Here at Float, we believe time is too valuable to be planned poorly. The ultimate goal of an effective agency time tracking software should be to help you understand where time is spent and how to optimize it.
In the spirit of using time thoughtfully, we didn’t publish a super-long listicle and instead picked eight of the top time tracking tools for specific agency needs. We kept it short to avoid overwhelming you with too many options and to make choosing the right software easier.
What is agency time tracking software?
Agency time tracking software is any tool, app, or solution designed to help agencies monitor and record the amount of time employees and contractors spend on various tasks and projects for different clients. The software helps manage workloads, bill clients, and analyze prouctivity, since all logged time is kept in an organized, centralized space.
It also helps employee fill out and submit timesheets, as well as use timers to automate tracking.
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Reliable time tracker software:
- Allows correct client invoicing based on how many hours are spent on each project
- Enables understanding of where teams spend their time (to catch overruns and ensure accountability)
- Gives a view of actual time spent so you can fine-tune estimates and provide realistic expectations to clients
Time tracking vs timesheet software: are they the same?
Yes, they are 😉 The terms time tracking software and timesheet software can be used interchangeably. We will probably do that throughout this guide!
8 best time tracking tools for agencies in 2024
To make this comparison easier, we created a spreadsheet where you can compare all tools and advanced features side-by-side. We chose them based on where their focus is (e.g., resource planning, invoicing) and user reviews on intuitiveness and effectiveness.
1. Float: best for growing agency teams of 100 to 1,000 people
🏢 Founded in: 2011
🎯 Primary software category: resource management
🏆 G2: 4.2 (1,200+ reviews); Capterra: 4.5 (1,600 reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Float (hi 👋) is a resource management tool built with agencies in the advertising, marketing, and custom software and IT space. And if you’re wondering, “Wasn’t I looking for time tracking? Why are they talking about resource management?!”—here’s the thing:
Float combines capacity management, project planning, and time tracking into one visual interface, which is also its advantage compared to other tools in this list.
Time tracking within Float works in two ways:
- The downloadable Desktop timer app helps your team members track time against tasks with precision—they can literally start, stop, and edit their tracked time against a scheduled task without having to export durations or add project details individually.
- The web app is part of the resource management suite of tools used for admins and managers. This solution enables you to track time while also monitoring real availability to assign work with confidence, understanding where your team’s time is spent, and making sure your invoices are always spot on.
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How A—B increased time tracking adoption from 20% to almost 100% with Float
Design agency A—B implemented Float to consolidate data on capacity, budgets, timesheets, and timelines. Time logging in Float was so frictionless that, within months, nearly everyone on the A—B team was consistently tracking their time.
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⭐ Float time tracking features
- Pre-filled timesheets. The timesheets in Float are created based on tasks you’ve allocated to team members. This means team members can log time for each task with a single click–easy-peasy! Even if the estimated time turns out to be different than the actual time, correcting the entry can be done quickly and smoothly.
- Built-in timer. Start the timer at the beginning of a task and pause or stop it when needed. The time will be immediately sent to the timesheets without team members needing to manually record it. Interesting fact: our timer was a strong reason why digital agency Storm+Shelter completely replaced Asana and Everhour with Float.
- Estimates vs actual report. How accurate are your estimates compared to the time team members actually spend on tasks? Knowing this can help you communicate expectations to clients and determine more accurate budgets.
Want to learn more about time tracking features in Float? This video by one of our onboarding specialist might be just what you’re looking for👇
💰 Float pricing
1. Starter. $6 per person per month, billed annually. Every resource scheduling capability you need, with unlimited projects and powerful reporting. Best for teams of up to 30 people.
2. Pro. $10 per person per month, billed annually. Everything in Starter, plus built-in time tracking, single sign-on (SSO), and workflow features designed to scale. Best for growing teams of 30+ people.
3. Enterprise. A custom plan that includes everything in Pro and is designed for larger organizations with heavier compliance and support needs.
🔥 You can learn more about Float’s pricing plans here.
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The #1 rated tool to plan and track your time at work
Track time, refine your estimates, and monitor spend based on hours worked in the same place where you plan projects and capacity.
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2. Toggl Track: best tool for individuals and small agency teams
🏢 Founded in: 2006
🎯 Primary software category: time tracking
🏆 G2: 4.6 (1,600 reviews); Capterra: 4.7 (2,300+ reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days
Toggl Track is one of the most well-known time tracking tools out there and is often used for agency time tracking and personal productivity—Float’s own Content Lead, Fio, has been using it for her solo projects for over a decade 😉
It’s the core product of the company Toggl that also makes Toggl Plan and Toggl Hire—Toggl Plan can integrate with Toggl Track to create a full planning solution. It’s an excellent tool to start understanding where your time is spent, and Toggl Track reviews often praise its intuitiveness and the quality of its mobile app (Fio from our team definitely agrees).
⭐ Toggl Track features
- Built-in timer
- Client billing based on tracked hours and billable time
- Useful reporting, such as project profitability and cost projections
- Time estimates (including for recurring projects)
💰 Toggl Track pricing
A free version and three paid plans starting from $9 per user per month.
See full pricing in the comparison sheet.
3. Harvest: best for agency invoicing
🏢 Founded in: 2006
🎯 Primary software category: time tracking
🏆 G2: 4.3 (800+ reviews); Capterra: 4.6 (589 reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days.
Harvest has been a trusted agency time tracking tool since 2006—and a long-time favorite among freelancers, too. It can be integrated with the company’s other tool, Forecast, which is built for work planning.
Harvest stands out because of its invoicing features and expense tracking. It also has built-in notifications to alert you if you’ve left the timer running—a good solution to preventing inaccurate logs.
Though a reliable tool, some reviews refer to limitations with its reporting features and its lack of customization. Harvest is also one of the more expensive time tracking tools, and its cost increases if you want to integrate Forecast as well.
⭐ Harvest features
- Tracking both billable and non-billable hours
- Mobile app
- Expense tracking and invoicing
- Effective reminders and notifications
💰 Harvest pricing
Harvest has a free plan and one paid plan at $10.80 per person per month.
See full pricing in the comparison sheet.
4. Clockify: best free time tracking tool for digital agencies
🏢 Founded in: 2009
🎯 Primary software category: time tracking
🏆 G2: 4.5 (160+ reviews); Capterra: 4.7 (4,840+ reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 7 days, and a free version
Clockify is a popular time tracking tool and is among the most highly rated on Capterra.
It stands out because of its excellent free time tracking version, which includes unlimited tracking, unlimited users, timers, and timesheets. Its paid plans expand the tool’s functionality to other solutions, like tracking time off and attendance, scheduling and forecasting, and budgets.
Though usually praised as a tool that does its job, some reviewers refer to usability and aesthetic issues in the app.
⭐ Clockify features
- Timer (including Pomodoro)
- Timesheets and calendars
- Detailed reports on project status, billable rates, and team activity
- Additional invoicing and planning features with paid plans
💰 Clockify pricing
A free version, and can be upgraded to four paid plans, starting from $3.99 per user per month.
See full pricing in the comparison sheet.
5. Timely: best for AI-assisted time tracking
🏢 Founded in: 2013
🎯 Primary software category: time tracking
🏆 G2: 4.8 (400+ reviews); Capterra: 4.7 (200+ reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Timely is an AI-powered time tracking tool created by the Norwegian company Memory.
This tool is built to reduce manual inputs of time—its ’Memory Tracker’ works by itself in the background, recording how much time people spend in different work apps. If this sounds a bit like employee surveillance, it’s actually not—Timely has an anti-surveillance policy and states that all activity is private to each user, who can then choose what to share in timesheets.
However, it doesn’t track phone calls and a few users on G2 have reported that the memory app may sometimes fail to sync with Timely.
⭐ Timely features
- Automatic time tracking
- Billable rates
- Task planning (as paid add-on)
- Timeline estimates and project progress reporting
💰 Timely pricing
Three plans starting from $9 per user per month.
See full pricing in the comparison sheet.
6. Time Doctor: best for team productivity and hybrid teams
🏢 Founded in: 2012
🎯 Primary software category: time tracking and productivity
🏆 G2: 4.4 (380+ reviews); Capterra: 4.5 (520+ reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
Time Doctor is a time tracking app that focuses on increasing productivity through analytics. The app is designed with powerful, real-time dashboards and reporting to give teams actionable insights.
An interesting feature they offer for agencies is custom email notifications based on performance triggers to see who needs help. They also have offerings for all types of dispersed teams: fully remote, hybrid, and in-office.
One thing we want to call out about Time Doctor is its screen monitoring capability. Unlike tools like Timely, which have a clear anti-surveillance policy, Time Doctor allows companies to monitor their employees. While some use cases mentioned on their site may make sense (e.g., freelancers who want to avoid payment disputes with their clients over how long a project took to complete), surveillance-as-standard can severely affect an agency’s culture and trusting relationship between workers.
Many recent reviews on Capterra (2024) mention that Time Doctor is on the expensive side and quite resource-heavy while running in the computer’s background.
⭐ Time Doctor features
- Timesheets
- Payroll
- Time management
- Attendance to spot issues like work-life balance and absenteeism
💰 Time Doctor pricing
Three pricing plans starting from $5.9 per user per month.
See full pricing in the comparison sheet.
7. Asana: best project management tool with time tracking features
🏢 Founded in: 2008
🎯 Primary software category: project management
🏆 G2: 4.4 (10,000+ reviews); Capterra: 4.5 (12,600+ reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 30 days
Asana is a beloved project management tool whose primary function is to help teams organize work and collaborate on tasks (our Content Lead Fio also loves this one!). The tool can integrate with other time tracking apps, though it has a built-in ability to track time through specified time fields on tasks and a basic timer.
Because time tracking isn’t Asana’s primary offering, it doesn’t have robust reporting capabilities for time tracking apart from basic estimates vs actual reports. It can still work well, though, if you need an all-in-one project management tool and don’t want to add a different app to your tech stack.
⭐ Asana features
- Project management and task scheduling
- Workload tracking
- Built-in live timer
- Estimated time and actual time entries
💰 Asana pricing
A free version and four paid plans starting from $10.99.
See full pricing in the comparison sheet.
8. Hubstaff: best time tracking tool with employee monitoring options
🏢 Founded in: 2012
🎯 Primary software category: time tracking
🏆 G2: 4.3 (700+ reviews); Capterra: 4.6 (1,400+ reviews)
🧪 Free trial: yes, 14 days
HubStaff was built after its co-founder started his own remote company and realised he needed an easy way to see what what had been worked on, and how many hours that work had taken. The company now includes 90 global employees—and do they all track their time? We’d be curious to know!
HubStaff offers time tracking software for remote, hybrid, and in-office employees, together with automated timesheets, and integrations with payroll systems and software including Jira, Trello, Asana, Github, Slack, and Paypal. The product also includes employee monitoring options—and while their documentation specifies that HubStaff does not log keystrokes, take webcam photos, or read your emails or messages, it can be used to detect idle time, track GPS location, and take screenshots.
⭐ Hubstaff features
- Time tracking
- Employee monitoring
- Automated timesheets
💰 Hubstaff pricing
Four tiers starting from $4.99/seat/month (minimum of 2 seats).
See full pricing in the comparison sheet
Time tracking = employee well-being
Agency time tracking tools will do the job you absolutely need: help you track the cost of work and do the billing correctly.
But there are more opportunities here. Understanding how your team spends time gives you powerful insights that help you optimize how work is assigned in the future. And no, this is absolutely not a synonym of close surveillance—rather, time tracking tools used well will respect everybody’s time by reducing manual inputs and giving you with effective and (often) automated reporting options.
The right agency management software and time tracking solution enables more sustainable workloads and better resourcing decisions—which is a great way to promote your team’s best work life.
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...want to see for yourself? 😉
Track time, refine your estimates, and monitor spend based on actual hours worked—and do it all in the same place where you plan projects and capacity!
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FAQs
Some FAQs about the best agency time tracking software
Time-tracking software helps agencies improve efficiency, ensure accurate billing, manage project timelines, and analyze employee productivity. It also helps identify bottlenecks and optimize workflows.
Key features to look for include:
- Automated employee time tracking
- Project and task management integrations
- Reporting and analytics
- Invoicing and billing capabilities
- User-friendly interface
- Mobile app availability
- Integration with other tools (e.g., CRM, accounting software)
Agency time-tracking software can significantly aid in resource allocation because it offers detailed insights into utilization and capacity metrics that help managers and team leads make informed decisions.
For example, time tracking and project management software helps marketing agencies get real-time insight into employee workloads, billable vs. non-billable utilization, esdtimates vs. actuals, and this knowledge can be used to improve project management and resource forecasting, enhance productivity, and balance workload distribution.
