Best time tracking apps for solo businesses in 2026

For most solo owners, Toggl Track and Clockify are the two time trackers to start with, and both have a free plan. Toggl is smoother day to day, Clockify is cheaper once you pay, and Harvest wins if you bill by the hour and want the invoice in the same place. RescueTime and Timely log time for you in the background.

Track time even when you charge a flat fee

A timer is not only for hourly work, because it shows you what a fixed price really paid you.

Say you quote a brand project at $2,000. If it eats 55 hours across calls, revisions and file prep, you earned about $36 an hour. A similar project that takes 30 focused hours pays $66 an hour. You cannot see that gap without measuring it, and it is where much of your income hides. Track a few projects and patterns appear fast: the client who books "a quick call" every other day, the deliverable that always needs a third round, the work type that looks profitable until you count the hours.

Admin is the other cost people underprice. Time spent finding new work, answering inquiries and chasing paperwork rarely lands on an invoice. A tracker makes that time visible, and once you can see it you can bill it, cut it or build it into your rates. Our service pricing guide shows how to turn tracked hours into a rate that holds.

You do not have to track forever. A few weeks on each new type of project usually tells you what you need. After that, track only the jobs you are unsure about.

Toggl Track: the easiest daily habit

Toggl Track is the tracker most solo workers keep using, because starting and stopping the timer barely interrupts you. One click in the browser extension, the desktop app or the phone app and the clock runs.

The free plan covers one person well. It includes time tracking on web, desktop and mobile, calendar integrations and reports, according to Toggl Track's pricing page. For a solo owner that is often everything.

Paid plans add billable rates, project estimates and profitability reports. Move up when you want to see profit per project instead of hours logged. The reason people stay with Toggl is not any single feature. The habit sticks, and a timer you use beats a fancier one you abandon.

Clockify: the budget pick, with a catch

Clockify has the cheapest paid tiers in this group. Basic is $3.99 per seat a month billed annually, Standard is $5.49 and Pro is $7.99, according to Clockify's pricing page. The free plan allows unlimited projects and unlimited tracking.

The catch is what moved behind the paywall. Clockify's free plan update lists billable rates and CSV or Excel exports as paid features. Tracking hours is still free. Attaching dollar amounts to those hours is not, and free reports are limited in range and export format.

So if the whole point is billing clients, budget for Basic and do not assume the free plan will cover it. For plain time awareness, Clockify free is still hard to beat.

Harvest: tracked hours that turn into invoices

Harvest stands out because it does not stop at tracking. You log hours, mark them billable and send the invoice from the same screen. For an hourly biller that removes the step where tracked time gets copied into another tool and a number gets mistyped.

The free plan gives you one seat and two projects, with time tracking, invoicing and expense tracking, according to Harvest's pricing page. The project cap is the real limit. Run more than a couple of jobs at once and you will need to upgrade.

Harvest also handles expenses and receipts, which matters if you rebill client costs such as stock assets or software. It is strongest when tracking and billing belong together. If you already like your invoicing setup, it is less compelling. Our roundup of the best invoicing software covers the alternatives.

RescueTime and Timely: software that does the logging

Manual timers fail for one reason: you forget to start them. These two tools track automatically, and they aim at different problems.

RescueTime records which apps and sites you use and shows where the day went. It keeps a free Lite plan, and the paid Focus plan is $7 a month billed annually or $9 month to month, per RescueTime's plans page. It is about being honest with yourself, which helps when you are sure three hours vanished and cannot say where.

Timely points automatic capture at billing. It records activity in the background, then lets you turn that record into time entries instead of rebuilding the day from memory. There is no permanent free plan, only a 14-day trial, and Starter is $9 per user a month billed annually, capped at five users and 20 projects, according to Timely's pricing page.

If you bill hourly but hate babysitting a timer, automatic capture can pay for itself the first time it catches an hour you would have written off.

Which tracker fits which business

Match the tool to how you work, not to the longest feature list.

If you bill hourly and want the invoice from the same place, start with Harvest. If you want the smoothest manual timer and may grow into more features, Toggl Track is the safe daily driver. On a tight budget, or with an occasional subcontractor, Clockify does the most for the least, as long as you remember billable rates sit behind a paid plan. If you know you will forget to press start, let RescueTime or Timely do the logging.

Whatever you pick, a time log that never becomes a bill is just a diary. For the wider set of apps that pair with a tracker, see the solopreneur tool stack.

How Delivvo turns tracked hours into paid invoices

Delivvo is not a timer. It starts where your tracker ends: the numbers go into a quote, a contract and an invoice, and the client pays you.

1. Take your tracked hours and real rate, and build a quote in Delivvo from packages and add-ons, so the price reflects what the work actually costs you.
2. Send the quote. The client picks what they want, signs the contract and pays the deposit from one link.
3. Delivvo creates the client, the project, the contract, the invoice and the payment schedule from that single acceptance. You do not retype anything.
4. For hourly or retainer work, set up a recurring invoice or a payment schedule of up to 12 payments, so the money follows your tracked months.
5. If a client pays late, an automation sends reminders at 7, 14 and 30 days and stops once the invoice is paid.
6. Share the finished files through the client portal. The client opens it with a one-time code, with no password to forget.

The detail a lot of invoicing tools skip: clients pay you directly through your own processor, such as Stripe, PayPal or Square, and Delivvo takes 0% of the payment. Every invoice also carries a verification code anyone can check at delivvo.io/verify. Invoice numbers run in sequence in the format you choose, and credit notes are there when a job gets reduced after the fact. You can start on the Free plan with no card, and see how it all fits together on the invoicing page.

For the wider picture, see Delivvo for teams and the CRM for service businesses.

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