- You invoice clients from tracked time. This is Harvest's core strength: generate invoices from timesheets, track expenses with receipts, and sync payments with QuickBooks, Xero, or Stripe. Clockify has invoicing too, but Harvest's version is more mature and central to the product. - You need profitability visibility. Per-project and per-client budget tracking, estimates, and (on Enterprise) profitability reporting answer "is this client actually making us money?" — a question many agencies and consultancies ask weekly. - You value simplicity over configurability. If your team resists tools that feel like systems to administer, Harvest's tight scope is a feature. - You're a solo freelancer. The free plan (1 seat, 2 projects) covers time tracking, invoicing, and expenses at zero cost.

Clockify Vs Harvest

Q: Integrations and specs

- Harvest advertises 50+ integrations, with especially strong accounting and payment ties: QuickBooks, Xero, Stripe, plus project management tools like Asana and communication tools like Slack. - Clockify integrates with a similarly broad set of project and communication tools, and its paid tiers add payroll-oriented connections like QuickBooks. Clockify is also part of a wider software suite (project management and team chat products from the same company), which matters if you'd rather consolidate vendors. Both expose an API and support exporting your data, so you're not locked in either way.

Q: Choose Clockify when:

- Budget is the constraint. Unlimited free tracking for an unlimited number of users is something Harvest simply doesn't offer. Nonprofits, bootstrapped startups, and volunteer-heavy teams get real value here. - You need timesheet discipline for a distributed team. Approvals, lock time, reminders, attendance, and time off live in Clockify's paid tiers. If you're managing payroll or client accountability across time zones, that structure helps. - You want employee-side oversight options. Activity monitoring and GPS tracking (Pro tier) exist if your use case requires them. I'd treat these carefully in a remote culture, but the option is there. - You'd rather consolidate vendors. Clockify is part of a suite with project management and chat products, which can simplify procurement for a small company.

Clockify Vs Harvest: quick answer

Clockify vs Harvest comes down to cost and workflow. Clockify wins on price: a genuinely free plan with unlimited users and paid tiers from a few dollars per seat. Harvest wins on client billing: polished invoicing, expense tracking, and accounting integrations. If you mainly need hours tracked for a remote team, pick Clockify; if you bill clients from your tracked time, pick Harvest.

Side-by-side feature comparison

I’ve kept this comparison remote-work-focused, because that’s the lens most of us need: which tool is easier to run across a distributed team, across time zones, without someone chasing timesheets all week?

Core time-tracking features

Both tools cover the fundamentals you’d expect: a one-click timer, manual time entries, weekly timesheets, project and task organization, and reports you can export. You will not lose functionality on the basics with either choice.

Where they diverge:

Clockify bundles more employee-side features into higher tiers: scheduling, time off and attendance tracking, timesheet approvals, kiosk clock-in, and an activity monitoring feature on its Pro plan.
Harvest leans into the money side: invoicing from tracked time, expense tracking with receipts, project budgets and estimates, and team capacity reporting. Its sibling product, Harvest Forecast, handles team scheduling and connects to Harvest directly.

One remote-relevant difference: Clockify offers features like GPS tracking and activity monitoring that some distributed teams use for oversight. Harvest doesn’t try to be an employee-monitoring tool at all. If your team culture is built on trust rather than supervision, that’s a point in Harvest’s favor; if you’re accountable to clients for every hour, Clockify’s oversight features may matter more.

Pricing

This is the biggest gap between the two, and I’ll expand on it in the pricing section below. The short version: Clockify has a free plan with unlimited users; Harvest’s free plan is limited to a single seat and two projects. Clockify’s paid plans start at a few dollars per seat per month; Harvest’s paid plans start at roughly double that and add usage-based charges as your team grows.

Workflow and ease of use

Both are straightforward to learn. Harvest is often described as the simpler, more opinionated tool: timer, timesheet, invoice, done. That simplicity is exactly why it has stuck around so long. Clockify has more features, which means more settings, more tiers, and more decisions to make — the free plan alone covers a lot, but you’ll spend more time configuring it to fit your team.

For a remote team, both offer desktop apps, mobile apps, and browser extensions, plus calendar views for filling in missing time — genuinely useful when someone forgets to start a timer during a video call.

Integrations and specs

Harvest advertises 50+ integrations, with especially strong accounting and payment ties: QuickBooks, Xero, Stripe, plus project management tools like Asana and communication tools like Slack.
Clockify integrates with a similarly broad set of project and communication tools, and its paid tiers add payroll-oriented connections like QuickBooks. Clockify is also part of a wider software suite (project management and team chat products from the same company), which matters if you’d rather consolidate vendors.

Both expose an API and support exporting your data, so you’re not locked in either way.

Limitations, side by side

Clockify’s most useful team features (invoicing, approvals, scheduling, activity reports) sit behind paid tiers, and the feature list is long enough that setup can feel like work.
Harvest has no meaningful free tier for teams — one seat and two projects — and its per-seat price is higher, with usage-based billing on top as you add projects, clients, and invoices. There’s no GPS or activity-monitoring layer if your workflow requires oversight.

Pricing and value

Here are the current list prices, from each vendor’s pricing page at the time of writing — check both sites before you buy, because these numbers move.

Clockify (per seat, per month):

Free plan: unlimited users, unlimited time tracking, unlimited projects — genuinely free, not a trial.
Paid tiers scale up from there (Basic, Standard, Pro, Enterprise), with annual pricing starting at a few dollars per seat and monthly billing costing a bit more. Invoicing and timesheet approvals arrive at the Standard tier; scheduling, expenses, and activity monitoring at Pro.

Harvest (per seat, per month):

Free plan: 1 seat, 2 projects — fine for a solo freelancer getting started, not a team option.
Teams: $9 per seat annually, $11 billed monthly, with unlimited seats — but note that Harvest adds usage-based charges as you grow (more projects, clients, and invoices mean added fees).
Enterprise: $14 per seat annually, $17.50 monthly, adding custom reports, profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, and SAML SSO.
Both paid plans include a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, and annual billing gets a 20% discount.

The math for a remote team is lopsided. A five-person team on Harvest Teams pays about $540 a year (annual billing) before usage fees; the same five people cost nothing on Clockify’s free plan, or well under that figure on a mid-tier paid plan with approvals and invoicing included. That’s not a rounding error for a small distributed business — it’s real money you can put into salaries or tools you actually lack.

Two caveats before I oversell Clockify on price. First, Harvest’s pricing includes things Clockify charges for: expenses, polished invoicing, and payment/accounting integrations are core, not upsells. Second, Harvest was acquired by Bending Spoons in 2025, and their pricing and packaging have already shifted since — so verify current terms before committing, especially if you’re signing an annual contract.

If budget is your deciding factor and you can live with configuring a tiered feature set, productivity tools like Clockify usually come out ahead. If you bill clients hourly and the invoicing workflow saves you real hours, Harvest’s premium is easier to justify.

Ease of use and workflow fit

I’d frame ease of use differently for each tool, because the friction shows up in different places.

Harvest is the tool you barely have to think about. Sign up, create a project, start a timer. Weekly timesheets make it easy to fill gaps on Monday morning, and turning tracked time into an invoice takes a couple of clicks. For a small remote team that bills clients, the workflow is nearly frictionless: track, approve, invoice, reconcile against QuickBooks or Xero. The tradeoff is that what you see is what you get — there’s no activity monitoring, no GPS, no attendance module to bolt on.

Clockify is easy to start with (the free plan is one click away) but the depth is in the tiers. A remote team that just needs hours logged can run on free forever. A team that needs timesheet approvals, time off tracking, scheduling, and expense capture will be configuring several features and paying for a mid or upper tier. The configuration surface is bigger — which is fair, because the feature set is bigger.

Both handle the classic remote realities well: people in different time zones, inconsistent internet, work spilling across a phone and a laptop. Both have desktop and mobile apps, browser extensions, and reminder options for people who forget to track. If tracking compliance is your recurring headache, note that Clockify’s reminders and approvals tooling is more developed, while Harvest leans on simplicity — it’s hard to forget to track when the timer is right there next to your project tool via its integrations.

If you’re pairing time tracking with scheduling, my takes on calendar apps cover the complementary piece; Harvest Forecast and Clockify’s scheduling module each replace a standalone scheduling tool for some teams.

Best for different use cases

Choose Clockify when:

Budget is the constraint. Unlimited free tracking for an unlimited number of users is something Harvest simply doesn’t offer. Nonprofits, bootstrapped startups, and volunteer-heavy teams get real value here.
You need timesheet discipline for a distributed team. Approvals, lock time, reminders, attendance, and time off live in Clockify’s paid tiers. If you’re managing payroll or client accountability across time zones, that structure helps.
You want employee-side oversight options. Activity monitoring and GPS tracking (Pro tier) exist if your use case requires them. I’d treat these carefully in a remote culture, but the option is there.
You’d rather consolidate vendors. Clockify is part of a suite with project management and chat products, which can simplify procurement for a small company.

Choose Harvest when:

You invoice clients from tracked time. This is Harvest’s core strength: generate invoices from timesheets, track expenses with receipts, and sync payments with QuickBooks, Xero, or Stripe. Clockify has invoicing too, but Harvest’s version is more mature and central to the product.
You need profitability visibility. Per-project and per-client budget tracking, estimates, and (on Enterprise) profitability reporting answer “is this client actually making us money?” — a question many agencies and consultancies ask weekly.
You value simplicity over configurability. If your team resists tools that feel like systems to administer, Harvest’s tight scope is a feature.
You’re a solo freelancer. The free plan (1 seat, 2 projects) covers time tracking, invoicing, and expenses at zero cost.

Other alternatives worth knowing

If neither fits, the wider time-tracking market has solid options: Toggl Track has a generous free tier and strong reporting; TrackingTime, TimeCamp, and Everhour each target teams with different billing and integration needs; and for pure scheduling-plus-tracking combos, it’s worth checking my rundown of the best tools for remote work before deciding. Don’t pick a tool on features alone — the right choice is the one your team will actually fill out every week.

Key limitations

Clockify’s limitations:

The genuinely useful team features are paywalled. Invoicing, approvals, and time off require Standard; scheduling, expenses, and activity monitoring require Pro. The free plan is real, but “free” covers tracking and reporting, not the management layer.
The tiered structure adds cognitive overhead. With four-plus plans and a long feature matrix, figuring out which tier you need takes real evaluation time.
Reporting and invoicing are functional rather than refined. If polished client-facing invoices are a core deliverable for your business, Clockify’s output may feel utilitarian next to Harvest’s.

Harvest’s limitations:

Cost scales fast for teams. Higher per-seat pricing plus usage-based billing (extra projects, clients, invoices) means your bill grows with your success — and several sources reported pricing and packaging changes after the 2025 Bending Spoons acquisition, so review current terms carefully.
The free tier is nearly symbolic for teams: one seat, two projects.
No employee-monitoring features at all. If your operations require oversight tooling, Harvest isn’t built for it — that’s by design, but it’s disqualifying for some workflows.

Which option should you choose?

If you bill clients for your hours — freelancer, agency, consultancy — choose Harvest. The invoicing, expense tracking, and accounting integrations are the product’s reason for existing, and the per-seat premium pays for itself the first time invoicing takes an hour instead of a day. Solo freelancers can run on the free plan indefinitely.

If you need a remote team to log hours — for payroll, capacity planning, or internal accountability — and the budget is tight, choose Clockify. The free plan handles unlimited users with no deadline, the paid tiers add the approval and attendance structure a distributed team needs, and even the top tiers cost less than Harvest Teams at scale.

A practical way to decide this week: put your team size and whether you invoice from timesheets into the pricing math. If invoicing is central, take Harvest’s 30-day trial (no credit card needed). If it isn’t, start free on Clockify and upgrade only when you hit a wall. Both tools let you export your data, so the cost of being wrong is low — the cost of tracking nothing at all is not.

Check before you buy

th tools publish their current rates: Clockify pricing and Harvest pricing — check both before committing, since per-seat pricing shifts quarterly.

Frequently asked questions

Harvest vs Clockify: which is cheaper for a small remote team?

Clockify, by a wide margin, for teams. Its free plan allows unlimited users with unlimited time tracking, so a small team can run indefinitely at zero cost. Harvest’s free plan covers one seat and two projects, and its Teams plan starts at $9 per seat per month billed annually (about $11 monthly), with usage-based fees added as projects and clients grow. Solo freelancers are the exception: Harvest’s free plan and Clockify’s free plan both cost nothing, and Harvest’s includes invoicing.

Can I invoice clients from tracked time in both tools?

Yes, but the experience differs. Clockify includes invoicing from its Standard paid tier — you can create invoices based on tracked time and expenses — though the invoicing is one feature among many. Harvest’s invoicing is central to the product: you generate invoices directly from tracked time, add expenses and receipts, track payment status, and sync with QuickBooks, Xero, and Stripe. If client billing is a primary workflow rather than an occasional task, Harvest’s implementation is generally the more polished of the two.

Do both tools work for freelancers working solo?

Yes. Both have free plans that suit a single person: Clockify’s free plan is unlimited tracking with no seat limit, and Harvest’s free plan allows one seat and two projects with time tracking, invoicing, and expenses included. The deciding question is what you do with the hours. If you need to send professional invoices and track expenses against them at no cost, Harvest’s free tier does more for a freelancer. If you just want a reliable timer and reports, either works — and both offer 30-day trials if you want to compare paid features.