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Time tracking software for consultants: summary and key takeaways
What it does: Time tracking software for consultants records hours against engagements and carries them to rates, budgets, invoices, and margin reports.
The angle: Each tool here is judged on where time gets captured and which plan actually supports billing.
Pricing reality: Billing features often sit one or two tiers above the entry price, so compare the plan you'll really use.
Top pick: Teamwork.com suits consulting firms that need time, utilization, and profitability in one agentic PSA (professional services automation) platform.
Before I joined Teamwork.com, Friday afternoons in my agency years meant rebuilding a week of hours from calendar invites, email threads, and memory. The hours that came back were always fewer than the hours worked, and nobody could prove which ones went missing. Closing that gap is the real job of time tracking software for consultants, and most roundups skip it.
The stakes are higher now. SPI Research's 2026 benchmark (2025 data) puts average billable utilization at 66.4%, down from 68.9% and the lowest in SPI's survey history. SPI considers 75% optimal, so the average firm sits almost nine points short.
Some of that gap is idle capacity. Some is billable delivery that never reached a timesheet, and a firm rebuilding hours on Friday can't tell the two apart. Our guide on how to track billable hours covers the logging habits, so this piece sticks to choosing the software.
Here are seven tools, scored on the path from captured hour to paid invoice, with October 2026 pricing.
What is time tracking software for consultants?
Time tracking software for consultants, the category every tool below competes in, is a tool that records hours against clients, engagements, and tasks. It then carries those hours to billing and reporting. Time capture is the moment an hour gets recorded, whether by timer, timesheet, calendar event, or background agent.
Billable utilization is the share of available hours spent on billable client delivery. For example, a consultant with 40 available hours who logs 30 billable hours runs at 75%. Good software answers four questions:
Which engagement and task did this hour belong to?
Which rate applies, and is the hour billable?
How much of the budget or retainer is left?
Did the engagement make money?
When those answers live in separate tools, nobody trusts the numbers. Before moving to Teamwork.com, Community Link Consulting said tracking time "felt like pulling teeth" and billing was "a guessing game."
How I reviewed and selected these tools
Most roundups rank time trackers on timer design, but those four questions end at the invoice, not the stopwatch. Teamwork.com's Six Strategic Shifts research found teams need to be asked 3–5 times to complete timesheets, and the data is often inaccurate. So I weighted my criteria toward capture and billing:
Where time gets captured: Timer, timesheet, calendar, or monitoring agent. Capture closer to the work leaves fewer hours to rebuild.
Lowest plan with billable rates: I noted the cheapest plan that applies a billable rate, since entry prices often exclude it.
Invoicing from logged time: Hours should reach an invoice without re-keying. Our roundup of consultant billing software covers invoicing depth.
Budgets, fixed fee, and retainers: Fixed-fee and retainer engagements need time tracked against a budget as well as a task.
Timesheet approvals: A manager sign-off catches errors before they become disputed invoice lines.
Profitability and utilization: I checked whether reports show margin and billable utilization by person and engagement as hours land.
Monitoring vs. billing: Screenshot and app-usage tracking supervises staff. It doesn't price or bill an engagement, so I scored it separately.
I saw the same thing agency-side: the third reminder got a timesheet, but rarely an accurate one. That's why the capture point carries the most weight in my scoring.
Capture-to-invoice comparison
Seven tools made the cut, and the capture point splits them four ways: timers, timesheets, calendars, and monitoring agents. Prices below are billed annually unless noted.
Tool
Teamwork.com
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Teamwork.com is an agentic PSA where consultants log time on the engagement task itself. Each logged hour then carries to a rate, a budget, an invoice, and a margin report without re-keying. It fits firms billing hourly, fixed fee, or on retainer.
Best features:
Log the hour where the work happened: Friday rebuilds round hours down. Capture time on the task with timers and timesheets, bulk-log a whole week at once, or drag a My Calendar event into an entry. Automated reminders nudge anyone with gaps before the week closes. You end each Friday with every hour filed against the right engagement and rate.
Let AI write the timesheet: AI time logging drafts your day from the tasks and projects you actually touched, with a running total of billable hours. Type or speak anything it missed, like a client call, or ask what you haven't logged this week. Nothing saves until you click Log time, so every hour that reaches the invoice is one you confirmed.
Bill from the entry, not an export: Every rate retyped into a separate invoicing tool is a chance for a write-off. Set hourly rates per person, then track time against Budgets for fixed-fee and retainer engagements, so you see burn as hours land. On Accelerate, Invoicing builds invoices from logged time, so the invoice matches the timesheet line for line.
See margin while the engagement is still running: Most firms learn an engagement lost money after the final invoice. TeamworkAI adds AI utilization insights on Accelerate, logs expenses from an uploaded receipt, and forecasts project profitability on Optimize. Time Reports and Utilization Reports split billable from non-billable hours by person and engagement, so you still have time to correct course.
Teamwork.com customers improve their billable utilization by 21.8% on average. That figure covers customers using project and resource management features for 12 months.
The job
G2 rating: 4.4/5 from 1,215 reviews on G2.
"The time tracking is seamless enough that our team actually uses it consistently, which sounds basic but isn't always the case with PM tools. Being able to log hours against specific tasks and then pull that straight into billing/reporting saves us a real chunk of admin time every week, and it gives us much clearer visibility into where hours are actually going on each account — useful both for our own margins and for justifying scope conversations with clients." — Gaurav G., Full Stack Developer, G2
Limitations: Quotes, role-based rates, timesheet approvals, and profitability insights need Optimize, a contact-sales plan.
Pricing:
Free: $0/user/month (up to 5 users and 5 projects)
Basics: $9.99/user/month (billed annually, minimum 3 seats)
Accelerate: $24.99/user/month (billed annually, minimum 5 seats)
Optimize: Contact sales
Enterprise: Contact sales
Capture the hour once, on the task, and every number after it gets more honest.
Harvest
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Harvest is a time tracking and invoicing tool for small consulting teams that bill hourly and want invoices out quickly. It's one of the few tools here with invoicing on its free plan.
Its strongest trait is the short path from timer to invoice. You log time with a timer or weekly timesheet, then build an invoice that pulls in the period's billable hours and expenses. Clients pay online, and Harvest sends reminders when an invoice goes overdue.
Best features:
Expense tracking: Log expenses alongside time, even on the free plan.
Weekly timesheet: Bulk-enter a week of hours when no timer was running.
Project budgets: Budget tracking shows how much of an engagement's hours or fees you've used.
Limitations: Profitability reporting and timesheet approvals sit on Enterprise, not Teams. Harvest also bills additional invoices, projects, clients, and tasks based on usage, which makes costs harder to forecast. For example, five users pay $45 a month on Teams billed annually, or $70 on Enterprise once approvals matter.
Pricing:
Free: $0/user/month (1 seat, 2 projects)
Teams: $9/user/month (billed annually) or $11/user/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise: $14/user/month (billed annually) or $17.50/user/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise Plus: Custom pricing
Toggl Track
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Toggl Track is a timer-first tracker for consultants who want capture to take one click, wherever they work. It suits individuals and small teams more than firms managing margin across many engagements.
Capture is where it shines. Browser extensions let you track time from inside your favorite tools, and you can log calendar events as time entries. From a delivery management perspective, that calendar view matters most, because a fast timer still misses the hours spent in client calls.
Best features:
One-click timer: Start tracking from the browser, desktop, or mobile app.
Billable rates on Starter: Rates apply from the first paid plan.
Idle detection: Get a prompt when the timer runs but your device goes quiet.
Limitations: Labor costs, profitability, fixed-fee projects, and timesheet approvals need Premium. For example, 10 users moving from Starter to Premium go from $90 to $160 a month billed annually. Capacity Management is a separate paid add-on.
Pricing:
Free: $0/user/month (limited number of users)
Starter: $9/user/month (billed annually) or $12/user/month (billed monthly)
Premium: $16/user/month (billed annually) or $24/user/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise: Custom pricing
Clockify
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Clockify is a low-cost time tracker with a free plan for up to 5 users. It fits budget-conscious firms that want billable rates and client-ready reports without a big per-seat bill.
Its rate handling goes further than the price suggests. You set hourly rates per employee and per project, mark entries billable, and reports calculate the billable amount automatically. Reports export as PDF on the free plan, paid plans add CSV and Excel, and you can share a live link with the client.
Best features:
Free plan for 5 users: Pilot with a small team before paying for seats.
Timer and manual timesheet: Track live or enter hours after the fact.
Budget alerts: On Pro and up, get notified when a project goes over budget.
Limitations: Invoicing starts on Standard and labor cost and profit reports on Pro, so Basic isn't the consultant price. The menu also pushes activity monitoring, GPS, and kiosk tools, and Clockify shows prices based on your location.
Pricing:
Free: $0/user/month (up to 5 users)
Basic: $3.99/user/month (billed annually) or $4.99/user/month (billed monthly)
Standard: $5.49/user/month (billed annually) or $6.99/user/month (billed monthly)
Pro: $7.99/user/month (billed annually) or $9.99/user/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise: $11.99/user/month (billed annually) or $14.99/user/month (billed monthly)
QuickBooks Time
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QuickBooks Time is time tracking for firms that already run their books on QuickBooks Online. It requires a QuickBooks Online subscription, so it's an add-on to your accounting stack rather than a standalone tracker. The payoff is the handoff to finance. Logged hours sync into QuickBooks invoicing and payroll, so nobody in finance retypes timesheets.
For example, 10 users on Time Premium cost $20 base plus $100 in seats, or $120 a month before QuickBooks Online. On Elite, the same 10 users cost $40 base plus $120, or $160 a month. That math favors firms already paying for QuickBooks Online over teams choosing a tracker from scratch.
Best features:
Mobile time clock: Staff clock in and out from the QuickBooks Time app.
Estimates vs. actuals: Elite compares planned and logged hours by project.
Timesheet signatures: Elite captures sign-off on submitted hours.
Limitations: Pricing stacks a base fee, a per-user fee, and the QuickBooks Online subscription. It's built around payroll and accounting, so utilization and engagement margin need separate reporting.
Pricing:
Time Premium: $20/month base fee plus $10/user/month (base includes 1 admin)
Time Elite: $40/month base fee plus $12/user/month (base includes 1 admin)
TimeCamp
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TimeCamp is an automatic time tracker for firms that want hours captured in the background with less manual logging. Its low entry price makes it easy to pilot with a small team before a firm-wide rollout.
On Premium, automatic tracking records the apps and websites you use, then helps you assign that activity to projects. You can switch to a manual timer at any point. The AI Time Tracker, billed by usage, suggests entries from your activity.
Best features:
Calendar view: Import calendar events as time entries in your timesheet.
Invoicing on Starter: Build invoices from tracked time on the first paid plan.
Budgets and estimates: Premium tracks billable time against budgets and estimates.
Limitations: Billing rates, timesheet approvals, and expenses sit on Ultimate, so the realistic consultant plan costs $9.99/user/month billed annually. Background tracking also needs a clear policy, because consultants will ask what gets recorded. For example, 10 users on Ultimate cost $99.90 a month, versus $39.90 on Starter.
Pricing:
Free: $0/user/month (feature limits apply)
Starter: $3.99/user/month (billed annually) or $5.49/user/month (billed monthly)
Premium: $6.99/user/month (billed annually) or $9.99/user/month (billed monthly)
Ultimate: $9.99/user/month (billed annually) or $13.99/user/month (billed monthly)
Time Doctor
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Time Doctor is an employee monitoring tool built for supervising remote staff. It records screenshots, web and app usage, and screen video, which is a different job from billing a client.
If supervision is the goal, it's thorough. Managers see idle time and mouse-jiggler detection for each person. The Standard plan adds payroll, which helps when you pay remote hourly staff from tracked time.
Best features:
Screenshots: Capture what's on screen during tracked time.
Video screen recording: Record screen activity for later review.
Productivity reports: Rate app and website use as productive or unproductive.
Limitations: The pricing page lists no invoicing or billable rates, so you'd need another tool to bill clients. Screenshots can also capture client documents, so check them against your confidentiality terms. Our roundup of employee time tracking software covers monitoring-style tools in more depth.
My rule from agency life was simple: supervise hourly contractors if contracts require it, but bill clients from task-level time. Time Doctor handles the first job well.
Pricing:
Free trial: 14 days (no free plan)
Basic: $6.67/user/month (billed annually) or $8/user/month (billed monthly)
Standard: $11.67/user/month (billed annually) or $14/user/month (billed monthly)
Premium: $16.70/user/month (billed annually) or $20/user/month (billed monthly)
Enterprise: Custom pricing
AI time capture vs traditional timers
Picture a consultant who closes the laptop after five client calls, two workshops, and an SOW revision, with an empty timesheet. A traditional timer only knows what she remembered to start. Monitoring software knows the screen time, but not which engagement it belonged to. Farotech lived that gap before switching to Teamwork.com, hopping "between spreadsheets and calendars, and even then, people were missing hours."
AI time capture works from context instead. It reads calendar events and task activity, then drafts entries for you to confirm against an engagement. TimeCamp's AI Time Tracker suggests entries from app activity, and Teamwork.com's AI time logging drafts your day from the tasks you touched. An AI-drafted timesheet is still a draft: someone has to confirm the engagement and rate before it reaches an invoice.
Admin time is the real target. In a 2025 Bloomberg Law survey of 1,054 US legal professionals, attorneys spent about 2 of every 8 hours on admin like tracking hours. That's a legal-sector analogue, but law runs on the billable hour too.
AI is also changing what an hour is worth. SPI Research found generative AI was used in 27.1% of professional services projects in 2025, up from 19.3% in 2024. When AI shortens delivery, hourly billing hands the saving to the client, so you need to track cost per deliverable as well as hours.
Why Teamwork.com stands out for consultants
Confirmed hours only pay off when they reach a rate, a budget, and a margin report in the same system. That's the case for an agentic PSA. Project tools can't hold the rate or the margin, and traditional PSAs hold them but get resisted, so hours never reach them. Teamwork.com connects engagements, resources, financials, and AI agents, so margin shows up as delivery happens.
Most firms aren't there yet. In Teamwork.com's Sprint to AI research, 92% of client service leaders said their current tech falls short, and 58% use 3–5 separate tools. Every handoff between those tools is a place where a logged hour drops its rate.
Quote-to-cash is where the connection shows. On Optimize, you create quotes, apply role-based and client rates, and see revenue, cost, and profitability from the hours your team logs. The client view rolls that up by account, so a partner sees billable and non-billable time across every engagement for one client.
IT services and consulting leaders also ask about data. Teamwork.com is SOC 2 Type 2 certified, and we never use your private data to train third-party models. Our software for consulting firms page shows the full engagement workflow.
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