Best Time Tracking App for Freelancers (With Invoicing)
The best time tracking app for freelancers who bill by the hour is one that also invoices, capturing your hours and turning them into a sendable invoice without making you retype anything in between. The shortlist below covers the apps that genuinely cross both halves of that loop (real freelance time tracking with invoicing), and flags the ones that track time well but leave the billing to you.
Most "time tracker" reviews stop at how the hours get recorded. For a freelancer who bills by the hour, that's only half the story. The hours are worth nothing until they're on an invoice, so the real question is how cleanly a tool gets you from tracked time to money owed.
What to look for in a track-and-bill tool
Before the options, the criteria. These are what separate a tool you'll keep from one you'll abandon two invoices in:
- How time gets captured. Manual timers, activity-review tracking, or fully automatic. Anything that depends on you remembering to click start will leak hours. The question is how much.
- Billable vs. non-billable handling. You need to bill what's billable and exclude what isn't, ideally without sorting every entry by hand. See billable vs non-billable hours.
- Native invoicing, and on which plan. Some tools invoice on the free tier, some gate it behind a paid plan, and one popular tracker doesn't invoice at all. Read the plan, not the homepage.
- The handoff from hours to invoice. Does the billable total flow straight into a PDF, or do you export a CSV and rebuild the invoice elsewhere? This is where minutes (and accuracy) get lost.
- Platform coverage. If you're on Linux, your shortlist shrinks fast. Most native trackers ship Windows and macOS only.
- Pricing shape. Flat per-seat is predictable; usage-based extras can creep.
For the mechanics of going from a list of entries to a sendable document, see how to invoice from time tracking; for the buying criteria in depth, what to look for in freelance billing software.
How we ranked the best time tracking app for freelancers
The order here isn't by popularity or price. It's by how much of the tracked-to-billed loop each tool closes on its own, weighted for a solo freelancer who bills hours. Four things decided the ranking:
- Does it capture without a timer? Fully automatic capture leaks the fewest hours, so it counts most. Manual timers lose whatever you forget to start.
- Does it invoice natively, and on which plan? A tool that exports a CSV and stops isn't a track-and-bill tool. Where invoicing sits (free tier, paid plan, or a QuickBooks sync) matters as much as whether it exists.
- Does it run where you work? Linux quietly removes half the field, so a native build there is a real differentiator, not a footnote.
- Does it catch what you didn't bill? Flagging tracked-but-uninvoiced time is rare, and it's the feature that separates a tracker from a billing safeguard.
No single tool wins every axis, which is why the picks below are framed by the failure each one fixes rather than a single score. Read the plan you'd actually be on, since free tiers and invoicing gates move.
The options, compared
A few prices below are omitted because vendors change them often: details as of September 5, 2026; check each vendor's site before you buy.
| Tool | Time capture | Invoicing | Linux | Trial / free |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BillNotch | Fully automatic + AI categorization | Native PDF, all paid plans | Yes | 14-day trial |
| Harvest | Manual timer only | On the paid Teams plan | No | Free: 1 seat, 2 projects |
| Clockify | Review-based auto tracker | On the paid Standard plan+ | Yes | Permanent free tier (no invoicing) |
| Timely | Fully automatic AI tracking | Native, syncs with QuickBooks | No | 14-day trial |
| Toggl Track | Activity-review + manual timers | On paid plans | No | Free tier + 30-day trial |
| Rize | Fully automatic AI tracking | None | No | 7-day trial |
BillNotch
The pitch is the whole loop in one tool. The desktop app records your active window in the background (no timer to start) and AI categorization sorts that activity into client projects. The billable total it keeps feeds a native PDF invoice, with CSV export when your accountant wants the raw numbers. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and window titles can stay on your device if a project is sensitive. Pro is $9/mo, Team is $12/seat, with a 14-day trial. The piece most freelancers notice is the Revenue Leak Finder, which catches billable time that was tracked but never invoiced. More in BillNotch for freelancers.
Harvest
A long-standing, well-liked tracker with a clean invoicing flow once you're on the paid Teams plan ($9 per seat per month billed annually, $11 monthly). The tradeoff is the capture method: Harvest uses a manual timer, so the hours are only as complete as your discipline. Its free plan is genuinely free but tight (one seat and two projects) and some extras are usage-based, so read the plan carefully. No Linux build. If you live in a manual-timer habit and want straightforward billing, it's a solid pick; if forgotten timers are your problem, the capture side won't fix it. We go deeper in BillNotch vs Harvest.
Clockify
Generous where it counts: a permanently free tier that covers a lot of tracking. It offers a review-based "auto tracker": it records activity for you to review, rather than auto-categorizing it into clients, and invoicing arrives on the paid Standard plan ($5.49 per seat per month annually) and up, not on the free tier. It's also one of the few here with a real Linux build. If budget is the constraint and you don't mind doing the categorization pass yourself, Clockify is hard to argue with.
Timely
Fully automatic AI tracking, with native invoicing that syncs with QuickBooks: a strong fit if QuickBooks is already your books. Pricing starts around $9/user/mo on annual billing and scales up with usage and features. It's Windows, macOS, web, and mobile: no Linux desktop. If you want automatic capture and live inside the QuickBooks ecosystem, it's a natural shortlist entry.
The honest caveats: Toggl and Rize
Two popular names need an asterisk for this specific use case.
Toggl Track is an excellent tracker, but it's built around activity-review tracking plus manual timers rather than fully passive capture, and invoicing lives on its paid plans. It's Windows and macOS only: no Linux. Great tool; just know invoicing isn't on the free tier.
Rize does fully automatic AI tracking very well, and has no invoicing at all. If your billing already lives somewhere else and you only want sharper focus and time data, Rize is a fine choice. As a track-and-bill tool, it's out of scope, because the "bill" half doesn't exist.
Picking from the shortlist
Match the tool to the failure you actually have. If you forget timers, prioritize automatic capture (BillNotch, Timely, Rize). If you want billing in the box without extra software, narrow to tools that invoice natively (BillNotch, Harvest on Teams, Clockify on Standard, Timely via QuickBooks). If you're on Linux, the field is short. BillNotch and Clockify are the realistic options. And if catching unbilled time matters as much as logging it, that's a specific feature to look for, not a given. Billing as a consultant or running an agency shifts the weighting: the consultant shortlist and the agency shortlist sort the same field for those cases.
There's no universal winner here: only the best fit for how you work and what you're willing to do at invoice time. Whatever you choose, prices and plan boundaries move, so confirm the current details on each vendor's own pricing page before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free time tracking app with invoicing for freelancers?
Harvest is the only tool here that invoices on a genuinely free plan, though it is capped at one seat and two projects. Clockify's free tier is generous for tracking but moves invoicing to its paid Standard plan. For a solo freelancer with a couple of clients, Harvest's free plan is the closest fit.
Which time tracking apps with invoicing run on Linux?
The realistic options are BillNotch and Clockify. Both ship a native Linux build, while Harvest, Timely, Toggl Track, and Rize do not, leaving Linux users on a web app. If you want automatic capture that also invoices on Linux, that narrows the field to BillNotch.
Does Toggl Track have built-in invoicing?
Not really. Toggl Track is an excellent tracker, but it is built around activity-review tracking plus manual timers, and invoicing lives on its paid plans as an export rather than a stored invoice. If billing inside the tracker matters, it is not the tool; if you mainly want clean reporting, it earns its place.
Can I create invoices automatically from tracked time?
Yes, with a tool that holds both the hours and the bill. BillNotch and Timely capture time automatically and turn the billable total into a native invoice, so nothing is retyped. The Revenue Leak Finder in BillNotch also flags billable time that was tracked but never invoiced, which two separate tools cannot see.