Toggl vs Harvest vs Clockify 2026 — Clockify's Free Plan Just Got Much Smaller
For years the answer to this question was Clockify, because Clockify was free for unlimited people. In April 2026 that stopped being true, and most of the internet has not caught up.
7 min · 4 August 2026
Last updated August 2026 · Pricing verified against live sources.
By the OperDrive Research TeamThree tools that do the same job, and the honest answer changed four months ago.
ON THIS PAGE What each one costs · When it actually pays off · What nobody else mentions
THE SHORT ANSWER
if you bill clients from tracked hours → Harvest. if you want the least friction day to day → Toggl Track. if you have a team over five and a tight budget → Clockify.
Not sure which you are? The full breakdown is below.
Here is what changed. Clockify built its reputation on being free for unlimited users, and every "best free time tracker" list on the internet said so. On 21 April 2026 that ended. The free plan now caps at 5 users, and the features freelancers actually depended on — billable rates, CSV export, shareable report links — moved behind payment. If you are choosing based on an article written before April, you are choosing on information that is no longer true.
AT A GLANCE
Pricing changes.
What each one costs
Toggl Track — for teams who will actually use it
Toggl Track Starter costs $9 per user per month on annual billing, with monthly billing around $10 to $11.35 depending on where you look. Premium is $18 per user per month annual, $20 monthly. The free plan covers up to 5 users with unlimited time tracking, and it is permanent rather than a trial.
Sources disagree slightly on Toggl's annual discount — some describe identical monthly and annual pricing, others a 10% or 20% annual saving. That inconsistency appears to be genuine, because Toggl has run first-year promotional rates on Premium that revert to $18 at renewal. Price the renewal, not the banner.
What you are paying for is friction. Toggl's autotracker, idle detection and calendar integration are the best in the category, and the reason people stay on it is that they keep using it. A time tracker nobody remembers to start is worth nothing regardless of price.
Toggl has no invoicing module. It marks time billable and exports to QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks and Zoho.
Harvest — for turning hours into invoices
Harvest Pro is listed at $12 per user per month, with a Premium tier around $17.50. The free plan covers one user and two projects, and paid plans come with a 30-day trial.
Harvest is the only one of the three where tracking and invoicing are genuinely one product. Track hours against a client, generate the invoice, take payment through the native Stripe integration. If your business bills by the hour, that removes a tool from your stack rather than adding one.
One caution worth taking seriously. Multiple user reports describe substantial renewal increases following Harvest's acquisition, including accounts auto-migrated to far higher tiers. The $12 figure is the listed standard rate. Treat it as a floor and get your renewal terms in writing.
Clockify — for larger teams, now with conditions
Clockify Basic costs $3.99 per seat per month on annual billing, $4.99 monthly. Standard is $5.49, Pro $7.99 and Enterprise $11.99, all annual.
The free plan changed on 21 April 2026. It now supports 5 users, down from effectively unlimited. Free reports are capped at a 31-day window. Billable rates, CSV and Excel export, shared report links, project time estimates and private projects all moved to paid tiers. Free users can still export as PDF.
What remains free is genuinely capable: unlimited projects, unlimited time tracking across web, desktop and mobile, calendar view, idle detection, Pomodoro timer, and 80-plus integrations. The clean way to think about it is that the free plan now tracks time and the paid plans price it.
Note that billable rates require Standard at $5.49, not Basic at $3.99. If you bill clients, Basic is not your plan.
When it actually pays off
Ten people, billing clients by the hour, annual billing.
Pricing changes.
Clockify is less than half of Harvest and roughly 60% of Toggl. On raw cost it is not close.
But run the comparison the other way. Toggl at $1,080 has no invoicing, so most teams pair it with something — and if that something is a $15 a month invoicing tool, the gap to Harvest closes to about $180 a year. At that point you are deciding between one tool and two, not between two prices.
And the number nobody puts in a table: adoption. A tracker your team forgets to start produces incomplete data, and incomplete data produces wrong invoices. Toggl costs more than Clockify and is consistently described as the one people keep using. Whether that is worth $420 a year across ten people is a judgment about your team, not about the software.
What nobody else mentions
Clockify's April change broke a lot of published advice, including advice published since. CAKE.com announced it on 21 April 2026, citing infrastructure costs for unlimited free users as a bootstrapped company. Comparison articles updated as recently as this year still describe Clockify's free plan as unlimited. This is the single most common piece of wrong information in the category right now.
The features Clockify moved are precisely the freelancer features. Not obscure ones. Billable rates, CSV export, and shareable report links are the workflow for anyone who invoices from tracked time. A solo freelancer who relied on free Clockify to bill clients now needs Standard at $5.49, or about $66 a year.
Toggl's 5-user free cap catches people through contractors. Reddit threads in early 2026 describe users hitting the ceiling unexpectedly after inviting contractors as full members. If contractors only need to log time against your projects, set them up as billable workspace members on a paid plan rather than consuming free seats.
Harvest's listed price and Harvest's renewal price are not reliably the same number. This is unusual in the category and it is the reason to read your terms rather than the pricing page. Clockify and Toggl publish prices that hold. Harvest's listed $12 has been reported to move sharply at renewal.
Choose one
Choose Harvest if invoicing from tracked time is the actual job, and confirm your renewal terms in writing before committing.
Choose Toggl Track if the risk you are managing is people not tracking at all, and you already have invoicing elsewhere.
Choose Clockify if you have more than five people and cost is the binding constraint — and budget Standard at $5.49, not Basic, if you bill clients.
Choose none of them if you are solo and only want to know where your week went. Both Clockify Free and Toggl Free do that permanently, for nothing.
FAQ
Is Clockify still free in 2026?
Yes, but narrower. Since 21 April 2026 the free plan caps at 5 users, down from effectively unlimited. Billable rates, CSV and Excel export, shared report links and project estimates moved to paid, and free reports are limited to a 31-day window.
What is the cheapest time tracking software for a small team?
Clockify Basic at $3.99 per user per month annual, though billable rates need Standard at $5.49. For five or fewer people who only need to see where time went, Clockify Free and Toggl Free both cost nothing.
Does Toggl Track include invoicing?
No. It creates simple invoices from reports but has no invoicing module, integrating with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks and Zoho instead. For tracking and invoicing in one tool, that is Harvest.
How much does Harvest cost per user in 2026?
Pro is listed at $12 per user per month, free tier covering 1 user and 2 projects. Treat $12 as a floor — multiple reports describe significant renewal increases, so confirm your terms directly.
A time tracker nobody starts is an expensive way to guess.
If you want to know which of these belongs in your specific business — that is what OperDrive does. Your Stack. Precisely.
What remains is not a suggestion.
Related reading: The Best Tools for Freelancers in 2026 · Best Project Management Tools for Agencies 2026