Paymo Review: Is It Worth Paying For? (Compared to Harvest, Toggl Track, Everhour & Hubstaff)
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The problem: three tools bolted together, none of them talking to each other
Freelancers and small agencies tend to arrive at this category the same way: a spreadsheet for tracking billable hours, a separate app for keeping tasks organized, and a third tool — or an accountant’s inbox — for turning all of that into an invoice a client will actually pay. Each piece works fine in isolation. The friction shows up at the seams: hours logged in one tool that don’t automatically become a line item in another, a project status that’s accurate in the task board but stale in whatever the client sees, an invoice that has to be manually rebuilt from a timesheet export at the end of the month.
The five tools below all try to close that gap, but they close it from different starting points. Some genuinely combine project management, time tracking, and invoicing into one system where a tracked hour flows straight into a client invoice without a re-entry step. Others are time trackers first, with project structure or billing bolted on as a secondary feature — which is a perfectly reasonable choice if a team already has a project management tool it likes and just needs accurate hours feeding into it. Picking the wrong starting point is how a solo consultant ends up paying for a five-seat minimum they’ll never fill, or how a small agency ends up exporting CSVs into QuickBooks every month because the tool they picked never actually did invoicing.
I’ve watched a freelance friend’s invoicing process up close: tracked hours in one app, a monthly ritual of copying numbers into a spreadsheet, then formatting that into a PDF invoice by hand. It took about ninety minutes a month that a properly integrated tool would have collapsed into a five-minute review-and-send. That gap — between “has a time tracker” and “actually turns tracked time into a paid invoice without manual re-entry” — is the single biggest differentiator in this comparison, more than any single feature on a marketing page.
Three things that actually matter when you’re choosing
1. Whether invoicing is a first-class feature or an afterthought. Paymo, Harvest, and Hubstaff all generate client-ready invoices directly from tracked time, with recurring billing and expense tracking built in. Toggl Track added invoicing more recently, generated from its Summary Reports rather than being the tool’s original core function. Everhour’s invoicing lives behind its paid Team tier and leans on syncing tracked time into other tools (QuickBooks, Xero) rather than being a standalone invoice generator. If sending an invoice at the end of the month is a core part of the workflow — not just a nice-to-have — it’s worth checking exactly how each tool gets from “tracked hour” to “PDF a client can pay,” not just whether the word “invoicing” appears on the pricing page.
2. Seat minimums, because they can quietly double the bill for a small team. This is where the five diverge sharply. Everhour bills a minimum of 5 seats on its Team plan even if the actual team has two people — a two-person shop pays for five seats regardless. Harvest has no seat minimum on its paid tiers, and Hubstaff’s current pricing page doesn’t publish one either, so a solo user or two-person team should be able to pay only for the seats actually in use on either tool (worth a quick confirmation with Hubstaff’s sales team before committing a specific headcount, since minimums have varied by plan in the past). Paymo splits the difference: its Solo plan is built for exactly one user, and the jump to Plus (unlimited seats, priced per user) only makes sense once there’s an actual second person to add. Toggl Track’s paid tiers are also priced per license with no stated minimum. For a freelancer or two-person team, this single detail can matter more than any per-seat price difference.
3. Whether the tool is built around project structure or around monitoring. Paymo, Harvest, and Toggl Track are organized around projects, tasks, and billable hours — the monitoring they do is limited to what’s needed for accurate time tracking. Hubstaff leans harder into workforce monitoring: screenshots, activity-level percentages, and app/URL tracking are core features starting on its cheapest paid tier, which is a deliberate fit for teams managing distributed contractors who need accountability, and a poor fit for a freelancer who just wants to bill accurately for their own time without a screenshot tool watching them work.
What free actually gets you
| Tool | Free tier | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Paymo | 1 user, 1 client, 2 projects, unlimited time tracking and invoices, 1GB storage | Only 2 projects and 1 client — fine for a single ongoing retainer, tight for anyone juggling multiple clients |
| Harvest | 1 seat, 2 projects, invoicing and expense tracking included | Same 2-project ceiling as Paymo’s free tier, and it’s a single-user plan with no path to add teammates without upgrading |
| Toggl Track | Free for up to 5 users (per Toggl’s own support documentation and consistent third-party reporting) | Free tier is time tracking and reporting only — profitability tracking, timesheet approvals, and SSO are paid-tier features |
| Everhour | Up to 5 seats, time tracking, projects and tasks, reports, data export | No integrations at all on free — Everhour’s core value (syncing into Asana, Trello, ClickUp, etc.) is entirely locked behind the paid tier |
| Hubstaff | No free plan — 14-day free trial with all features, no credit card required | Nothing to fall back on after the trial ends; every ongoing plan requires payment |
Paymo and Harvest both give a genuinely usable single-user free tier for someone with one steady client relationship. Toggl Track and Everhour’s free tiers support a small team headcount-wise but hold back the features (integrations, approvals, profitability data) that make either tool worth adopting for real project work. Hubstaff is the outlier with no ongoing free option at all — the trial is generous, but there’s no low-commitment way to keep using a stripped-down version afterward.
How they compare
| Tool | Starting paid price | Standout strength | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paymo | $5.90/mo (Solo, first 3 months, then $9.90/mo), or $10.90/user/mo (Plus, first 3 months, then $15.90/user/mo) | Genuinely one tool for project management, time tracking, and recurring client invoicing — no export-and-reimport step between them | Gantt charts, task dependencies, and resource scheduling are locked to the top Pro tier ($16.90/user/mo intro, then $23.90/user/mo) |
| Harvest | $9/seat/mo billed annually ($108/year), or $11/seat/mo billed monthly | Deep, mature accounting integrations (QuickBooks, Xero, Stripe) most useful once invoicing volume grows past what manual bookkeeping can handle | Project management is thin by comparison — no Gantt charts, kanban boards, or task dependencies; it’s a time-and-billing tool more than a full PM tool |
| Toggl Track | $9/license/month (Starter), no published annual discount at this tier | The most widely integrated pure time tracker in this group, with 100+ integrations for teams that already have a project management tool | Premium’s annual rate ($14/license/month) applies only to the first year and renews at $18/license/month afterward — worth calendaring the renewal date |
| Everhour | $10/user/month billed monthly, or $8.50/user/month billed annually | Native, deep integrations directly inside existing PM tools (Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Basecamp) rather than a separate app to check | 5-seat minimum on the Team plan regardless of actual headcount — a 2-person team is billed for 5 |
| Hubstaff | $4.99/user/month billed annually, or $7/user/month billed monthly (Starter) | Built-in workforce monitoring (screenshots, activity levels, app/URL tracking) for teams that need contractor accountability, not just hour totals | No ongoing free plan, and monitoring features that are a strength for managing remote contractors can feel invasive for a solo freelancer tracking their own time |
All prices above were checked directly against each vendor’s official pricing page (or, where noted, official support documentation) as of this writing. Paymo’s introductory pricing on Solo and Plus reverts to a higher standard rate after the first three months — a structural part of the plan rather than a limited-time promotion — so budgeting for the renewal rate from the start avoids a pricing surprise on month four.
The breakdown, tool by tool
Paymo
What it’s for: freelancers and small agencies that want one subscription covering project tracking, time tracking, and client invoicing, without exporting data between separate tools to get paid.
Pros
- Invoices generate directly from tracked billable hours, with recurring invoices, estimates, and expense tracking included from the Plus tier up
- The free tier includes unlimited time tracking and unlimited invoices, not just a capped trial of either
- Kanban boards and task calendars are available starting on the entry Solo tier, well below where competitors like Harvest gate any project-structure features
Cons
- Gantt charts, task dependencies, and portfolio-level views (useful once a shop is running several projects in parallel) are reserved for the top Pro tier
- The advertised Solo and Plus prices are introductory rates that increase after three months, which needs to be budgeted for rather than assumed as the ongoing cost
- Free tier’s 2-project cap means most freelancers with more than one active client will need to upgrade quickly
Harvest
What it’s for: teams and freelancers whose main need is accurate time-and-expense billing that flows cleanly into existing accounting software, more than a full project management system.
Pros
- Integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, and Stripe are mature and specific, useful for anyone already running their books through one of those tools
- The free tier is a real, permanently usable single-seat plan rather than a time-limited trial
- A 30-day free trial with no credit card required makes it low-risk to test the paid tiers directly
Cons
- No kanban board, Gantt chart, or task-dependency view — project structure is limited to lists and basic task assignment, not a substitute for a dedicated PM tool
- SSO and unlimited custom reports are Enterprise-only, a meaningful jump from the Teams tier for a growing shop that needs either
- Per-seat pricing with no seat minimum is friendly to small teams, but there’s also no volume discount path below Enterprise-tier headcounts
Toggl Track
What it’s for: teams that already have a project management tool in place and specifically need accurate, low-friction time tracking layered on top of it, rather than a full replacement system.
Pros
- Over 100 integrations, including native connections to Jira and Salesforce, make it easy to bolt onto whatever PM or CRM system a team already runs
- The Free tier supports a small team (up to 5 users) rather than being locked to a single seat
- Reporting and profitability analysis on the Premium tier are detailed enough for agencies billing by project rather than by flat retainer
Cons
- Project management features (kanban boards, Gantt charts, task dependencies) are noticeably lighter than Paymo’s — Toggl Track is a time tracker with project tagging, not a project management system
- Premium’s annual pricing is a first-year-only rate that renews higher, which is easy to miss when comparing sticker prices across tools
- Invoicing was added onto a reporting-first tool rather than being an original core feature, so it’s worth confirming it covers a specific billing workflow (recurring invoices, multi-currency, etc.) before relying on it as a full replacement for a dedicated invoicing tool
Everhour
What it’s for: teams that already live inside Asana, Trello, ClickUp, or a similar PM tool and want time tracking and budgeting embedded directly into that existing workflow rather than a separate app to switch into.
Pros
- Integrations are described as native rather than bolted-on — time tracking shows up inside the existing PM tool’s interface instead of requiring a context switch
- Budgeting and profitability tracking are included in the same Team plan as time tracking, without an extra tier to unlock them
- A 14-day trial with no credit card required makes it easy to test against a team’s actual existing PM tool before committing
Cons
- The 5-seat minimum on the Team plan is the most aggressive in this group — a freelancer or 2-person shop pays for 5 seats regardless of actual headcount
- The free tier explicitly excludes all integrations, which removes Everhour’s core selling point until a team is already paying
- Everhour isn’t a standalone project management tool — it depends on an existing PM tool to attach to, which is a poor fit for anyone not already using one of its supported integrations
Hubstaff
What it’s for: teams managing distributed or contractor labor who need verifiable proof of hours worked — screenshots and activity data — not just a self-reported timesheet.
Pros
- Screenshot and activity-level monitoring are available starting on the cheapest paid tier, not gated behind a premium plan
- Payroll automation and workforce analytics on the Team tier turn tracked hours directly into contractor payments, closing a loop that pure time trackers leave manual
- Annual pricing is meaningfully cheaper across every tier (for example, $4.99 vs. $7 per user on Starter), a larger annual discount than most competitors in this comparison offer
Cons
- No free plan at all — once the 14-day trial ends, there’s no reduced-feature tier to fall back to
- The monitoring-first design (screenshots, URL and app tracking) is a mismatch for a solo freelancer who doesn’t need to prove their own hours to anyone
- Unlimited integrations don’t unlock until the Team tier — the Starter and Grow tiers cap or limit integration count
Which one fits your situation
You’re a solo freelancer who needs to track time and send invoices, nothing more: Paymo’s free tier or Solo plan. Unlimited invoicing on the free tier alone covers a single steady client relationship without paying anything.
Your billing already runs through QuickBooks or Xero and you mainly need clean time-and-expense data feeding into it: Harvest. The accounting integrations are more specific and mature here than in any other tool in this group.
You already have a project management tool you like and just need accurate time tracking layered on top: Toggl Track or Everhour, depending on which PM tool is already in use — Everhour if it’s one of its natively supported tools (Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Basecamp), Toggl Track otherwise, given its broader 100+ integration list.
You’re managing a small team of contractors and need proof of hours worked, not just self-reported totals: Hubstaff. The screenshot and activity-monitoring features solve a specific accountability problem the other four tools in this comparison don’t attempt to address.
You want project management, time tracking, and invoicing to be one system from day one, without stitching tools together: Paymo, moving to the Plus tier once a second team member needs access — it’s the only tool here where all three functions are original, first-class features rather than one function bolted onto another.
Common questions
Do any of these let me skip a separate invoicing tool entirely? Paymo, Harvest, and Hubstaff all generate invoices directly from tracked billable time without an export-and-reimport step. Toggl Track added invoicing based on its Summary Reports, which covers straightforward billing but is worth checking against a specific workflow (recurring billing, multi-currency clients) before assuming full parity with a dedicated invoicing tool. Everhour leans on syncing into external accounting tools rather than acting as the invoice generator itself.
Is a 5-seat minimum, like Everhour’s, actually common in this category? No — it’s the exception in this comparison, not the rule. Paymo, Harvest, and Toggl Track all let a single user or small team pay only for the seats actually in use, and Hubstaff’s published pricing doesn’t list a minimum either, though it’s worth confirming directly before committing a specific headcount. Either way, this matters most for a freelancer or a two-person shop not ready to commit to a fixed headcount.
Which of these is the easiest to switch away from later if it doesn’t work out? Tools with no seat minimum and a real free or trial tier (Paymo, Harvest) are the lowest-commitment starting points, since there’s no minimum spend forcing a longer trial period than needed. Hubstaff’s lack of any free plan makes it the highest-commitment option to start with, though its trial covers every feature so there’s no artificial cap during the evaluation itself.
Do I need the top-tier plan to get real project management features, not just time tracking? On Paymo specifically, yes for the deepest features — Gantt charts, task dependencies, and resource scheduling sit on the Pro tier, not Plus. Kanban boards and task calendars, however, are available from the entry Solo tier up, so a small team gets real project structure well before the top tier. On Harvest, no tier adds true project-management views (Gantt, kanban) — that’s a structural limit of the tool, not a pricing-tier gate.
Where to start
For anyone billing clients by the hour, the fastest way to feel the difference between these five is to track one real week of work in whichever free or trial option fits the team size, then try turning that week directly into a client invoice without leaving the tool. That single step — time tracked to invoice sent, with no CSV export in between — is where Paymo, Harvest, and Hubstaff separate themselves from Toggl Track and Everhour’s more integration-dependent approach.
If the project management side matters as much as the billing side, start free with Paymo and build out a real project — not a test one — with actual tasks and a client attached. The free tier’s 2-project cap is restrictive, but it’s enough to see whether the combined project-and-invoicing workflow actually removes the manual re-entry step that makes separate tools painful in the first place. Only move to a paid plan once a specific limit — a third project, Gantt-level scheduling, or a second team member — is the thing actually standing in the way of getting work done.