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5 of the Best Time-Tracking Tools for Freelancers

5 of the Best Time-Tracking Tools for Freelancers

By Helen Woodhouse

Published Apr 02, 2020
Last Updated Aug 15, 2025
9 min read

As a freelancer, you may need to charge by the hour. But to do this, you’ll need to keep track of how long you work on each job. And rather than sitting at your laptop with a stopwatch, it makes sense to find a time-tracking app that can do this for you! In this post, we look at five of the most popular time-tracking tools for freelancers:

Toggl Track
Clockify
Rescue Time
Harvest
TrackingTime

What Is a Time-Tracking Tool?

At its simplest, a time-tracking tool is a tool for… tracking time. So far, so obvious. On that basis, using a stopwatch and writing your timings down on a piece of paper would qualify; our focus here is on tools that offer more sophistication.

A time-tracking tool is software that helps you log how much time you spend on tasks and projects, but it does a lot more than just count minutes. Unlike a basic stopwatch, these tools can:

Automatically track activity on your computer or mobile device
Categorize time by client, project, or task for easy organization
Generate reports to show where your time is going
Integrate with other tools like calendars, invoicing software, and project managers
Set reminders or alerts so you stay on track

What Are the Benefits of Time-Tracking Tools?

As we’ve hinted above, there are more benefits to tracking your time than simply seeing how much of your day you spend at your desk (or wherever else you may work). And using a tool for this will make it much simpler and take a lot less time out of your already busy day.

Using a time-tracking tool as a freelancer can help you to:

Boost your productivity by showing you exactly how your time is spent – so you can cut out distractions
Track your billable hours accurately, making invoicing easier for you and more transparent for your clients – which should help you get paid more quickly
Build better quotes for future projects by showing you how long similar work actually takes
Stay organized when juggling multiple clients or tasks
Improve accountability, whether for yourself or when reporting to clients, by providing a record of your work – a great help when dealing with difficult clients
Set and, more importantly, achieve goals by monitoring your progress and time spent on each task
Build in some breaks – because it’s important to look after yourself

Best Time-Tracking Tools for Freelancers

Sold on the benefits of a time-tracking tool? Here’s our summary of five of the most popular tools for freelancers – including some free options.

1. Toggl Track

Toggl Track is one of the most widely used time-tracking tools around today, partly because it offers an extensive free version designed for freelancers. Key features of the free version include:

A one-click timer system so you can track time spent working without taking time from that task, boosting your productivity
The ability to track time spent on different projects for different clients (useful for billing, accountability, juggling multiple projects, and future estimates)
Apps for offline time-tracking that update whenever you’re back online – useful when your freelance work takes you away from your desk
The ability to add blocks of time manually if you forget to record something
Idle-time detection to prompt you if you accidentally leave the timer running, which will help keep your records accurate
Various reports and statistics to help you analyze and improve your productivity
Individual goals that you can set to monitor your progress and achievements
A built-in Pomodoro timer to help you remember to take breaks
Invoice creation from summary reports, saving you time and ensuring the invoice is an accurate reflection of your recorded time – which is great for accountability
Availability as an app on various platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and on web browsers Chrome, Firefox, and Edge

And all this with the free membership for up to five users! You can also sign up for Toggl Track’s paid tiers (currently $9–$18 USD per user per month) for in-depth reports and extra features, but you may find the free tier works fine for basic time tracking.

2. Clockify

Broadly similar to Toggl Track, Clockify regularly appears in lists of recommended time-tracking tools for its “free forever” features, which include:

A one-click timer that tracks the hours (or minutes) you spend on a task in real time. You can then view this information in different formats, including on a calendar, to see how you’ve spent your day
The ability to track time spent on different tasks within different projects for different clients, helping you with billing, accountability, estimates and project juggling
Synchronization across different devices so you can track your time wherever your freelance work takes you without having to commit the time to memory and record it when you’re back at your desk
The ability to manually add or amend blocks of time
Prompts if you accidentally leave a timer running, so you don’t bill for time you didn’t spend on a project
A Pomodoro timer notification to remind you to take a break
Detailed and summary reports that you can use to improve your productivity as well as provide a basis for estimates, billing, or to support applications to professional bodies
The ability to add your own hourly rate and mark blocks of time as billable or non-billable, which will help with your billing and estimates
Availability as an app on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and Kiosk and on web browsers Chrome, Firefox, and Edge

There are a number of paid plans available if the free version doesn’t cover what you need – such as invoicing, which you can get on the Standard plan for $5.49 USD per user per month (if you pay annually). But, as with Toggl Track, the free version of Clockify is extensive with no limits on the users, time, or projects tracked, making it a popular choice for freelancers.

3. RescueTime

RescueTime takes a slightly different approach to time tracking: health and wellbeing.

As well as letting you manually log your hours for different clients, projects, and tasks, the RescueTime app can automatically track your activities. This means that it knows which apps you use and for how long. But it can also tell you how long you’ve spent on social media or other websites, making it a great tool for self-analysis and reducing your screen time!

The principal aim of RescueTime is to help you stay focused, so it includes:

Focus sessions, during which you can choose apps, activities, and websites to block for a certain time and allow you to concentrate
Custom alerts to let you know when you’ve achieved a goal – or spent too long on an activity – so you can make the best use of your time.

In common with the previous two apps, RescueTime is available online as an iOS mobile app. This is a paid option, currently priced at $78 USD for an annual solo plan or $12 USD for a monthly solo plan, but you can try it for free for 14 days to see if it’s right for you.

4. Harvest

Harvest is another time-tracking tool that has a “$0 forever” plan specifically for individual freelancers. This one includes time tracking from your browser, desktop, and mobile phone – including iPhone and Android – so it’s easy to record your work wherever you are. Its principal attractions include:

Adding expenses, including photos of receipts, to a project so you can include them alongside the cost of your time
Invoice creation from your timesheets and added expenses so you can save yourself some vital admin time and make sure that your figures are in line

The potential downside of the free plan, perhaps, is that it’s currently restricted to two projects. Harvest’s paid Pro plan, available for $11 per user per month, covers unlimited projects as well as other features that you might find useful for your freelance business:

Integration with PayPal and Stripe so you can accept payment for your invoices more quickly
The ability to email invoices and set up late-payment reminders. Sometimes that’s the bit that gets forgotten when you’re juggling everything in your business – but it’s essential if you’re to get paid
Automatically copying your invoices and payments to QuickBooks or Xero, saving you time on that other headache for a freelancer: completing your tax return

Currently, you can try Harvest’s paid plans free for 30 days.

5. TrackingTime

If you prefer to visualize your timekeeping, the TrackingTime tool could be the one for you. It includes features we’ve seen in the other tools, such as:

A button to start the timer directly from your browser so you don’t have to keep swapping between applications or windows on your screen, thereby saving you valuable time
A mobile app where you can record your time and synchronize it to a central record wherever you might be working
Automated time tracking so you can keep your focus on your work
Tracking your progress toward completion of a project or task
Integration with other tools you may already use, such as Airtable and Google Workspace, allowing you to keep track of your work without having to switch between apps

But with TrackingTime you can also view and track your day in blocks of time, which can be helpful if you’re a freelancer needing that structure to help you focus.

There’s a free plan currently available for up to three users, but it’s just for the automatic tracking and calendar integration. To be able to invoice directly from the tool, you’ll need to pay for a plan. The Freelancer plan includes those features for $8 USD per user per month, billed annually.

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