Last week I received emails from clients all with the same question: “any update on this?” Three spreadsheets open, 12 browser tabs, a milestone that was missed 2 days ago. Nobody caught it.
Several of my staff work from home full-time. The rest are always on the move. I know what it's like to have a tracking system fail.
This list is for freelancers and small business owners who have 1-10 people in their business. I've used the best project tracking tools I could find and I'll show you what they're really good for, what they're lousy at, and what their free plans prevent you from doing.
This isn't a list of project management tools. This is the list of best project tracking tools, the ones that track work already in motion.
How I Tested and Picked These Tools
It wasn't a weekend project to find the best project tracking tools for this list. I subscribed to them all, did some real work with them and spent weeks testing the parts that are important to freelancers and small teams. Me, a free trial and a live project.
I'm an AI Automation Consultant, assisting clients in selecting and implementing the appropriate tools for their processes each week. That means I have experienced what works and what doesn't when things are hectic.
This is exactly what I was searching for:
Setup speed. Is it possible to get this up and running without reading any doc? If I had to take a tutorial to make my first project, that counted against it.
Free plan reality. There are many project tracking tools that offer a free plan, but it's actually a 14-day timer. I've looked at all the limits, projects, users, storage and what's behind the paywall.
Multiple client projects. Clean separation matters when you're freelancing for multiple clients. I tried to see how easy it was to prevent mixing up client work.
Time tracking and billing. The best freelance project management tools don't require you to install a second application to track hours.
Mobile app quality. Is it a badge on the App Store listing or real usability? I've tried all of them on mobile as well.
This is the filter that all of the following went through.
Best Project Tracking Tools: Quick Comparison
| # | Tool | Best For | Free Plan Limit | Paid Starts At | Standout Feature |
| 1 | Toggl Track | Simple one-click time tracking | Limited seats (no published cap — verify at signup) | $9/user/month | Cleanest, fastest timer interface |
| 2 | Harvest | Turning tracked hours into invoices | 1 seat, 2 projects | $9/seat/month | Built-in client invoicing |
| 3 | Clockify | Free-forever team timesheet tracking | 5 users, reports capped at 1 month | $3.99/seat/month | Most generous free user count |
| 4 | Trello | Visual card-based progress tracking | 10 boards, 10 collaborators | $5/user/month | Unlimited Power-Ups, even on free |
| 5 | Todoist | Checklist and personal task tracking | 5 active projects | ~$5/month | Fastest natural-language task entry |
| 6 | MeisterTask | Streamlined, secure agile task boards | 3 projects, 5 notes | $13/user/month | ISO 27001 security, EU hosting |
The Best Project Tracking Tools, Reviewed.
I registered for all six and utilized each one, keeping in mind what is important for a freelancer or a small team that has multiple clients. Here are some things I discovered.
1. Toggl Track
If someone tells me that they have never tracked time before and that it is a chore, I suggest that they try Toggl Track. It's a one click timer and that's all it requires from you, and that's what makes people stick with it.
What it does well: The timer is one click, the calendar view will automatically turn your Google or Outlook events into time entries, and the browser extension lets you track time in any app you're already in. No tab-switching. It also has a following outside of the traditional productivity crowd. Serena Williams told FastCompany that she uses it to look at how her day is spent.
What it doesn't do so well: Toggl doesn't explicitly mention a limit on free users on its pricing page, making it more difficult to plan around if you're adding users. It can create invoices from your reports, but that's not a prominent feature like it is on Harvest. This isn't the one to start with if your main need is billing clients.
Free plan reality: unlimited projects and clients, 100+ integrations, full mobile, desktop and web access. Until you upgrade, no billable rates, no project time estimates.
Paid plan: Starter ($9/user/month) has billable rates and revenue reports.
Best for: freelancers who wish to have one of the best project tracking tools that will keep time tracking invisible and quick.
Give Toggl Track a try for free.
2. Harvest
I always think of Harvest when I think of invoicing, as they do it better than anything here. With a few clicks, time tracking becomes an invoice ready for the client.
What it does well: Invoicing is integrated, not an add-on, and it integrates with QuickBooks, Xero, Stripe, and Deel, so you don't have to export spreadsheets into another tool to get paid. If you also need to manage client relationships beyond invoicing, our client management software guide covers the tools built for that. It also clearly shows project budgets so you can see a client project overspending before it's too late.
What it doesn't do well: I'm being honest here. Harvest is now owned by Bending Spoons, the same company that bought Evernote, AOL, Vimeo and WeTransfer. It's not a rumour, it's in their own IPO filing. Bending Spoons has a history of reducing pricing and free plans following previous acquisitions, and Harvest's plan names have already shifted from Free/Pro/Premium to Free/Teams/Enterprise. Today's pricing is fair, but it's important to note that the company is in the midst of a transition.
Free plan reality: 1 seat, 2 projects, full invoicing and time tracking included. Fine for 1 or 2 clients. The third client means you'll need to upgrade.
Paid plan: Teams at $9 per seat/month annual, unlimited seats, team reporting.
Best for: freelancers who charge by the hour and want one of the best project tracking tools to get paid without a second tool.
3. Clockify
I recommend Clockify if you are growing your team and don't want your software bill to grow. This is a rare free plan, with 5 full users and no time limit.
What it does well: No limits on projects or tracking on the free tier, a convenient Pomodoro timer and idle detection feature, and it's ISO 27001, SOC 2 and GDPR certified, so security isn't a concern even on a $0 plan.
What it's not good at: Reports can only be generated for 1 month using the free plan. This is a serious issue if a client requests data from three months ago. You will be exporting on a regular basis or upgrading. No invoicing or billable rates until Standard, $5.49/seat/month.
Free plan reality: 5 users, unlimited projects, reports for 1 month, no billable rates.
Paid plan: Basic ($3.99 per seat per month) has time audits, Standard ($5.49 per seat per month) has invoicing.
Best for: small groups of up to 5 that do not wish to pay per seat from the outset.
4. Trello
If you are not familiar with a tracking tool, and just want to see your work moving, I would recommend Trello. The board and card setup is easy and requires less than 5 minutes to set up.
What it does very well: Free plan with unlimited Power-Ups, something that was previously only available to paying customers. Owned by Atlassian and certified by SOC 2, ISO 27001 and PCI-DSS, it's no joke backing for something so simple.
What it lacks: No time tracking on the free or Standard plans, no Gantt-style timeline. Trello is light when you need to have dependencies between tasks.
Free plan reality: 10 boards per workspace, 10 collaborators, unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups.
Paid plan: Standard ($5/user/month) will remove the board cap.
Best for: Visual thinkers who are looking to get started without any training.
5. Todoist
When you need a simple list of what's due today, but project tracking is too much, Todoist is helpful. The best thing is that you can type in “submit invoice every second Friday” and it just works.
What it does well: Nothing else here beats it at parsing dates through natural language input. This year it also introduced a new feature: voice-to-task, which you talk into and it will create a task with a due date.
What it doesn't do so well: The free plan only allows you to have 5 active projects. As a freelancer, you will come to that point in no time at all if you have more than 5 clients. Also, there's no task dependency feature, so this is a task manager, not a real project tracker when things get complicated.
Free plan reality: 5 active projects, 5 collaborators per project, 1 week of activity history.
Paid plan: Pro (approx. $5/month) provides access to 300 projects and full activity history.
Best for: freelancers who want to get tasks in without having to visually track them.
6. MeisterTask
When a client asks me where their data is, I refer them to MeisterTask. It is built and hosted in Germany, ISO 27001 certified and GDPR compliant by design.
What it does really well: clean Kanban boards, and this year MeisterTask introduced MeisterNote, a documentation space, so you don't have to pay for two subscriptions for your boards and your process notes.
What it doesn't do well: the free plan only allows you to work on 3 projects, the lowest of any tool here. For a freelancer, even a couple of active clients can burn through that limit fast. AI is also limited, with only 20 prompts per month on the free plan.
Free plan reality: unlimited tasks, 3 projects, 5 notes, 7-day version history.
Paid plan: Pro at $13/user/month, unlimited projects and notes.
Best suited for: small teams with emphasis on EU data residency and documentation integrated.
How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Situation
There's no need to read six reviews and create your own list of pros and cons. Here is the shortcut, depending on your situation.
If you are a solo freelancer with 3+ clients, go with Harvest. The free plan only supports 2 projects so you will quickly outgrow it, but when you have that many clients, it's not task tracking that's the problem, it's invoicing. Harvest is the only tool on this list that can convert tracked hours into an invoice for your client in just a couple of clicks.
2 to 5 people in a small remote team? Clockify. It's the only tool here designed for a small group with no time limit and no charge per user from the get-go. If your team is primarily working on logging hours and generating simple reports, you don't need to invest in that now.
Looking for a free plan that doesn't require an upgrade? Also Clockify. This is the only tool in this group that doesn't have the free version as a hidden trial. No countdown clock, no time limit, no project limits, unlimited time tracking, and a real product. The only thing is that reports are limited to 1 month, so if a client ever requests older data, plan accordingly.
Looking for a time tracking and client invoicing solution in one? Harvest again. While it is possible to create an invoice from your reports in Toggl Track, it's not the focus of the product like it is with Harvest. If billing is an integral part of your business, don't complicate it.
Already have Google Workspace or Microsoft 365? MeisterTask. It is GDPR-compliant and has native integrations with both, and it's hosted in Germany if data residency is important to your clients. Trello connects too via Power-Ups and Butler automation, but MeisterTask's integration runs deeper out of the box.
Just came off a spreadsheet and need little learning curve? Trello. The board and card format makes sense in minutes, no manual required. It's the simplest first step away from spreadsheet chaos, and the one you'll stick with long enough to notice the difference.
If you're a freelancer with several clients and still working with Todoist's free version, you'll soon reach the 5-project limit. While it's great for a single specific workload, it's not designed for the type of workload that most freelancers have. If you're not sure what kind of workload you're dealing with, our freelance tools guide can help you figure that out first.
Free Plans: What You Actually Get (And Where They Stop You)
Many of these tools promote a free plan. There are some that mean it. Some are simply counting down to 14 days, but they're doing it in a fancy way to make it seem like it's a long time. Here's exactly what you get on each free tier and when it stops working for you.
Toggl Track offers you up to 5 users, unlimited projects and complete mobile, desktop and web access. That's real. The wall you're going to run into is this: everything you track is just time, not money. No billable rates on the free plan means you can't generate reports ready for invoicing. If you are a freelancer who has only one or two clients, it's okay. If billing is a part of your week, then you'll need Starter at $9/user/month.
Harvest has the tightest free plan on this list. One seat, two projects, no more. It is okay for two clients when you are alone. If you add a third client, you're upgrading that same week. The upside is that invoicing is included on free, whereas most tools put invoicing behind a paywall.
Clockify has the most straightforward free plan on this list. No limits on users, projects, time tracking or expiry date. The actual restriction is the reporting window: free users are only able to pull reports for the last month. If the client requests data from 3 months ago, you either upgrade or export regularly. No billable rates until Standard at $5.49/seat/month.
Trello offers 10 boards per workspace, 10 collaborators, unlimited cards and unlimited Power-Ups. This works well for a single freelancer with a few clients, when working visually. The problem is scale: 10 boards seems like a lot of boards until you're running active boards for 8 clients and you need a few internal boards as well.
Todoist has a limit of 5 active projects on free. This is the number you'll need to keep in mind. Not 5 tasks, not 5 workspaces. 5 active projects. If a freelancer has 6 clients, he/she hits the wall right away and there is no solution.
MeisterTask has the lowest project cap of all: 3 projects on free. It's sufficient for a single or a couple of clients for one person to test the tool. If you have a real workload to run, it won't last the first month.
In short: If you're looking for a free plan that will actually work for freelance work, Clockify is the only one here that is designed to do so. Toggl Track is a runner-up for individual use. Everyone else either over-constrains projects, or puts the features that are most important behind a paywall from the start.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best free project tracking tool?
Clockify is the strongest free option on this list. Five users, unlimited projects, no expiry date. It's a real working product, not a trial in disguise. The only meaningful limit is the 1-month reporting window. If you're a solo freelancer or a small team just getting started and looking for free project management software that actually works, Clockify holds up longer than anything else here before you need to upgrade.
What's the difference between project tracking and project management software?
Project management software plans the work: assigning tasks, building workflows, managing resources. Project tracking tools monitor work that's already in motion: where each client project stands right now, how many hours have gone in, what's overdue. Tools like ClickUp and Asana are project management. Toggl Track, Clockify, and Trello are project tracking. Most freelancers need the second one, not the first.
Which project tracking tool works best for freelancers?
Harvest works best if you bill clients by the hour, because it connects time tracking directly to invoicing in the same tool. Toggl Track works best if you want the fastest, cleanest timer with no setup friction. For freelancers who need the best free project tracking tools without paying per seat, Clockify is the practical starting point.
Can I track multiple client projects at once with these tools?
Yes, but check the free plan limits first. Clockify and Toggl Track allow unlimited projects even on free. Trello caps you at 10 boards. Todoist stops you at 5 active projects. Harvest cuts off at 2. MeisterTask allows only 3. If you have more than 5 active clients, Clockify or Toggl Track are your safest free options for keeping client work separate and organised.
Which of these tools include time tracking?
Toggl Track, Harvest, and Clockify are built entirely around time tracking. It's their core function, not an add-on. Trello has no native time tracking at all, though you can connect one through a Power-Up. Todoist and MeisterTask also have no built-in time tracking. If time tracking and invoicing in one place matters to you, Harvest is the most complete option for freelancers on this list.
Verdict
If I had to pick one tool for every freelancer and small remote team, it would be Harvest. Not because it has the most features, but because the most time consuming thing for freelancers is not tracking work, it's turning that work into an invoice and getting paid. Harvest closes that loop better than anything else on this list.
However, if you're not in a hurry to get billing up and running and you're on a budget, then Clockify is the place to begin. If you've never tracked time before and simply want something that gets the job done on day one, Toggl Track gets out of your way quicker than either of them.
Each situation is unique. This is why the comparison table at the top of this page is there, to help you find the right tool for the job, not the average freelancer.