9 Best Time Tracking Apps for SMBs, Teams, Freelancers and You

In a remote work culture, holding employees accountable can be tricky. When the workforce is scattered, and there’s no central hub for work, you set your goals and intend on tracking progress with project milestones, but you can’t be sure just how much time each worker is spending on making that happen. However, the best time tracking app will provide you with a host of tools you can rely on when you need an update on your team’s progress on a task or project.

When employees have access to the best productivity apps and a time tracker on their home desktop computers, they will almost feel as if their superior is there in the room with them periodically checking up on their progress. This accountability is crucial for keeping workers on task since distractions can be rife in the home working environment.

Join us as we take a look at some of the best time tracking apps for consultants, freelancers, and users of all the major operating systems.

Key features of the best time tracking app

Understanding how you allocate time empowers informed business decisions. Whether solo or in a small team, time tracking software offers insights into daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly work patterns.Impactful Usage: Project time tracking ensures accurate payment, enhancing invoice confidence. For teams, it answers the query, “What have you been working on?”

Key evaluation points:

• Real-time tracking: Apps enable starting, pausing, and stopping timers.
• Edit and manual entry: Correct tracked time, even post-task, and log missed timers.
• Reporting: Detailed project, person, or client time breakdowns.
• Invoicing and export: Facilitates invoice creation or data export in various formats.
• Accessibility: Easy timer initiation across browsers, apps, and devices.

How we evaluate and test apps

We thoroughly research and test each app, evaluating its performance against our set criteria. Notably, we don’t accept any payment for featuring apps or including them in our articles. We prioritize the trust our readers have in our authentic evaluations of apps and categories.

1. Everhour – Top Choice for Teams

💻 Platform: Cloud-based, iOS (beta)
💰 Pricing: Free, Monthly – $6/10 per month (Lite/Team plan); Yearly – $5/8.50/month (Lite/Team plan)

Working in a team requires people and time management on a level that’s hard to reach without the right tools at your disposal. If you’re at the head of a team, you need to know exactly what your colleagues are working on every moment to ensure you’re all heading in the same direction. That’s why you need powerful software like Everhour, one of the best work hours trackers and online timesheet tools out there, to track time and hold your team accountable for the time they spend during work hours.

With Everhour, you’ll have access to real-time updates giving you key insights into how your team and the individuals within it are performing moment to moment. What’s more, Everhour becomes a digital Swiss army knife capable of taking care of all your project management needs with its third-party app integrations. 

Each integration complements the software, contributing to an arsenal of tools that’ll see you through every important work project and task. Integrations include top project management tools such as Asana, Trello, Jira, Basecamp, and many more. 

2. Paymo – Best for Small Teams

💻 Platform: Cloud-based; Windows, macOS, Linux; mobile (Android, iOS)
💰 Pricing: Free; Yearly – $4.95/user/mo (Starter plan), $9.95/user/month (Small Office plan), $20.49/user/mo (Business plan)

Any small business needs to ensure profitability first and foremost, so Paymo is a great solution for business owners who need reliable time tracking for proof of work, employee performance, and cost tracking. With Paymo, you can rest assured employees track their time easily and accurately. Users can log hours in multiple ways: manually using the web timer, adding time entries directly in the Timesheet interface, adding time in bulk, or entering time entries at a task level.

The simplest way is to track time automatically by leaving Paymo Track running in the background. Users can link timestamps to tasks—all data is stored locally and 100% private. Plus, there’s also a Pomodoro timer. Users can generate invoices and keep track of their payments based on tasks or time outstanding.

Paymo is cloud-based; its desktop app is available on all operating systems, and there’s also a mobile app on both Android and iOS. It integrates with Google, Zapier, Slack, and Xero, to mention a few.

✨ Features

• Static and live reports generation
• Expense and invoice management
• Profitability tracking
• Multiple billing types: non-billable, hourly and flat rates, retainer fees

3. TimeCamp – Best for Freelancers

💻 Platform: Linux, macOS, Windows
💰 Pricing: Monthly: Free – $0, Basic – $7/month, Pro – $10/month, Enterprise – customizable; Yearly: Free – $0, Basic – $5.25/month, Pro – $7.50/month, Enterprise – customizable

For freelancers, time is precious. Not only is there a mounting pile of work to get on top of, but there’s also the business side of things to tackle. As such, it’s important to streamline processes and automate wherever possible to lighten the load.

One way to go about this is to invest in time management software like TimeCamp, so as to free up time and simplify billing and invoicing. It’s tricky to keep track of how many hours you’ve worked on a project, which can make billing clients a nightmare and more of a guessing game than an accurate estimate. 

With the TimeCamp app, the best time tracking app for freelancers, you can step up your professionalism by tracking your projects, using timesheets to monitor the time you spend on various tasks, and making the most of 3rd party integrations. Integrations range from project management tools such as Asana and ClickUp to organization apps like Google Calendar and utility software like Google Docs.

✨ Features

• Automatic time tracking
• Create reports
• Billing and invoicing

4. Time Analytics – Best for Consultants

💻 Platform: iOS, Android
💰 Pricing: Monthly: Free – $0, Starter – $4.99/month, Optimum – $6.99/month, Premium – $12.99/month; Yearly: Free – $0, Starter – $4.29/month, Optimum – $5.99/month, Premium – $10.99/month

As a consultant, it’s your job to go into a business and turn things around or improve productivity levels throughout the organization. It’s much easier to do this when you have data to draw upon such as the time employees spend working on projects.

Time Analytics provides just that, and much more beyond. As one of the best time tracking apps for consultants, the app goes the extra mile to provide the kind of data you need to have a positive impact on any company or team.

This is a software tool that allows you to monitor a company’s profitability by factoring in individual productivity and other KPIs. It allows you to see whether your clients are on track to hit their goals, whether they are operating within their budgetary constraints, and if every worker is on the same page.

✨ Features

• Timesheets
• Workflow logging
• Time review
• Billing
• Productivity management

5. Forest – Best for Personal Use

💻 Platform: Android, iOS, Chrome, and Firefox
💰 Pricing: iOS: $1.99; Android: Free with $1.99 ‘Pro’ upgrade; Browsers: Free

If you want an interesting way to stay on top of your time, why not choose an app that allows you to create your own forest and fill it with all kinds of different trees?

Forest is a visually impressive app that achieves what few time tracking apps do, it makes the process of wrestling back control of your time a joy. Hands-down the best personal time tracking app for anyone who wants more for their money, the app rewards time spent productively with a visual feast, as you select the trees that you grow from a wide selection and watch as your own forest starts to take shape.

It’s the perfect solution for your personal time tracking needs since it incentivizes productivity with the satisfaction of creating something beautiful. Forest gamifies time tracking and is built on the foundations of the Pomodoro technique. That is to say, you select an amount of time to work for and to rest, and then get started. It’s useful for revision sessions for an upcoming exam, writing sessions on that unfinished novel, or any other task that requires your full attention.

✨ Features

• Productivity timeline
• Pomodoro-based time tracking
• Visual progress 
• Built-in reward system

6. Timetag – Best for Free Use

💻 Platform: iOS
💰 Pricing: Free; Business: $5/month

While there’s no doubt that software tools can add a lot of value to a lot of companies and working professionals, they can also eat into your finances. Sometimes the thought of paying yet another monthly or yearly fee is enough to make you dismiss the idea and potentially miss out on the benefits. Yet it doesn’t have to be that way.

Timetag is arguably the best free time tracking app, boasting plenty of features you can use to manage projects within your team or company. There is a premium option, too, for a minimal monthly cost of $5, but the free version is comprehensive for most time tracking needs. So what do you get for free with Timetag?

A simple yet effective time tracking solution that allows you to create detailed project reports and use data from any calendar on any of your devices. You can use the app to improve productivity and performance using KPIs and export your findings into a PDF or Excel file for easy digestion.   

✨ Features

• Create and export reports 
• Sync with any calendar 
• Time estimates

7. Timing – Best for Mac

💻 Platform: macOS (from El Capitan 2015 to Monterey 2021)
💰 Pricing: Yearly: Professional – $6.40/month, Expert – $8.90/month, Connect – $11.90/month

If you’re a Mac user and you’re interested in tracking your time, you could do a lot worse than installing the Timing app on your desktop, which is in our view the best time tracking app for Mac.

Timing is a time-tracking solution that understands the value of visuals. In the software, you’ll have access to key information about how you spend your time in the form of colorful grapes and displays. 

The main reason to pick Timing is that it’s a time tracking app that never clocks off. That’s right, the app never stops working, even when you do. As a result, there isn’t a moment it won’t capture, so if you’re a data analyst at heart you’ll have plenty to work with.

Timing will even categorize your time for you, so you know exactly how much time you’re spending on what really matters. While this might lead to some shocking revelations about your computer use habits, it’s this kind of information that can spark real change and motivate you to make the most of your time. This is especially true of freelancers and remote workers who spend the majority of their time at a computer, and are constantly looking to optimize how they use their time.

✨ Features

• Automatically tracks time
• Categorizes time spent
• Colorful graph displays
• Smart suggestions

8. Life Cycle – Best for iPhone

💻 Platform: iOS
💰 Pricing: Free; Premium: $9.99/year

Time tracking solutions are often presented in the form of a desktop app, which is fine for use at work when you have access to a computer, but what about when you’re using your phone?

Life Cycle is one of the best time tracking apps for the iPhone. It allows you to optimize the time you spend on your phone, so you can spend less of it on digital junk food and more of it on quality journalism and productivity tasks.

While most smartphones will give you basic information about how much you’re using your phone each week, they won’t give you a detailed breakdown of how you’re spending that time or suggest trends. Life Cycle will, though, as it automatically tracks the time you spend and divides it into habitual activities, the places you go, and more. As such, you will have access to insights based on your personal activity.

Life Cycle will let you know how much time you spend sleeping, how many steps you managed for the day, and how much time you spent on your commute to work. You can then use this information to work towards creating a perfectly productive day.

✨ Features

• Automatic time tracking
• Insights shown in graphs
• Trends
• Integration with Apple Health
• Comparing data with friends

9. TimeTune – Best for Android

💻 Platform: Android
💰 Pricing: Free; Premium: $9.99

TimeTune is a simple time tracking solution for Android users that features plenty of customization options, access to statistics and templates, and the ability to schedule your routines and projects. The best time tracking app for Android, TimeTune provides everything you need to stay productive.

If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for basic time tracking and project management needs, TimeTune is an excellent option for Android. With the app, you can carve out time blocks for various activities to hold yourself accountable, plan your days with templates, and then analyze your activities to see if there’s room for improvement. You can even set up custom notifications in the app to alert you when you have upcoming meetings or obligations.

✨ Features

• Time blocks
• Custom templates
• Custom notifications
• Activity reports

Closing Thoughts

Time tracking is an essential process for many individuals and organizations. All in all, it provides useful data for streamlining workflows and improving productivity levels.

Without it, we’re reliant on old-fashioned timesheets, which work as intended, but can leave us open to human error. When we look to time tracking and best time and attendance software as a solution, we are able to greatly reduce the risk of making costly mistakes when billing clients or estimating project budgets. With automated time tracking and other project management features, it’s much easier to focus on the work itself. You can also go with the best free time tracking apps, to see if they’re fit for you at all!

Choosing Everhour for time tracking offers small businesses, freelancers, and teams a versatile solution tailored to their unique needs. With its intuitive interface, seamless integration with popular project management tools, and robust features like budgeting, invoicing, and reporting, Everhour simplifies time management and enhances productivity.