Companies suck at estimating — that’s why a staggering 91.5% of large projects experience cost overruns, schedule overruns, or both. But, when projects go over budget, it’s not just the financials that take a hit — scope, quality, and schedule also suffer.

The solution? Companies can avoid all these business nasties when they commit to project cost management.

This guide explains project cost management, why it’s important, and how to create a cost management plan. We’ll also explore how Toggl Track combines cost budgeting with project planning, task management, and resource management to help project teams achieve their goals.

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Project cost management is the process of estimating, planning, allocating, and controlling project costs.
• A solid cost management process enables project managers to prevent budget overruns, optimize resources, build trust, and ultimately increase the chances of project success.
• Achieve project cost management in nine simple steps, including clarifying project scope, estimating each task, setting a budget baseline, and monitoring cost performance throughout the lifecycle.
• Project managers who excel at cost management use project cost management software to turbocharge their budget control, time tracking, expense management, and reporting.
• Like the sound of that? If so, check out Toggl Track — the all-in-one project and time tracking software that empowers project managers to stay on top of their resource-based costs.

What is project cost management?

Project cost management is the process of estimating, planning, allocating, and controlling project costs. Here’s the breakdown of each part:

• Cost estimating the overall costs involved in the project, including any contingency funds for managing risks and issues.
• Cost planning in line with the project schedule — determining when you’ll spend money throughout the project lifecycle.
• Cost allocating the project budget to different cost areas, such as people, IT hardware, software licenses, or raw materials.
• Cost control according to a set baseline. This involves monitoring actual costs, tracking cost variances against the cost budget, and reporting to stakeholders.

Finances are a key factor in project success, but they also play into other areas, such as the project scope, procurement approach, resource management, risk management, and earned value management (EVM) plan.

Why is cost control so important in project management?

Cost control is one of, if not the most important part, of delivering a successful project. Don’t believe us? Let’s take a look at the specific reasons why managing cost performance is so essential for project managers at every level.

Prevents budget overruns

No company has a magic money tree, so exceeding budgeted costs is one of the biggest project management red flags. Cost management avoids this by creating transparency, control, and governance over the entire project spend, reducing the chance of projects’ expenditures exceeding the baseline.

Keeps project financially viable

All projects must deliver a return on investment, and if they go wildly over budget, there’s a good chance they won’t be worth it anymore. By staying within the approved budget, projects deliver value to the organization, contributing to the company’s strategic objectives.

Optimizes resources

For many projects, budget and resources are inherently linked. When labor costs are managed well, project resources are optimized to deliver their best value — for example, by giving team members the right amount of work to remain engaged without becoming overstretched.

Builds stakeholder trust

All projects go through difficult times. When they do, they need the trust and support of their stakeholders to make decisions, resolve issues, and manage escalations. Good cost management is a great way to build stakeholder trust and gain the support you need when you need it.

Provides the platform to manage risk

No project runs perfectly from start to finish, so all project managers should retain some contingency reserves to get them out of a tight spot. Good cost management gives projects the cash flow they need to manage risks, preventing impacts on the project’s timelines, scope, and quality.

Improves the chance of project success

When costs are under control, project managers are free to manage benefits, scope, quality, stakeholders, and risks. Combining all of these factors keeps total costs managed throughout the project lifecycle and massively improves your chances of project success.

5 common challenges of managing project costs

While the benefits of managing project costs are clear, unfortunately, it’s not always a walk in the park. Projects are complex, and many obstacles can cause your budget to spiral out of control. Let’s take a look at some common challenges project managers face when managing project costs:

Inaccurate cost estimates

Every project is set a budget benchmark based on estimates from subject-matter experts, similar projects, and predictions of future work. But all estimates are essentially educated guesses — if they’re wrong, it’s super challenging to stay within budget.

Scope creep

As projects progress, stakeholders often ask for new project activities that weren’t in the original scope. When these requests aren’t managed with the correct approvals, scope creep can negatively impact a project’s quality, timelines, and budget.

Changes in business priorities

No project is completed in isolation. In fact, organizations regularly run multiple projects simultaneously and may need to prioritize one over the other. When a project is deprioritized, it has to fight harder for resources and stakeholder attention, often causing the project to stall or go over budget.

Unforeseen risks

No matter which project methodologies you use, businesses are uncertain places to work, and things often go wrong. When risks occur (e.g., economic policy changes that increase material costs), they have unforeseen impacts on direct and indirect costs and cause projects to exceed their budgets.

Lack of financial transparency

Project managers often need to collaborate with colleagues in finance and accounts to manage their budgets correctly. However, if those colleagues lack financial transparency, such as access to finance management tools or dashboards, it’s impossible to manage costs effectively.

The good news? A defined project cost management process can overcome many challenges, using defined processes, templates, and governance for estimating, planning, allocating, and controlling project costs.

How to manage project costs in 9 steps

Like many things in project management, a defined process makes it easier to manage costs. With the right steps, you’ll stay on track and promote transparency and accountability across the project team.

Follow the nine steps below to create a rock-solid cost management plan that’ll manage your finances from start to finish.

1. Evaluate the project and client

Before you consider budgets, try to understand the project at hand. This is vital in client-facing projects, where you’ll often need to quote and sign off on costs upfront.

Start by clarifying your project scope, including what it does and doesn’t include. If it’s a large project, understand the priorities, constraints, objectives, and assumptions to keep you and your client aligned on the outcomes you’re driving toward.

2. Carry out a project discovery

Once the high-level scope is defined, it’s time to get into the next level of detail by gathering your requirements. This activity is a key part of any project planning phase, turning big-picture thinking into defined requests from stakeholders.

This is also where you’ll uncover many project risks and hidden complexities. The devil really is in the detail. So, take your time to:

• Complete thorough research
• Engage with subject-matter experts through workshops
• Work with technical teams to create early prototypes or wireframes to test out your assumptions.

3. Create a Work Breakdown Structure

Now you’re clear on “what” the project will do, it’s time to break down “how” you’ll do it.

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a great tool for overcoming complexity. It breaks even the most cryptic projects down into bite-size chunks, helping you understand how you’ll go from A to B and delivering the granularity you need to start estimating costs for each piece of work.

4. Estimate the cost of the project

Now the foundation is set, you can begin estimating your project costs. Estimating is essentially scientific estimating, so to get to the most accurate estimate possible, we’d recommend using one of these cost estimation methods :

• Top-down estimating estimates a project at a high level, using Parametric and Analogous techniques to leverage historical data from past projects as a reference point.
• Bottom-up estimating takes a more detailed approach, breaking the project down into smaller components and then using internal and external data sources, and expert opinions to estimate each part.

5. Create a baseline project budget

Once you’ve estimated all your costs, it’s time to create your baseline project budget. In many projects, a baseline budget is required as part of the project business case, and senior stakeholders must approve and give permission for the project to begin.

It’s best practice to use a standardized project budget template with distinct areas for different types of costs, such as labor, materials, and contingency. A solid baseline provides clarity and control throughout the project, providing the project manager with parameters and thresholds to work within.

6. Plan and manage resources

In many projects, most of the budget is spent on resources like people, raw materials, tools, or IT equipment. This is where cost management and project resource management cross over, with good resource planning and allocation an essential part of helping project managers stay within budget.

Once you’ve been assigned the resources you need, it’s your job to optimize them effectively, working to avoid bottlenecks, remove blockers, and manage any resource constraints with other projects. Get this right, and you’ll avoid delays, conflict, and uncertainty within your project, avoiding overspending as a result.

7. Track project costs

Keep track of your actual costs and future costs in real-time. This is where project cost management software can help, giving you and your team visibility into your spending and how it affects the budget.

Consistent tracking maintains alignment with the baseline budget while providing early warning of any discrepancies. Aside from software, it’s good practice to regularly meet with project stakeholders to review costs, discuss upcoming risks, and align on how to optimize future spending.

8. Control project requests

Things go wrong. It’s part and parcel of the working world, and projects may need to request additional budget.

Whether it’s additional scope, inaccurate estimates, or an unforeseen risk, project managers should implement a clear and defined process to manage the change request workflow. This creates:

• Clear communication between stakeholders
• A defined opportunity to analyze the impacts on the project’s financial goals
• A checkpoint to formally decide whether to adjust the budget

9. Create project status reports

A comprehensive project progress report should always include a project cost management section. When cost information is combined with schedule, scope, resource, and benefits updates, it provides a clear picture of the project progress that boosts transparency and enables decision-making.

These status reports are great for post-project analysis and lessons learned, too, where future projects can review historic changes to project costs to improve their estimates and cost control moving forward.

Which tools do you need for effective project cost management?

Project cost management is much easier when you let project management software do the legwork. But not all tools are built equal, so look out for the following software features to enable you to manage your project costs effectively:

• Budget control: At the most basic level, tools that allow you to create a project and assign it a budget mean you can set a clear and trackable budget baseline.
• Expense management: As costs accrue over time, a tool that logs, reviews, and approves expenses helps project managers track expenditures against budget.
• Time tracking: In many projects, resource costs are billed on a time-worked basis, so having a tool that can track time and use automation to turn them into costs is a real game changer.
• Task management: Managing project budgets is as much about good admin as financial knowledge. Tools that allow you to create, assign, and track tasks enable you and your team to stay on top of your costs.
• Reporting: Running the numbers is much easier when you have a reporting tool to do the heavy lifting, so we’d recommend project management software with powerful reporting features.

While we break down project cost management software in our detailed guide, here are three tools you should take a look at to get your juices flowing:

• If your focus is budget control and expenses. Check out Scoro, the all-in-one project budgeting software for building proposals, estimating delivery costs and tracking estimated vs. actual results in real-time. Prices start at $26 per user/per mo, and you can sign up for a 14-day free trial!
• If your team relies on time tracking. Toggl Track combines automatic time tracking, real-time reporting, and a beautiful UI to make it a great all-rounder for project teams who need to stay on top of resource-based costs. There’s a free plan for up to five users, with paid plans starting at as little as $9 per user/mo.
• If you need strong task management. A native project management tool like ClickUp combines tasks, projects, costs, and resources to give you a complete project management overview. It’s free for solo users, with small team plans starting at $7 per user/month.

Manage project costs with Toggl Track

Project cost management is an essential part of any successful project. Whether estimating, planning, allocating, or controlling project costs, Toggl Track’s a great partner that makes budget management a breeze.

Once your project is created, you can easily track time and allocate tasks while using real-time reports to understand how you’re performing against your budget. You can also allocate other team members to the project to balance workload and optimize resources before wrapping it all up with an automatically created invoice that’s ready to send to your client.

Like the sound of that? Try Toggl Track for free and make time tracking a walk in the park.

We all have enough busyness and context-switching going on in our work lives without bringing in an extra tool to track our time and efficiencies.

If you want to track time while working, though, Google Chrome time trackers can help you stay focused and productive, logging your real-time effort in the background without toggling between windows.

Each Chrome time tracker has different features to maximize online time tracking, such as app integrations, reminders, Pomodoro timers, and idle detection. So, how do you choose the best extension for your needs?

Our guide explores seven different time trackers, which we’ve tested firsthand. We compare each Chrome extension’s functionality, ease of use, pricing, and customer reviews.

Here’s a quick summary of the best time tracker extensions, each available from the Chrome Web Store.

• Toggl Track: Easiest Chrome browser extension to install, use, and integrate with existing tools
• Hubstaff: Most insightful Chrome extension showing activity levels for productivity analysis
• Harvest: Most straightforward Chrome extension
• Clockify: Best Chrome extension for remembering to track time
• TimeCamp: Easy-to-use time tracking extension with many integrations
• Everhour: Natively embeds time tracking controls directly into the apps you use
• RescueTime: Automatically categorizes websites you visit and provides productivity scores

I also compiled my Chrome time tracking extension research into a cheat sheet to help with your search. Download the insights and recommendations here. 👈  

Let’s look at each tool in more detail. Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of February 2025.

1. Toggl Track

Toggl Track’s time extension for Chrome lets you track time directly from over 100 popular apps, like Asana, Basecamp, or Google Docs, without ever leaving your web browser. How handy is that?

And to make sense of all the work activities you’re tracking, Toggl Track allows you to add projects and tags to your time entries, kind of like a digital filing cabinet. From here, you can turn your data into pretty reports to share with your team or send to your clients as invoices.

Toggl Track is so easy to set up and has features like idle detection, tracking reminders, and a Pomodoro timer. 

G2 review: “As a freelance virtual assistant that charges per minute, I would be absolutely lost without Toggl. With the handy Chrome extension, I can quickly switch my timer as I constantly switch between projects throughout the day.”

Toggl Track extension features for time tracking

• Offers a Pomodoro Timer to work in focus sessions and improve your productivity. You can even set up notifications for when it’s time to take a break.
• Creates time tracking reminders during your work hours so you don’t forget to track billable hours.
• Has an idle detection feature to alert you if you stop work and leave the timer running. Or, remove idle time from time entries to keep invoices and reports accurate. 
• It starts and stops the timer automatically when you open and close the Chrome browser, so you never miss any billable hours.
• It generates detailed time reports that analyze your billable hours and productivity. This allows you to use historical data to estimate future project costs.  

Toggl Track pricing

• Free: This plan is suitable for freelancers and small teams. It supports up to 5 users and includes unlimited time tracking, 100+ integrations, exportable reports, and 6 months of data storage for free.
• Starter: This plan is priced at $10 per user per month (or $9 paid annually). It is designed for small teams and offers billable rate tracking, time estimates, saved reports, integrations, and unlimited data storage.
• Premium: Priced at $20 per user per month ($18 with annual payments), this plan is best for growing teams. Users get everything in Starter plus timesheet approvals, team management tools, project forecasts, native integrations with Jira and Salesforce, and also includes Single Sign-On.
• Enterprise: Custom-priced for large teams. Enterprise includes priority support, customized solutions, training, and volume discounts for annual payments.

Is the Toggl Track extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• 100+ integrations • Automated reminders and idle detection • Pomodoro timer and focus mode • Automatically tracks time when the browser is opened	• Doesn’t show activity levels

The Toggl Track extension is suitable for freelancers and digital agencies that work with multiple online apps and need an extension that integrates into existing tools like Gmail, Jira, Asana, Notion, Slack, and more. 

Looking for heavier activity monitoring or employee surveillance features? Toggl Track won’t be the right fit — we’re not into snooping, you see.

2. Hubstaff

Hubstaff has powerful employee monitoring features to help manage remote teams. If that sounds like your kinda thing, these features include screenshots, app and activity tracking, and GPS monitoring.

Although these features offer visibility over global teams, it also borders on employee surveillance, which team members might find intrusive and limiting. 

Hubstaff also has a Chrome time tracker extension for easy time tracking and task management, although some reports suggest it can be glitchy depending on what you’re using it for.

G2 review: “In Asana and the Chrome extension, sometimes it doesn’t add a timer option to a new task that I’ve assigned.”

Hubstaff extension features for time tracking

• Adds work time logs and notes from Hubstaff’s Chrome extension to keep entries organized. 
• Lets you set reminders to start the clock to record every billable minute.  
• Displays activity rates for time spent online to understand your productivity. 

Hubstaff pricing

• Free Forever: Includes activity levels, limited screenshots, and reports at no cost.
• Starter: Priced at $4.99 per seat per month, this plan offers multi-platform time tracking, timesheets, limited app and URL tracking, and reports.
• Grow: Costs $7.50 per user per month and adds features like project budgets, work break tracking, and expenses.
• Team: For $10 per user per month, it includes unlimited screenshots, app and URL tracking.
• Enterprise: Billed annually at $25 per user per month, it adds features like the Hubstaff corporate app, enterprise deployment, and account provisioning.

Is the Hubstaff extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Time tracking reminders • Shows activity levels	• Employee surveillance might feel intrusive • No automatic time tracking

Hubstaff is a good fit for users looking for a Chrome extension to send basic time tracking reminders and show activity levels. But it might not be the best choice if you need automatic time tracking or want to stand against employee surveillance (like Toggl).

3. Harvest

Simplicity is at the heart of Harvest’s Chrome browser extension. Although the extension doesn’t come with many features, it does exactly what it says on the tin.

Starting and stopping the timer when working online is straightforward. You can do it right from Chrome’s toolbar without leaving the current tab. To further simplify your time tracking process, you can also add Harvest timers to other tools, such as Asana, Basecamp, or Trello. 

But the highlight of Harvest is its payment collection feature. Harvest’s integrations with Stripe and PayPal allow freelancers or digital agencies to receive client payments online without leaving Harvest. 

This payment collection capability closes the billing cycle, which you complete from start to finish with Harvest: track billable time, turn it into invoices, share them with clients, and receive your payment. 

G2 review: “My two favorite features are the detailed time tracking and the Chrome Extension. Harvest lets you break up time tracking by project, task, or client. The Chrome Extension allows you to start and stop timing without pulling up the Harvest web app.”

Harvest extension features for time tracking

• Has a simple start and stop timer, making online time tracking easy. 
• Integrates with Asana, Basecamp, Trello, and GitHub to track time from your favorite project management tools. 
• Turns time entries into detailed reports with the Chrome extension. 

Harvest pricing

• Harvest Free: This plan includes one seat and up to two active projects. It is a good fit for freelancers or individuals who need simple time tracking and project management.
• Harvest Pro: This plan includes unlimited projects for $12 per seat per month and has advanced features like time and expense tracking, invoicing, reports, integrations, and access to desktop and mobile apps.
• Harvest Premium: Includes everything from Premium plus extras like profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, and activity logs for $14 per seat per month.

Is the Harvest extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Simple start and stop timer • Integrates with project management tools	• No reminders, idle detection, or Pomodoro timer features

Harvest is a good fit for freelancers who want a simple Chrome timer extension. But it might not be suitable for those looking for an automatic time tracking extension with more robust features. 

4. Clockify

With Clockify’s browser extension, remembering to start the clock is a breeze. You can set it to automatically start and stop every time you open the browser. Or, if your memory gets a little hazy, you can set it up to send time-tracking reminders.

The idle time detection feature is definitely helpful in keeping my time records accurate as it signals and deletes inactive time. 

But Clockify’s superpower is its feature-rich interface. It has many useful features for individuals and teams alike, from time tracking on multiple devices and time off management to scheduling, expense tracking, and reporting.  

G2 review: “I love how easy it is to add projects and track time. The Chrome extension makes it much easier to start the clock on my projects than open a full-blown app or website.”

Clockify extension features for time tracking

• Allows you to start the timer and set a description for your time entry. 
• Integrates with many productivity apps like Trello, Google Calendar, or Jira to streamline time tracking. 
• Has a automatic clock-in and clock-out options when you start and close a browser. It also spots idle time and sends time-tracking reminders. 

Clockify pricing

• Free Forever: Unlimited time tracking, team activity reports, and project status features.
• Basic: This plan, priced at $4.99 per user per month, includes project templates, billable rates, and timesheet management.
• Standard: For $6.99 per user per month, this plan adds time off management features.
• Pro: This is Clockify’s most popular plan, priced at $9.99 per user per month. It includes scheduling, budgets, and estimates. They also offer a 7-day free trial to test out these features.
• Enterprise: This plan costs $14.99 per user per month and adds security features such as account control, Single Sign-On, and Audit logs.

Is the Clockify extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Integrates with many third-party apps • Automatic start/stop • Start timer from selected text • Reminders and idle time detection	• Clockify’s employee surveillance features might feel intrusive • No custom dashboards or reports

Clockify is a good choice for a feature-rich extension that integrates with popular apps. Buuuut…. if you find employee surveillance features intrusive or need custom reports, there are better options.

5. TimeCamp

TimeCamp’s superpower lies in its ease of use, affordability, and feature-rich platform. It includes keyword-based time tracking, which assigns time entries automatically based on predefined keywords related to tasks or clients. This is a major time-saver if you frequently switch between different projects.

The plug-in is also compatible with 70+ tools, like AirTable, Google Docs, HubSpot, and more.

G2 review: “We love the ease of use for our staff and effective reporting tools. This software pays for itself in the first week of the month from a productivity standpoint.”

TimeCamp extension features for time tracking

• Works and tracks time in 70+ apps.
• Track time via the Chrome extension automatically syncs across all platforms. TimeCamp’s extension also names your tasks when you work in other apps, so you don’t have to do it manually. 
• Uses the Pomodoro timer to work in focused sessions and be more productive. The extension sends time tracking reminders to ensure you clock in every working minute. 

TimeCamp pricing

• Free: Ideal for individual users with minimal time tracking needs.
• Starter: $2.99 per monthly user. Starter is suitable for unlimited users who need invoicing and time off features. 
• Premium: At $4.99 per user per month, Premium is designed for large teams that need advanced time-tracking features like budget management and estimates. 
• Ultimate: $7.99 per user per month, this plan is best for managing multiple teams.
• Enterprise: Priced at $11.99 per user per month. Enterprise is a good fit for large companies needing advanced features like self-hosting and custom integrations.

Is the TimeCamp extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Automatic sync and task naming • Tracks time in 70+ apps • Pomodoro timer • Reminders	• No activity tracking with the extension • TimeCamp’s employee surveillance features can feel intrusive

TimeCamp can work for freelancers and teams looking for a Chrome extension with many integrations. But if you require more detailed time tracking within the browser, it may not be the best fit.

6. Everhour

Everhour has powerful third-party integrations with over 40 popular project management, team communication, and accounting apps. 

What stands out is Everhour’s embedded time controls, which let you use the app’s timer with other integrated tools. That means you can start and stop the timer from the app you use rather than switching between tools. 

G2 review: “I like the Chrome extension best, it makes it easier for me to log time as I work, rather than having to seek out the platform every time to log efforts.”

Everhour extension features for time tracking

• Syncs with Asana, Trello, Jira, Basecamp, or ClickUp and use Everhour time controls inside these tools. 
• Starts and stops automatically when you open and close your Chrome browser. 
• Offers a timesheet app view mode that provides a quick overview of all your time entries. The extension also detects idle time and sends notifications if you forget to start the timer. 

Everhour pricing

• Free: Limited to five users, includes multi-platform time tracking, project and task management, and reporting.
• Team: Priced at $10 per user per month and features integrations, billing, budgeting, and time off management.

Is the Everhour extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Automatic clock in and out when the browser is opened/closed • Timesheet app view mode • Idle time detection and reminders	• Not very customizable

7. RescueTime

The best thing about RescueTime is it runs silently in the background, recording every working minute without you getting involved. If you’re looking for a hands-off approach and want to track time but don’t want to manually start or stop anything, then this is a strong option.

RescueTime’s Website and App Blocking is another standout feature that allows you to choose which activities to block so you can enjoy a distraction-free work session. So, if you’re drawn to scrolling Insta or your fave shopping web page when you’re supposed to be hitting the spreadsheets, this is a neat bit of functionality.

G2 review: “I love how comprehensive RescueTime is. It tracks my time in all the programs, not just browser software. It also has a nice browser extension for Chrome that provides all kinds of stats and lets me really understand where my time is going with great visuals.”

RescueTime extension features for time tracking

• Skips manual time tracking as RescueTime automatically tracks time on the web. 
• Auto-categorizes the websites you visit and shows productivity levels. 
• Offers an Idle time detection feature which kicks in when you’re away to stop the timer. 

RescueTime pricing

• Solo: $6.50/month for solo users with basic time-tracking needs (when paying annually; it’s $12/month otherwise).
• Team: $6/month per user for teams with more complex time-tracking needs (when paying annually; it’s $9/month otherwise).

Is the RescueTime extension right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Automatic time tracking • Idle time detection	• No time tracking reminders • No Pomodoro timer

The RescueTime extension is perfect for teams and freelancers seeking an automated time tracking extension. What it doesn’t do is send time tracking reminders or offer Pomodoro timers. 

The best time tracking extension for Chrome compared

Product	Best for	Unique feature	Priced from
Toggl Track	Accurate time tracking, powerful reporting, and project profitability analysis	100+ third-party integrations	From $9/user/month
Hubstaff	Remote teams monitoring	In-depth productivity analytics	From $7/user/month
Harvest	Best billable time tracking software with payments	Online payment collection	From $12/user/month
Clockify	All-in-one time tracking for on-field and off-field teams	Feature-rich platform	From $4.99/user/month
TimeCamp	Affordable time billing software	Generous free plan	From $3.99/user/month
Everhour	Task and time management	Embedded time controls	From $10/user/month
RescueTime	Focused-work	Automatic time tracking extension	From $6/user/month

What is the best time tracker Chrome extension for your needs?

Each time tracking Chrome extension on our list has its pros and cons. So, how do you choose the right one for your needs?

Start by answering questions like:

• What key features does the tool offer, and can it seamlessly track time via a Chrome extension?
• Can the tool seamlessly integrate with other systems and tools we currently use?
• Is the tool user-friendly and accessible across various devices (mobile, tablet, desktop)?
• What is its pricing model? Will I be stung by hidden costs for extra features/scalability?
• Does the vendor offer case studies with use cases that match my needs?
• Does the tool offer access to historical data, data security, and compliance with relevant regulations?
• What level of customer support does it provide?
• Can the tool accommodate growth in team size or project complexity?

Next, select a few tools from the list and take them for a test drive. This allows you to spot potential challenges before rolling them out across your team. 

Finally, gather feedback and select the best time tracker Chrome extension that meets your team’s needs.

Need more options?

• 9 Best Employee Time Tracking Software for Accurate Payroll [2025]
• 10 Best Time Tracking Apps for Contractors
• 10 Best Time Tracking Software for Developers [2025 Comparison]
• 10 Best Time Tracking Apps for Consultants [2025]

Looking for an easy-to-use time tracking tool for any workflow?

See how Toggl Track’s Chrome extension can help you easily track your time in over 100 apps. It’s perfect for teams in companies of any size or type. You can start out with a free account or try out all the premium features with an optional 30-day trial.

Smartsheet is a comprehensive project management software with resource management add-ons. However, for some, all these features may feel overwhelming, leading many to look for suitable alternatives that offer similar functionalities at a similar price point.

Is that why you’re here, too? You’re in luck, as we looked at the most popular Smartsheet alternatives and came up with 15 top options. This quick guide will explore the top features, costs, use cases, and more.

Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of February 4th, 2025.

Why do people consider alternatives to Smartsheet?

Despite its many features and Excel-like interface, Smartsheet isn’t for everyone. For example, here’s what a G2 Crowd user said: “User interface can often be daunting to new users. Despite the majority of features transferring over from Excel, It often isn’t the most obvious where to find features/buttons.”

Another said, “I find that Smartsheet can have a steep learning curve for new users, particularly those not familiar with advanced project management tools or spreadsheet-like interfaces.”

Here are some other reasons people look for Smartsheet alternatives:

• Cost: Smartsheet doesn’t offer a free plan for teams. Its paid options start at $9 per user per month and can go up to $32 per user per month. However, critical features like resource management are paid add-ons. 
• Features: Smartsheet doesn’t have a built-in communication chat, which can slow down team collaboration.
• No automatic time tracking: This missing feature can be a deal-breaker for businesses that need to monitor productivity closely or track billable hours.

What to look for in a Smartsheet alternative

The alternative that you choose highly depends on your needs. But generally speaking, you should consider the following criteria when choosing a Smartsheet alternative:

• Key features: Need real-time teamwork? Look for solid collaboration features. Rely on detailed reports or automatic time-tracking? Prioritize those. 
• Intuitive user interface: Your alternative should be easy to use. With features like drag-and-drop interfaces, it’s easy to adjust timelines, assign tasks, and move stuff around. 
• Cost: Choose an alternative that matches your budget. Look for tools with free plans or more affordable pricing options that offer good value. 

16 alternatives to Smartsheet

Here’s our list of the best tools similar to Smartsheet:

1. Toggl Plan
2. Nifty
3. ClickUp
4. Asana
5. Trello
6. Monday.com
7. Notion
8. Jira
9. Wrike
10. TeamGantt
11. Paymo
12. Basecamp
13. TeamWork
14. Zoho Projects
15. ToDoist
16. GoodDay

1. Toggl Plan

Price: Starts at $9/month

Toggl Plan is a simple and powerful project and resource management platform. It has visual planning features, including team and project timelines, making it easy for businesses to plan their project schedules and manage their resources. 

What we like

• Toggl Plan’s Availability Overview panel shows whether your team members are over or underbooked and the number of hours they have available. You can see workloads for the next 30 days or customize your date range as needed. 

What’s missing

• Toggl Plan lacks task dependencies, which can be a downside for those who like to work with relationships between tasks. 

Best for

Toggl Plan is best for professional service teams that want a simple, visually intuitive planning tool that integrates seamlessly with Toggl Track. 

Top features

• Drag-and-drop interface: Adjust your tasks, projects, and resources with a simple drag-and-drop. 
• Toggl Track integration: Connect with Toggl Track to get robust time tracking features.
• Team timelines: Visualize each team member’s activities, deadlines, and progress simultaneously.
• Visual project planning: Plan your tasks and projects with Gantt charts and color-coding to have a clear overview of your work. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Toggl Track, Slack, and Google Calendar. 

Pricing

Toggl Plan offers three pricing options with a free 14-day trial:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0 per user	Solo users
Team	$9 per user per month	Teams who need to meet deadlines and manage resources effectively
Business	$15 per user per month	Teams who work with external stakeholders and need seamless reporting features

2. Nifty

Pricing: Starts at $3.9/month per user

Nifty is a powerful project management and collaboration platform designed to help teams plan, track, and execute projects with ease. While Smartsheet is a popular choice for spreadsheet-style project management, Nifty offers a more intuitive, visually-driven approach with features that cater to modern teams.

This tool combines task management, milestone tracking, and team communication into a single, user-friendly interface. Unlike Smartsheet, Nifty emphasizes visual project timelines, automation, and seamless collaboration, making it a standout alternative for teams looking to move beyond traditional spreadsheet-based tools.

What we like

• Nifty’s interactive Gantt charts and visual timelines provide a clear, dynamic view of project progress, making it easier to manage complex workflows. Its automation features reduce manual effort, while the built-in time tracking and reporting tools offer actionable insights into team productivity.

What’s missing

• While Nifty excels in project visualization and team collaboration, it doesn’t offer the same depth of spreadsheet-style functionality as Smartsheet, which may be a drawback for users heavily reliant on grid views.

Best for

Nifty is best for teams that prioritize visual project management, collaboration, and automation. It’s ideal for creative agencies, remote teams, and small to midsize businesses looking for a more intuitive and flexible alternative to Smartsheet.

Top features

• Interactive Gantt Charts: Nifty’s Gantt charts provide a dynamic, visual representation of project timelines, dependencies, and milestones — something Smartsheet lacks without additional add-ons.
• Team Collaboration Hub: Nifty centralizes team communication with discussion threads, file sharing, and real-time updates, fostering better collaboration compared to Smartsheet’s more fragmented approach.
• Time Tracking and Reporting: Built-in time tracking allows teams to monitor hours spent on tasks and generate detailed reports, a feature Smartsheet doesn’t natively offer.
• Custom Workflow Automation: Nifty’s automation rules streamline repetitive tasks and workflows, saving time and improving efficiency — more advanced than Smartsheet’s automation capabilities.
• Milestone-Driven Task Management: Nifty allows you to break projects into tasks and subtasks linked to milestones, providing a clearer structure for project progress than Smartsheet’s grid-based system.

Tool integrations

Nifty integrates seamlessly with popular tools like Slack, Google Drive, Zoom, GitHub, and more, ensuring smooth connectivity across your workflow.

Pricing

Nifty offers flexible pricing plans to suit teams of all sizes:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Small teams or individuals with basic project management needs
Starter	$39/month (billed annually)	Growing teams of up to 10 members needing task and milestone tracking
Pro	$79/month (billed annually)	Teams of up to 20 members requiring advanced features like time tracking
Business	$124/month (billed annually)	Larger teams of up to 50 members needing comprehensive project management
Unlimited	$399/month (billed annually)	Enterprise teams requiring unlimited members and advanced customization

Visit Nifty’s pricing page for more details. 

3. ClickUp

Price: Starts at $10/month.

ClickUp is a versatile all-in-one productivity platform that helps teams organize tasks, track and manage time, plan capacity, and improve productivity.  

It also has built-in email and document management features for better project collaboration.

What we like

• ClickUp’s free plan is feature-rich. It comes with unlimited members, Kanban Boards, calendar views, and sprint management features. 

What’s missing

• ClickUp’s built-in time tracking is limited to 60 uses on the free plan. You’ll need to upgrade to the unlimited plan or integrate with 3rd-party apps for unlimited time-tracking.

Best for

ClickUp is best for teams of all sizes looking to centralize their projects, tasks, and goals in a single, user-friendly workspace. 

Top features

• Built-in time tracking: On the Unlimited plan, there’s no need for external time tracking tools; monitor the time you spend on each task directly within ClickUp.
• Customized views: Tailor your workspace to suit your preferences. Whether it’s list, board, box, or calendar views, you can customize how you want to see your tasks.
• Powerful reporting: See detailed reports completed and worked on projects, tracked time, and more.   
• Email ClickApp: Send and receive emails directly from your tasks and create tasks and comments from your email inbox. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include OneDrive, Slack, and Chrome. 

Pricing

ClickUp offers four pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Solo users
Unlimited	$10 per user per month	Small teams
Business	$19 per user per month	Midsize teams
Enterprise	Contact ClickUp for details	Large teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

4. Asana

Price: Starts at $13.49/month

Asana is a dynamic project management solution that facilitates team collaboration and work management.

Asana helps you organize work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives, all in one platform.

What we like

• Asana’s free plan has unlimited tasks, projects, and storage. The Personal plan also lets you visualize projects in a list, board, or calendar view and gives access to 100+ app integrations. 

What’s missing

• Asana’s free plan lacks native time-tracking features, which means you need to rely on third-party apps to track your time. 

Best for

Asana is best for teams who want a simple tool with powerful team collaboration and task management features. 

Top features

• Asana Intelligence: Use AI to set smart goals, create smart status updates, and get smart answers that accelerate your growth. 
• Multiple views: Adapt the platform to your needs with various options for viewing tasks, subtasks, and projects. Choose from lists, boards, or timeline views and get a clear picture of your work.
• Real-time reporting: Track the progress of your tasks and projects as they happen and spot potential bottlenecks. 
• Built-in messaging: Communicate with your team through project or team messages directly within Asana. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Microsoft Teams, Google Sheets, and Toggl Track. 

Pricing

Asana offers five pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Personal	$0 per user	For solo users and teams who need basic project management
Starter	$13.49 per user per month	For growing teams that need to track project progress with Gantt views and project dashboards
Advanced	$30.49 per user per month	For teams that need goal, portfolio, and workload management
Enterprise	Contact Asana	Enterprise teams
Enterprise +	Contact Asana	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

5. Trello

Price: Starts at $6/month

Trello is a popular Kanban-based project management tool for managing simple projects. 

It also comes with custom fields for tasks, task automation, and multiple ways to visualize your projects. These views include timelines, calendars, and lists.

What we like

• Trello’s board chat power-up means no longer relying on busy Slack channels for communicating with your team. The Board chat is user-friendly and makes team messaging easy without leaving Trello. 

What’s missing

• Trello lacks built-in comprehensive reporting features, meaning you might not get the detailed insights you need without integrating additional tools.

Best for

Trello is best for teams who want a simple and visual project management system for streamlining their workflows. 

Top features

• Customizable cards: Dive into the details by adding comments, attachments, and more directly to Trello cards.
• Task organization: Break down your tasks into smaller, manageable parts using checklists within each card.
• Power-ups: Enhance your boards with add-ons that bring additional functionality to your projects. 
• Board chat power-up: Create chat sections for any boards to communicate with your team easily. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Slack, Toggl Track, and GitLab.

Pricing

Trello offers four pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Solo users who want to organize their work
Standard	$6 per user per month	Small teams that need to collaborate on tasks
Premium	$12.50 per user per month	Midsize teams that need to track tasks and multiple projects
Enterprise plan	$17.50 per user per month (billed annually)	Large enterprise teams that need more security and controls

Visit the pricing page for more information.

6. Monday.com

Price: Starts at $12/month.

Monday.com is a highly customizable work operating system that simplifies team collaboration, improves transparency, and boosts team productivity.

It’s a flexible tool that you can use to map any workflow. 

You begin by creating items. Items can be anything, for example, goals, portfolios, projects, or tasks. To each item, you can then add column properties. Monday.com supports 30+ column types. This way, you can map any business workflow to Monday.com.

What we like

• Monday.com is highly customizable, which means you can create workflows that match your team’s needs. Features like customizable task flows or custom task fields let you do that. 

What’s missing

• As with any feature-rich tool, you may pay a lot for features you don’t use on Monday.com. 

Best for

Monday.com is best for teams of any size who want to create customizable, adaptable workflows and need a visual work management tool. 

Top features

• Multiple project views: Keep your projects in perspective with Kanban, timeline, or calendar views. 
• Built-in time tracker: Manage and log the time you spend on tasks right within the platform.
• Capacity planning: Effortlessly balance your team’s workload, view availability, and allocate resources efficiently.
• Board discussions: Tag team members and send messages across boards to keep in touch about your projects. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Slack, Google Drive, and Zoom.

Pricing

Monday.com offers five pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Individuals looking to keep track of their work
Basic	$12 per user per month	Managing all your teams’ work in one place
Standard	$14 per user per month	Collaborating and optimizing team processes
Pro	$24 per user per month	Streamlining and running complex workflows
Enterprise	Contact sales	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

Top Tip: Monday.com’s built-in time tracker is only available in the Pro and Enterprise plans. 

7. Notion

Price: Starts at $10 per month. 

Notion is an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, knowledge and document management, project, and task management. Like Monday.com, you can create custom item databases in Notion and add properties to these items. This is what makes Notion so flexible.

What we like

• Notion’s versatility lets you seamlessly integrate notes, tasks, wikis, and databases, all within a sleek, user-friendly interface.

What’s missing

• Notion lacks advanced project management features like Gantt charts or in-depth reporting. 

Best for

Notion is best for teams looking for a unified collaboration workspace for notes, tasks, and knowledge management.

Top features

• Unified workspace: Centralize your notes, databases, and project management for better collaboration. 
• Customizable templates: Build your workspace from scratch or use customizable templates to design an environment that fits your team’s unique needs.
• Intuitive content creation: Simplify your work with easy drag-and-drop functionality, nested pages, and real-time collaboration.
• Real-time collaboration: See edits, comments, and what your team is working on in real-time.

Tool integrations

Integrations include Slack, Figma, and Asana. 

Pricing

Notion offers four pricing options:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Organizing your work as an individual
Plus	$10 per user per month	Small groups to plan & get organized
Business	$18 per user per month	Connecting several teams & tools
Enterprise	Contact sales	Enterprise companies

Visit the pricing page for more information.

8. Jira

Price: Starts at $8.15/month.

Jira is a project management tool that helps software development teams track, organize, and prioritize their work. This tool has detailed issue-tracking capabilities and has many features to adapt to Agile, Scrum, and Kanban methodologies. 

What we like

• With a comprehensive issue and bug-tracking system, Jira provides detailed ticketing, easy categorization, and tracking.

What’s missing

• Jira’s complexity and feature-rich interface demand a steep learning curve, which might slow initial progress. 

Best for

Jira is best for software development teams who need an issue-tracking tool that supports agile methodologies. 

Top features

• Agile methodologies: Navigate through your project easily using agile views like Scrum or Kanban. 
• Time tracking integration: Connect Jira to popular time tracking software like Toggl Track, Everhour, and Clockify and keep track of work hours.  
• Bug and issue tracking: Generate detailed issue records, complete with custom fields, descriptions, and attachments.
• Custom workflow templates: Adapt Jira to meet your needs and speed up project delivery with customizable templates. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include GitHub, Confluence, and Slack.

Pricing

Jira offers four pricing options:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free Version	$0	Software startups with up to 10 members
Standard	$8.15 per user per month	Small businesses that need secure access and audit logs
Premium	$16 per user per month	Midsize teams that need guaranteed uptime SLA and sandbox features
Enterprise	Contact sales	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

9. Wrike

Price: Starts at $9.80/month.

Wrike is a collaborative work management solution and a top alternative to Smartsheet. It’s a comprehensive project management tool for large complex teams.

Wrike combines project management, efficient resource allocation, and in-depth performance analytics in one versatile solution.

What we like

• Wrike’s real-time collaboration features like cross-tagging, live document editor, and internal approvals boost team communication and transparency. 

What’s missing

• To use features like time tracking or resource management in Wrike, you have to pay $24.80 per user per month. 

Wrike also bills you annually. Paying a year’s cost upfront may not be feasible for small teams.

Best for

Wrike is best for teams that need an all-in-one platform to plan projects in detail and collaborate in real-time. 

Top features

• Built-in time tracking: Record time spent on tasks directly within the platform.
• Real-time collaboration: Accelerate your team’s productivity with live editing, instant updates, file sharing, and real-time communication.
• Project resource planning: Allocate resources effectively, balance team workloads, and adjust assignments with foresight.
• Powerful reporting: Choose from Wrike’s report templates or create custom column chart or table chart reports, based on the data you want to see.

Tool integrations

Integrations include BambooHR, Microsoft Project, and Google Calendar. 

Pricing

Wrike offers five pricing options:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Solos users who need centralized task management
Team	$9.80 per user per month	Small teams who need effective team management
Business	$24.80 per user per month	Teams who need an intelligent platform for any use case
Enterprise	Contact Wrike	Enterprise teams
Pinnacle	Contact Wrike	Enterprise teams with complex needs

Visit the pricing page for more information.

10. TeamGantt

Price: Starts at $24/month per manager

TeamGantt is a project management tool that makes it easy to create visual Gantt charts for scheduling and collaboration. 

What we like

• You can track your time effortlessly with TeamGantt’s native time-tracking feature. 

Its timeline features offer all the Gantt chart features that technical project managers appreciate.

What’s missing

• TeamGantt’s free plan is very limited. It doesn’t come with project boards, time tracking, or hourly estimating.

Best for

TeamGantt is best for teams who prioritize visual planning and want a clear Gantt chart tool for managing projects. 

Top features

• Drag-and-drop interface: Easily adjust timelines, change task dependencies, and update progress with a simple drag-and-drop action.
• Multiple views: Switch between views for Gantt charts, lists, or calendar layouts to see your project’s status in the format that suits you best.
• Workload and team availability: Stay on top of your team’s capacity with visibility into everyone’s workload and availability. 
• Team conversation view: See all project and task comments in one chat room view. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Slack, Zapier, and Dropbox. 

Pricing

TeamGantt offers three pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Lite	$24 per manager per month	Basic project management
Pro	$59 per manager per month	Managing small and large projects
Unlimited Everything	Contact Sales	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

11. Paymo

Price: Starts at $9.99/month

Paymo is a simple alternative to Smartsheet for freelancers and small teams.  

Paymo has project management, time tracking, financial, and project resource management features, all in one place. 

What we like

• Paymo lets you convert timesheet data into invoices, customize them, and send them to clients in PDF or CSV format. You can also set recurring invoices for regular clients. They can pay online directly from the invoice. 

What’s missing

• If you need resource management features, you’ll have to pay quite a lot – prices for packages with these features start at $24.95 per user per month.

Best for

Paymo is best for teams who need an all-in-one alternative to Smartsheet with built-in time tracking, time reports, and online payment features. 

Top features

• Task management: Enhance productivity with templates, priorities, alerts, and multiple views.
• Built-in time tracking: Track work hours directly within the platform.  Bill more accurately, assess your team’s productivity, and manage workloads efficiently. 
• Planning and scheduling: Use customizable templates, project milestones, insightful Gantt charts, and auto-scheduling to plan efficiently. 
• Time reports: Understand how your team spends work hours and spot productivity gaps. 
• PM Payments: Clients pay you directly from the invoice via Credit Cards or ACH.

Tool integrations

Integrations include Google Calendar, Shift, and Slack.

Pricing

Paymo offers four pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0 for 1 user	Personal use
Starter	$9.99 per user per month	Organizing your work as an individual
Small Office	$15.9 per user per month	Managing small projects and teams
Business	$23.9 per user per month	Medium and large teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

12. Basecamp

Price: Starts at $15/month

Basecamp is a simple project management and team collaboration tool.

Basecamp is a great Smartsheet alternative for those who want a solution that prioritizes communication and collaboration. 

What we like

• Basecamp’s instant messaging tool, Campfire, lets team members communicate easily, share files, and stay connected. 

What’s missing

• Basecamp lacks advanced features for scheduling like Gantt charts, custom fields, or task dependencies. It also lacks resource management features.

Best for

Basecamp is best for individuals and small teams looking for a simple, no-frills platform to manage their projects and collaborate with team members. 

Top features

• Group chat rooms: Basecamp has Campfire and Ping messaging tools that keep everyone informed and engaged. Discuss ideas, share updates, and solve issues in real-time.
• Time tracking integrations: You can monitor work hours in Basecamp by integrating with tools like Clockify, Everhour, and Harvest. 
• Task or team member reports: Gain insights into what everyone is working on and track individual or overall task progress.
• Hill charts: Visualize project progression with Hill charts and identify potential roadblocks.

Tool integrations

Integrations include Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. 

Pricing

Basecamp offers two paid plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Basecamp	$15 per user per month	Small teams that need per-user pricing
Basecamp Pro Unlimited	$349 per month	Large teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

13. Teamwork

Price: Starts at $8.99/month

Teamwork is another all-in-one solution with plenty of features for project and resource management, planning, and time tracking. 

What we like

• With Teamwork’s free plan, you can track billable hours, see projects in multiple views, and communicate through Teamwork’s chat app. 

What’s missing

• Teamwork comes with a hefty price tag. You’ll need to pay quite a lot for features like resource management or reporting. ($25.99 per user per month)

Best for

Teamwork is best for teams looking for an all-in-one, easy-to-use alternative to Smartsheet. 

Top features

• Multiple views: Personalize project oversight with lists, Kanban boards, tables, or Gantt charts. 
• Resource scheduling: Allocate and manage your team’s workload efficiently and get clear visibility of everyone’s availability for realistic planning.
• Task and project templates: Save time and maintain consistency with customizable templates for tasks and projects.
• Time tracking: Log time manually, by using a timer, or via email.

Tool integrations

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Drive. 

Pricing

Teamwork offers five pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free Plan	$0	Businesses with up to 5 members
Starter	$8.99 per user per month	Access to project management basics
Deliver	$13.99 per user per month	Key features for project management
Grow	$25.99 per user per month	Complex client projects
Scale	Contact Teamwork	For scaling teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

14. Zoho Projects

Price: Starts at $5/month

Zoho Projects is a cost-effective alternative to Smartsheet that tracks projects and budgets and works on multiple devices.

What we like

• Zoho Projects has a built-in chat feature that lets you quickly communicate important updates without switching between apps. 

What’s missing

• You can’t track time with the free plan, and you’re limited to managing a maximum of two projects. 

Best for

Zoho Projects is best for teams who want a project management and team collaboration platform that also tracks time and generates reports. 

Top features

• Task and issue management: Advanced task categorization, prioritization, and issue tracking features ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
• Built-in time tracking: Keep accurate records of the time spent on each task or project with Zoho Project’s integrated time-tracking feature.
• Detailed reporting: Dive deep into your project’s performance metrics with task, issue, and timesheet reports.
• Built-in chat: Communicate and share files easily and track project updates directly from Zoho Projects.

Tool integrations

Integrations include Google Calendar, Microsoft Excel, and Zendesk. 

Pricing

Zoho Projects offers three pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Individual use
Premium	$5 per user per month	Resource management
Enterprise	$10 per user per month	Portfolio management

Visit the pricing page for more information.

15. Todoist

Price: Starts at $5/month

Todoist is a cloud-based task management and productivity app.

You can’t track time, plan projects, or manage resources in Todoist, but the tool helps you organize your work and communicate with your team. 

What we like

• Todoist seamlessly integrates with many team communication tools like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Twist. 

What’s missing

• Todoist lacks project planning or time-tracking features, making it unsuitable for large and complex projects. 

Best for

Todoist is best for individuals or teams seeking a simple, intuitive tool to manage daily tasks and short-term projects. 

Top features

• Timelines and Gantt charts: Visualize your tasks and deadlines with timelines and Gantt charts to get a clear overview of your schedules and to-do lists.
• Team workspace: Create a shared space for members to join and work on team projects.
• Task dependencies: Set up and understand the sequence of your tasks so you can prioritize your work. 
• Multi-platform use: Use Todoist on your desktop, browser, mobile, or wearable device. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Google Chrome, Outlook, and Gmail. 

Pricing

Todoist offers three pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Beginner plan	$0	Individuals looking to keep track of their work
Pro plan	$5 per user per month	Teams who want to manage tasks and projects
Business	$8 per user per month	Teams who need a shared team workspace

Visit the pricing page for more information.

16. GoodDay

Price: Starts at $6/month. 

GoodDay is an affordable all-in-one platform for organizing work, tracking project progress, and managing team schedules. 

What we like

• GoodDay’s Pro plan is very affordable for the comprehensive range of features it offers. It costs $6 per user per month with features like time tracking, Gantt charts, custom fields, reports, and advanced analytics.

What’s missing

• There’s no time tracking feature in GoodDay’s free plan. 

Best for

GoodDay is best for teams who want a comprehensive work management tool with an affordable price tag. 

Top features

• Work views: Whether through task lists, boards, Gantt charts, or calendar views, you can monitor work as you prefer.
• Customization: Tailor your experience with custom fields, statuses, and roles that fit your project’s unique needs.
• Project templates: Kickstart your projects with ready-to-use templates. Save time and keep your work processes consistent. 
• Built-in time tracking: Track time within GoodDay and manage your time more efficiently. 

Tool integrations

Integrations include Google Drive, Trello, and Asana. 

Pricing

GoodDay offers four pricing options:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Managing work of up to 15 team members
Professional	$6 per user per month	Planning and managing work with time tracking, Gantt timelines, automation
Business	$10 per user per month	All-in-one work management
Enterprise	Contact sales	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

Best Smartsheet alternatives: A quick comparison

Here’s a quick overview of our top Smartsheet alternatives:

Tool	G2 rating	Best for	Lowest paid plan
Toggl Plan	4.3	Visual project and resource management and planning	From $9 per user/month
Nifty	4.7	Visual project management, collaboration, and automation	From $3.9 per user/month
ClickUp	4.7	Centralized project management	From $10 per user/month
Asana	4.3	Team collaboration and work management	From $13.59 per user/month
Trello	4.4	Simple project management	From $6 per user/month
Monday.com	4.7	Customizing projects and workflows	From $12 per user/month
Notion	4.7	Document and task management	From $10 per user/month
Jira	4.3	Agile project management	From $8.15 per user/month
Wrike	4.2	Collaborative work management	From $9.80 per user/month
TeamGantt	4.8	Team scheduling and collaboration	From $24 per manager/month
Paymo	4.6	Project resource management	From $9.99 per user/month
Basecamp	4.1	Team collaboration	From $15/user per month
Teamwork	4.4	Client work management	From $8.99 per user/month
Zoho Projects	4.3	Project management and team collaboration	From $5 per user/month
Todoist	4.4	Task management	From $5 per user/month
GoodDay	4.3	Project scheduling and tracking	From $6 per user/month

Smartsheet Alternatives FAQs

Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about Smartsheet alternatives.

What is better than Smartsheet?

This depends on specific needs. For example, Toggl Plan is a great option if you need simple and powerful project and resource management software. 

Some teams prefer Asana for team collaboration, Trello for Kanban-style task management, and Monday.com for its customization options. 

Is there a Microsoft equivalent to Smartsheet?

Yes, the Microsoft equivalent to Smartsheet is Microsoft Project. It offers project planning, scheduling, resource management, and collaboration tools similar to the capabilities provided by Smartsheet. 

What is the Google equivalent of Smartsheet?

The Google equivalent of Smartsheet is Google Tables, a part of Google’s Area 120 project incubator. Google Tables facilitates project management and automation with features like task tracking and collaboration, similar to Smartsheet’s spreadsheet-based project management features. 

Is Smartsheet similar to Asana?

Both Smartsheet and Asana are project management tools that help teams improve collaboration and workflow efficiency. 

But Smartsheet combines a spreadsheet-like interface with project management features, while Asana focuses more on task and workflow management without the spreadsheet aspect. 

Choosing the right Smartsheet alternative

When choosing a Smartsheet alternative, consider Toggl Plan. It is a straightforward and intuitive project management tool that focuses on visual planning. 

With Toggl Plan, you can access easy-to-use and powerful features that simplify project and resource planning. Sign up for a free Toggl Plan account and see for yourself.

The saying “time is money” has never been more relevant, and it’s especially true for larger remote teams, where accurately tracking work time is a necessity and yet, unfortunately, often considered a chore.

The good news is that tracking your time becomes a whole lot easier with the right time tracking app. Although you’ll find a sea of them online, only a handful of reliable ones are easy to use, aren’t bloated with features, and don’t infringe on privacy to get the job done. 

We’ve been in the time tracking space since 2006. We’ve seen the rise and fall of many apps and were always in tune with user needs, which is how we stayed ahead for almost twenty years.

So we figured we’d use our experience to help you out. We tested the apps ourselves, read user reviews, and compiled this list of the best time tracking apps for 2025. Here are our top picks!

Best time tracking apps: You can’t go wrong with these

How to choose a time tracking app

With all the options online, it’s easy to get lost in a sea of features and marketing promises. There are a few pitfalls you need to avoid when searching for a time tracking app:

• Frustrating to Use: The best app is the one your team will actually use. Avoid apps that frustrate employees and detract from productivity. Look for apps that are intuitive and unobtrusive, encouraging consistent use.
• Feature Overload: In our experience, overloading users with features makes their experience more confusing, making them less likely to turn time tracking into a habit. Some apps compromise this ease of use by adding excessive features. 
• Sub-Par Analytics: Time tracking generates a lot of data — especially in large organizations. But without the right analytics tools, all this data is useless. Avoid apps that only provide basic reports and look for those that offer comprehensive analytics and deliver actionable insights to boost efficiency and productivity.

How we curated our list of time tracking apps

We created a list of the best-rated time tracking tools based on user reviews and our own experience. Then, we tested each app by tracking the time it took to write this very article.

Following this method allowed us to assess each platform based on four basic criteria we believe every time tracking platform must meet:

• Ease of Use — how easily can your team adapt to using the platform
• Analytics — how much value you’ll get from time tracking with the tool
• Integrations — how easily can you integrate the tool with your company
• Pricing — how likely you are to convince your boss to invest in the tool

We set up a writing project in each app and tracked the time it took to perform each task in the project (research, testing, writing, revisions, etc.). Throughout the process, we noted our experience with the four criteria in mind.

We found that every app has a specialty, but some apps excel in all areas. So we grouped them into three categories: best time tracking apps overall, best apps for specific needs, and best apps with surveillance features.

❗ DISCLAIMER:

With that out of the way, let’s jump into the app reviews!

1. Toggl Track – Best time tracking app for teams

Toggl was created in 2006 by Alari Aho and Krister Haav as a full-fledged time tracking and productivity platform designed to bring the best out of your team. The time tracking app was later renamed to Toggl Track after Toggl Plan and Toggl Hire were introduced.

Toggl Track’s strength is in its intuitive time tracking with the Timeline. Yet, it’s the robust Analytics and Insights where Toggl Track truly shines, providing a window into work habits and trends with depth and clarity. This, coupled with seamless integration across many third-party tools and extensions, ensures that time tracking is not just a task but a part of your digital workflow. All the while, Toggl Track upholds a commitment to privacy, ensuring that insights serve employers while respecting employee privacy.

Toggl Track is the ideal time tracking tool for large teams and enterprises looking to foster a culture of growth, performance, and trust while empowering decision-makers with insights and analytics tools to spot inefficiencies in workflows and improve profitability.

Time tracking: Detailed timesheets with computer activity tracking

Toggl Track has a desktop app, mobile app, and Chrome extension, giving you the freedom to track time on any device.

Since all three apps are synced, updates to one are reflected on the others. They don’t offer advanced features like reports, analytics, or insights. Instead, they focus on simplicity and ease of use, making them ideal for employees to track their time without distractions. 

It’s especially easy to clock in and track time using the Autotracker feature on the desktop app, (1) which automatically records your time based on preset conditions. The desktop application also offers a Pomodoro timer (2).

But the core feature of the desktop app is the Timeline.

It tracks your computer activity so you don’t have to remember every task you’ve worked on and can easily plug the gaps in your timesheets. This way you don’t need to constantly keep updating the timesheet as you move from one task to the next. Instead, you can review your computer activities on the desktop app and copy them directly into your timesheet.

Moreover, the Timeline data is account-specific. So, no other team member (including admins) can view this information.

Meanwhile, managers can control everything time tracking-related using Toggl’s web app. It gives you a complete overview of employee tasks, running timers, billable hours, and activity. You can also gather in-depth insights with the analytics features, which are available on the web app.

Analytics: Deep dive into your time tracking data

Toggl offers three tools to measure your project’s performance: Reports, Analytics, and Insights. Reports offer a simple view of your tracked time with several visualization options.

You can organize your data in a:

• Bar chart (1) to break down your time into billable and non-billable hours across a specific date range.
• Grouping list (2) to group and compare data on various metrics like user, project, client, time entry, etc.    
• Donut chart (3) is a dynamic visualization that displays the grouping list data in a pie format.   

The Reports feature is equivalent to what other tools on the list offer as analytics. But Toggl offers more in-depth features with Insights and Analytics, which we will cover next. 

Analytics is a customizable time reporting solution that lets you slice and dice your time data to derive deeper insights. You can create custom dashboards with multiple custom visualization options, including tables, pivots, donut charts, etc.

Insights, as the name suggests, offers valuable insights into data trends by project, team, and client. You can measure project profitability and employee profitability and compare data across custom date ranges.

Integrations: 100+ native integrations and browser extensions for better tracking

Togl Track can be integrated with over 145 native third-party integrations and browser extensions to streamline your project management activities. These include popular platforms like Asana, JIRA, Salesforce, Slack, Microsoft Outlook, and more. If you can’t find your platform in the list, you can use Zapier, Integrately, or the Toggl Track API to integrate them.

If you have a Toggl Plan account, you can also integrate it with Toggl Track. This allows you to manage your tasks in Toggl Plan while seamlessly tracking time in Toggl Track.

Toggl pricing

Toggl’s pricing plans start with a free plan for up to 5 users, including time tracking for projects, clients, and tags. This plan is ideal for freelancers or very small teams. 

Toggl’s paid plans for teams start at $9/mo/user on annual plans. You can assign tasks to team members and create detailed reports to measure their performance. You can also access the highly customizable analytics and insights features to derive deeper insights for optimizing your team’s productivity.

Use Toggl if:

• You want to offer your employees a work culture that values privacy and trust
• You want in-depth insights to improve team productivity and profitability
• You want a hassle-free platform that offers automated time tracking

2. Paymo – Best task-based time tracking app

Jan Lukacs and Vlad Korolev started Paymo in 2007 when they realized they needed a platform to reliably track work hours and generate client invoices without the risk of being underpaid.

Paymo stands out with features like:

• Task-specific automated time tracking
• Idle time tracker
• Desktop, web, and mobile app

Paymo is ideal for product or development teams looking for a platform that integrates time tracking and project management features on one platform.

Paymo features

Paymo is primarily a project management tool but offers robust, real-time tracking features. You can use the web, mobile, or desktop application to track your time from any device. It tracks time by task, so you know exactly how much time you’ve spent on each task. 

Paymo also offers an idle time detector. It stops tracking your time when you’re inactive for some time and gives you the option to log it in your timesheet once you’re back. 

Paymo pricing

Paymo’s pricing includes a free plan with unlimited time tracking and invoices. However, the account can be used by only one user to track the time for up to five clients. 

Its paid plans start at $3.90/user per month and include more advanced features, including integrations and project templates. However, it doesn’t have useful project planning features like recurring tasks and a Kanban board.

So, if you are a team or enterprise, you must go for the Small Office or the Business plan to benefit from all of Paymo’s time tracking features.

Use Paymo if:

• Your development team needs a project planning tool with time tracking features
• You are primarily interested in tracking time for creating invoices and project estimates
• You want to create custom reports to share with your customers
  

3. Harvest – Best time tracking app for billing contractors

Harvest began as the brainchild of two New York City designers, Danny Wen, and Shawn Liu, looking to create a well-designed, innovative application to simplify time tracking and invoicing for businesses. 

Today, Harvest boasts features like:

• Automated reminders
• Expense tracking and invoicing
• 50+ native integrations

Harvest is designed for freelancers or small businesses that need a reliable time tracking platform their contractors can easily integrate into their workflow.  

Harvest features

Harvest has a simple user interface with a basic timer function. You can enter your times manually or track your time using the in-built timer. 

You can mark tasks as billable and non-billable with custom rates for each. This is useful for agencies and contractors who provide clients with detailed timesheets covering the time spent on each task.

It also offers a Reports feature with basic filters to analyze your time spent and expenses. The time report was pretty detailed, but we found the earnings data a little lackluster because you can’t measure your profitability. You’ll need to download the report and run the numbers yourself.

Harvest pricing

Harvest’s pricing plan is straightforward. You get access to all its features in both plans, but the platform limits the number of projects and users:

• The Free plan offers one seat for two projects
• Pro plan at $11/seat/mo for unlimited projects (when paying annually)

Something worth noting is that Harvest’s claim that the Pro plan offers unlimited users is misleading because you are still charged per user.

Use Harvest if:

• You are looking for an affordable time tracking software
• You work primarily with a team of remote contractors who follow a predefined workflow
• You are looking to simplify your billing and invoicing process

4. MyHours – Best budget-friendly time tracking app

MyHours was founded in 2002 with a very clear mission: to promote remote working environments that encourage autonomous, unsupervised work.

MyHours most prominent features include:

• Simple time tracker
• Team pivot reports
• Zapier integrations

MyHours is ideal for freelancers or remote workplaces looking for a budget-friendly time tracking solution that doesn’t encroach on employee autonomy.

MyHours features

MyHours is another time tracking tool that believes in simplicity. However, we found the MyHours interface a little clunky. You need to update your project (1), task (2), and expense (3) information every time you start the timer. 

It also offers useful report templates to analyze your expenses by clients, projects, and tasks. But what makes this tool ideal for freelancers and agencies with a tighter budget is its Invoicing feature, which lets you create invoices with the click of a button. You can integrate your MyHours account with QuickBooks for more advanced billing and invoicing features. 

MyHours pricing

MyHours pricing model is simple, with just two plans. 

• The Free plan lets you track time and billable hours for unlimited team members and projects. 
• The Pro plan gives you access to priority support, invoicing, and time audit approvals for a very affordable $8/mo/user. 

Use MyHours if:

• You are an agency looking for surveillance-free software perfect for freelancers
• You are looking for an affordable time tracking solution
• You prefer a minimalistic user interface offering only necessary time tracking features

Best time tracking apps for specific needs

Most time tracking tools offer your basic time tracker, time reports, and automated reminders. However, some in the market look to solve a very specific pain point for the user. 

Their specialized approach didn’t earn them a place in our main list of apps, but we think it’s worth giving these platforms a quick shout-out. And hey, maybe that unique feature is exactly why you should choose them. 

So, let’s quickly run through these one-of-a-kind time tracking platforms!

5. RescueTime – Best time tracking app for focused work

RescueTime makes its way into our special mentions thanks to its Focus Session feature — it helps eliminate any distractions while you’re working. RescueTime lets you choose your focus level before the start of a work session.

This feature ensures you don’t miss any critical notifications. Once turned on, RescueTime displays a Block Page when you visit any blocked app or website with the option to visit the site if you want.

It also offers insights into your focused work time, along with exercises and checklists to improve your productivity. You can reduce distractions from your mobile phone as well using the RescueTime mobile app. However, this feature is only available with the paid plan. 

RescueTime is more suitable for individuals looking to improve their personal productivity. It doesn’t offer any team-based time tracking features or analytics, which is why it didn’t make it to our main list. 

RescueTime pricing 

RescueTime offers pricing for solo users and teams:

• RescueTime Solo costs $6.50/month per user if you pay annually or $12/month per user when paying monthly
• RescueTime Team costs $6/month per user if you pay annually or $9/month per user when paying monthly

Note that to qualify for the Team plan, you must have at least two team members joining your plan.

6. TICK – Best time tracking app for project-based tracking

TICK has a simple user interface with all the essentials to ensure your projects stay on budget. Just list your tasks and assign a budget for each task to get started with your project-based tracking. 

You can also import tasks from your project management software, such as Asana, Trello, and Basecamp. However, TICK only offers basic analytics features, choosing to focus more on budgeting, which is why it didn’t make it onto our main list of time tracking apps. 

TICK is ideal for development teams that work on a project-to-project basis; not because of its features, but because of its pricing model, which we will explore below.

TICK pricing

TICK follows a unique project-based pricing model, starting with a free plan that supports one project. For more projects, TICK charges:

• $19/mo for 10 projects 
• $49/mo for 30 projects 
• $79/mo for 60 projects 
• $149/mo for unlimited projects

7. Rippling – Best for automating time tracking app workflows

Rippling is a workforce management software that simplifies HR, IT, and Finance functions. We included it on this list because its time tracking tool offers a unique feature — automated time management workflows. 

Rippling’s completely customizable system lets you create custom time tracking workflows. 

You can automate everyday tasks like requests for overtime, breaks, and unapproved hours. Streamlining these tasks allows managers and supervisors to quickly resolve employee issues, leaving them free to focus on more critical decision-making. It’s perfect for large enterprises and multi-national companies looking to simplify their HR, IT, and Finance department workflows.

However, time tracking is just a small aspect of Rippling’s vast offering, so we didn’t include Rippling in the main list. 

Rippling pricing

For pricing details, you have to contact the sales team to receive a custom quote based on your requirements. 

8. ClickUp – Best integrated time tracking app

ClickUp is a popular employee productivity platform with an army of project & team management tools, including a time tracking tool with timesheets, reporting, and invoicing features. 

But what makes ClickUp unique is that it lets you integrate other time tracking apps like Harvest, Toggl, Timely, etc. You can also create your own custom time tracking app with the ClickUp API that meets all your custom needs. 

ClickUp is suitable for businesses looking for an “everything tool” that offers more than just time tracking. However, time tracking isn’t a native offering with ClickUp. It requires additional installation and onboarding steps, so it didn’t make it on the best time tracking apps list.

ClickUp pricing

Apart from the free version, ClickUp offers three paid plans (with all prices being for annual plans):

• Unlimited plan at $7/mo/user
• Business plan at $12/mo/user
• Enterprise plan with custom pricing

9. Timely – Best AI-powered time tracking app

Timely earned its place on the list thanks to its AI-powered time tracker that automatically tracks your activity across every web and desktop application. 

It uses previous time entries to understand your work patterns and accurately measure your time in meetings, emails, and video calls. You can always audit the AI logs to ensure you enter the correct data and remove unnecessary time entries using the drag-and-drop editor. 

Timely is great if you’re looking to simplify time tracking using AI assistance. However, we couldn’t find any information if that’s the only way Timely uses your time tracking data. Considering Toggl’s focus on data privacy and security, we decided not to add Timely to the main list.

Timely pricing

Timely offers a 14-day free trial, after which you can choose from one of three paid plans (again, all annual pricing, although monthly plans are available):

• Starter plan costs $9/mo/user 
• Premium plan costs $16/mo/user
• Unlimited plan costs $22/mo/user

Time tracking apps with employee surveillance features

At Toggl, we cultivate and nurture a trust-based culture where employees feel empowered when using time tracking tools. We stand against employee surveillance and micromanagement — which is reflected in our culture and our software. 

However, some platforms in the market don’t share our vision. This isn’t a diss on these tools. Some companies might find the surveillance features useful. And these tools have a lot to offer other than their surveillance features. 

However, we believe in measuring output rather than input, which is why these tools haven’t made it onto our main list.

Final verdict

Time tracking is a straightforward concept, but how we approach it varies from business to business. Identifying the right tools that can seamlessly fit into your workflow without disrupting your employee’s work is essential. 

In this list, we highlight the best time trackers that cater to different business needs so you can choose the right one for you. Here’s our verdict based on our testing:

• Toggl Track is ideal for large teams and enterprises with trust-oriented cultures looking for advanced analytics features to optimize employee productivity while respecting privacy.
• Paymo is designed for agencies and teams that integrate time tracking with project management to develop accurate project estimates.
• Harvest is perfect for small- to medium-sized businesses looking for easy-to-use software to track contractor or freelancer time without disrupting their workflow. 

Nobody knows what the future holds, but planning makes navigating uncertainty much easier. This is especially true in business, where emerging technologies often leave companies stranded, and market shifts make it hard to parse ideal staffing levels.

Without a crystal ball to tell us how the labor market might shift or how to prioritize talent needs, the next best thing businesses have at their disposal is strategic workforce planning, which anticipates trends and positions organizations to handle change.

While we don’t have a crystal ball or any fairy dust to help you magically implement workforce planning, we do have this guide, which introduces the ins and outs of the process and offers a step-by-step breakdown of strategic workforce planning (otherwise known as SWP).

TL;DR — Key Takeaways

• Strategic workforce planning analyzes the supply and demand of critical skills, ensuring companies have the talent they need now and in the future.
• Strategic workforce planning avoids future skills gaps, enables seamless transitions to new ways of working, decreases hiring costs (and the cost of repeated hires), and aligns HR activity with strategic business goals.
• The workforce planning process starts by identifying strategic goals. HR teams assess skills gaps and future scenarios. They develop a hiring plan and regularly evaluate the plan to ensure continuity over the long term.
• Apply best practices and common principles to simplify the most common SWP challenges. Leverage planning tools and create a systematic process to assess skills, plan needs, and fill gaps.
• Toggl Hire helps with every aspect of strategic workforce planning. Discover streamlined skills testing for employees and potential hires, gather data for training and career development, and set your organization up to thrive.

What is workforce planning?

Workforce planning analyzes the supply and demand of talent, enabling organizations to source the skills they need to meet critical goals. Analysts typically assess current skill levels and forecast future needs. They use that analysis to create long-term strategies to avoid skill gaps and ensure operational success.

Springboard research proves the importance of this approach — some 70% of HR professionals report their organization has an existing skills gap, and LinkedIn also highlights skills agility as a top priority for L&D leaders.

Example of workforce planning in action: An online retailer wants to start marketing products via Snapchat and TikTok but has no experience with these platforms. It needs videographers and analysts to guide content production. Strategic planners source these skills on a phased basis, allowing the retailer to test channels and find methods that work for them.

Companies that implement smart planning methods know their internal skill levels and provide employees with routes to boost their skills. They have systems in place to find suitable recruits and reduce the risk of being blindsided by the pace of change.

7 benefits of workforce planning

Implementing enterprise-wide workplace planning strategies is a massive undertaking. So, to justify the heavy lifting, let’s get clear about the benefits. That way, you can set metrics for success and sell the project to departmental managers and executives.

1. Prepare for the future

Companies that anticipate the future are well-placed to shape it. Strategic workforce planning allows forward-thinking companies to stay ahead of the curve while competitors struggle, and it does so in a few ways.

First up, the workforce planning process forecasts future labor needs. For instance, a fashion label might want to use AI market analysis to make flexible deliveries to global markets. Workforce planning lets the label recruit coders and engineers to meet that need and smoothly transition from older marketing systems.

But it’s not just about how many employees you’ll need to handle future workloads, but rather their skills that’ll help the organization succeed.

Finally, workforce planning boosts flexibility when dealing with sudden labor demand or supply changes. We only need to remember “the Great Resignation,” which peaked when an unprecedented 4.5 million people quit their jobs in one month. In tight labor markets like that, workforce plans help, as they include contingency plans to replace workers or upskill staff to keep them on board.

2. Decrease hiring costs

The average new hire costs companies between $4,000 and $16,000. That number increases drastically if your hiring process fails (resulting in high employee turnover rates or a bad hire), and you must re-advertise positions or use more costly methods like external agencies.

Fortunately, workforce planning processes reduce hiring costs in several ways:

Targeted recruitment efforts

Well-planned recruitment campaigns attract candidates with the skills needed to meet strategic goals. Companies that plan are less likely to hire reactively. Human resources teams can carefully fill positions and avoid costly mistakes.

Leverage internal talent

According to PWC, only 40% of companies use upskilling in their recruitment strategies. Gallup reports that 57% of US workers want to upskill, while 65% see upskilling opportunities as a major draw when seeking a new employer. With strategic workforce planning, you can easily identify employees with the chops to take on new roles.

Reduce employee turnover

Three-quarters of millennials and Gen Z employees would quit a job that doesn’t provide the opportunity to learn new skills. With the right plan, you can create promotion routes that meet internal demand for career opportunities and encourage high-value employees to stick around instead of looking elsewhere.

3. Improve HR efficiency

A strategic workforce plan improves HR efficiency, allowing professionals to create streamlined processes that meet core goals. There are four key ways that planning contributes to efficiency:

• Analytical processes allow HR teams to create an ideal candidate profile for each role. They can assess the outstanding performers in each department and seek recruits with similar strengths.
• Workforce aligns recruitment with business aims. HR teams can integrate core competencies into job ads or internal recruitment searches, ensuring every hire meets the company’s talent needs.
• Strategic planning identifies redundancies within the business organization. Roles and responsibilities may overlap, resulting in duplicated workloads. Operational workforce planning eliminates these overlaps and boosts efficiency.
• Workforce planning enables efficient resource allocation. HR teams can assign the ideal personnel to projects, and companies can scale up teams without compromising staffing elsewhere in the organization.

4. Align HR with business goals

Workforce planning aligns HR with accounting, marketing, IT, and product development departments. As a result, companies can leverage data-driven insights to reshape the workforce as business goals shift.

The implications are huge, especially considering the sheer number of companies making massive digital transformations or moving from office-based to hybrid working models.

Amazon suggests 72% of companies struggle to source the digital skills they need. In that context, making digital transitions and staying in tune with business goals is only possible with strategic thinking.

5. Improve resource allocation

Every extra hire adds to the wage and benefits bottom lines, while bad hires damage productivity and add hidden costs that impact company turnover. Workforce planning tools identify areas of overstaffing or underutilization.

Example: United Airlines famously offered its pilots unpaid leave to combat an overstaffing problem due to Boeing aircraft delivery delays.

Underutilization of resources can also occur when companies don’t capitalize on employee capabilities. A smart company implementing workforce planning would better understand employee skills and either recommend training or reshape roles to suit those skills.

6. Increase employee retention rates

Replacing employees is expensive. Estimates vary, but hiring new staff usually costs between half and two times the salary of an existing employee. Given those numbers, maximizing retention rates should be a core business goal.

Workforce planning can achieve that goal by identifying growth opportunities for existing staff. This is great for your business, sure, but ultimately, it’s about the employees — individuals who feel valued are more likely to stay, and workforces that feel valued tend to work more productively.

HR teams can use workforce planning to create personal development plans for every employee. Entry-level workers should see a route to becoming business leaders. If they see a dead end, they will soon look elsewhere.

7. Facilitate succession planning

Succession planning ensures companies can smoothly replace high-value employees. Too often, business leaders fail to prepare their successors properly. Talent planning supplies a solution, allowing HR teams to assess internal skills and train high-potential employees to take on more responsibility.

Succession planning also protects institutional knowledge. Training, experience, and mentoring prepare employees for senior roles. This way, critical knowledge passes from person to person without difficult and disruptive interim periods.

5 key elements of workforce planning

Effective workforce planning requires a systematic approach to identify objectives, analyze existing skill levels, and implement ongoing recruitment plans. The exact mix and order of steps varies, but we like the five-step process outlined by the US Office for Personnel Management (OPM).

1. Identify strategic objectives

At the start of the process, companies need a clear action plan related to their strategic aims.

HR teams should link every aspect of recruitment and upskilling to your organization’s strategic plan. What is your long-term business strategy? What metrics do HR professionals need to track to understand recruitment or training needs?

At this stage, it makes sense to consult managers and stakeholders across all departments. For example, digital marketers may supply metrics about conversion rates or lead generation. Customer service teams may advise about tracking customer satisfaction or return rates.

Every department has something to contribute to strategic workforce planning. Use the knowledge you gather to understand strategic objectives. These objectives should guide your workforce plan when it comes into force.

2. Conduct a workforce supply and demand analysis

Workforce supply and demand analysis assesses the wider business environment, analyzing which skills are in demand and hard to source. The analysis should tell you:

• The skills you possess within your organization
• The type and quantity of skilled workers you’ll need in the future
• Different workforce demand scenarios based on market changes, business growth, and emerging technologies

Tracking workforce supply and demand helps you plan for long-term labor costs and goals. Sound planning gives firms a competitive advantage when critical skills markets start to tighten (which they are sure to do.)

For example, the BLS reports that the US workforce is aging. The number of workers aged 65 and above has risen by 117% in the past 20 years. At the same time, the size of the workforce is flatlining. Armed with that data, planners should expect finding graduate employees will become harder than upskilling older workers.

3. Perform a skills gap analysis

The next stage in the workforce planning process is analyzing skills gaps which appear when current workforce skills don’t meet an organization’s future workforce needs. When carrying out talent gap analysis, personnel experts should:

• Assess current workforce skills. If necessary, carry out skills assessments to determine the competence of each individual.
• Forecast future workforce requirements based on industry trends. Build long-term career plans based on upskilling to adapt to those trends and proactively handle shortages.
• Create a profile for each worker (often called a skills map) listing their skills and identifying potential areas of improvement.
• Agree on personal development plans with employees, ensuring all training fits the core business strategy.
• Identify roles you can only fill externally. Create skills-based recruitment processes that select candidates with skills to take the company forward.
• Prioritize urgent skill requirements. Meet immediate staffing needs to create a solid foundation and schedule a transition phase before the long-term strategic plan goes into action.

4. Develop and implement a workforce plan

After analyzing gaps in skills, finalize a workforce plan. This plan covers the recruitment needs of the entire organization. It defines specific skills-related objectives and identifies targets for the following:

• Ideal recruitment levels. Run headcount scenarios based on different revenue forecasts or external conditions.
• Training employees. Train current employees based on future skill requirements through projections of skill gaps.
• Developing personnel. Employees should have pathways to improve their skills, take on new responsibilities, and be a part of building the organization.

As Virgin CEO Richard Branson says, “Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough, so they don’t want to.” That’s the kind of balance we’re looking for.

5. Monitor, evaluate & revise

From the start, planners should set evaluation criteria to determine whether the strategy works as designed. Tracking employee turnover and job satisfaction demonstrates your talent acquisition strategy is working properly. Ideally, you should see turnover and attrition rates drop and job satisfaction rise.

Other tracking metrics include time and cost-to-hire. Well-planned recruitment efforts should drive both metrics as low as possible. HR teams can also factor in business metrics like revenue per employee or productivity statistics as needed.

The bottom line? Workforce planning should be dynamic and agile, not static. Adapting to the ever-changing economic environment is all-important, especially in the wild, wild world we live in today.

What about the Bs, Cs, and Rs of workforce planning?

The process above sums up a typical workplace planning strategy, but not everyone is process-oriented (and that’s okay!). Without tangling you up in lists, we find the 7 “Rs”, “6 Bs”, and “4 Cs” models help conceptually minded people navigate the business planning process.

The 7 Rs of workforce planning

• Right people: Recruit for skills, experience, values, and culture fit.
• Right skills: Implement skills-based hiring to focus on the exact skills each new hire possesses and how their skills translate into job success.
• Right shape: Optimize organizational structure for communication and decision-making.
• Right size: Use workforce demand forecasting to estimate company growth and scale staffing accordingly, based on factors like seasonality or unpredictable factors like labor supply, disruptive tech, or economic recessions.
• Right time: Align hiring and workforce changes with demand trends and use contingency plans to address specific issues.
• Right place: Use remote-first working models to access global talent and boost your business strategy.
• Right cost: Maximize ROI through efficient hiring, fair wages, and impactful training.

The 6 Bs of workforce planning

The 6 Bs of talent management also guide human capital strategies. Here’s how they work:

• Buy: Bring in or “buy” external talent for skills gaps to meet your business goals.
• Build: Develop existing employees with training and upskilling to raise competencies in line with strategic business needs.
• Borrow: Use freelancers or contractors to address workforce gaps and cover critical roles.
• Bind: Create a retention roadmap, including fair compensation, recognition, and career development opportunities to connect employees to your company culture and mission.
• Bounce: Manage attrition and employee exits smoothly with structured offboarding.
• Boost: Give employees a career “boost” with clear promotion pathways, mentoring, and training to help them step up when needed.

The 4 Cs of workforce planning

Finally, before you check out under the weight of so many lists, we need to run through the 4 Cs of contingent workforce management:

• Cost reduction: Keep recruitment costs low without compromising organizational strategy.
• Continuity: Ensure a steady skills pipeline for fluctuating demands. For example, you may need to scale up your number of employees for short-term events.
• Control: Collect performance and skills data and ensure you have competent employees in every position.
• Compliance: Adhere to labor laws and guarantee employee rights. Non-compliance hurts strategic workforce planning by deterring talented candidates and damaging morale.

Where does succession planning come into play?

Succession planning and strategic workforce planning are closely related but not quite the same.

The main difference is focus. Workforce planning operates at the enterprise level. Planners assess organizational goals and big-picture economic trends. They estimate future workforce needs and consider every role within the organization.

Succession planning targets critical roles, making sure these roles never go unfilled as workers come and go. Succession planning maintains a robust leadership layer within companies and departments — even during transitional periods or economic turbulence.

In the workforce planning arena, it’s important to identify leadership gaps (and the right skills for future leaders). We need to integrate succession into broader skills strategies while dedicating extra time to making or breaking roles.

The consequences of not planning successions eventually tell. Even a few weeks of rudderless leadership leads to project disruptions or compromises compliance processes.

How to build a business case for workforce planning

There’s one more critical angle we haven’t considered: selling strategic workforce planning as an organizational priority.

Human resources experts need to make a strong business case for their strategic roadmap. After all, assessing and managing skills can be disruptive. Some people may need to leave their roles, reskill, or adapt, all of which cost money, so pushback is inevitable.

Here’s how we would make the business case for SWP.

Connect workforce planning to business goals

Stakeholders will only bite when they understand how a workforce planning strategy supplements and strengthens their overall business objectives. This should be the overarching theme of your pitch. Fundamentally, companies can only succeed by putting skills at the heart of their strategy.

Target high-impact metrics

• Stress the cost savings from systematic recruitment instead of ad hoc, reactive hiring.
• Show how skills and financial performance are tightly connected. Convince stakeholders that skills planning is not an optional extra in a world where technology and business needs change by the week.
• Touch on risk mitigation metrics. Planning can mitigate risks related to market shifts or tech integration, positioning your company to handle change.

Leverage data to demonstrate ROI

Return on investment is critical in every business challenge, so it’s important to analyze the costs of implementing strategic workforce planning. Be transparent about your methods, and present these to your stakeholders.

Now, use data-backed insights to show why workforce planning is a good business investment. You might use case studies like the following to present a convincing argument.

• How talent gaps can overwhelm successful companies: Use data to show how quickly companies can lose ground to competitors by failing to upskill and hire dynamic talent. For instance, product ranges offered by eCommerce companies may become outdated compared with agile rivals using AI market analysis tools.
• How poor skills planning leads to workforce turnover: Show how companies that fail to upskill employees eventually experience rising turnover and lower morale. For example, an IT maintenance company may lose talented workers, leading to low-quality customer service and falling sales.
• How companies can miss opportunities by not prioritizing skills: Explain how the pace of technological change presents huge opportunities, but the window to realize these opportunities is narrow. Continuous upskilling positions companies to take these chances while others fail.

These scenarios show the power of linking data with compelling stories. Above all, you need to weave narratives that convince corporate leaders to ditch older methods and embrace strategic planning.

Why you likely need workforce planning tools

Strategic workforce planning feels like a giant task if you start from scratch. But you don’t really need to. HR teams can use workplace planning tools to simplify processes, cover every angle, and save time and money.

Sounds good? Here are four indispensable tools to use in your workforce planning efforts.

Strategic workforce planning map

Strategic workforce planning maps connect workforce management to other strategic business objectives.

Planning maps prompt you to identify organizational needs, such as expanding markets, retaining customers, or building brand awareness. They visualize how workforce planning can contribute to these strategic aims.

The core idea behind strategic workforce planning is aligning HR with organizational goals. Strategic maps detail how roles, skills, and competencies contribute to business aims and include visualizations of current and future workforce needs.

For example, a travel services company may shift its strategic direction from human to AI-powered customer service and re-allocate employees to managing clients or developing destinations. In this case, the strategic map would model ways to add AI skills and retrain the existing workforce.

🧰 Recommended tools: WorkDay offers comprehensive workforce planning software that should get you on the right path.

9-box grid

The 9-box grid assesses employee performance and future potential as part of a future-proof talent strategy. One axis plots low, medium, or high employee potential, and the other plots current performance on a similar scale.

The grid visualizes how to get the most out of every worker in your current or future workforce. Use it during employee evaluations and when allocating the annual training budget.

For instance, a company expects to transition from mainly written to video content production in the next few years. The 9-box grid identifies employees with communication abilities or those with the potential to retrain in videography or metadata management.

The grid also provides a heads-up about timeframes. Existing skills may allow a rapid TikTok rollout or the firm may need longer lead times to develop its strategy.

🧰 Recommended tools: WorkDove offers a 9-box grid tool with easy drag-and-drop manipulation, automation, and integration with talent reviews.

HR dashboards

HR dashboards are software tools that organize and present important HR data. Dashboards let you centralize different recruiting metrics, identify future talent development initiatives, and track large workforces.

The best part: Centralized dashboards deliver up-to-date information about recruitment costs, training levels, and employee engagement. Use the data displayed to make informed decisions without time-intensive, in-depth investigations.

🧰 Recommend tools: Full-cycle recruiting tools tend to feature intuitive HR dashboards. Toggl Hire is great for smart data presentation and organization options.

Scenario planning

Scenario planning is a great way to manage workforce supply. This collaborative technique explores how potential scenarios could affect an organization’s overall business strategy.

Think of it as a gamified, predictive model of metrics like employee performance and composition change. Use it to identify which skills will be needed as the future unfolds.

For instance, scenarios might consider how the workforce planning process can deal with a recession. Or they could workshop the impact of AI on employee skills.

🧰 Recommended tools: WorkDay, Anaplan, and Toggl Hire can model future scenarios, but this tactic is about people working together. Get creative with cross-department teams and in-person workshops. The best way to anticipate future needs is to collaborate and consider everyone’s perspective.

Close skills gaps with Toggl Hire

Workforce planning identifies and closes skill gaps to meet core business objectives. Companies that know their current abilities and assess future staffing needs can ride technological and economic waves without being submerged under the dark waters of change.

But here’s the thing. To assess skills properly, you’ll need the right tools — like Toggl Hire. Our skills test library makes it super simple to discover the abilities of current employees and identify outstanding external talent.

Forget about constantly battling workforce gaps. Be strategic and focus on skills. The only thing you have to lose is stress. The gains? Limitless.

Browse our skills test library now to see what skills-based hiring is all about, or watch this video to learn more about Toggl Hire! If you like what you see, sign up for Toggl Hire to start planning for the future, today.

While recruiting techniques vary from company to company, recruitment best practices are almost universal, acting as high-level guidelines for great recruiters to follow.

From a well-planned and documented candidate screening process to a strong employer brand and a data-backed approach to candidate shortlisting, here’s what smart recruiters are doing in 2025. 

12 best recruitment practices to implement in 2025

Improve your entire recruitment process by trying out these best practices:

1. Align with the hiring manager 

2. Conduct talent gap analysis 

3. Determine key recruiting metrics 

4. Work on employer branding 

5. Market to active and passive job seekers 

6. Set up a talent pool 

7. Screen for the right attributes 

8. Improve candidate experience 

9. Venture into social media recruiting 

10. Automate some workflows with Gen AI 

11. Build an internal mobility program

12. Identify opportunities for upskilling 

1. Always align with the hiring manager

Talent shortages were a pervasive trend in 2023, and experts predicted 2024 will look similar. The number of new job openings and resignations remained low as employees were more reluctant to leave their current roles, meaning there were (generally) fewer great candidates on the market. 

This looks like it will continue throughout 2025. Hiring managers often make matters even worse by looking for a “purple squirrel” — the mythical candidate who ticks all the skills and cultural fit boxes and is ready to settle for below-average compensation.

Clearly, none of those candidates are on the market (sometimes leading us to postulate to some hiring managers, “Is the purple squirrel in the room with us right now?”).

To properly manage expectations and still attract several great candidates, do the essential grunt work: 

• Conduct a job task analysis to hone in on key tasks for each role and the respective competencies of an ideal hire. 

• Keep a looser list of minimal job requirements and list more items as preferred to attract a wider candidate pool. 

• Communicate what the job entails on a daily or quarterly basis, rather than only listing examples of candidate requirements and preferred qualifications (i.e., let candidates know what their life at your company might actually look like). 

• Create skills tests to quickly evaluate each candidate’s job-specific skills to eliminate the bulk of the under-qualified candidates — and not let the right candidates slip through the cracks.

Present the final results to the decision-makers and tweak the job opening assets (job listings, ads, etc.) based on their feedback. 

By doing the prep work in advance, you reduce the odds of “missing the mark” on the role requirements and presenting candidates who are amazing in general but are ultimately a mismatch for your company culture. 

2. Use talent gap analyses to inform your recruiting process 

AI adoption, sustainability-related transformation, labor productivity increases — every company has ambitious goals for 2025. While they might all be necessary to stay ahead of the curve, many of these growth initiatives also require a new caliber of talent. 

To figure out which skillsets and capabilities you should prioritize for hiring in 2025, conduct a talent gap analysis. 

Start with a general workforce assessment to get a snapshot of the employees’ talents, skill levels, and capabilities. A good assessment should include a mix of quantifiable methods like skills assessments, job simulation tests, and competency models. 

You can use these talent gap assessments to help you build better candidate profiles. Let’s say you’re hiring a sales development representative for a team with strong prospecting practices and negotiation skills but somewhat lacking sales analytics capabilities.

The top candidate for this position would be someone with stronger analytical skills and, for example, good knowledge of data analytics software like Power BI rather than just strong interpersonal skills.

3. Figure out your priority recruitment metrics

To arrive at the right destination (hiring top candidates), you need to know where you’re heading. Recruiting metrics act as beacons on the journey that is the entire recruitment process, directing your recruitment efforts toward the right targets.

Important recruiting metrics to track as you build out a recruitment strategy include KPIs like:

• Percentage of open positions

• Average number of applicants 

• Sourcing channel cost and efficiency

• Qualified candidate rate per channel 

• Cost per hire and time to hire 

• Candidate net promoter score

Most modern recruiting software helps you track an array of KPIs for talent acquisition, but keeping all metrics in the green is almost impossible.

For example, the tradeoff of having a lot of interested candidates may be a higher cost per hire (due to more money spent on job ads and candidate interviewing). So, smart recruiters align the KPIs with the top hiring goals.

A company struggling to find people with the right skills may focus on increasing the number of “qualified candidates rate per channel” or “quality of hire.” Businesses focused on improving their employee engagement levels, on the other hand, may be more concerned with KPIs like “first-year attrition” or “candidate net promoter score.”

4. Polish up your employer brand

Employer branding, which refers to the type of perception prospective applicants have about your company, is a pillar of a successful recruiting strategy. After all, it’s not just you who’s looking for “red flags.

Over 60% of job seekers globally name “good reputation” as the key assessment criteria for a job,  alongside high job security, decent compensation, pleasant work atmosphere, and healthy work-life balance. 

A strong employer brand is a collection of materials and daily actions you take to continuously attract a high caliber of potential candidates — people who are skilled and fit well into your company culture. 

Not so fond of your current employer brand? Kick-off 2025 with a brand audit — a data-backed assessment of your employee experience from start to finish. 

Send an anonymous employee survey to learn how they perceive your company’s mission, values, and culture. To get more insights, ask whether the company is living up to its initial value proposition. You can also survey past applicants about their candidate experience to better understand the gaps in your recruitment process.   

When done right, an employer brand audit helps:

• Determine the best candidate touchpoints and channels

• Evaluate brand understanding and perception 

• Identify drivers and subtractors of employee satisfaction 

Use the findings to inform employer branding activities in 2025. 

• Review and update career pages. Include extra information about your recruitment process —decision timelines, assessment criteria, interview process guide, and any other helpful information for potential employees. Verify that all communication is aligned with your brand and culture. 

• Improve current job postings. Use feedback from the survey to better articulate the benefits of working at your company. Make the language more inclusive to attract a broader range of qualified candidates. 

• Create new team materials. Share more faces and personalities behind your company. Ask hiring managers to create short video intros promoting different elements of your employer value proposition. Ask current employees to talk about their roles, describe company culture, and explain what successful candidates can expect.

• Manage company reviews. Ask current employees to share reviews on popular websites company review websites like Glassdoor. Analyze and respond to negative professionally and with high emotional intelligence. 

5. Be visible to active and passive candidates

A lot of companies have a reactive recruitment process. They go full throttle with job ads and direct head-hunting efforts several times a year whenever they need to close critical talent gaps, only to go quiet until they decide to ramp up another “hiring spree” once again. 

Such an approach is unsustainable as it keeps your talent pipeline empty most of the time. This, in turn, drives employee acquisition costs and increases time to fill in open roles. Moreover, you’re probably losing top talent to more proactive competitors. 

On average, 74% of people working in IT, digital, sales, hospitality, transport, and logistics are approached with job opportunities multiple times per year — with 34% getting new job offers monthly! 

Apart from lower competition, the other benefits of hiring passive candidates include a better culture fit, greater focus on skills, and more honesty in the interview process. A good recruitment strategy in 2025 combines a mix of techniques designed to engage both active and passive job seekers. 

Active recruiting strategies	Passive recruiting strategies
Job posting on general and niche job boards	Regular employer branding activities on social media
Employee referral programs	Employee advocacy programs
Participation in job fairs and campus recruiting events	Networking at conferences and industry events
Personalized online outreach on social media	Professional meetup sponsorship & co-hosting
Recruitment partnerships with professional networks and organizations	Networking in alumni networks & online communities

Active recruitment practices focus on attracting more applicants to your job posts — primarily those, well, looking for a new job. A passive recruitment strategy helps your company reach a larger talent market of people who may be open to an offer from a company that resonates with them.

By combining the two methods, you can spend less time promoting new job ads and get a bigger pool of qualified candidates. Speaking of which… 

6. Plan ahead with a talent pool

Whenever it’s time to hire, recruiters no longer head to job boards — they tap into their talent pool first, which is a database of candidates who’ve previously expressed interest in your company and possess the sought-after skills and competencies.

It’s your “black book” of potential hires that usually consists of unsuccessful candidates, unsolicited applications, passive candidates, and prospective leads from social media, networking events, or job fairs. 

A well-designed talent pool segments suitable candidates by job function, skill sets, experience level, location, and levels of interest. For convenience, you can also add custom labels to:

• Denote the applicant’s status in the recruitment process. Use data from the applicant tracking system to describe how far the candidate went and why you’ve decided against hiring them. For example: “scored below a threshold on a skills assessment” or “stopped interviewing due to a competing offer.”

• Describe affiliation with your company. Mention how the candidate got on your radar and why they may want to join your organization. For example, “former employees open to returning to the company” or “vetted freelancers and subcontractors who have expressed interest in full-time work.”

These quick notes can help you continue nurturing the relationship and personalize the communication whenever you want to reach out with a ​​prospective work opportunity. 

7. Screen for the right attributes

While resumes are still a staple of recruitment best practices, things are changing (what isn’t?). Today, companies have more precise tools for screening and evaluating candidates: hard skills tests, soft skills and personality assessments, homework assignments, job simulation days, and more. 

A resume only provides a one-dimensional presentation of a potential candidate. It’s a very condensed version of their career progression, educational credentials, and skill sets. But resumes don’t tell much about the candidate’s personality—their communication skills, analytical abilities, or approaches to problem-solving. 

Two people with almost identical resumes can have vastly different approaches to giving feedback, collaborating with others, or leading teams — and a resume alone won’t tell you those details. 

Highly embellished resumes can also set off a chain of unfortunate blunders: 

• Well-written resumes get candidates into a screening interview

• A recruiter who’s not a subject matter expert struggles to screen technical skills

• Candidates make it into a round of interviews with the hiring manager

• The best interviewer gets hired but ends up performing poorly on the job 

The solution? Level up your recruitment game by screening for core capabilities early in the hiring process with skills assessments. 

Instead of reading through endless resumes, add a skill test as an application step to weed out unsuitable candidates. Here’s what the recruiting process can look like with a tool like Toggl Hire:

• Select a pre-built skills assessment template for any role, including development, IT, marketing, sales, product, or any other.

• Customize the test to match exact job requirements by pulling out pre-made questions about specific technical skills or soft attributes. 

• Include a link to the skill assessment in your job postings, and get data-based feedback on candidates’ competencies. 

8. Make candidate experience a priority

Hundreds of candidates are likely to apply for your open roles, especially if you’re offering remote work. While a good chunk of them may not be a good fit, you want to make sure that everyone still has an A+ experience. 

Companies that treat candidates with respect and dignity improve the quality of hires by 70% on average. A great candidate experience also helps:

• Strengthen your employer brand 

• Populate your talent pool 

• Increase the number of employee referrals

That said, optimizing every touchpoint in your hiring process is no small task. Start with the lowest-hanging fruit — common complaints from unsuccessful applicants. 

Common candidate experience problems 

• No updates on the application status

• Delayed or generic feedback after interview rounds

• Impersonal, automatic communication from the hiring managers 

• Unrealistic or misleading job descriptions 

• Low transparency about the next steps in the hiring process

• Extended hiring timelines 

• Disorganized interview logistics

• Insensitive rejection process or ghosting 

All of the above grievances have a common theme: poor, impersonal communication on the company’s behalf.

Having a large volume of candidates isn’t an excuse to keep them waiting to hear back from you. And yet, if 1,000 candidates apply for an open role and 980 are a bad fit, you can’t send that many rejection letters in such a short time frame.

You can resort to using an applicant tracking system (ATS), but these platforms have faults. There have been numerous debates about recruitment tools rejecting applications based on keywords or degree requirements. Candidates are not loving it, to say the least.

A better approach to elevating candidate experience in 2025 can be introducing a skills-based hiring process. Instead of scrolling through endless resumes and scheduling multiple interview rounds, you can automatically pre-qualify candidates via skills assessments. 

Require as little as possible at the very beginning of the hiring process. For our open roles at Toggl, we (typically) only require candidates to take a skills test to apply. This way, we can get more candidates into our funnel without taxing them with too many requirements.

We have a candidate information form at the end of the test to collect key information and support the LinkedIn authentication method. If candidates sign in via Linkedin, we have the most important contact data in one go. 

Flipping the application process on its head could help you automate candidate feedback. Interested candidates will apply via a skills test and get an instant response, and if they pass the required minimum score threshold, they move forward.

If you want to have the best of both worlds, you can always ask candidates to upload their resumes when submitting the test, too. Regardless of how you do it, it works.

With Toggl Hire skills tests, Sked Social reduced the candidate screening time by 80% and the overall time-to-hire by 50%. Automated pre-screening reduced hiring team burnout and improved the candidate experience. Sked Social was delighted to see a higher caliber of applicants and greater diversity in their hiring efforts. 

9. Experiment with social media recruiting 

LinkedIn has long been the network for hiring professionals. But it’s not the only “social” place for attracting potential employees. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), and YouTube have also become the go-to hangouts for talent acquisition and nurturing. 

Social recruiting helps reach a broader pool of active and passive candidates, save on job ad costs, and reduce time-to-hire. Try using social media to: 

• Promote your recent job posts 

• Refer quality candidates to open roles 

• Share insights about your recruiting practices 

• Give job application advice 

• Curate employee stories and corporate behind-the-scenes 

To get the best results from social recruiting in 2025, combine it with skills-based hiring. Instead of sharing lengthy job application posts, direct potential candidates to a test assessment. 

By combining personalized outreach with a quick and easy application process, you can increase candidate conversion rates and attract more people to your talent funnel. 

Take it from social media agency Riotly Social, whose average job listing attracted only 20-30 candidates despite spending $300-400 on promotion. So they decided to try something new when hiring for a backend engineering role—use skills tests instead of resumes and cover letters. 

By promoting a new skills-based job ad on Facebook (where advertising is cheaper), Riotly Social managed to attract 10X more candidates and instantly identify 37 as “prospective employees”. 

10. Streamline repetitive tasks with generative AI 

Generative AI was one of the hottest recruiting trends in 2024. Although only 5% of HR teams incorporated gen AI in their hiring processes as of mid-2023, many more ran pilots in 2024, and that looks to increase well into 2025 with tooks like DeepSeek hitting the market.

So how can gen AI help savvy recruiters stay ahead in today’s hiring landscape? In several ways:

• Job description generation. Guided by your job task analysis and some prompts on tone of voice, ChatGPT can generate new job posts at a faster rate. 

• Remove biased language. Pop your copy into the app and ask it to flag or edit non-inclusive phrases to make your ads appeal to the broadest cross-section of talent. 

• Email templates. Ask ChatGPT to create a set of standard email templates for targeting candidates or giving feedback at different interview stages. Although slightly generic, such templates prevent the “blank page” syndrome. 

• Summarize survey response. You can task generative AI apps to find common themes in free-text survey responses or analyze feedback from unsuccessful candidates to get more insights about your candidates’ experiences.

Gen AI may not be ready to communicate directly with candidates (and we’re honestly okay with that — we believe in the power of human connection), but it can handle many ancillary tasks piling up on your to-do list. 

11. Build an internal mobility program 

Most organizations already run successful employee referral programs. Take this a notch further by building an internal mobility program as another channel for talent acquisition and management. 

An internal mobility program helps you track the right candidates for promotion, job rotations, or opportunities to split time between roles. It also helps prevent talent attrition.

According to the 2023 Pulse of Talent survey, 88% of flight-risk employees would consider staying with the company if offered internal career opportunities.

To launch an internal mobility program in 2025, use data from your talent gap analysis to identify required capabilities and roles. 

Create a new set of job descriptions to market internally. Streamline the application process by using skills assessments to identify talent with the highest potential (and avoid anchoring your decisions to current titles). 

12. Create new opportunities for upskilling 

The mismatch between the skills supply and demand will remain strong in this decade. According to the World Economic Forum, 40% of core skills will change in the next five years, and 50% of all employees will need to retrain.

The global workforce is divided into two: those with valuable skills who are well set to keep learning, and those without. We found that often, those without the skills are less financially secure and less able to access training in the skills of the future.

PwC

Workers who struggle or can’t pay their bills are 12 percentage points less likely to seek out opportunities for new skills development compared to those who can. As an employer, you can change this negative dynamic and prop your people for better career success. 

To nurture the best talent, we recommend implementing these recruitment practices: 

• Evaluate test scores from unsuccessful job seekers to better understand the overall talent competency levels on the market. This data can help you understand whether it’s best to hire externally or spend extra on preparing internal job candidates for more senior roles. 

• Use data from candidate scorecards to create personalized onboarding paths for new hires. This way, you can avoid administering redundant training and focus more on their weaker skill sets. 

• Conduct internal skill assessments to identify skills gaps among your workforce. Use the insights to determine training needs and inform the future upskilling/re-skilling programs. 

By determining upskilling needs early in the hiring process, you can increase new employees’ time to productivity. Ongoing investment in workforce training also helps with talent management and leads to higher employee retention.

Over 90% of CEOs who launch upskilling programs report higher employee productivity, improvements in talent acquisition and retention, and a more resilient workforce. 

Final thoughts on recruitment best practices in 2025

The talent market remains slow, but it doesn’t mean your hiring process should lag behind, too. Take this year to test-drive new recruitment strategies and measure these against your tried best practices. 

Reverting back to “how things have been done before” is always easy. But the positive changes you may get from trying new things may prompt you to ditch your playbooks. 

Want to see measurable change in 2025? Try Toggl Hire for skills-based recruiting. Our platform has helped companies reduce hiring times by 86%, save up to 22 hours of work per job description, and attract over 800 candidates in one day. 

The best part? We’re a full-cycle hiring platform, so when you sign up for your account, you get access to more than just skills tests.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could charge clients for every hour we work? Sure, but that’s not the reality.

Only some of our work hours are directly billable, and the rest of the time, we’re knuckling down to crucial non-billable work. That’s the stuff that keeps the business running but isn’t easy to assign to a particular client or project. 

But trying to distinguish between billable vs. non-billable hours isn’t always easy. This guide will set the record straight and provide actionable insights for better work time tracking and management.

What is the difference between billable and non-billable hours?

Billable hours are the time you spend working on a client’s project. Non-billable hours refer to any extra time spent on administrative tasks, such as training or overhead projects, that you can’t link to a specific client.

As lead consultant Cory White puts it, “One thing you realize very quickly as a consultant versus an employee of a company is that you do not get paid for every hour you work.”

Here’s a quick overview of the main differences between billable and non-billable hours, with a focus on billing rate, business impact, and priority.

	Billable hours	Non-billable hours
Description	Total hours worked directly on client tasks and projects.	Total hours worked on non-project tasks.
Purpose	Complete client projects and generate income	Support business operations
Billing rate	Invoiced directly to the customer. Usually based on an hourly rate or fixed fee.	Not billed directly to customers. Typically absorbed by the company.
Business impact	Directly contributes to revenue and profit	Supports smooth business operations and improves an agency’s capability to deliver projects
Priority	Often top priority as they directly affect the bottom line and are time-sensitive.	Secondary to billable hours but still necessary for long-term success.

Billable hours

Billable hours are the hours your team spends delivering client-specific project tasks. The most basic reason to track them is to bill clients and get paid. But there’s a little more to it than that.

When you track billable hours in detail, clients can see exactly how you’re spending their money, and you’ll also learn whether you’re charging them enough for the size and scope of their projects.

Examples of billable hours

Here are some examples of billable tasks:

• Project planning, management, and other related tasks
• Actual client work involved in creating the project deliverables — for example, research, designing, writing, coding, editing, etc. 
• Creating spreadsheets or other project-related documents
• Client meetings, consultations, phone calls, and other communications
• Project deployment, client-related training, etc.

Non-billable hours

Non-billable hours are hours spent on administrative tasks that keep the mechanics of your business ticking over. They’re not directly chargeable to any specific client, but they’re nonetheless essential to your internal operations.

Examples of non-billable tasks

Here are some examples of non-billable tasks:

• Internal team meetings and training sessions
• General administrative tasks include bookkeeping, filling out timesheets, and email communication
• Business and employee development.
• Sales pitches or marketing activities not tied to any specific client
• Any employee time spent on bids or proposals that weren’t accepted

Challenges in tracking billable and non-billable hours

Try to remember what you did at work last Thursday. When did you start? When did you call it a day? How many breaks did you take? How many minutes did you spend answering client emails, working on a new project, or chatting with a colleague about their new puppy?

Unless you’re keeping track of your billable and non-billable hours properly, you won’t have a cat in hell’s chance of accurately remembering what went down. So, that’s why you need a clear plan, with solutions to the following problems baked in.

1. Lack of organizational standardization

Different employees or departments may interpret billable vs. non-billable hours differently, leading to inconsistencies in your invoicing.

💡 Solution: Set up comprehensive documented guidelines related to timekeeping, including:

• Clear and concise definitions of billable and non-billable hours, with typical examples
• Instructions on how team members should classify each type of activity, with guidelines on how to account for specific hours
• Contract or client specifics, such as whether project status updates are a billable or non-billable action

2. Resistance to change

Not everyone embraces new time-tracking tools and strategies. This reluctance is often visible in long-time employees who’ve gotten used to creating manual timesheets and may not want to invest in learning a new method.

💡 Solution: Strong communication is your friend here:

• Talk to your people about the benefits of time tracking, both on a personal level and for the company’s profit margins
• Promote a work environment where employees feel encouraged to report their hours honestly
• Lead by example to persuade your team to follow suit

3. Complexity of time tracking systems

With an intuitive time-tracking system, tracking billable and non-billable hours can be a breeze. Or it can be a total headache if you’re using something more cumbersome. No one wants errors, delays, or frustration creeping into their workflow.

💡 Solution: Opt for a streamlined and automated system like Toggl Track that prioritizes convenience with straightforward navigation. Basically, it’s a cinch for users to log in their hours and activities quickly. Additionally:

• Automated reminders ensure timely entries
• Customizable project and task categorization enhance accuracy
• Visual dashboards and real-time reporting provide quick insights
• Integration with project management tools minimizes manual data entries

4. Data security concerns

When working with client data, you’ll need watertight processes to track the time you spend on their confidential work.

💡 Solution: Use a secure time tracker like Toggl Track, which:

• Creates full data backups every 24 hours
• Stores data in separate physical locations
• Hosts sensitive data on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), which adheres to Cloud Security, Cloud Privacy, and Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards, among other things

5. Concerns about cost

Small companies and start-ups, in particular, must keep a close eye on their bottom lines, so the time tracking system you use should help you save money rather than add unwanted costs to your business.

💡 Solution: Toggl Track has a free plan just for this situation, which:

• Includes basic time-tracking features and allows up to five users to track their billable and non-billable hours.
• Suits start-ups with small teams, freelancers, or solo users
• Enables you to upgrade to a paid subscription at any time to unlock more powerful features and add more users (our premium plans are great at spotting inefficiencies in your work, which will save you money in the long run)

6. Client disputes

Client disputes can become a severe problem if things are not clear from the start. A lack of transparency or proof supporting billed hours can result in time-consuming client disputes and reputational damage. No one wants to go viral on LinkedIn over dodgy invoicing, do they?

💡 Solution: Avoid losing a client (and any future projects) by:

• Setting clear expectations with new clients before starting any project
• Telling them about your billing rates and how you track billable hours
• Being as transparent as possible about what tasks are billable and what aren’t 

7. Client communication problems

Communication and transparency are critical to a healthy business relationship. Clients want to understand the details of the total billable hours you’re charging them for.

💡 Solution: Use time-tracking software like Toggl Track to generate summarized or detailed time reports you can share with your clients. Both types of reports are great for keeping clients in the loop. They let them know exactly what they’re paying you for and in what amounts. 

The Detailed time report goes deeper into the data and shows each data entry. You can filter the Detailed report by User/Team, Client, Project, Task, Tag, Billable flag, or Description.

Both types of reports are great for keeping your client in the loop. They let them know exactly what they’re paying you for and in what amounts. 

Why is it important to track both billable and non-billable hours?

It doesn’t take much to convince most people to track their billable hours — clients are unlikely to pay them if they don’t keep an accurate account of their work. But more people are on the fence about logging their non-billable activities.

Here’s why we believe both are critical.

1. Improving financial and resource management

Accurately distinguishing between billable and non-billable hours allows businesses to benefit from efficiencies across the entire company beyond any employee’s input into client work. Instead of viewing non-billable hours as lost productivity, firms should see them as an opportunity for growth.

Fraser Moore, managing partner of Quadrivium, explains: “There’s so much value that your consulting team can contribute to the development and growth of your own business if their non-billable time is planned and managed effectively.

Being smart about how you leverage non-billable time helps deepen the relationship between employee and employer by allowing them to play a crucial and meaningful role in developing the essence of the firm.”

2. Enhancing career development

Tracking non-billable hours can also impact individual career progression. Many professional services workers focus intensely on billable work but overlook the important non-billable contributions they make to their organizations. By tracking everything they do, professionals can showcase the breadth of their contributions, making a stronger case for promotions and leadership roles.

David Ernst, a succession planning professional for lawyers and law firms, shares his experience:

“When I was an associate, I was way too focused on billable hours and sloppy about recording non-billable time. As a result, when I came up for partner and was asked about what I was doing to advance my career besides billing time, I had lousy data and a less-than-inspiring answer. Even if the culture of your firm is to not track or look much at non-billable time, I strongly recommend that you record your time in this area.”

3. Ensuring greater profitability

It’s all about the money, honey. And the balance between billable and non-billable hours is crucial for any service-based business. Whether you’re in consulting, marketing, IT services, law, or accounting, profitability depends on effectively tracking and managing your time.

Without visibility into their hours, firms risk underestimating their operational costs: If too much time is spent on non-billable activities and they don’t quote enough for client projects, profit margins shrink.

But striking the right balance between billable and non-billable isn’t easy, as Wendy Merrill, CEO of Strategy Horse, explains: “The billable vs. non-billable tug of war is a permanent fixture in the life of a private practice lawyer. Achieving the right balance is the key to law firm profitability.”

This struggle applies to any organization where revenue is directly tied to time worked. Tracking employee hours allows companies to differentiate essential non-billable work (like professional development or firm-building initiatives) from time-wasting activities.

Common mistakes when tracking billable and non-billable hours

Mistakes are the enemy of billable hours. But unfortunately, it’s all too common for errors to slip in when businesses track their work time. We’ve listed them here so you don’t trip up!

1. Tracking time manually

Doing anything manually is a bad idea because humans are flawed creatures, and we make mistakes. Lots of them, in fact. Team members might round up or down, and some will forget to log their billable hours at all.

💡 Solution: Use a time-tracking tool to track your team’s billable and non-billable hours accurately. 

Toggl Track has features like:

• One-click timers to get your people tracking time immediately — no onboarding required
• Automated time tracking for more accurate time entries
• Summary and Detailed reports to view, filter, and sort your data. You can also create dynamic reports so clients can track your work in real-time
• Assign billable rates by employee, team, or project and see what’s generating revenue
• Project estimates to determine how your actual work compares to your assessments. 
• Access to historical billable rates for better forecasting.

In real life, the reporting dashboard below quickly highlights each project or client’s total billable and non-billable hours.

In the example, nine out of the total nineteen hours are billable. Only two tasks are non-billable: a handoff and some emails regarding content strategy. It’s all there in black and white (and some purple and blue) so you don’t have to worry about inaccuracies.

2. Forgetting to track in real-time

Waiting until the end of the workday or week to log hours is a surefire way to end up with serious inaccuracies. Real-time tracking is the way to go if you want to keep an accurate record of all activities as they happen. 

💡 Solution: Use a time tracker that lets you track time anytime and anywhere. 

Toggl Track, for example, enables your team to track their time from the web app. You can also track your work while browsing (the browser extension is shown below), using the desktop and mobile apps, or through third-party integrations. 

Toggl Track also lets you track time even when you’re offline, which is great if you need to track work during a power outage.

Toggl Track integrates with over 100 popular tools like Asana, GitHub, Slack, Google Docs, and Freshdesk. If you’re logged into any of these apps (and countless others), it’s easy to track time using any of these tools while working on your projects without having to flit between screens.

3. Overlooking short tasks

Two minutes here, five minutes there — they all add up over time. Yet many people make the mistake of overlooking short tasks and brushing them off.

💡 Solution: Use an accurate time tracker that accounts for every moment of your employee’s work time, so no second of your work day goes unexplained.

4. Skipping manual activities

Not all of your good work happens at your desk. In fact, many crucial client activities happen face-to-face in meetings or on calls, both during and after working hours. But it’s still as vital to track this work as anything else if you want to bill correctly. (And we all want that!)

💡 Solution: Leverage a time-tracking system with mobile capabilities. 

It lets you monitor your activities while on the go or offline. A flexible time tracker like Toggl Track also allows you to add manual time entries later. Whether you don’t have your time tracker or simply forgot, you can still add the work time into the system. 

In addition, Toggl Track connects with popular calendar applications and shows meetings and other events on the Timeline view. This feature makes it easy to add time entries related to specific events.

5. Forgetting about your breaks

Depending on your client agreement, breaks are usually non-billable. So, you’ll need a tracker that knows when to switch between lunch and work.

💡 Solution: Use a time tracker with built-in idle detection.

Say an employee takes a few breaks during a task but fails to pause the time tracker. With Toggl Track MacOS and Windows apps, team members receive a notification for any time they’ve been inactive or away for a predetermined number of minutes. 

When it appears, team members have four options to choose from:

• Discard idle time: You stop the running timer and discard the idle time
• Discard idle and continue: You start a new time entry matching the previous one (it also ignores the idle time)
• Add idle time as a new time entry: You stop the running timer and add the idle time as a new entry
• Keep idle time: You ignore the idle time and add it to the current time entry

6. Neglecting staff training

Do your staff know how to track their work time? Do they really, and are they all doing it in the same way? Whatever your strategy, tool, or preferred workflow, it’s important that everyone’s on the same page.

After all, if team members don’t know the importance of time management or how to track their work time properly, they can experience consistent errors. 

💡 Solution: Conduct regular training sessions on efficient time management and using time trackers effectively. Make sure that both your employees and managers attend these training sessions. 

Strategies to optimize non-billable utilization

There are six tried and tested strategies to strike the right balance between billable and non-billable hours.

1. Setting non-billable hour limits

Non-billable work is important, yes. But you’ll probably want to set a maximum limit on your non-billable hours. That way, you’re granting employees “permission” to invest in admin work but still maintaining a focus on bringing in the cash. A limit keeps everyone conscious of how they’re spending their time.

Say, for instance, a software-developing company decides to set limits on non-billable hours. They review their essential non-billable hours and determine a reasonable limit like: 

• Daily: 1 hour
• Weekly: 5 hours
• Monthly: 20 hours

The software developer determines these limits based on the type of work and the total number of billable hours they’re expected to do every day. The company then communicates these limits to all relevant stakeholders. 

It also explains the reason for these limits and how team members should track their non-billable hours. With a time tracking system, staff members can easily classify their work time as billable or non-billable. 

At the end of each month, the company analyzes the data and identifies those who exceed those limits. They might meet to determine what happened and devise ways to reduce that non-billable time. 

2. Batching non-billable tasks

A second strategy is to group similar non-billable tasks so you can whizz through them in one hit.

For example, a marketing design agency has a list of essential non-billable activities it needs to complete each week. These activities include employee training, internal meetings, and other administrative work. 

Here’s an example of how the agency clumps these jobs together:

• Monday: All administrative tasks like emails, responding to clients, updating projects, etc. 
• Tuesday: All internal and external meetings with team members, clients, vendors, partners, etc. 
• Wednesday: All training activities like webinars, compliance training, time management training, etc. 

By batching similar tasks, your team doesn’t have to switch context often. This is a great productivity hack that keeps everyone focused on similar tasks so they can finish more quickly.

3. Adjusting your pricing

Baking non-billable time into your billable hours is another savvy move. It might sound like cheating, but it’s not.

Example: A video production company has a project that needs to be completed in 200 hours, but they also know there are additional tasks like script revisions, internal meetings, and so on. 

The company adds up these non-billable hours and adjusts their hourly rate accordingly. So, instead of charging $100 per hour for all 200 hours, the agency may charge $120 per hour for 180 billable hours.

This way, non-billable hours are no longer a financial burden since the price includes these hours as well.

4. Prioritizing essential non-billable activities

You should also identify and prioritize essential non-billable tasks, such as business development or internal process optimization. 

If you’re a digital agency, optimize your non-billables by first identifying all non-billable activities your agency completes (i.e. admin work, training, networking, business development, marketing, etc.). Evaluate each one and determine its impact on your business. 

Consider these factors: 

• Does it support the agency’s goals, mission, and vision?
• Is it essential for day-to-day operations?
• Does it maintain or build the agency’s reputation?
• Does it improve efficiency and profitability?

The more these boxes it checks, the more critical the non-billable activity is, so you should tackle these first. Keep in mind that the importance of non-billable activities can change with time. It’s worth regularly reviewing the list of activities and making the necessary changes. 

5. Outsourcing as required

Another helpful strategy is to outsource non-billable activities, particularly low-priority administrative tasks. This frees up your employees to focus more on billable activities. 

For example, a software development company might outsource administrative tasks like invoicing, bookkeeping, or payroll to an accounting firm. 

6. Automating administrative tasks

Technology can streamline and automate many time-consuming tasks — the really boring stuff, like scheduling, invoicing, or data entry. Important? Definitely, but not the best use of your time.

To automate your daily non-billable time, work through the following steps: 

• Start by identifying what non-billable tasks you can automate. Think emails, reports, data entry, appointment scheduling, reminders, notifications, etc. 
• Find the right digital tools to match these activities. 
• Evaluate different options and choose those that best suit your business needs. Consider factors like must-have and nice-to-have features, ease of use, customer service, scalability, and cost. 
• Implement those solutions. Keep in mind that you may need to develop new workflows.
  You may also have to integrate these new tools with your existing systems, and your employees may need some onboarding to use them effectively. 
• Monitor these newly automated tasks and make sure they’re working as expected.  It’s unlikely you’ll find the best workflow on your first try. You also may need to make adjustments as your needs change over time. 

Track time and improve profits with the right tool

Mastering the balance between billable and non-billable hours is about working smarter and ensuring every hour contributes to your company’s success.

The key takeaway? Time is your most valuable asset, but only if you know how to track and manage it correctly.

By implementing effective time-tracking strategies, setting clear standards, and using automation tools like Toggl Track, you can eliminate inefficiencies, make data-driven decisions, and improve overall profitability.

Sign up for a free Toggl Track account and learn how to automate your billable and non-billable time tracking to precision.

The Pomodoro technique is a productivity method created by Francesco Cirillo in the ‘80s. Back in college, Cirillo used a tomato-shaped kitchen timer to gain the focus he needed to complete his assignments. He worked until the timer ran out, then took a short break before repeating the cycle.

And that’s the basis of the Pomodoro method (Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato, in case you’re wondering!). It’s simple, focused, and produces excellent results. You’ll be amazed what you can achieve when the pressure is on.

No worries if you don’t have a tomato timer on hand. These days, we’ve gone digital. Numerous Pomodoro work timers can help you break your work hours into focus time and boost your productivity.

To select the best Pomodoro apps for your needs, we’ve tested each tool’s features and compared their pricing and user reviews.

Here’s a quick summary:

• Toggl Track: Best for tracking work hours with the Pomodoro method
• Pomodor: Best basic free Pomodoro timer
• Marinara Timer: Best shareable Pomodoro timer
• Forest: Best gamified focus tracker
• Session: Best Pomodoro timer for Apple devices
• Pomello: Best for Trello integration
• Pomofocus: Best basic focus timer with customization and task list
• Focus Mode by Geekbot: Best for Slack integration
• Minimalist: Best for tracking to-do list tasks
• Focus Keeper: Best for focus reminders

1. Toggl Track

Toggl Track is a time tracking app with an integrated Pomodoro timer baked in. It’s super easy to access through either the Toggl Track browser extension (available on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge), the desktop app, or the Android and iOS mobile apps. 

Head to the settings, and you can set Toggl Track to automatically start a Pomodoro timer when you begin a time entry. You can also tweak the interval if 25 minutes is too long or short.

When you reach the end of your Pomodoro session, Toggl Track will send a notification (with or without sound) to remind you to down your tools. You can also choose whether or not to stop your active timer at the end of the interval.

You can download the Toggl Track browser extension via the integrations page.

Toggl Track features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

Once you’ve activated the Pomodoro feature, you can:

• Track individual Pomodoro cycles automatically for every logged time entry
• Enable “Focus Mode” to show how long you have left of your cycle
• Customize the length of your Pomodoro cycles to fit your needs and tasks
• Log the Pomodoro cycles you’ve worked on your timesheet

Toggl Track pricing

There are four pricing plans for Toggl Track, tailored to teams of different sizes:

• Free: Ideal for freelancers or small teams of up to five users.  It includes unlimited time tracking, shareable reports, and 100+ app integrations.
• Starter: From $9/user/month, the Starter plan provides small teams with additional features like time estimates, billable rates, and unlimited data storage.
• Premium: From $18 per user per month, this plan is best suited for growing teams who need more features like timesheet approvals and team management tools.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing for unlimited users is available on request. This plan is ideal for large teams and comes with priority support, training, and volume discounts for the annual subscription. 

The Pomodoro timer is available on all plans. All plans come with a free, 30-day trial of Toggl Track Premium.

Is Toggl Track right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Logs Pomodoro cycles on a timesheet • Create detailed reports of time entries and export them to PDF, CSV, or XLSX • Integrates with Zapier and 100+ other tools to boost productivity even further	Have to restart time entry after the break manually

Toggl Track’s Pomodoro timer is ideal for an intuitive, user-friendly time tracker that links to timesheets. It’s a great time management solution for businesses and teams of all sizes, who can access time entries for all team members through centralized reports.

Here’s what one user had to say about Toggl Track’s Pomodoro capabilities: “Toggl is great for tracking how long your projects are taking and [it] allow[s] for easy task switching. The Pomodoro timer is helpful when you want to keep an eye on task switching[.] I use it to remind me to check email.”

2. Pomodor

Pomodor is a basic, no-frills Pomodoro timer that has no other features. Users can customize the length of their Pomodoro focus time, break time, and the number of cycles to put in before the long break. Its also easy to skip or restart intervals using the buttons under the timer.

Pomodor is simple to access. Just sign in with Google to customize the settings and set up the tomato timer however you like. It’s available as a desktop and web app.

Pomodor features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Customizable Pomodoro focus times, breaks, and cycles to fit your productivity needs
• Web app and desktop app to track Pomodoro cycles at your desk and on-the-go
• Keep track of Pomodoro cycles with the countdown timer in the tab title when using the web app
• Dark and light mode to reduce eye strain

Pomodor pricing

Pomodor is free. The app’s creator, Sasha Drmic, has included a link to her Buy Me A Coffee page under the productivity timer for those who wish to support it.

Is Pomodor right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Free to use • Simple Pomodoro tracking • Skippable intervals • Customizable cycles	• No advanced features • No dashboard or reports* • No team tracking

*The creator’s Buy Me A Coffee page states you can access a stats overview and charts showing the most productive days of the week, but I couldn’t find them!

Pomodor is perfect if you want a basic, free Pomodoro timer. One grateful user thanks Pomodor’s creator by saying, “You deserve a gallon of coffee. This app helps me to improve focus in performing different daily tasks and activities, which for me is a challenge due to anxiety disorder and lack of motivation.”

Users who get distracted by their phones could benefit from using Pomodor. However, if you’re looking for advanced features, time reports, or team tracking — Pomodor isn’t for you.

3. Marinara Timer

Marinara Timer is a handy timer tool that allows you to “choose your flavor” (we’re so here for the culinary references). The options are three different timer modes:

• Pomodoro for the classic 25/5 intervals
• Custom timer for setting your own intervals and cycles
• Kitchen timer for standard timeboxing

The app also has two sharing link options. One is a viewing link for anyone who needs to see your cycles in real-time, and the other is for admins who need control over the intervals.

While there’s no centralized reporting for teams, project managers can store these links in an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of their team’s productivity and worked time. Viewing upcoming intervals in your current Pomodoro and a Timer History report is also a cool bonus.

Marinara Timer features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Three options for timers (Pomodoro, Custom, and Kitchen timer), so you can choose what works for you
• Completely customizable focus times, breaks, and cycles
• Shareable viewing and admin links

Marinara Timer pricing

All Marinara Timer features are available on a free plan — no sign-up required.

Is Marinara Timer right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Customizable timers • Different timer options • Timers are shareable • Timer History reports	• Notification doesn’t work if the screen is off, so you could miss the end of your break • No centralized reporting for teams • Must access the custom timer through the same link each time; otherwise, you need to re-input your intervals

Marinara Timer is best for individuals and small teams looking for a free way to track work and free time but who don’t love the standard 25/5 Pomodoro cycle. This timer allows each team member to customize it to fit into their ideal workflow and whatever task they are working on.

Although the app has basic reports, a manager can’t check them without going into each employee’s time tracker individually. Here’s how one user has experienced Marinara Timer:

“I have used a few Chrome extensions — so far my favorite is Marinara: Pomodoro Assistant because the timers (focus time and break times) are customizable which is a must for me. I also like the white noise and that the sound alerts are customizable. The only thing it’s missing is I wish that it was automated. As in, when my 5min break is up I wish it started focus mode automatically, and when my focus mode is done I wish it started the break automatically. Because I have to enable it manually I’ll forget to do it or just tell myself “I’ll start it again after I do this” and it never happens.”

4. Forest

Forest is a mobile app that blocks distractions by gamifying focus time and holding users accountable for procrastinating. It’s great if you log into your desktop and then check your phone, open your work email and then check your phone, update your project management software, and scroll through social media.

Hey, we’re not judging.

Forest isn’t a classic Pomodoro timer. But it does let you block out a focus window (between 10 and 180 minutes) and then choose whether to take a break once it’s up. Unlike other timers, you’ll need to trigger the break manually after a focus session.

Starting the timer also plants a tree in your forest. Once the timer is started, the tree grows. But if you give up and stop the timer — your tree will wither.

Users love this feature. Check out this review from Forest user Kanmani Jayaprakash:  “I love the little plants, and it really helps motivate me to get off my phone and study so that cute little plant grows. It’s so satisfying to see a full garden.”

Forest  also partners with Trees for the Future, which plants trees in real life when users spend virtual coins earned to stay focused. This feature is only available on the paid version, but it’s a nice little incentive. To date, Forest users have planted 1.7 million trees, which is just awesome. 👏

A major downside of Forest is almost all the features are unavailable on the free version, and the free version only includes a limited focus window of 30 minutes.

Forest features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Gamification holds you accountable for staying focused
• Deep Focus mode encourages users back to focus if other apps are opened
• Option to count exceeded time when you go beyond the timer
• Personality tests find your focus type and ideal study buddy

Forest pricing

Forest has two pricing options:

• The free version has basic focus tracking features
• The paid version is $3.99, but there are further in-app purchases for seasonal and special packs, in-app coins, and some trees

Is Forest right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Gamification • Block out up to two hours of focus time • Deep Focus Mode blocks apps and websites to minimize distractions	• The majority of features unavailable on the free plan • It’s confusing to set up • Breaks need to be taken manually • The app can be distracting

Forest is best for individuals who need help blocking out distractions during focus time, prefer timeboxing over Pomodoro, and are happy to pay for a timer tool.

This video reviewer is also a big fan of how Forest blends productivity with an eco-conscious angle. He says, “The fact that if you navigate away from the app, it actually kills a tree is an incentive enough for many people — you can actually track how many trees you are growing in your analytics.”

5. Session

Session is a Pomodoro timer designed for Apple devices with advanced features like syncing, calendar integration, detailed analytics, and app and website blocking.

It supports automation via Shortcuts and AppleScript, so users can trigger events at the beginning or end of each timer. You can also integrate it with Slack to set a custom status during focus time.

Session also promotes mindfulness. Before each new timer session, you will be asked to do a few rounds of mindful breathing. It also provides reflection prompts so users can journal about their daily productivity.

One video reviewer describes:

“You can start a timer on absolutely any type of task you’re doing. You can keep track of them in the premium feature which allows you to add notes. It also asks you what type of mood or progress you’re making with a certain type of timer you set, so these sessions can be looked back on, reflected on, and you can overview the best time of day that works for you.”

However, Session is feature-rich and can be distracting to set up. 

Session features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Syncs timers between iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, and other Apple products to keep users on track
• Calendar integration to import events like meetings
• Supports automation through Shortcuts and AppleScript
• Promotes mindfulness through breath work and journal prompts

Session pricing

Session has three pricing plans:

• Free: A limited free plan with minimal features. 
• Pro Monthly plan: Gives access to advanced features like website and app blocking, Slack muting, and analytics beyond the past two days for $4.99 per month
• Pro Yearly plan:  The same features as above for $39.99 per year

There is also a seven-day free trial of Pro for new users.

Is Session right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Syncs timers between Apple products • Promotes mindfulness • Automation • Many additional features like integrations, analytics, and website blocking	• Only available on macOS, iOS, and Setapp • Lots of features can be distracting • Most features only available on the paid version

Session is a great tool for Apple users looking for a highly advanced, feature-rich Pomodoro timer app.  However, if you want a simpler timer, Session may not be the best fit. 

6. Pomello

Pomello links with Trello using an API to turn Trello cards into Pomodoro timers. The app displays the task’s name and the remaining time in your cycle to help you stay focused. Pomello also has a distraction-free design with a timer overlay to easily check each cycle at a glance.

When a Pomodoro focus interval is finished, the app asks how you’d like to continue. You can move the Trello card to a different list, mark it complete, continue the task after the break, or switch to a new one. This feature is useful for minimizing distractions from other tasks on your to-do list until you’re done.

However, setting up Pomello can be frustrating. It involves lots of back-and-forth between the app, API, and Trello itself, so it is probably not the best choice for non-tech-savvy individuals.

Pomello features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Create Pomodoro cycles linked to Trello tasks
• If you get distracted during a cycle, just log an internal (from yourself) or external (from someone/something else) distraction
• Complete Trello tasks from the timer overlay
• Keyboard shortcuts to quickly change or complete tasks, log distractions, skip breaks, open the task in your browser, and more

Pomello pricing

Pomello has two plans:

• Basic: Unlimited boards and lists, productivity tracking, and time tracking is free
• Premium:  Add checklist items as tasks, custom timer sounds, and productivity data exports for $20/year

Is Pomello right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Keyboard shortcuts • Minimalistic design • Customizable intervals and cycles • Productivity report • Track project and task Pomodoro cycles	• Setup is quite technical • Only works with Trello

Pomello is ideal for Trello users looking for a simple UX and customizable Pomodoro timer to link to specific tasks. Tech reviewer Xavier Wharton explains the value of this app in his workflows:

“If I open Trello in the background, I have a description of what I wanted to get accomplished and you can see all the different tomatoes. My split is a 50/10 so I do 50 minutes of work and a ten minute break so each of these Pomodoros represents 50 minutes and at the end of it you can see a log of how much time you spent working on a particular task or card.”

7. Pomofocus

Pomofocus provides a basic, customizable timer paired with a task list and focus reports. The Summary report shows how much time a user spent on a task or project. The free version allows you to view this data by week or month, while a premium account allows you to view it by year.

The Detailed report shows users how much time they spent on different tasks on each date and lets users manually add time to tasks. Pomofocus also has a Ranking leaderboard to show users with the highest recorded focus time for the week.

Like some other timers on this list, the length of your Pomodoro intervals and cycles are customizable, and you can set a notification on your desktop or linked mobile for break reminders if you leave your desk.

Pomofocus features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Add estimations to your task list to see how many Pomodoro cycles each task will take
• Connect to mobile device for alarms and reminders on both devices
• Add templates for repetitive tasks

Pomofocus pricing

Pomofocus has two plans:

• Free:  Basic time tracking and weekly and monthly reports for free, no sign-up required
• Premium: Access to premium features like unlimited projects and yearly reports for $3/month or $18/year; lifetime access is also available for $54

Is Pomofocus right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Reminders and alarms on desktop and mobile • Task list • Detailed and Summary reports	• Cycle is restarted if webpage reloads • Desktop app only available on macOS • Yearly reports and integrations only available on the paid version • Not suited for teams

Pomofocus is ideal if you need a Pomodoro timer to track project and task focus time and are happy using a web app. One user describes it as “Amazing, easy to use, simple, and cool! Always in my stack and helping me with my productivity.”

8. Focus Mode by Geekbot

Focus Mode by Geekbot integrates with Slack to block distractions and boost productivity. Slack users receive scores of messages each day, which can be a major distraction. Focus Mode aims to curb these distractions by minimizing noise on Slack. 

When a user enters Focus Mode, the tool sets a status to provide teammates with context about what they’re working on so that no distracting messages are sent.

Users can start a focus window by opening the app dialogue window and entering a brief description of the task they’re working on. You can also add the length of focus time and a break so your team will know how long you’ll be uncontactable. Once you click Submit, the Pomodoro cycle begins.

Focus Mode by Geekbot features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Share context about tasks with your team without the need for direct messages
• Integrates with Slack to prevent distractions during focus time

Focus Mode by Geekbot pricing

Focus Mode by Geekbot operates on a free forever model.

Is Focus Mode by Geekbot right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Cultivates asynchronous work • Helps users build and prioritize focus windows • Minimizes Slack distractions	• Only works with Slack • No reports • Individual use only

For Slack users who are distracted by messages (even during their focus time), Focus Mode by Geekbot is a great option for minimizing noise from pings and notifications. 

9. MinimaList

MinimaList tracks to-do list tasks using a timer (a Pomodoro, countdown, or stopwatch) to help maintain focus. The tool has an intuitive interface that lets you add tasks by swiping instead of tapping by default. Its minimalistic  design helps prevent distractions and keep your focus on just your task list.

I also loved the feature to add notes and subtasks to each task. One MinimaList user said on the App Store, “The app is clean and simple with few distractions. I especially like the timer with the built-in Pomodoro timer.”

The app offers a standard Pomodoro cycle, a customizable countdown timer, and a stopwatch. Initially, figuring out how to change the timer settings can be a bit confusing.  

MinimaList features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Use the Pomodoro timer for individual tasks on a to-do list
• Focus reminder pop-up tells you to get back into focus
• Home screen widget for tracking to-dos and a timer

MinimaList pricing

MinimaList has two plans:

• Free: With basic features
• Premium: Gives users access to more features, including syncing across devices, TouchID and FaceID functionality, location-based reminders, and more for $0.99/month or $5.99/year

Is MinimaList right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Minimalist design prevents distractions • Use Pomodoro timer on specific tasks • Focus reminders	• Timer settings are a little difficult to understand at first • Only available to Apple users • Not designed for teams

If you need a tool to increase focus around a task list, MinimaList could be a good option.  However, it’s not the best option for teams.

10. Focus Keeper

Focus Keeper is a basic yet customizable Pomodoro timer that includes daily, weekly, or monthly focus reports and focus reminders (on the mobile app).

For users who want to track their focus cycles, Focus Keeper keeps a note of the number of completed Pomodoro cycles each day. It also switches between breaks and focus time automatically, which is great for users who may forget to restart the timer after a break.

It’s best suited for individuals as it doesn’t offer centralized reporting for multiple users.

Tea Benson, a long-time user of Focus Keeper, said on the Play Store: “I’ve been using this app for years and it always helped me keep focus. I used it through most of my high school years and now I still use it in college because I saw my focus and grades improve a lot with this.”

Focus Keeper features for tracking time with the Pomodoro technique

• Focus reminders on the mobile app to help kickstart Pomodoro cycles
• Tracks how many focus cycles and rounds you do each day
• Automatic time interval switching so you don’t need to start focus time or breaks manually

Focus Keeper pricing

Focus Keeper has two plans:

• Free: Use all of Focus Keeper’s features on the web and mobile app for free
• Ad-free: Remove ads for $3.99 per month

Is Focus Keeper right for you?

Pros	Cons
• Focus reminders • Daily, weekly, and monthly reports for individual users • TImer customization	• The Android app kept crashing • Web app only has basic features

Focus Keeper is ideal for users looking for a basic Pomodoro web app or who want to track focus time on a mobile device.

The best work timer apps for Pomodoro compared

Product	Best for	Unique feature	Priced from
Toggl Track	Tracking worked hours with the Pomodoro method	Creates a timesheet from Pomodoro time entries	Free
Pomodor	Basic timer needs	No-frills interface	Free
Marinara Timer	Customizable timers that are shared	Shareable timers	Free
Forest	Distraction blocking for individuals	Gamification	$3.99
Session	Syncing focus time across devices	Multitude of additional features	$4.99
Pomello	Trello task focus tracking	Integrates with Trello	$20/year
Pomofocus	Focus time reporting on specific tasks	Task list	$3/month
Focus Mode by Geekbot	Blocking Slack distractions	Integrates with Slack	Free
MinimaList	Focus on to-do list tasks	To-do list tracker	$2.99/month
Focus Keeper	Focus tracking on web and mobile apps	Focus reminders	$3.99/month

What is the best work timer app for Pomodoro for your needs?

Although every tool on our list is compatible with the Pomodoro method, each approaches time tracking in a slightly different way. So, how do you choose the right one for your needs?

Ask yourself:

• What key features does the tool offer, and does it have a built-in Pomodoro timer?
• Can the tool integrate with other systems and tools I currently use?
• Is the tool user-friendly and accessible across various devices (mobile, tablet, desktop)?
• What is the pricing model, and are there additional costs for must-have features?
• Does the tool provide access to historical data?
• Does the tool offer data security, and is it compliant with relevant regulations?
• What level of customer support does it provide?
• Can the tool easily accommodate growth in team size and handle complex projects?

Next, shortlist a couple of tools from the above list and take them for a test drive. This will help you identify any issues with the Pomodoro timer when implementing it across your business.

Finally, compile all the feedback from participating pilot teams and choose the best work timer with a Pomodoro clock for your needs.

Looking for a Pomodoro timer without distractions?

Try Toggl Track’s built-in Pomodoro timer to stay focused and improve your productivity. It also has a ton of other features like time tracking, timesheets, and detailed reports. Plus, it’s free for five users and comes with a free 30-day trial to try all the premium features.

Sign up for free now.

Whether it’s clients changing their minds or shifting internal priorities, scope changes are one of the most common and frustrating parts of project management. 😤

Sick and tired of them? No problem. Agreeing on a clear statement of work (SOW) aligns stakeholders on your project’s timelines, scope, deliverables, budget, and milestones. Put simply: drafting a statement of work reduces the need for unnecessary changes further down the line.

By the end of this quick guide, you’ll be an expert on statements of work, including why they’re important, what to include in one, and how they differ from other project documents. You’ll also learn how to use Toggl Track to align your project deliverables with the SOW.

TL;DR—Key Takeaways

• A statement of work (SOW) is a formal document that defines a project’s parameters, including its goals, scope, timelines, milestones, deliverables, and budget.
• A well-drafted SOW aligns stakeholders, reduces risk, and prevents unnecessary changes that cause overrun, overspend, and scope creep.
• There are three common types of statements of work. A detailed-orientated version that’s great for tech projects, a level of effort SOW common in construction, and a performance-related SOW well-suited to design projects.
• Collaborate with stakeholders as you create your SOW to get all the right details and ensure your project is a success.

What is a statement of work?

A statement of work is a formal document that defines a project’s parameters, including its goals, scope, timelines, milestones, deliverables, and budget. By doing this, you’ll align project stakeholders and give them a project baseline to work from.

Once agreed upon, a statement of work creates accountability between all parties, helping to control or minimize any unexpected changes down the line.

A statement of work also defines the work requirements for project managers. Throughout the project lifecycle, you’ll refer back to your SOW constantly for guidance, clarification, and direction. For quick reference, here’s what it looks like (but if you keep scrolling, you can download your own template!).

Statement of work vs. scope of work vs. contract

When planning projects, it’s common for teams to get confused between a statement of work, scope of work, and a contract. While all three are important, understanding the differences will help you plan, design, and deliver a successful project. Let’s take a look at each side-by-side:

• A statement of work defines a project’s goals, scope, timelines, milestones, deliverables, and budget.
• A scope of work is a detailed breakdown of a project’s scope. It’s often included as part of a broader statement of work, focusing specifically on the work that will be done (and what won’t be done) within a project.
• A contract is a legally binding agreement detailing the terms of a business arrangement between two or more parties. A contract, such as a master services agreement (MSA), serves as the project’s foundation by defining areas such as performance-related incentives, how suppliers will be paid, and the invoicing payment terms.

Each of these sounds like a separate document — and it is. But in practice, a statement of work, scope of work, and contract are all used together to kick off and manage a project.

How important is a statement of work for project management?

A statement of work is a crucial document for any project, especially for those where suppliers/clients are involved. Without one, your project risks going off track in so many ways. Here are some of the most common consequences of not agreeing a clear statement of work:

• Overrun. Without clearly defined timelines and key milestones, there’s a good chance you’ll exceed your project plan.
• Overspend. SOW documents are a great way to agree on any project’s budget and resource costs. If things aren’t agreed upfront, there’s a risk you’ll go over budget.
• Scope creep. A clearly defined scope enables everyone to agree on what will and won’t be done. Without this, you’ll likely encounter scope creep and deliver the wrong things.
• Poor quality. If you fail to agree on special requirements, acceptance criteria, and project objectives, you’ll have no measure of success. This can lead to poor-quality deliverables that don’t meet stakeholders’ needs.

Types of statement of work (SOW)

Every organization uses a slightly different SOW template specific to their industry, company, or clients. But, despite the differences, you’ll come across three main types of SOW in project management.

Design or detail statement of work

• Purpose: Often referred to as a project specification, a design SOW focuses on the granular details of what you want to achieve from your project.
• Key characteristics: The type of SOW focuses on detailed requirements, often using an enhanced scope of work to ensure the project deliverables are understood and agreed upon in minute detail.
• Example: Software development projects that require very specific functionality use this type of statement of work document to create detailed technical specifications.

Level of effort

• Purpose: Sometimes called a ‘time and materials’ statement of work, level of effort SOWs focus on the high-level resources and time needed to meet the project’s objectives.
• Key characteristics: Once the purpose of the project is understood, level of effort SOWs focus on the people, materials, and costs required for the delivery without getting into the specifics of the deliverables.
• Example: Resource-intensive projects (such as construction projects) regularly use level of effort SOWs to agree the materials and staffing required to complete a job.

Performance-based statement of work

• Purpose: Performance-based statements of work are outcome-focused documents, specifying the purpose statement, goals, and objectives of a project while leaving the details undefined.
• Key characteristics: These types of SOW work similarly to a project charter, focusing on ‘what’ needs to be achieved but leaving the ‘how’ for the other party to define.
• Example: Design or marketing projects typically use a performance-based statement of work to provide clear direction and objective setting while allowing the creative process to flow.

What to include in your statement of work

No two projects are the same, so why would your statement of work be any different? After all, a cost-critical construction project will have different requirements than a prototype-building AI software project. Here are the most common different parts of a statement of work to customize yours and meet your project needs.

1. Project overview

All good SOWs should include an overview of the project, its purpose, the key stakeholders, and the goals it sets out to achieve. This gives readers the context to make sense of the following sections.

Example: “Sponsored by Julie Jones, Chief Financial Officer, the InvestX project sets out to create a digital platform for students to learn how to invest in financial markets.”

2. Project scope (and what’s outside it)

Next, it’s important to define what the project will and won’t do. This sets the boundary for the project, clearly stating what is in and out of scope. As we’ve seen earlier, a more detailed scope of work may be created from the project requirements, avoiding scope creep further down the line.

Example: “The InvestX platform will provide courses on Stocks and Shares, ISAs, and Bonds, but will not include courses on Crypto and Forex.”

3. Timelines, milestones and due dates

All projects have a defined start and end date, so you should include timelines with clear milestones and due dates. The more detail an SOW includes here, the better. Many project managers will create a roadmap with clear deliverable dates and milestones to keep everyone on course.

Example: “The InvestX platform design should be completed and signed off by the 10th of March, with the build of the three courses completed by the 1st of June, July, and August, respectively.”

4. Project budget

No project has an endless pot of money, so your statement of work must include a budget with an agreed set of rates and pricing structures. Alongside an overall budget, it’s best practice to break the project budget down into specific cost areas (e.g., resource time, materials, etc.) to aid transparency and to support financial planning.

Example: “A total budget of $51,000 is agreed, comprised of $30,000 of developer resources (150 hours x $200 per hour), $15,000 for IT licenses, and a fixed price of $6,000 for platform design.

5. Assumptions, constraints, and risks

Often overlooked in a statement of work, it’s important to call out any assumptions, constraints, and risks relating to the project. This aligns all parties on areas to watch out for. It also makes time and space to agree on actions everyone can take to avoid disaster further down the road.

Example: “There is a risk that timelines will be delayed due to the Easter holidays in the middle of the project timeline. To manage this, both parties expedite the design work to finish before the agreed annual leave window in April.“

6. Performance or success standards

If you prioritize performance and quality, defining realistic and measurable success criteria ensures a high-quality delivery. Whether it’s an SLA for specific tasks, achieving a certification, or simply responding to queries promptly, success metrics keep everyone aligned and ensure value for money.

Example: “Development teams will respond to any requests for updates from InvestX within 24 hours.”

7. Billing schedule

Often taken from a supplier contract, it’s important to stipulate the billing structure, payment terms, and milestone-based incentives to agree on how and when parties will be paid.

Example: “50% payment on signing the agreement and 50% after project completion. Invoices due for payment within 30 days.”

Statement of work template

Download our free SOW template below, and then read through our seven-step process for customizing it to ensure it’s exactly what you and the team need to stay on track (pun intended).

How to write a statement of work

Have you made a copy of our template and are now ready to start drafting your own? Here’s a seven-step guide to get your project off to the best start possible.

1. Write a brief introduction to the project

The project introduction should give the reader all the context they need to work through the rest of your statement of work. Specifically, focus on the project’s purpose, goals, and mission to set the scene and introduce any key people, such as the project sponsor and key stakeholders.

Here’s an example of a well-written introduction to a project in a SOW.

Website mockups (Meeting & Figma)

[agency name] will create two unique website mockups for [name of client] website. Each mock-up will be designed to work across all devices. The client will choose one mock-up to move forward with. (2 rounds of revisions permitted) …

When you put that into the actual SOW template, it can look like this. 👇

2. Define the purpose and scope of the project

With the background set, it’s time to explain your project’s ‘why’. Specifically, you want to highlight why the project is important, including how the goals align with the organization’s objectives and what the key outcomes should be.

3. Define the scope with a work breakdown structure

The best way to detail ‘what’ your project is going to do is to create a work breakdown structure. A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a great tool to break down even the most complex projects into bite-size chunks.

This clearly defines the project’s scope, assigns responsibility, and estimates how long each part will take. Using a Gantt chart, task list, or a dedicated WBS template will help here, but it may require creating a separate (but linked) scope of work for highly technical projects.

Here’s what a WBS could look like with estimated hours and costs:

4. Create your project cost estimate

With the work defined, you can estimate your project and create an outline budget. Especially when working with third-party suppliers, a budget will keep your project’s financials on track.

Similar to a WBS, a linked cost breakdown structure (CBS) is a great way to detail project costs. At a minimum, it’s best practice to break labor, materials, and cash spending into separate budgets, but define in even more detail if you can.

5. Create a project schedule

Now you’ve completed the ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘how,’ the last piece of the puzzle is to define ‘when’ things need to happen. Project schedules are super important to ensure teams stay on track as they hold everyone accountable for their tasks.

This is where tools like Toggl Track make project scheduling so much easier. Simply take the tasks from your work breakdown structure and instantly turn them into Gantt or Kanban-style project plans, complete with milestones, dependencies, and checkpoints.

Lift this into your statement of work to create transparency and alignment across the project team while providing a single place to track progress once the project begins!

6. Check internal resources

One of the last key components of any statement of work is the ‘who.’ Resource planning and allocation are crucial parts of any project, so take the time to consider the expertise the project needs, what’s already available, and what may need to be brought in for support.

7. Add in the project risks, assumptions, and constraints

Wouldn’t it be nice if every project ran without a hitch? Sure, but it’s more effective to plan for a few bumps in the road. Within your statement of work, list any risks, assumptions, or constraints you think it’s worth aligning on.

Popping this in your statement of work allows everyone to acknowledge and manage them within the project. Include anything you think is worth noting, such as staff shortages, conflicting priorities, skills gaps, or even upcoming political, regulatory, economic, and supply chain changes that may cause an impact.

Here are some examples of a few of the most common project risks:

Example	Description
Scope creep	Changes to a project’s scope after starting
Blowing your budget	Spilling over your estimated budget
Project delays	Tasks take longer than estimated
Not enough resources	Not having the necessary resources to complete a project
Lack of clarity	Unclear requirements, scope, or communication
Stakeholder issues	Inaccurate expectations and miscommunication from stakeholders
Consultant or contractor delays	Contractors not being accountable
Aggressive deadlines	Unrealistic deadlines your team can’t meet
Low productivity	Burnout and poor project goals lead to work just not being done
Putting inexperienced workers on high-stakes projects	Inexperienced team members are assigned to projects that carry a lot of weight
Poor risk management	Identifying and preparing for all of these risks 😉

Tips for managing SOW’s and processes

While creating statements of work can seem straightforward, it’s easy to go wrong if you don’t follow some best practices. Here are some extra tips to manage the SOW process.

• Make SOWs collaborative. When drafting a statement of work, bring stakeholders together to make it a collaborative, co-creation process. This ensures you don’t miss any crucial details and aligns everyone on the content.
• Conduct regular SOW reviews. Creating SOWs shouldn’t be a fire and forget exercise. Instead, they should be living documents that are reviewed and updated regularly throughout the project lifecycle. fire-and-forget
• Use past SOWs to improve accuracy. If you’re creating a statement of work for the first time, use previous documents as a reference point to improve accuracy. Lifting best practices and learnings from your previous projects is a great way to make your next SOWs better.
• Align your scope of work, SOWs and contracts. Marry them all together to ensure consistency throughout the project.

Make a statement of work your secret weapon

If you’re struggling with scope changes, a well-drafted SOW is your secret weapon to minimize risk, align stakeholders, and set your project team up for success. Once you’ve agreed on key details such as timelines, scope, deliverables, budget, and milestones, use your SOW as a living document throughout the project lifecycle to keep your delivery on track.

But like all things in project management, creating a SOW, managing your time, and co-ordinating your to-do list is easier with the help of expert software tools. Toggl Track is an all-in-one time and task management tool that keeps you and your team aligned on progress while monitoring how long each deliverable takes to complete.

Sounds good, right? Try Toggl Track for free and see how we make managing successful projects a walk in the park — no credit card required!

Clockify and Harvest are among the best time tracking apps out there. But after two weeks of thoroughly researching and testing them, we’ve learned they’re designed for completely different users.

Harvest’s time and expense tracking, invoicing, and payment features make it perfect for freelancers and lean businesses who want an all-in-one solution to manage client projects or contractors. However, as your business expands, you’ll realize that its toolset and price don’t support larger scales, and its basic reports don’t provide good insights to improve productivity. 

Meanwhile, Clockify is ideal for small teams and businesses tracking time, generating reports, and invoicing clients. It lets you closely monitor employee movement and activities with GPS tracking and a screenshot recorder. While some managers love these features, they may cause tension and employee distrust, negatively impacting company culture. Its reporting features are also quite basic.

Since Clockify and Harvest don’t have a comprehensive blend of reporting features, we included Toggl Track as an alternative to Harvest and Clockify for each of the categories.

Comparison Summary: Clockify vs Harvest

What is Clockify?

“Stay lean. Move fast. See everything.”🏃‍♂️🔭

Clockify lets you track time and generate invoices across all projects. It also has dashboards and reports to help you understand where most of your time is spent.

Managers who prefer to monitor and keep tabs on their employees regularly would love its employee surveillance features — GPS tracking for employees’ location and screenshot capture for their screen activity.

These features make Clockify the ideal tool for small teams that want a simple time tracker to visualize their time distribution and productivity. It also caters to organizations that expect industrial efficiency from their employees.

What is Harvest?

“Time tracking and more.” ⏲️➕

Harvest has a simple and minimalist interface for tracking time and expenses, reporting, and invoicing. It has a timer and timesheet for individual and bulk time entries.

A key feature is its invoicing toolset, which lets you generate invoices, send them to clients, and accept direct payments. Its basic reports also help you track billable hours and expenses.

This makes it ideal for freelancers and lean businesses that need a lightweight tool for time tracking, invoicing, and payment acceptance.

What is Toggl Track?

“Empower your employees, improve your performance.” 📈

Toggl Track is an intuitive and reliable time tracking app that works across web, desktop, mobile, and browser extensions, making it easy for employees to adopt in their daily routines.

It has comprehensive Reports and Analytics tools for uncovering bottlenecks and inefficiencies in your workflows. This serves as the basis for engaging in constructive conversations, identifying opportunities for training and mentorship, and making strategic decisions to optimize team and project outputs.

Toggl Track is the perfect solution for small teams, agencies, and businesses who want to maximize productivity and profitability while promoting a culture of growth and mutual trust.

Clockify vs Harvest: Time Tracking

In a nutshell, Harvest has basic web, mobile, and desktop apps, Clockify steps it up with its desktop app, and Toggl Track is the most reliable for time tracking across all platforms.

Harvest and Clockify have timers and timesheets for manual and automatic time entries

Harvest lets you track time manually or with a timer. Select your project and task, add notes, and hit the timer to begin. Instead of starting the time, you can add a time duration and save. 

You can also switch to the week view to manually fill in a timesheet for the entire week. 

Tracking time in Clockify is simple. Describe what you’re about to work on, choose the project it belongs to, add tags if needed, turn the billable tag on or off, and start the timer. 

Like Harvest, Clockify lets you manually enter individual time entries or add them in bulk in a timesheet.

For the sake of comparison, let us also look at Toggl Track. At a glance, Toggl Track’s time tracking process is similar to Clockify’s: 

• It lets you track time on web, mobile, and desktop apps.
• It allows manual time entries and timer logs.
• And it offers a browser extension.

But, unlike Clockify, Toggl Track enables you to track time automatically.

The desktop app features the Autotracker, which locally keeps track of your time based on your activities. The Autotracker data is stored locally on your computer and isn’t visible to anyone until you save it into Toggl Track. It’s purely for your convenience.

If you’re new to it, it gives you a tour to help you familiarize yourself with its interface and start tracking time.

Toggl Track’s timer works offline. So, if you start tracking time and the internet goes down, the timer continues running, and you can stop it when done like usual. 

This prevents the time entry and billing inaccuracies that can occur with Clockify and Harvest during outages. Once you’re back online, Toggl Track syncs your time entries to the cloud.

Harvest displays daily time entries, and Clockify shows a weekly overview

Harvest’s “Day” view lets you see your daily time entries and the total hours logged. However, to view entries for other days, you need to manually switch between them, which can be tedious if you need an overview of your weekly or daily time totals.

Unlike Clockify and Toggl Track, you cannot group multiple time entries in a single, collapsible row. This makes your time entries long and cluttered. Seeing your total time on a task is also challenging if you track it with multiple entries.

Clockify shows you all of your time entries for the current week on a single page, organized by day. It also calculates your daily and weekly hours, making it easy to assess your productivity and workload capacity.

Toggl Track’s display of time entries is similar to Clockify’s, but Toggl Track takes it a step further. The line bar at the top of your time entries gives you a visual overview of tasks that take up most of your time, allowing you to make any necessary adjustments for the upcoming week.

You can also switch from the List View to the daily and weekly Calendar View to add and view time entries. This view lets you identify patterns during your day, like your most busy periods and free time. 

Harvest’s desktop and mobile apps are basic, while Clockify’s and Toggl’s are feature-rich

Like Clockify and Toggl Track, Harvest has a desktop app, a mobile app, and a browser extension for accessing key features on the go. You can track time, add expenses, run reports, and view invoices.

Meanwhile, Clockify and Toggl Track’s desktop and mobile apps are packed with extra features to make time tracking easier and more efficient:

• Set default project (desktop): Automatically select your default project when you start a timer without project details.
• Reminders (desktop): Add a reminder to track time on specific days and times.
• Automatic start and stop (desktop): Start your timer automatically based on triggers like day, time, and open desktop apps. You can also automatically stop the timer when your device sleeps or shuts down.
• Activity tracking: Automatically records every web or desktop app you use for more than, let’s say, 10 seconds.
• Idle detection (desktop): This feature shows how long you’ve been inactive and lets you decide whether to keep or discard the time entry.
• Offline mode (desktop and mobile): Track time without an internet connection.

While Clockify’s apps and extensions have keyboard shortcuts and a Pomodoro timer, they’re more easily accessible and intuitive in Toggl Track.

In addition to default keyboard shortcuts, Toggl Track lets you add custom ones to start and stop the timer for tasks you often do. 

Plus, its Pomodoro Timer is accessible across its mobile apps, desktop apps, and browser extensions, helping to boost focus and productivity.

Clockify vs Harvest: Project Administration

In a nutshell, Harvest has limited flexibility for team and project management, Clockify is a bit more flexible, and Toggl Track gives you the most options to support complex business structures.

Harvest lets you add time entries in timesheets for approvals, and Clockify allows you to disable timesheets

Harvest’s and Clockify’s timesheets work the same — allowing you to add multiple time entries manually. This feature helps log time for repetitive tasks within a project.

However, it can be annoying when time tracked using the timer doesn’t automatically transfer to the timesheet. You have to input it again, increasing the chances of errors manually.

Unlike Harvest, Clockify lets you minimize these errors. How? Disabling the time tracker or timesheet lets your team focus on a one-time entry mode.

Clockify and Harvest let you send reminders to your team to submit their timesheets for approval. After they submit their timesheets, you can either approve them or reject them for re-submission.

Instead of relying on manual entry, Toggl Track lets you set up Timesheet Reports. This feature automatically generates weekly timesheets from your team’s time entries.

Like Harvest and Clockify, you can set up reminders to alert team members to submit their timesheets for approval. Since these are already generated, all they need to do is review, edit, and submit. 

Harvest gives you one workspace to manage teams and projects, Clockify allows multiple workspaces

Harvest only provides one workspace to manage your teams and projects, which is enough for most freelancers and small businesses. Meanwhile, Clockify lets you create multiple workspaces if you need to manage multiple departments in your business separately.    

A user in a Harvest or Clockify workspace can have any of the following levels of access:

• Member: This role allows users to track time and expenses and view personal reports. 
• Manager: Users in this role have additional power to view and approve timesheets, set billable rates, run reports, and manage invoices of projects assigned to them.
• Administrator: They control the entire workspace, including inviting new members and assigning roles.

On the other hand, with Toggl Track, you can set up multiple Organizations and Workspaces in your account. This helps manage multiple businesses or service offerings under one account. 

A user invited to a workspace (under a specific organization) is assigned to one of six user roles:

• Member,
• Project manager,
• Project lead,
• Team lead,
• Workspace admin,
• and Organization admin.

These granular role assignments ensure effective team collaboration and management across different projects.

Unlike Harvest, managers and admins in Toggl Track and Clockify have access rights to streamline time tracking.

For example, they can set up reminders for employees to track time. The rules for the reminder could look like this: “If team members tracked less than 40 hours by the end of the Week, send them a reminder.”

The Reminders feature eliminates the need to monitor time entries and manually send reminder emails.

They can also set time entry restrictions to streamline how and when to log time. And if needed, conduct audits to spot time entries that:

• Aren’t assigned to a project,
• Aren’t assigned to a task,
• Or don’t fall within a specific time duration

Clockify vs Harvest: Billing and Invoicing

In a nutshell, Clockify and Toggl Track let you set up billable rates and generate invoices, while Harvest makes it easy to accept payments.

Harvest has three types of billable rates, but Clockify and Toggl Track have more

Harvest, similar to Clockify and Toggl Track, lets you set up non-billable, fixed-fee, and billable rates for each project. But Harvest only enables you to set up three types of billable rates, which is more than enough for most freelancers and small businesses:

• Project billable rate
• Person billable rate
• Task billable rate

You can also set a project budget and opt for email alerts if spending exceeds a certain percentage of the budget. Alerts allow you to make necessary resource adjustments and ensure projects stay within budget.

Toggl Track lets you set up four types of billable rates:

• Workspace rate
• Workspace member rate
• Project rate
• Project member rate

These rates take priority from the bottom up. So, if you add a project member rate for a project, it overrides the project, workspace member, and workspace rates. If you don’t specify project member, project, and workspace member rates, the workspace rate is used for billing.

Like Harvest, managers and admins can set up budget alerts to keep project finances in check.

Clockify’s billing system works similarly to Toggl Track and, like Harvest, allows you to mark expenses as billable. However, these settings aren’t organized under one page, making it confusing to set up and manage.

Clockify lets you send invoices directly to clients via email, and Harvest lets you accept invoice payments

Toggl Track’s Invoices are based on billable hours, and you can generate them with a few clicks. Filter your time reports for a specific project (or client), activate the billable tag, and create an invoice.

You can edit or delete time entries on the invoice, add new entries (like expenses and discounts), and set a currency. You can customize invoices with an ID, due date, payment terms, addresses, and taxes. Export them to your accounting software to accept payments and manage payroll when ready.

With Clockify, you can generate invoices from billable hours and expenses. You can add notes, apply taxes, and include discounts. 

Unlike Toggl Track, which only shows a list of your invoices, Clockify makes it easier to manage them with tags like unsent, sent, paid, and void. You can export invoices as a CSV or Excel file or email them directly to your clients as a PDF file.

Harvest has all the invoicing features in Clockify, Toggl Track, and more. You can:

• set invoices as one-time or recurring,
• accept payments from clients via PayPal or Stripe,
• and schedule reminder emails when invoice payments are late.

These features are helpful for freelancers and small businesses who want to manage billing and invoicing on one platform. However, agencies and medium-to-large businesses will still need dedicated accounting software to manage more complex financial operations.

Clockify vs Harvest: Reporting and Analytics

In a nutshell, Harvest focuses on basic time and expense reports, Clockify has dashboards and reports, but Toggl Track’s reporting is more robust, provides better insights, and is customizable.

Harvest only lets you track time and expense reports

Harvest’s reports compile your time and expense entries, making it easy to share them with clients. You can filter reports by periods, clients, projects, tasks, and team members and export them as CSV, PDF, or Excel files.

Clockify’s time reports have multiple views and filters

Clockify and Toggl Track’s reporting tools have three main views to help you analyze time entries:

• Summary: Visual reports of your organization’s total tracked time
• Detailed: List of all the time entries recorded in your organization
• Weekly: List of time entries for each week, grouped by user and project

You can filter these reports by team, client, project, task, tag, status, and description. Unlike Harvest, you can share reports with others (internal and external) via a public link. Alternatively, export them as PDF, CSV, and Excel files.

Clockify’s dashboards are rigid, while Toggl Track’s reports can be customized to suit your needs

Clockify and Toggl Track have dashboards for:

• Regular users to visualize their time entries
• Managers to see entries for their projects and team members
• Aadmins for complete visibility over all projects

Clockify’s dashboards are rigid and non-interactive. Plus, you can’t export or share them with key team stakeholders.

Meanwhile, Toggl Track’s Analytics dashboards are fully customizable and shareable. You can create any number of dashboards with tables, pivot tables, bar charts, donut charts, and line graphs, arrange them in your preferred layout, and apply relevant filters. 

This way, you see exactly what’s needed to keep a pulse on team productivity, project progress, and efficiency.

Toggl Track stands out with its Insights feature for optimizing resource allocation and profitability

Toggl Track’s Insights feature helps managers analyze extensive time data to adjust resources for better productivity and profitability. 

For example, the “Data trends” view provides a visual comparison summary of total hours spent across multiple teams, projects, and clients.

The “Project profitability” view also plots your project earnings against your labor costs. This makes it easy to analyze the profitability of each client and project within a specific timeframe.

The “Employee profitability” graph also shows each employee’s costs and earnings for your business, making it easy to spot top performers and under-utilized employees. This could contribute to strategic actions like training, promotions, and resource reallocations.

But that’s not all. The “Comparative” view lets you compare the total number of work hours logged between any two weeks. This helps managers analyze productivity fluctuations across projects and teams and make decisions that streamline operations and boost efficiency.

Clockify vs Harvest: Pricing

In a nutshell, Harvest has one paid plan for freelancers and lean businesses, Clockify’s starter plans are cheaper, and Toggl Track offers the best value for money.

Harvest’s free plan is limited to one user, Toggl Track’s free plan is limited to five users, while Clockify allows unlimited users

Clockify‘s free plan offers basic time tracking for unlimited projects and users. You can set billable rates. However, you cannot track billable expenses or generate invoices.

Harvest lets you add unlimited clients and send unlimited invoices on its free plan. However, it restricts you to just one user and two active projects. Plus, you won’t be able to customize your workspace with your company logo, attach files to invoices, or integrate with QuickBooks Online, Deel, and Asana.

Toggl Track‘s free plan supports unlimited time tracking, clients, and reporting for up to five team members across all platforms — web, mobile, desktop app, and browser extensions. This makes it a good fit for freelancers, small teams, and businesses looking for a budget-friendly time tracking app.

Clockify’s starter plans are cheaper

Harvest has two paid paid plans. The cheaper one is called Pro, and it unlocks all the features:

Premium is slightly more expensive at $14 per user per month. This gives you even more features, such as:

• Profitability reporting
• Timesheet approvals
• Activity log
• Custom reports and exports
• SAML-based SSO
• Custom onboarding support for teams with more than 50 seats

Clockify’s pricing starts with a Basic plan, which is very affordable, but most users find that it’s not very different from its free plan. Meanwhile, the Standard plan is ideal for small teams who want to manage timesheet approvals and invoicing. The remaining higher plans unlock employee surveillance features for managers who want to monitor employee activities closely.

Toggl Track’s pricing starts with a Starter plan. It provides the most value for small teams who need an intuitive and comprehensive time tracking and reporting solution to understand how their time is spent and bill clients. On the other hand, the Premium and Enterprise plans provide managers with unique insights to boost team productivity and project profitability.

Clockify vs Harvest: Pros & Cons

Final Verdict: Clockify vs Harvest

Harvest is a good choice for freelancers who need time-tracking software with built-in payment features. However, it has basic reporting tools, and the cost might be better for smaller teams.

Use Harvest if:

• You’re a freelancer
• You want to track time, send invoices, and accept payments in one platform.
• You only need basic time and expense reporting tools

On the other hand, Clockify is the perfect choice for small teams who want a time tracking tool on a budget and managers who want to pay more for employee surveillance features.

Use Clockify if:

• You’re a small business
• You want an affordable time tracking app
• You don’t trust employees and want to closely monitor their activities.

Meanwhile, Toggl Track’s intuitive time tracking interface and powerful reporting tools allow managers to boost employee adoption while gaining insights to maximize profitability. 

Use Toggl Track if:

• You need a reliable and accurate time tracking tool for your business.
• You want to boost employee adoption with a user-friendly tool that values their privacy and builds trust.
• You need powerful insights to optimize productivity and profitability.

Click here to get started with Toggl Track!