Just Use Toggl Track to Track Client Hours

You’re a solo consultant. You bill by the hour, you juggle 3-6 clients, and the last thing you want is a time tracker that feels like a second job. Just use Toggl Track. We tested 9 time tracking tools — here’s why Toggl wins for your situation.

Pick: Toggl Track — dead simple, one-click timers, reports clients actually understand
Price: Free for solo use / $12 USD per user/month (Starter, monthly billing) or $9 USD per user/month (Starter, annual billing)
Runner-up: Clockify — also has a free tier, more features, slightly clunkier
Skip if: You need project management built in (use Harvest instead, but know its pricing has changed — verify before committing)

The problem

You need to know how many hours you spent on Client A vs Client B this month. That’s it. Maybe you need a report to attach to an invoice. Maybe you need to track against a retainer.

What you don’t need: Gantt charts, team dashboards, approval workflows, or a tool that takes 30 minutes to configure before you can start a timer. And yet that’s what most time trackers give you — because they’re built for teams of 20, not consultants of 1.

We tested 9 time tracking tools with one rule: if we couldn’t start tracking time within 2 minutes of signup, it was out.

Our pick: Toggl Track

Toggl Track is the best time tracker for solo consultants who bill by the hour. It does three things and does them well: start/stop timers, tag them by client and project, and generate reports.

Why Toggl

The interface is a single screen with a big green “Start” button. No onboarding wizard, no tutorials, no “let’s set up your team first.” You sign up, you type a task description, you hit start. That’s it.

The reports are the real selling point. Toggl generates clean PDF and CSV reports broken down by client, project, and date range. You can attach these directly to your invoices — clients see exactly what they’re paying for, and you don’t spend 20 minutes in Excel every month.

The free tier is genuinely usable for solo consultants starting out. You get unlimited time tracking, unlimited projects, calendar integration, basic reports, and access to browser extensions, mobile apps, and desktop apps. The catch: no billable rates on the free plan. If you need to assign dollar values per client or project — and most solo consultants billing by the hour do — you need Starter.

What it costs

Free for basic solo use. Starter runs $12 USD per user/month on monthly billing or $9 USD per user/month on annual billing. That’s where billable rates, project estimates, scheduled reports, and integrations live. The jump to Starter is worth it once you’re billing 3+ clients regularly — the billable-rate feature alone saves time on invoicing and eliminates the mental math of multiplying hours by rates for every client.

There’s also a Premium tier at $20 USD per user/month (monthly) or $18 USD per user/month (annual), which adds time audits, project forecasts, and priority support. Solo consultants don’t need Premium. Starter is the tier to be on.

One note on the free plan: Toggl deletes free accounts with no new time entries in six months. If you go inactive between projects, set a reminder to log something before that window closes.

What’s not great

Toggl is deliberately simple. If you need project budgets with alerts, resource planning, or time-off tracking, Toggl’s Starter tier won’t cut it — and even Premium is basic compared to dedicated project management tools. But for a solo consultant, those features are overhead you’re paying for and never using.

The mobile app is fine but not great. The timer occasionally doesn’t sync if you lose connection, and you might end up with duplicate entries. It’s a known issue, not a dealbreaker — just check your entries before invoicing.

Toggl Track

Try Toggl Track free — no credit card, no onboarding quiz, just a start button.

Try Toggl Track

Runner-up: Clockify

Choose Clockify if you want more features at a lower paid-tier price. Clockify’s Standard tier — the one with billable rates — costs significantly less per seat than Toggl Starter. Check Clockify’s current pricing page for per-user rates, as they adjust periodically. The trade-off: the interface is busier, there are more settings to configure, and the reports aren’t as clean.

Clockify also had a more generous free plan historically, but as of April 2026, billable rates and CSV/Excel exports moved behind the paid Standard tier. So the “free Clockify” pitch for hourly billing is no longer accurate — you’ll pay either way.

Clockify is the right choice if you work with subcontractors and need them on the same tool without paying much per seat, or if the price gap between Clockify Standard and Toggl Starter matters to your budget. For pure solo use where reporting clarity is the priority, Toggl wins.

What we ruled out

Harvest — The best time tracker with built-in invoicing, but its pricing has changed enough that we can’t recommend it without a caveat. Harvest’s pricing structure has shifted since we last audited it, and the current costs may not match what you find in older reviews. Check Harvest’s pricing page directly before committing — what you pay could differ significantly from the headline number depending on how you use it. For a solo operator building a long-term stack, that unpredictability is a real problem.

Monday.com — A project management platform that happens to have time tracking. Overkill for solo consultants. The time tracking is buried three clicks deep and requires setting up boards first. Skip unless you already use Monday for project management.

RescueTime — Tracks time automatically by monitoring what apps and websites you use. Clever idea, wrong use case. You need to track billable hours by client, not monitor your screen time. RescueTime tells you that you spent 3 hours in Figma, but it can’t tell you which client that was for. It doesn’t support billable rates at all.

Timely — AI-powered automatic time tracking. Impressive technology, but the AI isn’t accurate enough to bill clients without manual correction. At $11/month (Starter), you’re paying for automation that still needs babysitting. Timely is built for agencies managing teams, not solo consultants who need a clean timer and a client report.

When to revisit

If you grow past 10 active clients and need project profitability reporting, Toggl Premium ($18 USD per user/month annual) adds project forecasts and time audits. If you cross 50 clients and need white-label reports or team approval workflows, you’re in agency territory and should evaluate purpose-built agency tools. But for the solo consultant billing 3-8 clients a month? Toggl Starter at $9 USD per user/month annual is the ceiling you won’t hit for a long time.