Harvest
Time tracking that turns straight into a client invoice, with reporting that tells you which projects are actually profitable rather than just how many hours were logged.
What you'd use it for
Turning a timer you started this morning into a sent client invoice without moving the data into a separate billing tool.
- Start a timer on a project and turn the accumulated hours straight into an invoice you send from inside Harvest
- Track billable expenses alongside hours and put both on the same invoice
- See profitability by client or project against budget, not just hours logged, on the Premium tier
- Sync invoices, payments and time data to QuickBooks, Xero or Stripe
- Require timesheet approval before hours reach an invoice, with an activity log of who changed what, on the Premium tier
The verdict
Harvest is the plain choice when the only job is turning logged hours into a paid invoice, and it does that better than more ambitious tools that also try to be a CRM or a project manager. The AI angle is overstated: the profitability view on Premium is useful budget-tracking, not anything agentic, so it isn't worth buying a tier for on its own. It suits freelancers and small agencies who bill by the hour and want tracking and invoicing in one tool; teams that need real project management should run that elsewhere and use Harvest only as the billing layer.
What it costs
| Tier | Price | For | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 forever | An individual freelancer with a small, simple practice. | 1 seat, 2 projects, time tracking and invoicing. |
| Team | $9/seat/month billed annually, $11/seat/month billed monthly | A team of two or more that has outgrown the free tier's 2-project limit. | Unlimited seats and projects, team reporting, capacity tracking, invoicing and accounting integrations. |
| Premium | $14/seat/month billed annually, $17.50/seat/month billed monthly | Agencies that need to see margin by client or project, not just hours logged. | Everything in Team, plus profitability reporting, timesheet approvals and an activity log. |
Read from Harvest's own pricing page on 25 Sep 2026. Vendors change prices without notice.
What you need to start
- An email address to start the 30-day trial; Harvest states it does not collect card details for the trial
- A client and at least one project set up before tracked time can turn into an invoice
- The Premium tier if profitability-by-project reporting is what actually brought you here, not the free or Team tier
A few minutes to a working account and a first tracked hour; the trial asks for no credit card, and a first invoice is a few clicks once a client and project exist.
Your first run Set up a client and a project, track a block of time against it, and generate an invoice from those hours — the whole loop takes minutes once you're signed in, and the account itself takes only a few more to create.
Where it breaks
Browser, desktop (macOS/Windows) and mobile apps, plus a Chrome extension that adds a timer to whatever tab you're working in.
First entry in this reference. There is no previous check to compare it against.
When not to use it
Not for anyone who wants Harvest to also run their projects or manage client relationships — it deliberately doesn't, and bolting those on defeats the plainness that makes it good. Also skip it if the profitability-by-project view is the actual draw, since that sits behind the Premium tier rather than the tier most people land on first.
Harvest has been doing one job for a long time: start a timer, stop it, and turn the accumulated hours into an invoice a client can pay. That plainness is the appeal — it doesn’t try to be a project management tool or a CRM, and agencies that have tried to replace it with something more ambitious tend to come back.
The AI element is quieter than the marketing implies: profitability forecasting on the Premium tier looks at logged time against project budgets and flags where a fixed-fee project is heading over-budget before the invoice makes it obvious. It’s useful, but it’s closer to smart reporting than anything agentic.
What actually changes between tiers
Free is genuinely usable for a solo freelancer with a couple of clients — the 2-project cap is the real constraint, not the seat count. Team removes that cap and adds the reporting a small agency needs to run payroll and client billing off the same data. Premium’s profitability view is the tier worth the extra few dollars a seat once you’re managing more than a couple of people’s time against a budget.
Where it fits next to the alternatives
Against Toggl, the difference is depth of invoicing — Harvest is built to go from tracked time to a sent invoice inside one tool, where Toggl leans more purely on tracking and reporting and expects you to invoice elsewhere.
Alternatives
Money & invoicingAppsFreshBooks
Invoicing, expense tracking and time tracking built for freelancers and small service businesses, with AI categorising expenses and drafting reports.
Money & invoicingAgentsBonsai
Contracts, proposals, invoices and basic tax tracking for freelancers in one place, with AI drafting the first version of each document from a short brief.
Money & invoicingAppsDubsado
Runs a service business's client workflow end to end — lead forms, contracts, invoices, scheduling — with automated follow-up so nothing depends on you remembering.
Get Harvest
Buying the tool is not the hard part.
The ebook is about what to hand over, in what order, and how you find out when it goes wrong. One payment, no subscription.