Toggl Track
The most frictionless timer in the category, free for personal tracking. Billable rates and invoices start at $9 a month - which is the line that matters if you bill hourly.
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| Best for | Freelancers who want tracking that actually gets used, and who bill hourly enough to justify the Starter plan. |
|---|---|
| Not ideal for | Anyone who wants time tracking and invoicing in one product at one price. |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid from $9/user/month |
| Platforms | Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Browser extension |
Vendor list prices in USD, checked on 25 August 2026. Premium is advertised at a first-year rate that renews higher. Confirm current pricing on the vendor site.
On this page
Time tracking has one failure mode that dwarfs all others: people stop doing it. Any tool tracks time accurately if the timer is running. The difference between products is almost entirely how likely you are to still be using it in three months.
That is what Toggl Track optimises for, and it is why it is recommended so consistently. It is also, for a freelancer, a product with a specific catch worth knowing before you start.
The catch, first
The free plan does not include billable rates. You can track every hour of your year and the tool will not attach money to any of it. Invoice generation and time rounding are also paid features, starting on Starter.
For personal productivity - where did my week go - the free plan is complete. For freelance billing, which is presumably why you are reading this, the real entry price is $9 per user per month.
That is not a criticism of the pricing, which is reasonable. It is a correction to the impression left by "free forever", which is true of the tracking and not of the billing.
What it costs
| Plan | Price | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Timers, timesheets, summary, detailed and workload reports |
| Starter | $9 / user / mo | Billable rates at workspace, project, user or task level; PDF invoices; time rounding; billing reports |
| Premium | $14 / user / mo first year, then $18 | Profitability reports using labour costs, utilisation reports, fixed-fee projects, scheduled reports, timesheet approvals, custom reports, SSO |
| Enterprise | Custom | Enterprise controls |
Note the Premium renewal. $14 is a first-year annual rate; it becomes $18 after that. Compare against $18 when deciding, not $14.
What it is genuinely good at
Starting. The timer is available wherever you are working - desktop app, phone, browser extension - and starting one takes a click. This sounds trivial and is the whole ballgame. Tracking that requires you to open a web app, find a project and pick a task is tracking you will abandon.
Recovering forgotten time. Idle detection and the ability to fill gaps after the fact matter more than vendors admit, because the realistic pattern is not "always remembered the timer" but "remembered most of the time and reconstructed the rest".
Answering the profitability question, on Premium. Utilisation and profitability reporting is how you find out that the client who pays well takes three times the hours of the one who does not. That is a business decision, not an admin feature, and it is the honest case for the higher tier.
Where it stops
It is a tracker, not a billing system. From Starter it will produce a PDF invoice, which is enough for straightforward hourly work sent to a client who pays by transfer. It does not take payments, chase them, or keep books - so most freelancers end up running it alongside Wave, Zoho Invoice or FreshBooks.
If you would rather have one product covering tracked time through to a paid invoice, Harvest is built for that and the comparison is covered in Toggl Track vs Harvest.
Who it suits
Freelancers who bill hourly across several clients and want tracking that survives contact with a real working week. Also anyone whose problem is diagnostic rather than billing - working out where the week actually goes - for whom the free plan is genuinely enough.
Who it does not
Anyone wanting time tracking and invoicing at one price. Anyone on fixed-fee work who does not need hours attached to money - though see the profitability argument above before dismissing it. And anyone for whom $9 a month is the deciding factor, since Clockify puts billable rates on a $3.99 plan.
Full field: the best time tracking apps for freelancers.
Strengths and trade-offs
What Toggl Track does well
- Very low friction to start and stop a timer, which is the property that decides whether time tracking survives past week two.
- Runs everywhere - desktop, mobile, browser extension - so tracking does not depend on being at one machine.
- The free plan is a genuinely usable personal tracker rather than a trial.
- Profitability and utilisation reporting on Premium answers which clients are actually worth keeping.
Where Toggl Track falls short
- Billable rates are not on the free plan, so you cannot attach money to hours without paying.
- Invoice generation also starts at Starter - and produces a PDF rather than replacing invoicing software.
- Premium is advertised at a first-year price of $14 that renews at $18 per user per month.
- Time rounding, which many freelancers need for client billing conventions, is a paid feature.
How Toggl Track compares
Alternatives worth a look
Harvest
Freelancers on a small number of long-running projects who want tracked time to become a paid invoice without a second…
Clockify
Cost-sensitive freelancers and small teams who need billable rates without a $9-a-seat subscription.
Bonsai
Freelancers who send proposals and contracts as well as invoices, and would otherwise pay for three separate tools.
Questions people ask
Is Toggl Track free for freelancers?
Free to track time, yes - the free plan covers timers, timesheets and summary, detailed and workload reports. It does not include billable rates, invoice generation or time rounding, all of which begin on the $9 Starter plan. So it is free to know where your hours went, and paid to bill for them.
What does Toggl Track cost?
Free, then Starter at $9 per user per month and Premium at $14 per user per month for the first year on annual billing, renewing at $18. Enterprise is custom priced.
Can Toggl Track replace my invoicing software?
No. From Starter it can generate and download PDF invoices, which is useful for simple hourly billing, but it does not handle payments, reminders or bookkeeping. Treat it as a tracker that can produce a bill, not as an invoicing product.
Where this information comes from
Product details change often. Each item below links to the primary source we checked, so you can confirm anything that matters to your decision.