6 Best Time Tracking Apps for Freelancers in 2024
To become a successful freelancer, you must pay extra attention to managing your time. Improved time management supported by time tracking tools increases focus, builds confidence, and allows you to plan your time more effectively.
By tracking time spent on individual projects, customers and activities, you can support steady revenue growth and a healthy work-life balance.
Explore the best time tracking apps for freelancers in 2024 and unlock your time!
Looking for the best time tracking tool for freelancers?
Join thousands of freelancers who already track their time with Timeular
The best time-tracking apps for freelancers
- Timeular
- Everhour
- FreshBooks
- Harvest
- Timely
- Toggl Track
1. Timeular
Top features:
- Easy time tracking for you everywhere you go
- Automatic time tracking
- Design your tracker, a physical remote control for the app
- Actionable data visualization and insights
- Timer app – Enhance productivity with time blocking or the Pomodoro method.
- Time off tracking – Enjoy greater flexibility and transparency in leave tracking and reporting to clients
- Accurate billing with custom reports & data export
- Dazzle your clients with great-looking reports
- Assign values to activities and track your billable time
- Integrate it with Jira, Quickbooks, and 3,000+ other apps
Track your time and never miss a billable hour again!
Join thousands of freelancers who already track their time with Timeular
With the Timeular app, accurate time-tracking has never been easier. Timeular is one of the best time-tracking tools for freelancers you can ask for:
- quantify the time you spend with time wasters
- increase your focus
- transform how you spend your time at work
- Add more transparency to your client’s reports by tracking your time off
Timeular wins the hearts of many freelancers and stands out from other software for many reasons. With its time tracker cube that automatically tracks activities when flipped, Timeular is truly one of a kind and comes in extremely handy if you’re not working in an office. You can track up to 1,000 activities with the Tracker. Simply leave one or more sides of your Tracker empty. Every empty side will act like a joker side. It will open Quicktrack and let you choose what you want to track
You can easily connect with many popular tools, such as Zapier, Jira, Harvest, and Toggl, and get comprehensive analytics. Also, with the Timeular app, you can share time reports and export your data to CSV, PDF, or even Excel.
If you want to live by the motto “work smarter, not harder,” then you need Timeular. Timeular gives you full control of your time and allows you to be as time-efficient as possible.
The Timeular time tracking app works perfectly to help you with all your needs as a freelancer!
This software is also very flexible and adapts to your working conditions: whether you’re working in the office or you’re out, and shooting content, Timeular gives you all the information you need to take your business to the next level.
Timeular also comes with different pricing plans for you and your business.
You can profit from a 30-day free trial. No credit card is needed.
Timeular works both as a Windows time tracking app and as a Mac time tracker.
It’s available as a desktop app, web app, or mobile app.
Track your time and never miss a billable hour again!
Join thousands of freelancers who already track their time with Timeular
2. Everhour
Everhour is a very good option for freelancers as it’s a multi-function time-tracking software that assists in task management, billing, visual planning, and much more. Everhour is a time tracker that helps freelancers stay on top of important workflows such as invoicing, payroll, and budgeting. Get simple and flexible project billing, set budgets to track progress in real-time, receive timely notifications, and much more.
Everhour integrates many management software such as Trello, Asana, Monday, etc. This app is focused on budgeting, payroll, and invoices. It also allows you to create tasks, organize them, and add time estimates to keep everything in the loop and on track.
So, track time from the app you already use, keep all your projects on budget, increase transparency with your clients, and make your workflow more efficient.
Looking for the best time tracking tool for freelancers?
Join thousands of freelancers who already track their time with Timeular
Top Features
- Set billing and budgeting with timely notifications
- Timecard calculator
- Invoicing and reporting
Increase your productivity with these effective time tracking tips.
3. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is explicitly built for freelancers with features designed to make accounting and tracking easier for the self-employed, just as a freelancer.
With FreshBooks, you can easily track everything client-related. With billing and payments all in one place, everything is organized and easy to track. Things such as professional invoices, online payments, and automated payment reminders are guaranteed with FreshBooks.
By tracking your time, you better understand exactly how long you spend on clients and projects. And when the work’s done, easily generate an invoice for your clients. It’s that easy!
Top Features
- Customizable invoices and payment reminders
- Tax calculations and categorization of expenses
- Review and create project estimates
- Collaboration and file sharing
- Automatic payment recording
Track your time and never miss a billable hour again!
Join thousands of freelancers who already track their time with Timeular
4. Harvest
Harvest is one of the best time-tracking tools on the market. It’s a popular time-tracking app very well known for client billing and invoicing. It’s available as an online version, a desktop solution, and a mobile app, making it very flexible for your needs. Plus, it can be integrated with many software platforms that you’re used to using.
Thanks to Harvest, you can record every working minute and then convert your time-tracking results into professional-looking invoices and reports for your clients. Another significant advantage of Harvest for freelancers is that it can be synced with different online payment systems, which can come in super handy. This feature makes it more convenient for your clients to pay for your services and work in due time.
If you’ve already tried this and it doesn’t suit your needs, you might be interested in knowing the best Harvest alternatives.
Top Features
- Create invoices and receive payments from clients
- Reminders to clients about invoices to be paid
- Reports
5. Timely
This is one of the best time trackers for Android. With the Timely app, you can expect to be as productive as possible. It records the time you spend in different work apps and creates accurate automatic timesheets.
You can expect this app to be extremely suited for freelancers, as it makes recurring tasks much more manageable. It’s considered one of the best time tracking software for designers.
With Timely, you can automatically track time spent in every web and desktop app for you and get a precise daily record of your time in documents, meetings, emails, websites, and video calls. With Timely you can see not only what’s been worked on but also what was planned. Likewise, find out how much you have left to assign for more tasks and resources.
One of the top features of Timely is task planning. You can manage the tasks (drag and drop), to have a clearer vision of your day and week. This helps with efficient project timeline planning which is crucial for successfully finishing your projects.
Top Features
- Protect your privacy and trust
- Automatic time tracking
- Visual planning
TIP: Read our post, if you need to find the perfect alternative to Timely.
6. Toggl Track
Known to be an effective RescueTime alternative, Toggl Track is also highly famous among freelancers tool, considered one of the best apps for self-employed people. Available through the web timer or browser extension, Toggl Track has hundreds of integrations, from Asana to Zapier, Salesforce, etc. This way, you can integrate it with your client’s tools.
With this top-rated productivity tool, you can create visual and easy-to-understand reports for your clients to know how much time you’ve worked on their projects and if the time spent complies with the initial estimations.
Another useful feature is idle detection, where the app reminds you when you aren’t using your computer and offers to correct your timeline. This comes in extremely handy when working with a time-tracking app. Is there a worse feeling than leaving your time tracker on at the end of the day and ending up with a 16-hour task?
As a very polished and well-established app in the world of time tracking, the pricing is a bit higher than in some other tools, so make sure you keep that in mind when choosing this tracker.
TIP: Ge to know the best Salesforce time tracking integration.
Top Features
- Get the data you need without disrupting your client’s workflow.
- Time tracking syncs across multiple platforms.
Toggl vs. Timeular: which is better for you?
How to choose the best time-tracking app as a freelancer?
Choosing the right time-tracking software can be decisive in whether your business is successful or not. But between all the great time trackers that exist out there, how do you know which one better works for you? How to know which one is “la crème de la crème” for you? What are the most important things you must consider before choosing?
Let’s find out!
Pricing
Your budget is one of the key points when choosing the time-tracking software for you. Just know that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on an effective solution.
Depending on what your needs are, you’ll find different price points. Keep that in mind when choosing your time tracker.
What device you’re using
As a freelancer, you probably use your phone for work much more than most people. Therefore, you probably should consider an app that’s perfectly made for IOS or Android.
Integrations
Time tracking should be easy, not something dreadful. Therefore, when looking for the perfect software for you, consider your usual workflow and aim to find a tool that fits. For instance, if you’re already using project management tools with your clients, such as Trello or Asana, make sure you choose a time-tracking tool that integrates smoothly.
Read also: The best Trello time tracking integration
Software’s features
You should ask yourself, what features does your time-tracker need to have to work for you? Consider your workflow and note down all the characteristics your tool should have. Is it just the basics, or will you also need some special features?
Some of the more basic features would be to:
- Track time spent on activities in real-time or add it manually.
- Create projects and tasks, and associate with your clients.
- Add tags depending on the type of work you have.
- Count billable hours and set your hourly rates.
- Generate reports for clients, and export them to PDF, CSV, and Excel.
However, depending on your needs, you may need some extra features. Things like customizing your reports, managing invoices and payroll, using the software offline, and accessing it across various devices are some of the features that not all time trackers may have. Make sure you check every single detail before you make a final decision.
Now that you have in mind some things you should consider before choosing the perfect time-tracking software for your business. Now, let’s see what the major benefits of using a timekeeping app as a freelancer are.
Read our guide to learn how to calculate your billable hourly rate as a freelancer.
What are the benefits of time tracking for a freelancer?
Here’s our detailed overview of the best time tracking software out there. Time tracking is not simply fashionable nowadays.
Time-tracking software boosts your productivity by making you more efficient and organized. By choosing the best time-tracking software, you ensure greater accountability.
Now, let’s see the main benefits of tracking your time when you’re a freelancer.
Whether your client is paying you hourly or per project, there are many benefits to keeping track of time as a freelancer. You can clock in to keep yourself focused on projects while showing your client that you’ve worked hard.
You’ll see how much time is spent on each project so you can optimize your efficiency and give accurate information to your clients. Time efficiency is everything when it comes to freelancing. You can take on more projects and earn more money when you work faster.
Here are some significant benefits to start tracking time as a freelancer:
- Identify all your activities: You only have so many daily hours. A time tracker can show you just how much time you’re spending on small tasks that aren’t moving your business forward and the ones that are.
- Stay focused: Ensure you’ll remain on track with fulfilling your projects on time.
- Bringing clarity to business goals: As a freelancer, many different business goals can pull you in different directions. Thanks to tracking time, you can put your business goals into a more realistic perspective and do what it takes to accomplish them.
- Determine rates: Time tracking software is also great for determining how much you should charge your clients. Whether you charge by hours or by projects, with a billable hour tracker you can get accurate information about the time spent and how much you should earn.
- Optimize your task estimates: Sometimes, we don’t have a clear notion of how much time we spend doing some of the tasks we have for the day. Thanks to a time tracker, you can predict how long a specific task will take, helping you better define your time estimates for future projects.
- Create daily schedules: It can be challenging to schedule a daily routine if you aren’t keeping track of time. That’s why a time tracker would help you determine how long you should spend on each task, like replying to emails, invoicing, project work, etc.
Conclusion
Hope you found the best time tracker for you as a freelancer!
All the best apps for self-employed featured in this article can help you with task management, efficient scheduling, effective time management, and weekly planning. There’s no workaround time tracking if you want to increase your personal and professional productivity.
Friendly advice: Start tracking your time, and start today. To be as successful as you wish, you need to cover every detail to get the perfect match to find the ideal time tracker for your business.
Thanks to this article, you can now reflect and hopefully, make some good decisions and act upon them.
We can’t say this enough. Time tracking allows you to make more intelligent decisions about how you price and run projects, schedule your workflow, and even spend your day.
It can be a decisive factor in whether your business is profitable or not.
FAQ
Time tracking is a way of accurately counting how long it takes us to carry out each task and project and, from that, realistically build a plan, take insights, and know 100% reliably how much we can charge our clients for our services.
Time tracking software rate may vary considerably depending on features, business/enterprise size, pricing models, etc. The point is it depends on what you’re looking for. There’s no specific price for it.
Google does not have a specific time-tracking app of itself. However, most time, trackers can integrate with other software you’re already using. Many do have extensions for you to put up in your browsers, so you can add them to Google Chrome, Firefox, or even Microsoft Edge.
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