Best Time Tracking Software for Engineers

Website: https://toggl.com/

Best for: One-click timers and billable rates

Starting price: $9 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: One-click timers on web, desktop, and mobile; billable rates and project estimates on Starter

Cons: No native invoicing, so bills need another tool; approvals and profit reports need Premium at $16

Toggl Track keeps the timer front and center, which is why engineers adopt it fast. A developer starts a timer, picks a project and task, and stops it when the work ends, with calendar integrations and a Pomodoro timer for focused sessions. Starter at $9 per user per month billed annually adds billable rates, team reports, and project estimates with alerts, so a lead can see when a sprint is drifting over budget.

The free plan covers a limited number of users with manual and real-time timers, tasks, boards, and personal reports, which suits a solo engineer or a tiny team testing the workflow. Premium at $16 adds labor costs, profitability reports, timesheet approvals, fixed-fee projects, and Jira and Asana integrations, which matter once billing accuracy becomes a client conversation. The main gap is invoicing: Toggl records billable time but does not create invoices, so teams that bill clients need accounting software or another tool for that last step.

Website: https://www.getharvest.com/

Best for: Tracking time that ends in an invoice

Starting price: $9 per seat/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Clean timesheets with expenses and invoicing built in; Forecast links time to capacity planning

Cons: Usage fees on Flex billing can lift the bill above the seat price; free plan covers only 1 seat and 2 projects

Harvest is built for billable work from the first click. Engineers log time against projects and tasks, add expenses, and turn approved hours into polished invoices that sync with QuickBooks, Xero, and Stripe. The Teams plan at $9 per seat per month billed annually covers unlimited seats, team reporting, and more than 50 integrations, including Asana and Slack, so hours flow from the tracker into the tools a team already uses.

Enterprise at $14 per seat per month billed annually adds timesheet approvals, profitability reporting, custom reports, an activity log, and SAML-based single sign-on. The free plan covers 1 seat and 2 projects, which works for a solo engineer but not for a team. One point needs care: Harvest can bill accounts on Flex terms, where active projects, clients, tasks, and invoices carry usage fees on top of the seat price, so read the billing terms and check the first invoice against the quoted seat rate.

Website: https://clockify.me/

Best for: Low-cost tracking for small engineering teams

Starting price: $3.99 per seat/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Free plan covers up to 5 users with unlimited tracking; low entry price with apps on every platform

Cons: Invoicing and approvals need Standard at $5.49; scheduling and expenses need Pro at $7.99

Clockify is the budget pick that still covers the basics well. The free plan gives up to 5 users unlimited tracking, a timer, a weekly timesheet, a calendar view, desktop and mobile apps, and browser extensions that add tracking buttons inside more than 80 web tools. Basic at $3.99 per seat per month billed annually adds billable rates, CSV and Excel export, project templates, and the ability to add time for other people.

Standard at $5.49 adds invoicing, timesheet approval, locked timesheets, time off, and attendance, which is the plan most billing teams actually need. Pro at $7.99 adds expenses, budgets, labor cost and profit reports, scheduling, and forecasting. The trade-off is depth: reporting is solid but less polished than Toggl or Harvest, and the free plan limits report filters to a one-month range. For a small engineering team that wants accurate hours without a large bill, Clockify is hard to beat on price.

Website: https://everhour.com/

Best for: Time tracked inside Jira, Asana, and ClickUp

Starting price: $8.50 per seat/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Timers sit inside project tools engineers already use; budgets, invoicing, and expenses in one plan

Cons: Team plan bills a minimum of 5 seats; free plan has no integrations

Everhour does not ask engineers to open another app. The timer lives inside Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Jira, Notion, Monday, Linear, and GitHub, so time gets logged against real tasks, with billable rates, budget alerts, and invoicing in the same place. The Team plan at $8.50 per seat per month billed annually includes every feature, with no tier juggling: native integrations, project budgets, time approval, time off, scheduling, and single sign-on are all in the one plan.

That single-plan shape is a strength and a limit at once. The Team plan bills a minimum of 5 seats, so a team of 3 people pays $42.50 a month on annual billing, which lifts the real per-person cost. The free plan covers up to 5 seats but has no integrations, which removes the main reason to pick Everhour. For an engineering team of 5 or more that already plans work in Jira or Asana, Everhour keeps time data close to the work and cuts the admin of copying hours between tools.

Website: https://www.timely.com/

Best for: Automatic capture for engineers who forget timers

Starting price: $9 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Free trial (14 days)

Pros: Memory tracker records work in the background; AI drafts timesheets for review

Cons: No free plan, only a 14-day trial; Starter caps at 5 users and 20 projects

Timely solves the most common time tracking failure: the timer that never gets started. Its Memory tracker records work across apps and websites in the background, then drafts timesheet entries for each person to review and approve, which catches hours that manual timers miss. Starter at $9 per user per month billed annually covers automatic tracking, AI timesheets, project dashboards, billable rates, and API access, with a cap of 5 users and 20 projects.

Premium at $16 adds sync with project management tools, accounting integrations, team management, budgets and cost rates, and planning for teams of up to 50 users. Unlimited at $22 adds capacity management, overtime tracking, and more than 50 currencies. Timely has no free plan, only a 14-day trial, and it has no native invoicing or built-in attendance, so teams that need those features pair it with other software. The Tasks add-on for planning costs from $5 per person per month on top of any plan.

Website: https://hubstaff.com/

Best for: Activity tracking and oversight for remote teams

Starting price: $4.99 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Free trial (14 days)

Pros: Screenshots, activity levels, and app tracking; payroll and scheduling on higher plans

Cons: No free plan, only a 14-day trial; Starter caps screenshots at 500 per seat per month

Hubstaff suits engineering managers who need visibility into remote or distributed teams. Starter at $4.99 per user per month billed annually includes the timer, automated timesheets, activity levels, and client invoices, with 500 screenshots and 500 tracked apps and URLs per seat each month. Grow at $7.50 adds idle time detection, project budgets, expenses, and one integration, while Team at $10 adds unlimited screenshots, timesheet approvals, scheduling, attendance, payroll, and unlimited integrations.

All Starter, Grow, and Team plans carry a 2-seat minimum, so a solo engineer pays for 2 seats, or $9.98 a month on Starter with annual billing. Six add-ons, including Insights, the Silent app, and Locations, cost from $1.67 to $3.33 per seat per month on annual billing. Hubstaff has no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card required, and screenshot monitoring needs an honest conversation with the team before rollout, since it reads as surveillance when it arrives without warning.

Website: https://www.timedoctor.com/

Best for: Productivity evidence for distributed teams

Starting price: $6.67 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Free trial (14 days)

Pros: Screenshots, app usage, and payroll in one place; more than 60 integrations on Standard

Cons: No free plan, only a 14-day trial; screenshot monitoring needs a team conversation first

Time Doctor takes the most active approach to productivity of any tool in this list. Basic at $6.67 per user per month billed annually covers automatic tracking, projects and tasks, screenshots, offline tracking, and a timeline report. Standard at $11.67 adds web and app usage reports, attendance, payroll, work-life balance metrics, time approvals, and more than 60 integrations. Premium at $16.70 adds video screen recording, AI benchmarks, and an executive dashboard.

Every new account starts with a 14-day trial of Premium with no card required, and there is no free plan after the trial ends. Annual billing includes two free months against the monthly rate, which is $8 on Basic, $14 on Standard, and $20 on Premium. The monitoring-first design is the point and the risk: distraction alerts and productivity ratings give managers clear evidence, but the tool only works well when the team understands what is recorded and why, so agree the rules before the first screenshot.

Website: https://www.paymoapp.com/

Best for: Projects, time, and invoices in one app

Starting price: $10.90 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Task boards, Gantt charts, and invoicing in one workspace; desktop app records app time automatically

Cons: Gantt charts and scheduling need Pro at $16.90; the page notes a higher rate after the first 3 months

Paymo is a work management app with time tracking and invoicing inside it, which suits small engineering firms that want one workspace instead of three subscriptions. The free plan covers 1 user, 1 client, and 2 projects with unlimited time tracking and invoices. Solo at $5.90 a month billed annually is limited to 1 user, so teams start on Plus at $10.90 per user per month billed annually, which adds unlimited users, clients, and projects, timesheet reports, estimates, expenses, integrations, and API access.

Pro at $16.90 adds Gantt charts, task dependencies, employee scheduling and workload, timesheet approvals, and leave management. The Paymo Track desktop app can record time spent in desktop apps automatically, which helps engineers who switch between an IDE, a browser, and chat all day. One caution: the pricing page notes a higher rate after the first 3 months, so confirm the renewal rate on Plus and Pro before you commit to a full year.