Time Tracking for Agencies: 8 Tools Compared

Agency time tracking should help you answer three questions: which client used the hours, what that work cost, and what you can bill. The right tool depends on where your process breaks: recording time, preparing invoices, checking project margins, or planning the next week's capacity.

This guide compares My Hours, Timely, Toggl Track, Harvest, Clockify, Float, Memtime, and Worktivity through those agency needs. Disclosure: Worktivity publishes this guide and is one of the products compared. Product facts come from the vendors' official pages, checked September 28, 2026. The recommendations are our assessment of workflow fit, not results from a controlled product test.

Agency time tracking tools at a glance

Eight tools compared by agency workflow and purchase consideration

Tool	Consider it when	Check before choosing
My Hours	You need project time, rates, and timesheet administration.	Which plan includes your required rates, budgets, and approvals.
Timely	Your team needs help reconstructing time from work activity.	How contributors review entries and share their private timeline data.
Toggl Track	You want timers, manual entries, and reporting across client projects.	The plan required for profitability reports and approvals.
Harvest	You want tracked hours to feed invoicing and accounting.	The cost of your required reporting and usage beyond the base plan.
Clockify	You want to start with time tracking and add billing controls as needed.	Current free-plan limits and the paid tier for invoicing and approvals.
Float	You need to schedule people before comparing plans with actual work.	Time tracking is included in Pro; Starter focuses on scheduling.
Memtime	You want a private desktop activity timeline to help build time entries.	Connect or above is needed to export entries to connected project software.
Worktivity	You need team work visibility alongside client, task, and cost reporting.	Growth adds task tracking and exports; Pro adds cost management.

The sections below link to the source for each product. Compare the plan that supports your actual workflow: an entry price alone does not tell you the cost of agency billing, reporting, or approvals.

What agencies need beyond a timer

Start with one retainer and one fixed-fee project. For each, trace a day's work from a person's time entry to the client report and invoice. That exercise exposes gaps more clearly than a long feature checklist.

• Client and project attribution: can a designer or strategist put time against the right engagement when they switch tasks?
• Billable and internal work: can you keep client delivery separate from sales, training, and administration?
• Rates and costs: can you distinguish what you charge the client from what delivering the work costs?
• Billing review: can you explain why a recorded hour was billed, deferred, or written off?
• Team visibility: can people inspect and correct their own records, and understand what managers can see?
• Reporting handoff: can finance use the output without rebuilding the report every month?

Fixed-fee and retainer agencies still benefit from understanding delivery effort, even when they do not invoice by the hour. More recorded time does not automatically create more revenue: the agreement, scope, and billing decision still matter.

1. My Hours: project time and billing administration

My Hours combines project and task time tracking with rate management and reporting. Its current pricing page lists a free plan for up to five active users, Basic, Pro, and Enterprise. Pro adds budget and rate controls and an approval workflow.

Agency fit: shortlist it when you need a structured timesheet and billing process without starting with resource scheduling. During a trial, check the exact rate hierarchy and approval permissions your project managers need. Do not assume every billing feature is included in the free plan. See My Hours plans and feature comparison.

2. Timely: automatic capture with contributor review

Timely's Memory app records work activity to help people build time entries. Timely describes personal timeline data as private by default, with sharing controlled by the user. Private does not mean all data remains only on the person's computer.

Agency fit: consider it when reconstructing a fragmented working day is the main obstacle. Test the review and project-assignment process with your team; automatic capture still needs to result in entries finance can use. Confirm the reporting and integration capabilities of the selected plan. See Timely plans and its explanation of data visibility.

3. Toggl Track: flexible time entry and project reporting

Toggl Track supports timers, manual entries, and desktop activity tracking that users can turn into time entries. Its paid plans include billable rates, while Premium adds capabilities such as profitability reporting and timesheet approvals.

Agency fit: consider it when people need different ways to record client work. Test the report your account manager will send to finance, as well as how a contributor corrects an entry. Toggl describes connections to over 100 tools through its browser extension; that is different from 100 native, two-way integrations. See Toggl's current plan comparison.

4. Harvest: time tracking connected to invoicing

Harvest combines time tracking, invoicing, and accounting or payment integrations. Its current Teams plan lists connections including Stripe, QuickBooks Online, and Xero. Enterprise adds profitability reporting and timesheet approvals.

Agency fit: shortlist it when the difficult step is turning approved hours into invoices and keeping accounting records aligned. Check the full quote for your expected usage: Harvest's current pricing page describes base rates plus charges for additional invoices, projects, clients, and tasks. Test a representative invoice rather than comparing seat prices alone. See Harvest plans and billing details.

5. Clockify: time tracking with optional billing controls

Clockify offers a free plan and paid tiers. Its current free-plan FAQ says you can invite up to four people for free. Standard includes invoicing, approval, and time-locking features.

Agency fit: consider it when you want to begin with time capture and add controls as your billing process develops. Check the current user allowance before budgeting for an entire agency, and verify which plan includes your required profitability and scheduling features. Do not base a purchase on older claims of unlimited free users. See Clockify plans and the free-plan FAQ.

6. Float: resource scheduling with time tracking

Float centers on allocating people to work, managing capacity, and planning projects. Its current Starter plan covers scheduling; Pro adds time tracking, project cost estimation, and more reporting. Pricing is based on scheduled people.

Agency fit: consider it when your operations lead needs to decide who can take on the next brief, then review how delivery compares with the schedule. Include Pro in the evaluation if recording actual time is essential. A scheduling plan alone should not be treated as an equivalent time-tracking subscription. See Float's plan comparison.

7. Memtime: a desktop timeline for reconstructing work

Memtime automatically captures computer activity and stores that activity data locally on the device. People use the timeline to create time entries. Its Basic plan includes automatic tracking; Connect and higher plans add export to connected project software.

Agency fit: consider it when forgotten timers are the recurring problem and the team prefers reviewing a personal timeline. Test how approved entries reach your existing billing system. Distinguish private activity records from the time entries you choose to send to another service. See Memtime plans and its activity-storage explanation.

8. Worktivity: client work, task costs, and team visibility

Worktivity connects recorded time to clients, projects, and tasks. With cost management enabled, task reporting brings hours, cost, billable amounts, and profit together. Agencies can set up a client and engagement, record time against its tasks, and review the work while the project is running. See the agency workflow.

Agency fit: consider Worktivity when operations needs to connect team work patterns with client delivery and cost. Its AI Productivity Coach provides insights to review with the team; those insights should be checked against the work context, rather than treated as proof of a person's performance.

Pick the relevant plan: Starter is $3.99 per user per month on monthly billing. Growth is $5.99 and adds task tracking, integrations, and XLSX exports. Pro is $8.99 and adds cost management. Annual billing is lower. Plans include 100 AI credits; extra credits and longer retention are optional paid add-ons. A 14-day trial requires no credit card. Check Worktivity pricing and plan limits.

Mobile and desktop differ: Worktivity lists iOS and Android apps for shift time tracking. The mobile app does not capture screenshots, applications, websites, or location. Desktop screenshots are optional and controlled through organization settings. Explain the selected settings to the team before rollout. Compare platform capabilities.

Check your handoffs: the integration directory lists Zapier, Asana, and Trello as available. A Zapier workflow is not the same as a native integration. Worktivity's agency workflow also documents creating an invoice PDF and sending it yourself; confirm the payment and accounting steps you need. Review the integration directory.

How to measure write-offs without overstating the result

The following is an illustrative calculation, not a customer case study or a forecast of Worktivity results. Suppose an agency records 500 hours eligible for hourly billing in a month. It invoices 440 hours and writes off the remaining 60, with no hours awaiting billing.

• Write-off rate: 60 ÷ 500 = 12%.
• If a later, comparable month has 500 eligible hours and 40 written off, its write-off rate is 8%.
• The difference is 4 percentage points, or 20 fewer written-off hours.
• At a constant €100 per hour, those 20 hours represent €2,000 of additional invoiced value for that month, if they are actually billed. Invoiced value is not cash collected or profit.

Record why hours were written off: missing evidence, rework, a scope decision, a fee cap, or a client concession. Compare periods using the same definition and billing model. Time tracking can support the investigation; a change in the rate alone does not establish that software caused it.

Choose with a small agency pilot

1. Name the problem. Choose one primary outcome: more complete time records, less invoice preparation, clearer project costs, or better scheduling.
2. Select two tools. Use the workflow comparison above, then compare the plans needed for the same outcome.
3. Run a representative pilot. Include one account manager and a few contributors working on a real engagement. Define which tool is the official billing record during the pilot.
4. Review the result. Check late or missing entries, corrections, time spent preparing a client report, and whether finance can reconcile the totals.
5. Check team acceptance. Ask whether people understand what is recorded, who can access it, and how to correct mistakes.

Set the evaluation period and success criteria before the pilot. Do not interpret extra recorded hours as an automatic improvement: check whether they explain the client work more accurately.

Frequently asked questions

Which time tracking software should an agency choose?

Choose for the workflow that is hardest to manage. Use the comparison above to shortlist tools for time capture, invoicing, resource scheduling, or work and cost visibility. Then test the selected plan on one client engagement. Agency size alone is not enough to select a product.

Can an agency use spreadsheets?

Yes, if the process reliably records client, project, hours, rates, and billing decisions. Consider software when collecting entries, correcting records, or preparing reports takes too much effort. Measure that effort in your own agency; there is no single underbilling percentage that applies to every spreadsheet-based process.

What billable utilization target should an agency use?

Define the denominator first. Billable utilization is billable hours divided by available hours, but agencies differ in how they treat leave, training, and internal work. Set targets by role and operating model. A utilization number by itself does not establish burnout, quality, or profitability.

Does Worktivity have mobile apps?

Yes. Its download page lists iOS and Android apps for shift time tracking. Mobile capabilities differ from desktop: the phone app does not record screenshots, app usage, websites, or location. See the platform comparison.

How should we switch tools?

Keep a read-only export of the old records and validate the new tool with a small project sample. Check clients, tasks, time zones, billable flags, rates, and totals. Agree on a cutover date and a single official billing record so the same work is not invoiced twice.

Test Worktivity on one client project

If your agency needs client and task time alongside operational visibility, start with one engagement. Track a representative week, inspect the records with contributors, and compare the resulting report with your current billing process. Choose Growth for task tracking and exports, or evaluate Pro when cost management is part of the requirement.

Start your 14-day Worktivity trial. No credit card required. Review the plans before rolling out to the full team.