Searching for the best time tracking apps?
From large companies and SMBs to startups and even freelancers, time tracking apps help you monitor employee productivity with ease.
Some tools can also help prevent misuse of company time, assist in workforce planning and allocation, track project progress, and manage client billing.
However, with hundreds of such tools available, choosing the right time tracking software can be challenging.
In this article, we review 14 of the most popular timesheet applications.
For each tool, we cover the key features, integrations, pros, cons, pricing, and user ratings, to help you make an informed choice.
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Let’s dive in.
The 14 best time tracking apps
1. Time Doctor
Time Doctor is a feature-rich time tracking and productivity app used by a wide variety of companies of different sizes. Customers include large corporations and SMBs.
The tool is useful for companies running remote teams, digital agencies, software teams, companies with virtual assistants, and more.
Far better than traditional Excel timesheets, Time Doctor gives you several accurate productivity reports — which you can access from the web dashboard.
A. Key features
Here are some of Time Doctor’s key features:
1) Interactive time tracking solution
Time Doctor has a powerful interactive time tracking feature. It allows you to monitor the productivity of your employees.
Once employees start the timer, the app begins tracking their hours in real-time. Time Doctor then provides a breakdown of tracked time based on client, project and task.
You can also differentiate between time spent working and wasted time, and identify the tasks and projects taking up your team’s time.
Note: There is also an option to track time automatically, without having to click on the timer to start recording.
2) Advanced reporting
Time Doctor gives you access to several detailed productivity reports:
- Activity summary report: shows an employee’s productive, unproductive, and idle time over a period.
- Hours tracked report: see the number of hours worked in a day, a week, or any selected range of time.
- Projects and tasks report: record the total time taken to complete a specific project and tasks within that project.
- Web and app usage report: know which websites and applications your team members accessed during work hours.
- Timeline report: get an overview of how an employee has spent their working hours in a day or week.
3) Screencasts
Once the Screencasts feature is enabled, Time Doctor takes screenshots of your team’s screens so that you can see what they’re doing, at specific intervals.
It can also record three minute videos of your employee’s screen when their timer is running.
Note: To protect the privacy of employees, you can delete or blur the screenshot in case it contains any personal information.
4) Payroll management
Time Doctor allows companies to make payments to employees and freelancers using PayPal, Wise, and several other methods in all currencies. Payments can be made based on hours worked.
5) Integrations
For maximum functionality, Time Doctor supports 50+ integrations with a wide range of tools including the popular project management app Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Slack, Zoho projects, and more.
B. Pros
- One of the most feature-rich apps with capabilities for time tracking, detailed reporting, activity monitoring, billing, and payments.
- Places a lot of emphasis on employee privacy. It does not monitor employees’ activity during free time. Monitoring and screenshots can be turned on and off for specific employees.
- Has several integrations with a wide variety of applications making employee time management a breeze across all platforms.
C. Cons
- More suited for companies rather than freelancers.
- Mobile app is only available for Android devices. However, the iOS app is on the product roadmap.
D. Pricing
Time Doctor starts at $7/month per user. You can also sign up for a free 14 day trial (no credit card required.)
E. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (320+ reviews)
- G2: 4.4/5 (170+ reviews)
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2. Hours
Hours is a simple clocking app for tracking time.
If you just need to manage your time better without any advanced features or integration with other apps, then this might be the app for you.
You can use it on the Apple watch to clock in and out or time a particular task. It’s also a great app for taking voice notes.
A. Key features
- Displays a break-down of time tracked in a graphical representation on the reporting dashboard.
- The Mac web app syncs data across the web app, iOS and Apple watch, letting you freely switch between devices and timers.
B. Pros
- Simple time tracking app.
- Easy to switch between tasks with a click.
- Sleek user interface and timeline view option.
C. Cons
- Can’t integrate with any other tools or CRMs.
- Can’t use it for checking employee website and app usage activity.
- Quite expensive for teams, considering the limited features.
D. Integrations
There is no integration available with any other tools.
E. Pricing
Hours is a freemium tracker app, but there is an in-app purchase for the Pro version available at $8/user per month if you want to use it for teams.
Best suited for: Individuals, freelancers, and very small teams, who just need basic time tracking and reporting.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: NA
- G2: NA
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3. Qbserve
Qbserve is a Mac-only time tracker. It keeps track of your activity on your Mac and has an automated project timer.
Its timer works on the basis of documents, web pages and window titles that you have open. You have to manually set up rules that determine how time is tracked for a particular project.
A. Key features
- Automatic time monitoring and productivity analysis.
- Tracks most Mac apps, document paths and browser tabs in Chrome, Safari, Firefox etc.
- Generates reports on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
- Supports 18+ languages for generating invoices for your clients.
- Privacy is protected. All data is only stored locally on your computer. You can also pause the timer when you’re using private browser tabs.
B. Integrations
Qbserve has a few integrations to set alerts when you reach your goals for a particular project or even when you spend excessive time on distracting websites.
It can be integrated via Zapier, AppleScript and IFTTT.
C. Pros
- Offline time tracking.
- Automated time tracking.
- Clean and easy to understand user interface.
D. Cons
- Setting up project rules is often complicated. Inadequately defined rules can lead to incorrect measurement and attribution of time to the wrong projects.
- The benefits of automation are offset by the time it takes you to set up rules.
- Not suitable for teams.
- No mobile app available.
- Works only for Mac.
E. Pricing
Unlike other time tracking software or applications, Qbserve offers a one-time purchase price of $29 per user.
Best suited for: Freelancers or individuals for personal use.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.9/5 (10+ reviews)
- G2: 4.3/5 ( 2+ reviews)
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4. Paydirt
Paydirt is intended primarily for freelancers and agencies to track time spent on tasks or projects and generate invoices based on hours worked.
It can determine which project or client you’re working for, by detecting keywords specified in advance and matching them with the tab titles in your Chrome browser.
A. Key features
- Chrome extension detects what project or client account you’re working on and instantly displays a pop-up reminding you to start the timer.
- Make up for unrecorded time by jumping back 5, 10, 20, 30, 60 minutes ago and starting the timer.
- Generate invoices in more than 52 currencies and 17 languages from the dashboard and send it directly to the client in pdf format.
- Set up billing as one-time or recurring payments. Get paid via PayPal or Stripe without having a separate merchant account.
- Generate business reports and manage your team members permission to access settings, invoices, etc. for different projects.
- Set-up employees’ billing rates.
B. Integrations
Easy integrations are available with Basecamp, Trello, Redbooth, etc.
With Zapier, you can integrate it with 750+ apps.
C. Pros
- You don’t need to have a merchant account with Paypal or Stripe for invoicing and online billing.
- Jump back and start the timer if you forgot to start tracking time.
- Even lower pricing plans don’t limit the number of projects or tasks and you can also generate unlimited invoices or quotes.
D. Cons
- Only available as a web app, not as desktop or mobile apps.
- The back timing feature can be misused by some employees to add extra time to their day.
- Limited visibility into what websites and apps people are using during work hours.
E. Pricing
Individual plans start at $8 per user (per month). Team plans start at $29 per month for three team members.
Best suited for: Paydirt is best suited for freelancers and agencies.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: NA
- G2: NA
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5. Timely
Timely is an automated time tracking and productivity tool.
It captures information from your activity across several devices and allocates time to specific tasks based on sites visited, files worked on, software used and so on.
A. Key features
- Captures billable activity across several devices and creates user-friendly timesheets.
- Captures unreported tasks like client meetings, client calls, digital communication etc.
- Available for almost all devices like web apps, desktop apps, mobile apps, and the Apple watch.
- Helps you to track your budget by generating custom reports, marking billed projects, team capacity and activity feed.
- Shows you how employees spend their time on a single dashboard.
B. Integrations
Timely can be integrated with 99+ tools, including Clickup, LiquidPlanner, Trello etc.
C. Pros
- Easy to use and very intuitive user interface.
- Captures data across multiple devices.
- Supports multiple billing rates as per projects and clients, also able to separate billable and non billable hours.
D. Cons
- Automated time tracking is often faulty.
- Doesn’t offer milestone tracking within a project or task and also doesn’t support offline time tracking.
- The reporting dashboard is a little confusing when you have a lot of projects and lots of team members, mostly on smaller screen devices.
E. Pricing
Plans start at $10/user per month (billed monthly) with limited features. A 14-day free trial is available.
Best suited for: Individuals, freelancers and agencies with a small team.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (200+ reviews)
- G2: 4.5/5 (10+ reviews)
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6. TopTracker
TopTracker is built for freelancers, remote team members, and individuals for tracking time along with automatic screenshots as a proof-of-progress.
It also provides activity level tracking and full privacy for freelancers like blurred screenshots, etc.
A. Key features
- Web app can be operated on any device like desktop, mobiles and tablets.
- Operating and switching between platforms or devices is seamless, if you need to.
- Get a centralized view of all projects and tasks along with team members’ information on the dashboard.
- Receive detailed productivity reports, so that you can easily process the data and optimize your team’s performance.
B. Integrations
Integration with any other app is not available for TopTracker.
C. Pros
- Desktop app allows you to work offline and sync data online when the computer reconnects.
- Unlimited projects and clients can be added without worrying about pricing.
- Privacy features allow you to make screenshots blurred or even remove them.
D. Cons
- No native mobile app is available for any platform.
- Integration with other apps is not available.
- If you leave the timer running when you are on a break, it will not stop automatically as it does not track your keystrokes or mouse clicks. You always need to stop the timer manually.
E. Pricing
It’s completely free, so you can have unlimited projects and unlimited users.
Best suited for: Freelancers and small agencies.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: NA
- G2 : NA
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7. Everhour
EverHour is a feature-rich web-based time tracking tool with reporting, budgeting, invoicing and payroll management functionalities.
You can easily keep track of all projects and all team members from its dashboard, along with access to individual projects or tasks of particular team members.
A. Key features
- View each employee’s workload and allocate work or manage their time off according to their bandwidth and availability.
- See what’s going on with your team and each team member’s profile and project summary on the live dashboard.
- Project billing, hourly billing and online invoicing in multiple currencies.
- Easy to track time through the browser extension and embedded buttons in project management tools like Asana, Basecamp, Github and others after integration.
- You can stop the timer for an employee and send them a notification email.
- Ability to lock the time editing feature after a certain period of time.
B. Integrations
EverHour provides multiple integrations with Asana, Basecamp, Bitbucket, Clickup, Github, Insightly, JIRA, Trello and several free project management tools.
Integration with Slack and various accounting tools like Xero, Quickbooks, Freshbooks is also available. With Zapier integration 1000+ apps can be integrated.
C. Pros
- Easy to use and accurate embedded time tracking with Asana.
- Activity and budget tracking on projects.
- Clients are also able to see time tracking and project tracking data through the client portal.
- Browser extension is available for Chrome, Safari and Firefox, so you don’t need to leave your browser to start the timer or switch between projects.
D. Cons
- Can’t track web and app usage activity, so you have no way of verifying if the employee was actually working.
- Doesn’t have an option to capture screenshots in order to track project progress.
- Has no features to prevent distractions.
- Doesn’t offer an Android app.
E. Pricing
Paid plans start at $10/user per month. A free 14 day trial is available.
Best suited for: Freelancers and agencies.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (250+ reviews)
- G2: 4.7/5 (90+ reviews)
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8. Harvest
Harvest is a straightforward time tracking software suitable for solo freelancers or agencies.
It tracks your time on multiple devices of your choice including web app, desktop app for Mac, mobile app for both Android and iOS devices and also Chrome & Safari browser extensions.
Harvest helps you track your team’s time and billing, making sure your team is on track of projects. You can also determine your team’s bandwidth and plan your work allocation, using their sister app Forecast.
A. Key features
- Harvest will simplify tracking your team members’ activity and project progress on the go.
- Invoicing features will allow you to generate invoices as per billable hours and receive payments through Paypal or Stripe.
- Dashboard syncs across devices and web-apps seamlessly so that you can switch between devices easily.
- Setting up multiple billing rates, billable hours tracking, expense tracking and invoice processing helps you stay aligned and on track with different clients.
B. Integrations
Harvest has native integrations with popular CRM and communication tools, project management tools, finance and accounting software, productivity tools, and more.
With a Zapier integration, you can integrate Harvest with more than 1000+ tools.
C. Pros
- User-friendly interface.
- Tons of integrations with other tools.
- Easy to separate billable and non-billable hours.
- Integration with Forecast helps determine bandwidth and allocate work better.
D. Cons
- Harvest doesn’t track web and app usage activity. You have no way of making sure if employees are actually working while the timer is running.
- Doesn’t have an option to capture screenshots in order to track project progress.
- Navigating the reports isn’t easy.
- Sometimes there can be time discrepancies between reports.
E. Pricing
Harvest offers a limited free plan for a single user with a maximum of two projects. Paid plans start at $12/user per month.
Best suited for: Individuals, freelancers, and SMBs.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (400+ reviews)
- G2: 4.3/5 (700+ reviews)
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9. Paymo
Paymo is primarily a project management tool, but it also has integrated time tracking, collaboration and invoicing features.
A client dashboard makes it simple for your clients to track progress on their projects and milestones.
Additionally, Paymo also offers automatic time tracking using a desktop app called PaymoPlus for Windows and Mac devices. It’s useful when you’re working on multiple projects at same time.
A. Key features
- Offers a variety of features covering several aspects of project management.
- Supports project planning, scheduling, and resource management for easy task management.
- Can collaborate with teams in real-time.
- Supports file organization with unlimited storage.
- Offers desktop apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms and also native mobile apps for Android and iOS devices.
B. Integrations
Paymo integrates with Google apps, Adobe CC Extension, and 1000+ apps using Zapier.
They also provide an API to help you build your own custom software application and connect with other apps.
C. Pros
- Clean interface and easy to use.
- Provides several features during the lifecycle of the project.
- Web-app, desktop apps for Windows and Mac devices, also native mobile apps for Android and iOS.
- Data can be exported in CSV and timesheets can be shared with clients.
D. Cons
- Since it’s an all-inclusive tool, time tracking features are not as extensive as in dedicated time tracking software.
- Even if they have an automated time tracking option, you have to manually map pages and documents to tasks, which practically is far more complicated than manual time tracking.
- Paymo comes with some standard invoice formats and it’s hard to customize those templates.
E. Pricing
The paid plan starts at $9.95/user per month. Paymo also offers a 15 day free trial.
Best suited for: Freelancers, agencies, and large teams.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (400+ reviews)
- G2: 4.5/5 (460+ reviews)
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10. TimeCamp
TimeCamp is an easy-to-use tool that tracks the amount of time your team works. You can also use it for team and project time tracking, invoicing, billing, and attendance tracking.
It’s desktop apps are available for Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu platforms and mobile apps for Android and iOS devices. TimeCamp also has a Chrome extension which allows you to start/stop the timer directly from your Chrome browser.
A. Key features
- Generates graphical timesheets and powerful reports.
- Provides a detailed productivity analysis and goal tracking.
- Track activity offline.
- View a detailed activity history for each team member, including attendance analysis.
- GPS tracking possible with mobile app.
B. Integrations
TimeCamp integrates with more than 50+ project management software like Trello, communication apps like Slack, and more.
With a Zapier integration you can integrate 1000+ other apps.
C. Pros
- Works on desktop, mobile and Chrome platforms.
- Has a very wide range of integrations available with other tools, and also offers a developer API.
- It can track every window on your computer and total time spent on that particular window considering apps or website or tools.
D. Cons
- When you start using TimeCamp for the very first time, it’s not that easy to set-up and configure.
- No option to capture screenshots of web activity.
- No clients portal available for your clients to see and track progress on their projects.
- Mobile apps are not that intuitive as the desktop app and graphical summary is not available on mobile.
E. Pricing
Timecamp offers a free plan for a single user which is best for freelancers. Paid plans start at $7/user per month.
Best suited for: Freelancers, agencies and SMBs.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (520+ reviews)
- G2: 4.7/5 (160+ reviews)
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11. Toggl Track
Toggl Track is an easy-to-use time tracking and reporting tool for individuals or smaller teams.
A. Key features
- In-built Pomodoro timer
- Toggl Track offers an extension for Chrome and Firefox browsers along with iPhone, Android, and desktop apps for Windows/Mac/Linux devices.
- Desktop app has several features whereas the mobile app is just meant for tracking time and basic reports.
- Toggl Track’s reporting features provide you with an easy way to analyze data.
- Other key features include – automated timesheet management, tracking reminders and deleting time entries.
- Depending on the pricing plan you choose, Toggl Track also offers various other features such as bulk edit, adding time manually, keyboard tracker, locking time entries etc.
B. Integrations
Toggl Track integrates with 100+ tools for project management, app development, visual collaboration and others. Some notable software include Asana, Google Drive and Visual Studio.
They also have a Zapier integration to connect other apps and automate workflows.
C. Pros
- Simple and Elegant design.
- Easy to use and clear workflows.
- Auto tracking for more than 100+ online tools.
- Zapier integration to automate processes.
- Great customer service.
D. Cons
- Syncing between a few integrated tools can be difficult and the app can be faulty. Even if you stop the timer, it might continue to incorrectly track time.
- Doesn’t have a screenshot feature.
- Doesn’t have an autocomplete feature while adding a new task in the app dashboard. This may cause duplicity in the task name, if it is already present in your task list.
E. Pricing
Toggl Track offers a free plan for up to 5 users with limited functionality. The paid plans start at $10/user per month.
Best suited for: Startups, SMBs, freelancers or even individuals.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (1370+ reviews)
- G2: 4.5/5 (1300+ reviews)
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12. Timeneye
Timeneye is a simple time tracking tool for both freelancers and teams, offering automated as well as manual tracking. Its easy-to-use interface helps you organize your timeline and boost productivity.
A. Key features
- Timeneye’s web-based app works on every computer. It also has Android and iOS mobile apps.
- Chrome plugin lets you start and stop the timer from within the browser itself, without going into the dashboard.
- Timeneye’s web app tracks your time automatically and adds it to associated projects, or you can add it manually.
- See time being spent on a particular project or task and even see which team members are spending excessive time on any tasks. This helps you manage your team’s productivity.
B. Integrations
Timeneye integrates with 22+ tools like Asana, Basecamp, Google Calendar, Todoist, Trello, etc. It can also connect with 2000+ apps via Zapier.
C. Pros
- Can separate billable and non-billable hours, so that you can charge your clients accurately.
- Dashboard is fairly easy to use with a clean interface and very intuitive.
D. Cons
- Can’t track time while you’re offline.
- Billing and invoicing features aren’t available.
- No visibility into your team’s website and app usage during work hours.
- Projects on its calendar styled dashboard don’t have drag-and-drop functionality.
- Sometimes the timer will stop automatically even though you’re still working.
E. Pricing
Offers a free limited plan for a single user. Paid plans start at $7/user per month.
Best suited for: Freelancers and small business teams.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (104+ reviews)
- G2: 4.6/5 (18+ reviews)
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13. ClickTime
ClickTime is a time tracking software that increases resource and project visibility and helps you stay on budget with ease. It lets you quickly understand the resources you have available for upcoming projects.
A. Key features
- The employee timesheets display statistics like employee time, administration expense, overtime per employee/project and time-off.
- Allows you to manage project budgets, employee hours, employee performance & employee permissions.
- Gives you a bird’s-eye view on the dashboard to instantly view key statistics. You can check your progress against your goals for each project and manage your project cost.
- Offers a native mobile Android and iOS app and a web app and a Chrome extension.
- Generate more than 80+ different types of visual reports (as graphs and charts).
B. Integrations
ClickTime integrates with various tools such as accounting, payroll management, CRM, project management, Google apps, etc.. They also provide an API to integrate with other tools.
C. Pros
- Simple interface and easy to use.
- More than 80+ custom reports can be generated giving you multiple perspectives into your employee database.
- Mobile apps and the Chrome extension helps you track time with ease.
- Daily email notification of work summary and notifications if an employee hasn’t completed a work day.
D. Cons
- Time tracking automation features are limited.
- No visibility into websites and apps being used by employees during work hours.
- Pricing is a little expensive for small or medium sized businesses.
- Can’t limit access for reporting within manager roles in your organization.
E. Pricing
Plans start at $12/user per month. A free 14-day trial is also available.
Best suited for: Businesses of all sizes who need resource planning data.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (190+ reviews)
- G2: 4.4/5 (150+ reviews)
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14. RescueTime
RescueTime is primarily a productivity management tool. Strictly speaking, it’s not a ‘time tracking’ tool like the other tools in this article.
It’s a web-based time tracking app that runs in the background silently and tracks your daily work routine, helping you be more conscious of wasted time. Based on these insights, you can build more productive habits.
A. Key features
- RescueTime follows default definitions for which sites and apps are considered productive and which are distracting. You can set your own definitions according to the nature of your work and then block distracting sites.
- Specify your productivity goals for the day and set an alarm when you spend more than specified time on that particular goal.
- Offers a mobile app for Android and iOS devices and a web app that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
- Shows you a detailed report in the dashboard and provides summary reports through weekly emails.
B. Integrations
RescueTime offers integrations on its premium plan with various types of software like project management tools and team communication tools such as Git, GitHub, Slack, IFTTT, etc.
With Zapier, you can integrate with 50+ tools.
C. Pros
- A simple time tracking tool that lets you measure productivity.
- Blocking distracting sites to stay productive.
- Weekly email about your activities helps you increase your productivity, as you’d clearly be able to see where you or your team members might be wasting time or spending disproportionate time.
- Goals and alarms make you more conscious of when you might be wasting time and prompt you to get back to work.
D. Cons
- Can’t track time spent on tasks and projects.
- Unable to log billable and non-billable hours separately, and also doesn’t support billing and invoicing within the software.
- Automatic time tracking isn’t possible while you’re offline. You need to log offline time manually for meetings, phone calls with clients, etc.
- While visiting some sites, RescueTime can mark it unproductive for example – LinkedIn, even when you’re using it for work.
E. Pricing
RescueTime Lite, which is a free version, is best for individuals and has limited features. Paid plans start at $12/user per month. It also offers a 14-day free trial that requires a credit card.
Best suited for: Individuals and teams who want to waste less time at work.
F. Customer ratings
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (110+ reviews)
- G2: 4.1/5 (60+ reviews)
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Final thoughts
There you go, 14 of the best time tracking apps reviewed.
This article should give you an excellent idea of the time tracking tool landscape and help you choose a tool based on your requirements.
And while you evaluate how these tools fit into your own requirements, why not sign up for a free trial of Time Doctor?
