- HarvestBest
Best for time tracking with built-in invoicing
Best for time tracking with built-in invoicing - GustoRecommended
Best payroll software for small businesses
Best payroll software for small businesses - Rize
Best for automatic time tracking
Best for automatic time tracking - Timely
For automatic time tracking
For automatic time tracking
Summary
SummaryBest alternative for time tracking with built-in invoicing.
Harvest is a great alternative for those who want to track time across projects and clients without getting bogged down by detailed calendar views or overwhelming data. If you care more about logging categorized chunks of work and need clear reporting on budgets, profitability, and client activity, Harvest keeps things straightforward and easy to manage.
It's especially well-suited for teams or agencies who bill clients based on tracked hours, since invoicing and budget tracking are built right in. You can quickly add time from your calendar, see project budgets at a glance, and handle recurring work without obsessing over exact timestamps.
If you're looking for a tool that tracks exactly when tasks happen during the day or provides a detailed timeline, Harvest's simpler approach may not fit those needs.
Best alternative for small businesses wanting a modern payroll experience.
Gusto is a great alternative for those who want payroll and HR that feels current and easy to use, especially if you've struggled with older or clunky systems in the past. If your team is already using QuickBooks Online for accounting, Gusto stands out because it connects smoothly, making bookkeeping and payroll less of a hassle.
If you need advanced time tracking or project-based hour logging, Gusto's built-in tools are pretty basic and may not be enough.
Not for client or team time tracking.
Rize is an alternative for those who want to track their own productivity with minimal effort, especially if you work mostly on your desktop and value automated time categorization. If you're focused on understanding your habits as an individual and want simple, attractive reports sent to you by email, it fits well. The browser extension helps break down your online activity beyond just "browsing," so you get a better sense of where your time goes.
If you need to track time for clients, manage projects, or handle team-level reporting, Rize falls short. It lacks strong tools for client billing, project breakdowns, or team collaboration, and there's no web app. If these are critical for your workflow, Rize won't be the right fit.
Automatic Time Tracking for Teams.
Timely is an alternative for those who want to automate time tracking across a team without much manual input. If your team just needs to see which apps or websites are being used, Timely can quickly categorize what software people spend time in, so you get a high-level view of how work hours break down.
However, if you need detailed breakdowns by client or project, especially when most work happens inside a browser, Timely leaves you with a list of URLs and long stretches labeled by browser, making it tough to connect time back to specific tasks or clients. You'll still have to do the heavy lifting to make sense of the data.
