The Best Free Timesheet Apps That Still Track Billable Hours (2026)
There's no shortage of free timesheet apps. Search the phrase and you'll find a dozen tools all promising to track your hours for nothing. The catch, in 2026, is what they mean by "track". Almost all of them will happily record that you worked. Far fewer will tell you what that time is worth, because billable rates, revenue totals and the export you need to invoice have quietly drifted onto the paid plans. If you bill by the hour, that's the one number that matters, and it's the one most often held back.
So the question here is narrower than the usual roundup: which free plans still let you track billable hours and see their value without reaching for a card? We've checked where each one stands right now, noted exactly where the paywall sits, and been straight about where our own tool fits. Prices are per user and current as of mid-2026, so confirm the latest before you commit.
What "free" really means now
A few years ago, "free timesheet app" and "tracks billable hours" were the same sentence. The generous free tiers that won these tools their users included rates, billable totals and a way to get the data out. That's no longer a safe assumption. The pattern across the category in 2026 is the same: the timer stays free, and the billing maths becomes the reason to upgrade. It's a sensible business decision and a mildly annoying one, because the rate is cheap to compute and precisely what an hourly freelancer needs.
None of this makes these bad products. It just means the label "free" now hides a range, from a plan that genuinely bills for you to one that's really an unlimited stopwatch. Telling those apart is the whole job here. If you want the longer version of why this happened, we wrote a companion piece on tracking billable hours for free and the workarounds when your tool moves the goalposts.
What to look for in a free timesheet app
Before the list, it helps to know what separates a free plan that works for billing from one that only looks like it does. Five things decide it:
- Billable rates on the free plan. Can you attach an hourly rate to a project or client, and does the app total the value for you? This is the feature most often paywalled, so check it first.
- A real seat and project allowance. "Free for one user and two projects" is a trial in disguise. A freelancer with three clients has already outgrown it.
- Export or invoicing. Billable hours are only useful if you can get them onto an invoice, whether the app raises one itself or exports cleanly to Excel or PDF.
- Non-billable tracking too. Seeing the unpaid half of your week is how you learn your true utilisation and whether your rate covers it.
- Low friction to keep up. The most feature-packed app is worthless if you stop logging by Wednesday. Anything that fills itself in, from a timer to a calendar, beats a blank grid.
The best free timesheet apps for billable hours
Clockify
Clockify has long had the most generous free tier in the category, and in raw allowance it still does: unlimited users and unlimited projects for nothing, across web, desktop and mobile. For simple "how long did that take" tracking it's hard to beat free. The snag for freelancers is that in 2026 the billing pieces sit on the paid plans. Billable rates land on the Basic plan at roughly £3.99 per user each month, and invoicing on Standard at about £5.49. On the free plan you can log every hour and still not see a penny of value attached to it.
Best for: teams and solos who want unlimited free tracking and do their billing elsewhere. Watch out for: the billable total you actually want is a paid feature.
Toggl Track
Toggl Track has one of the most pleasant free plans to actually use, with a genuinely good timer, up to five users, unlimited projects and clients, and CSV and PDF export. It's a lovely stopwatch. What it has never included on the free tier is billable rates, so it'll tell you that you spent six hours on a project but not that those hours are worth anything. Rates and revenue reporting start on the Starter plan at around £9 per user each month annually, and profitability analysis waits for Premium above that.
Best for: people who love a slick timer and track billing separately. Watch out for: billable rates have never been free here, so the value maths is a paid upgrade.
Harvest
Harvest is the odd one out, in a good way: it's built around invoicing, so its free plan actually includes billing and invoice creation rather than paywalling them. The catch is the size of the plan. Free means one seat and two active projects, which is enough to invoice a single client or trial the product, and not much more. Add a third client and you're onto its paid plan at about £12 per seat each month. So Harvest keeps billing free but rations the projects.
Best for: a solo freelancer with one or two clients who wants invoicing built in. Watch out for: the two-project cap is easy to hit.
TimeCamp
TimeCamp offers another big free allowance, unlimited users and projects, with automatic tracking and timesheets, which reads well on paper. For billing specifically it lands close to Clockify: the free plan doesn't include billable rate configuration. Tracking billable time and rate control step up to its paid tiers, which start at a few dollars per user each month. Plenty of free tracking, but the rate is behind the paywall again.
Best for: generous free tracking with automatic timesheets. Watch out for: rates and billable totals need a paid tier.
My Hours
My Hours deserves credit for going the other way. Its free plan, for up to five users with unlimited projects and clients, still lets you set billable rates and see billable amounts, which puts it among the few mainstream tools that keep the core billing maths free. Detailed reporting and some team features sit on the paid Pro plan, but if all you need is to tag hours as billable and total their value, the free plan genuinely does it. Worth a look if a classic project-and-task timer suits how you work.
Best for: freelancers who want free billable rates in a traditional timer. Watch out for: richer reporting and invoicing sit on the paid plan.
VibaCloud
This is our own tool, so read the rest with that in mind, but it exists precisely because of the gap this article describes. VibaCloud connects to your Microsoft Outlook or Google calendar and turns the meetings and events already sitting there into a draft weekly timesheet. You tag each entry to a client and project, mark whether it's billable, and because the rate lives on the project, your billable hours and their value total up as you go. Any week exports to Excel or a PDF invoice. All of that is free, with no card and no per-seat trap.
The difference is less the price than the input. Most tools ask you to remember and type; VibaCloud starts from the calendar you already keep, so the record begins mostly complete and you confirm rather than reconstruct. That matters because billable hours usually go missing through memory rather than laziness, and a twenty-minute call you never wrote down is twenty minutes you'll never bill.
Best for: anyone whose week already lives in a calendar and who wants billable tracking and invoicing kept free. Watch out for: it's calendar-first, so it suits meeting and event-heavy work more than a pure stopwatch workflow.
The comparison at a glance
The single question that matters here is whether you can total your billable value without paying. Lined up against that test, the free plans fall into three camps:
- Free tracking, paid billing: Clockify and TimeCamp both give unlimited free tracking, but billable rates sit behind a paid tier (Clockify's from roughly £3.99 per user monthly, TimeCamp's from a few dollars a month).
- Great timer, no free rates: Toggl Track is a joy to use and exports cleanly, but billable rates have never been on its free plan; they start around £9 per user monthly.
- Free billing, with limits: Harvest includes invoicing free but caps you at one seat and two projects; My Hours keeps billable rates free for up to five users; and VibaCloud keeps billable tracking, totals and export free while building the timesheet from your calendar.
In other words, if "free" has to include the billable total, your honest shortlist in 2026 is My Hours, Harvest within its two-project limit, and VibaCloud, rather than the two biggest names.
How to choose the right one
Start from your actual constraint rather than the feature lists. If you have one client and want invoicing baked in, Harvest's free plan does the job until you add a second project. If you love a stopwatch and are happy to do the billing maths in a spreadsheet, Toggl or Clockify free will track beautifully and you can add the rates yourself. If you want billable rates included at no cost in a familiar timer, My Hours is the most generous of the traditional tools.
And if the thing that keeps breaking your tracking is remembering to do it, the calendar-native route is worth trying, because it removes the step you keep skipping. Whichever you pick, the deciding factor is rarely the app and almost always the habit: the tool that fits how you already work is the one you'll still be using in three months. If you're setting one up from scratch, our guide on creating a timesheet in minutes keeps the friction down.
Key takeaways
- "Free timesheet app" no longer implies "tracks billable hours"; in 2026 the billing maths is the most commonly paywalled feature.
- Clockify and TimeCamp offer generous free tracking but reserve billable rates for paid plans.
- Toggl Track has an excellent free timer but has never included billable rates for free.
- Harvest keeps invoicing free but limits you to one seat and two projects.
- My Hours and VibaCloud both keep billable rates and totals free, with My Hours a classic timer and VibaCloud calendar-native.
- Judge a free plan on whether it totals billable value, gives a real project allowance, and lets you export or invoice, then pick the one you will actually keep up.
Frequently asked questions
What's the best free timesheet app that tracks billable hours?
It depends on your constraint. My Hours keeps billable rates free for up to five users, Harvest includes free invoicing but caps you at two projects, and VibaCloud keeps billable tracking and export free while building your timesheet from your calendar. Clockify and Toggl are excellent free timers but put billable rates on paid plans.
Does Clockify's free plan track billable hours?
Not the value. Clockify's free plan gives unlimited users and projects and tracks time well, but billable rates moved to the paid Basic plan, and invoicing to Standard. You can log hours for free; seeing what they're worth needs an upgrade.
Is Toggl Track free plan good for freelancers?
As a timer, yes, it's one of the nicest free plans to use, with up to five users and clean exports. But it has never included billable rates for free, so you can't see billable value without moving to the Starter plan. Freelancers who bill by the hour often want that number included.
Can I track billable hours for free without any limits?
Broadly yes, if you choose the right tool. My Hours and VibaCloud both keep billable rates and totals free, and a spreadsheet you own has no limits at all. The mainstream timers tend to keep tracking free while charging £4 to £10 per user a month for the billing maths on top.
What should I look for in a free timesheet app?
Check five things: whether billable rates are on the free plan, a realistic seat and project allowance, export or invoicing, non-billable tracking so you can see your utilisation, and low enough friction that you actually keep it up. The last one decides more than any feature list.
