the real floor is $42.50 a month.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- Time appears inside the project tool you already use, rather than beside it
- Budgets and estimates that update as the work moves
- Because hours attach to a task, the invoice line can name the task
Trade-offs
- The five-seat minimum makes it the most expensive option here for a team of one or two
- Almost pointless without one of the project tools it plugs into
- Reporting is weaker than the tracking
Verdict. The best answer to "we have a PM tool and need hours in it". The worst answer to "we need a time tracker", because of the seat floor.
Rank 7:Timely
People who will never remember to start a timer
From $9 per user a month billed annually, or $11 monthly. No free plan — a 14-day trial only.Prices checked July 20, 2026
Strengths
- Captures activity in the background and drafts the timesheet from it
- Recovers hours that would simply have been lost
- The nicest-looking week view in this list
Trade-offs
- No free tier at all, which makes it the hardest to trial across a team
- The Starter plan caps at five users and twenty projects, and Tasks is a paid add-on
- Background capture needs a conversation with the team before it needs a setting
Verdict. Worth it when unlogged hours are costing you more than the subscription. Everywhere else, you are paying a premium for not pressing a button.
Rank 8:Oplero
Teams whose hours have to end up on an invoice
Free during the beta — every module, no seat limit. $1.99 per user a month afterwards.
Strengths
- Time attaches to a task or a helpdesk ticket, so an invoice line can cite the work
- Tracking, invoicing, the client portal and the helpdesk are the same system, not four subscriptions
- Modules switch off, so a team that only wants the timer sees only the timer
Trade-offs
- Still in beta — younger than everything above it
- No automatic background capture; you press start
- Fewer integrations, because more of the workflow is inside the product
Verdict. We are last on this list on purpose. If you need the best standalone timer, buy one of the seven above. Pick us when the problem is the distance between the hour and the invoice.
Billable time is not attendance
The most expensive mistake in this category is buying the wrong species of tool. Project time tracking optimises for billable accuracy: which client, which task, what rate. Statutory working-time recording optimises for completeness and proof: start, end, breaks, retained for years, auditable by someone who is not you.
Which one for which situation
- One person, a few clients, hourly billing — My Hours, or Harvest if the invoice matters more than the timer.
- A team under five with no budget — Clockify.
- More than five people and still no budget — TimeCamp.
- An agency billing hourly at scale — Harvest.
- A team that already runs on Asana, Jira or Trello — Everhour, if you can carry the five-seat floor.
- People who genuinely never log time — Timely.
- Hours that need to become an invoice, a ticket or a client-visible report in one place — that is where we sit.
Not sure which category you are buying in?
The buying guide walks through the questions to ask before comparing any of these — what an hour attaches to, who approves it, and what it turns into.