The best time tracking software for consultants depends on how you bill. For hourly billing and invoicing in one tool, Harvest, Clockify (Standard plan) and FreshBooks turn tracked hours into invoices. To capture time automatically without timers, Timely and Rize record work in the background, and Tackle turns calendar events into tracked time. For profitability and margin reporting, look at Harvest Enterprise, Toggl Track Premium or Timely. Every price below was checked on the vendors’ own pricing pages in October 2026.
For consultants, time is the product. Missed billable hours are lost revenue, and inaccurate time logs make it hard to price fixed fee projects or prove the value of your work to clients. Whether you need a simple consultant time tracking app for yourself or timesheet software for a consulting firm, this guide covers the five time tracking tools consultants compare most often (Clockify, Timely, Harvest, Toggl Track and Rize), then five more options, including accounting suites and calendar-based tracking.
How We Chose and Checked These Tools
We focused on the needs of independent consultants and small consulting firms: tracking billable hours across multiple clients, separating billable from non billable work, invoicing from tracked time, and seeing which projects are profitable. For each tool we checked the official pricing page in October 2026 and recorded:
- Free plan or free trial, and its main limit
- Starting price and which plan adds the features consultants need (billable rates, invoicing, profitability reports)
- How time is captured: manual timers, automatic background tracking or calendar events
We did not score tools on user experience. Prices change often, so confirm them on each vendor’s site before you buy.
Time Tracking Software for Consultants Compared
| Tool | Best for | Free option | Starting price | Invoicing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clockify | Low-cost tracking with billable rates | Free plan, up to 5 users | $3.99/seat/month (annual) | Standard plan, $5.49/seat/month |
| Timely | Automatic tracking for small teams | 14-day trial | $9/user/month (annual) | Not a core feature |
| Harvest | Tracking plus invoicing and payments | Free plan, 1 seat, 2 projects | $9/seat/month (annual) | Yes, from the Teams plan |
| Toggl Track | Simple timers with profitability reports | Free plan, up to 3 users | $9/user/month (annual) | Not listed on pricing page |
| Rize | Automatic, private tracking on desktop | 7-day trial | $9.99/month (annual) | No |
| QuickBooks Time | Firms that run payroll in QuickBooks | 30-day trial | $20/month base + $10/user | Syncs to QuickBooks invoicing |
| FreshBooks | Solo consultants who want accounting too | 30-day trial | $23/month (Lite) | Yes, all plans |
| Bonsai | Proposals, contracts and invoices in one place | 7-day trial | $9/user/month (annual) | Essentials plan, $19/user/month |
| Everhour | Consultants working inside Asana or Jira | Free plan, up to 5 seats | $8.50/seat/month, 5-seat minimum | Yes, on the Team plan |
| Tackle | Meeting-heavy consulting work | Free plan, 1 calendar | $30/month (annual) | Exports, not invoices |
The Five Most-Compared Time Tracking Tools
1. Clockify
Best for: independent consultants and small firms that want low-cost tracking with billable rates and invoicing.
Clockify is the lowest-cost way to get billable rates and invoices in a dedicated time tracking platform. The Clockify pricing page lists a free plan for up to 5 users with timesheets, reports (with a 1-month data range) and integrations that show Google Calendar and Outlook events next to your time entries.
Key features for consultants:
- Billable rates start on the Basic plan: $3.99 per seat per month billed annually, or $4.99 monthly
- Invoicing starts on the Standard plan: $5.49 per seat per month billed annually, or $6.99 monthly
- Track time with a timer, a weekly timesheet or inside 80+ other apps through the browser extension
Watch out for: the free plan’s one-month report range, which makes quarterly client reporting difficult without upgrading. See our Clockify vs Toggl comparison for a closer look.
2. Timely
Best for: consultants and small teams who forget to log hours and want automatic time tracking.
Timely positions itself as an AI time tracker. It captures work in the background, drafts timesheets that you approve with one click, and says it does not log keystrokes or take screenshots; users approve what is shared. That approach suits consultants who lose billable time between meetings, emails and documents.
Pricing: there is no free plan. The Timely pricing page offers a 14-day free trial. The Starter plan costs $9 per user per month billed yearly ($11 monthly) and is limited to 5 users. Premium ($16 yearly, $20 monthly) adds project budgets, internal cost rates, a people dashboard with billable percentages and capacity planning. Unlimited ($22 yearly, $28 monthly) adds capacity reporting and overtime tracking.
Watch out for: automatic tracking needs clear rules about privacy and what gets shared with managers, so explain the setup to your team before rollout.
3. Harvest
Best for: consultants who want time tracking, invoicing and online payments in one tool.
Harvest connects tracked time directly to invoices. Its pricing page lists a free plan for 1 seat and 2 projects, which is enough to test the workflow with one or two clients.
Plans for consulting firms:
- Teams ($9 per seat per month billed annually, $11 monthly): unlimited seats, time tracking, team reporting and capacity, invoicing, and accounting and payment integrations with Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Xero and Deel
- Enterprise ($14 per seat per month billed annually, $17.50 monthly): profitability reporting by client, project, task and team, timesheet approvals, an activity log and SAML-based SSO
Watch out for: profitability reports and timesheet approvals are on Enterprise, not Teams. If you are weighing other options, see our guide to Harvest alternatives.
4. Toggl Track
Best for: consultants who want an easy one-click timer and clear billable vs non billable reporting.
Toggl Track is known for simple timers across web, desktop and mobile apps, plus a browser extension and Google and Outlook Calendar integrations. Its free plan covers up to 3 users with personal reports.
Plans for consultants:
- Starter ($9 per user per month billed annually, $12 monthly) adds billable rates at the workspace, member and project level
- Premium ($16 per user per month billed annually, $24 monthly) adds labor costs, profitability reports and timesheet approvals that lock approved periods
Watch out for: Toggl’s pricing page does not list invoicing, so plan to send invoices from your accounting software.
5. Rize
Best for: independent consultants who want automatic, private time tracking on a Mac or Windows computer.
Rize is a desktop app for macOS and Windows that records app and website activity in the background and lets you tag time to clients and projects, with a privacy review before anything is shared. Rize also reports margin by client, project and person, which helps consultants on retainers see how quickly hours are being used.
Pricing: the Rize pricing page states there is no permanently free tier; it offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card. Individual plans cost $9.99 to $39.99 per month billed annually ($12.99 to $49.99 monthly). Team seats cost $29.99 per seat per month billed annually ($39.99 monthly) with a 2-seat minimum.
Watch out for: Rize is desktop-only, so on-site client work away from your computer needs manual entries.
More Time Tracking Software for Consultants
Best for: consulting firms that already run invoicing and payroll in QuickBooks.
6. QuickBooks Time
QuickBooks Time syncs time tracking data to QuickBooks accounting and payroll, which removes double entry for firms that bill and pay staff through Intuit. It offers a 30-day free trial.
- Time Premium: $20 per month base fee plus $10 per user per month, with time off management, alerts and a time kiosk
- Time Elite: $40 per month base fee plus $12 per user per month, adding project tracking, project estimates vs actuals, GPS mileage tracking and timesheet signatures
Intuit often runs introductory discounts on the base fee, so check the current offer. The base fee makes QuickBooks Time less cost-effective for consultants who do not use QuickBooks.
7. FreshBooks
Best for: solo consultants who want accounting, invoicing and time tracking in one place.
FreshBooks is accounting software with unlimited time tracking on every plan, so tracked hours flow straight into professional invoices. Plans are priced by the number of billable clients:
- Lite: $23 per month, up to 5 billable clients
- Plus: $43 per month, up to 50 billable clients
- Premium: $70 per month, unlimited billable clients
Each additional team member costs $11 per month, and a 30-day free trial is available. FreshBooks frequently advertises introductory discounts. If you only need a time tracker, a dedicated tool costs less.
8. Bonsai
Best for: independent consultants who want proposals, contracts, time tracking and invoices in one system.
Bonsai is an all-in-one business platform for freelancers and small consulting firms. Its Basic plan ($9 per user per month billed annually, $15 monthly) includes time tracking and CRM. Invoices, payments, proposals and contracts start on the Essentials plan ($19 per user per month billed annually, $25 monthly). Premium costs $29 per user per month billed annually, and Elite $49 with a 3-user minimum. Bonsai offers a 7-day free trial.
Watch out for: time tracking and reporting are less detailed than in dedicated time tracking tools.
9. Everhour
Best for: consultants whose client work lives in Asana, Jira, ClickUp or Trello.
Everhour adds time tracking, estimates and budgets inside project management tools. Its free plan covers up to 5 seats with basic time tracking but no integrations. The Team plan costs $8.50 per seat per month billed yearly, with a minimum of 5 seats, and includes integrations, budgeting, invoicing and team management.
Watch out for: the 5-seat minimum means a solo consultant pays at least $42.50 a month to unlock integrations.
10. Tackle (Calendar-Based Time Tracking)
Best for: consultants whose billable work is mostly meetings, calls and scheduled working sessions.
Tackle (TimeTackle) turns Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar events into tracked time. Each event is tagged by client, project, activity and billable status using custom tags, keyword rules (for example, any event containing “Acme” is tagged Client: Acme) and AI tag suggestions. Tackle’s Google Calendar sync is read-only, so it never edits or deletes events. Reports can be exported to Excel, CSV or PDF, or synced to Google Sheets, for billing and client reporting.
For consulting firms that handle confidential client information, Tackle is SOC 2 Type II certified, with its systems and processes independently audited and tested every year.
Pricing: the Tackle free plan includes the current month of data, 1 calendar and 10 exports. The Standard plan costs $30 per month billed yearly ($39 monthly) with 3 calendars included, 6 months of history, manual entries and no export limit. Premium ($45 yearly, $57 monthly) adds 3 years of history and API access.
Watch out for: Tackle captures what is on your calendar. Work you do not schedule needs a manual entry, and invoicing is handled in your billing tool, not in Tackle.
Key Features Consultants Need in Time Tracking Software
Billable and Non Billable Hours
Consultants need to separate billable work (client calls, analysis, deliverables) from non billable work (business development, admin, internal meetings). Look for tools that let you mark entries as billable and report on both. Our guide to billable and non billable time explains how to set up categories.
Billable Rates and Accurate Billing
Rates per client, project or team member let the software calculate the value of your time automatically. Clockify (Basic), Toggl Track (Starter) and Harvest (Teams) all add billable rates on their first paid plan. For the math behind it, see how to calculate billable hours.
Invoicing and Accounting Integration
If you bill hourly, invoicing from tracked time saves admin work and reduces errors. Harvest, Clockify Standard, FreshBooks, Bonsai Essentials and Everhour Team create invoices directly. Others export time logs to your accounting software. Read more about invoicing for consultants.
Project Profitability and Utilization
Profitability reports compare billable value with the cost of the hours spent, which shows which clients and fixed fee projects make money. Harvest Enterprise, Toggl Track Premium, Timely (Premium and Unlimited) and Rize include profitability or margin reporting. Pair it with a utilization metric; our guide on how to calculate utilization rate covers the formula.
Automatic vs Manual Time Tracking
Manual time tracking relies on timers and memory, and end-of-day guesses are the most common source of missed billable hours. Automatic options capture time without timers: Timely and Rize track computer activity in the background, and Tackle captures calendar events. Choose the method that matches where your work actually happens.
Data Security
Time logs and calendar data often include client names, project details and meeting notes. Before you connect a tool to your calendar or client systems, check its security documentation, data access permissions and independent audits such as SOC 2 Type II.
How Consultants Track Billable Hours: A Simple Workflow
- Set up clients and projects in your time tracking tool before the engagement starts, with billable rates attached
- Capture time as you work: start a timer, let an automatic tracker record activity, or schedule work in your calendar so it is captured
- Tag every entry as billable or non billable and assign it to the correct client and project
- Review time logs weekly to fix gaps while you still remember the work
- Invoice from approved time, or export time entries to your billing software with descriptions clients can understand
- Check profitability monthly by client and project, especially on fixed fee projects where extra hours reduce your margin
Tracking Time on Fixed Fee Projects
Consultants on fixed fee or retainer engagements still benefit from tracking time. You will not bill the hours, but comparing actual time spent against the estimate shows whether a project is profitable and helps you price the next proposal. Tools with budgets or margin reports (Harvest Enterprise, Toggl Track Premium, Timely, Rize and Everhour Team) make this easier than raw time logs.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best time tracking software for consultants?
It depends on your billing model. Harvest is a strong choice for hourly billing with invoicing and payments in one tool. Clockify is the lowest-cost option with billable rates and invoicing. Timely and Rize suit consultants who want automatic tracking, and Tackle suits meeting-heavy work captured from Google Calendar or Outlook.
Is Clockify really free?
Clockify has a free plan for up to 5 users, with reports limited to a 1-month data range. Billable rates start on the Basic plan ($3.99 per seat per month billed annually) and invoicing on the Standard plan ($5.49 per seat per month billed annually).
How do consultants track billable hours?
Most consultants set up clients and projects with billable rates, capture time with a timer, an automatic tracker or calendar events, tag each entry as billable or non billable, then review and invoice from approved time each week or month.
Should consultants track time on fixed fee projects?
Yes. Tracking actual hours against the fixed fee shows whether the project was profitable and makes future estimates more accurate, even though the hours are not billed directly.
Can consultants invoice directly from tracked time?
Yes. Harvest, Clockify (Standard plan and above), FreshBooks, Bonsai (Essentials and above) and Everhour (Team plan) create invoices from tracked time. Other tools export time logs for your accounting software.
Do consultants bill for travel time?
It depends on your contract. Some consultants bill travel at their full rate, some at a reduced rate, and some include it in their fee. Agree on the approach in your client contracts, and track travel as its own activity so you can bill or report it either way.
Choosing the Right Tool for Your Consulting Firm
Start with how you bill and where your work happens. If you invoice hourly, choose a tool that turns tracked time into invoices. If you lose billable hours to forgotten timers, try automatic tracking. If most of your client work is meetings, calendar-based tracking captures it with almost no effort. Whichever tool you pick, review your time logs weekly; consistent tracking is what turns hours into accurate billing and better pricing decisions.
