Clockify Free Plan Changes in 2026: What to Know
If you rely on the Clockify free plan, the rules changed in 2026. In April, Clockify — owned by CAKE.com — announced a set of changes to its Free plan that took effect around mid-June, and the headline is that the previously unlimited free team is now capped. Free is still free, with no time limit and no credit card, but the shape of what you get for $0 is narrower than it was.
Here is what actually changed, what stayed the same, and how to think about it if your billing workflow lived on the free tier.
What actually changed on the free plan
Two things moved. First, the free team is now capped at 5 active users — it used to have no limit on headcount. Second, several features that used to sit on Free moved up to the paid plans. Most notably for anyone who billed clients out of Clockify, that list includes billable rates, invoicing, and CSV/Excel export, along with kiosk mode, shared reports, and project estimates. The free API was also tightened to roughly 30 requests per hour plus three webhooks, which matters if you had scripts or integrations pulling data automatically.
| Feature | Before (free) | After (free) |
|---|---|---|
| Team size | Unlimited users | Up to 5 active users |
| Time tracking | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Projects and tasks | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Billable rates | Included | Paid plans only |
| Invoicing | Included | Paid plans only |
| CSV / Excel export | Included | Paid plans only |
| Kiosk, shared reports, estimates | Included | Paid plans only |
| API access | Higher limit | ~30 requests/hour + 3 webhooks |
| Price | $0 | $0 |
Details as of June 2026 — confirm current limits on Clockify's pricing page.
The change drew a documented reaction on Clockify's own community forum, where a thread titled "Death of the free plan" collected complaints from long-time free users in June 2026. The frustration is mostly from people who had built a billing or reporting routine on features that are now behind a paywall.
What stayed free
It is worth being precise here, because "death of the free plan" overstates it. Free still costs $0, with no time limit and no credit card. For up to five users it keeps unlimited time tracking and unlimited projects and tasks — those were not capped, and that matters if your main need is simply recording hours. Clockify also still ships native desktop apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux, which is uncommon in this category, and its free, opt-in Auto tracker — a private feature that passively records the apps and websites you use, alongside the manual timer — is unchanged and still free.
So if you are a small team that tracks time and does not invoice from Clockify, the free plan remains genuinely useful. The tracking core is intact, and the tool is still well built.
Who this affects
The change lands hardest in two places.
Teams over five people who ran on the free plan now have to either trim to five active users or move to a paid plan. There is no longer a free option for a larger headcount, so a six-person studio that used Clockify precisely because it scaled to any size for $0 is now making a different decision.
Anyone who billed clients on the free tier is the other group. If your routine was track time, mark it billable, then export a CSV or generate an invoice, every step after tracking now needs a paid plan. That is the workflow the forum thread is mostly about. A solo freelancer who used Free because it included billable rates and invoicing is now looking at a subscription to keep doing what they did last month.
If you only ever tracked time and read it in the dashboard, you will likely notice nothing.
Your options
There are three honest paths, and the right one depends on which group you are in.
Stay on Clockify free. If you are at or below five users and you do not invoice from the tool, nothing about your day changes. This is the simplest answer and, for a lot of people, the correct one.
Pay for Clockify. If you want the invoicing, exports, and billable rates back, the paid plans are inexpensive and roughly unchanged: Basic $3.99, Standard $5.49, Pro $7.99, and Enterprise $11.99 per user per month on annual billing, a little higher month to month. For a tight budget, upgrading in place is often cheaper than switching, and you keep everything you already know.
Switch tools. If the change made you reconsider the whole setup — especially if invoicing was the feature you lost — it is a reasonable moment to look at alternatives that bundle capture and billing differently. We keep a fuller list in best Clockify alternatives for 2026, plus a broader one in best Harvest alternatives, and many of the same trade-offs apply here.
Where BillNotch fits
BillNotch is one option in that third direction, and it is worth being straight about the trade-off. On price, BillNotch is not cheaper than Clockify: Pro is $9/mo for one seat against Clockify's $3.99 Basic. If sticker price is the deciding factor, Clockify wins that comparison, even after this change.
What BillNotch offers instead is a different shape of workflow for the people who specifically lost free invoicing. Its desktop app runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux and records your active window automatically — there is no timer to start. Keyword rules, with optional AI for the fuzzy cases, sort that activity into client projects, and billable status is inherited per project. This is the part that differs from Clockify's Auto tracker: that feature logs your activity privately for your own review, but it does not categorize time into billable client projects or turn it into an invoice. In BillNotch the billable total feeds a PDF invoice or a CSV export directly, and the Revenue Leak Finder flags time you tracked but never billed. If that last step is the one you just lost, how to invoice from your time tracker walks through what it looks like end to end.
On privacy, window titles can stay on the device, each device connects with an API key you issue and revoke, data is processed on EU servers, and it is never sold. Pricing is flat — Pro is $9/mo for one seat and Team is $12/seat/mo — with a 14-day trial and no card. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
The honest framing: BillNotch is not the budget pick, and it is not trying to be. It fits the person who lost free invoicing and wants capture and invoicing in one tool rather than two. If that is not you, Clockify's free or Basic plan is a fine place to stay.
The bottom line
The Clockify free plan is narrower than it was, but it is not gone — for five or fewer users who only need to track time, it is still a strong $0 option, and Clockify remains a well-built tool. The squeeze is real only if you relied on the features that moved to paid, especially invoicing and exports.
So sort yourself into a group first. Track-only and small? Stay free. Want invoicing back on a budget? Clockify's paid plans are cheap and familiar. Lost the billing workflow and want capture plus invoicing in one place? That is where a tool like BillNotch is aimed — see BillNotch vs Clockify for the side-by-side, and the rundown for freelancers if that is how you bill. Whichever way you go, confirm the current numbers on Clockify's own pricing page first — these details shift, and the right call depends on how you actually work.