Agency software

Best AI time tracking tools for agencies: 8 options compared

TrackTimer is our #1 AI time tracker for agencies. Compare it with Timely, Toggl, and five alternatives for capture, project financials, and invoicing.

By Michael Pfister · September 10, 2026 · 24 min read · Updated October 12, 2026

Seven ivory and charcoal clocks arranged beside a blank comparison sheet and orange pencil

TrackTimer is the best AI time tracking tool for agencies. It combines AI Auto Track for Mac, timers you can operate through an AI assistant, separate billing and pay rates, live project financials, and a reviewed path to Mercury invoices. You can recover forgotten work, see what delivery costs, and prepare client billing in the same product.

An agency needs more than a plausible account of where the day went. Its records must connect the right person, client, project, duration, and rate. The person approving an invoice needs to understand how the amount was calculated. The owner needs to see delivery costs, including work that cannot be billed.

Start by comparing TrackTimer, our #1 choice, with Timely, our runner-up for AI-drafted timesheets, and Toggl, our runner-up for conversational tracking. Productive, Harvest, Rize, Memtime, and Clockify round out this eight-tool comparison with strengths in agency operations, invoicing, automatic capture, and price.

We build TrackTimer and use it for our agency's consulting and client work at Dawn Patrol. This is our recommendation as agency operators and the product's makers. Below, we explain why TrackTimer comes first and when a runner-up is a better fit.

Quick recommendations

Rank and recommended fit	AI or automation	Agency advantage and fit
1. TrackTimer — best overall for agencies	Private AI activity timeline on Mac; assistant-operated timers and personal reports through MCP	Capture, billing/pay rates, project financials, client access, and Mercury invoicing; all features free during early access. Product details
2. Timely — runner-up for AI-drafted timesheets	AI suggests entries from captured activity	Strong timesheet reconstruction; confirm AutoSheet workspace access. Handbook
3. Toggl — runner-up for conversational tracking	Toggl 2.0 chat and MCP can act on time records	Assistant access for teams in the Toggl ecosystem; check workspace version and plan. MCP documentation
4. Productive — best for wider agency operations	AI time administration; MCP financial actions	Time, budgets, and resourcing in one system; MCP requires Ultimate. MCP documentation
5. Harvest — best for an invoice-first workflow	AI assists with time and invoice drafts	Established time-to-invoice workflow; AI beta access is rolling out gradually. AI documentation
6. Rize — best for capture and team visibility	AI-assisted entries alongside reporting and invoices	Automatic capture with team reporting; invoices are outside API/MCP. Invoice documentation
7. Memtime — best for local capture alongside existing software	Local activity capture and rules-based suggestions	A private memory aid that connects to your existing tools. Automation documentation
8. Clockify — best budget alternative	Automatic activity capture	Lower-cost paid tracking and billing plans; users convert activities into entries. Auto tracker documentation

The detailed sections below link to the vendor evidence for each recommendation. You can also jump to the evaluation method, a one-week agency pilot, or the sources.

How we chose these tools

The shortlist is for owners and operations leads at small and midsize creative, marketing, consulting, and software agencies. It includes six products with AI-assisted workflows and two automatic-tracking alternatives. Our ranking prioritizes the complete agency workflow: capturing work, reviewing time, understanding delivery costs, and preparing billing.

The comparison draws on official product documentation, feature pages, privacy information, and pricing pages. TrackTimer's capabilities, competitor pricing, and key AI availability details were checked for this October 12, 2026 update. Rankings reflect our judgment about agency fit; they do not represent an independent benchmark of accuracy or time saved. Links lead to vendor sources without affiliate tracking parameters.

Each option is evaluated against the same questions:

Capture: Does it record activity, suggest entries, or require explicit timer actions?
AI scope: Does AI classify work, answer questions, change records, or prepare billing documents?
Team operations: Can an agency attribute work and financial totals to people, clients, and projects?
Billing: Does it produce a report, create an invoice, or also support the payment workflow?
Control: Who sees raw activity, who can approve changes, and what information reaches an AI service?
Cost and availability: What plan, seat minimum, beta access, or usage allowance does the proposed workflow require?

TrackTimer ranks first because it brings these jobs together in a focused agency time tracker. The alternatives below remain worth considering for their particular strengths, platform coverage, and integrations.

AI versus automatic time tracking

These labels describe different jobs. A product can perform several of them, and doing one does not imply it does the others.

Automatic capture records a timeline of activity. Rules-based automation assigns or suggests entries when conditions match. Neither necessarily involves a language model. AI-assisted timesheets infer project assignments or descriptions. Conversational tools let an assistant query reports or operate timers. Billing assistance turns reviewed records into a draft invoice or billing summary.

For example, Clockify explicitly requires users to convert captured activities into entries, while Toggl documents an assistant that can act on workspace records. Those are materially different workflows. Clockify Auto tracker, Toggl AI

Evaluate the part that will remove work from your agency. If people forget timers, conversational reporting alone will not reconstruct their day. If the billing manager spends hours grouping approved records, better background capture alone will not finish that job.

TrackTimer

#1: Best overall AI time tracking tool for agencies.

TrackTimer is our top pick for agencies that want AI to help capture the day and a clear view of what that work earns. A designer, developer, or consultant can recover work they forgot to track, create a reviewed time entry, and connect those hours to the client's project and the person's pay rate. The owner can see billable value, labor cost, and project financials without rebuilding the picture in a spreadsheet.

Why TrackTimer is our number one

AI Auto Track helps recover forgotten work. The Mac app builds a private calendar of activity with a title, summary, project, and category for each block. Turn a block into a time entry with its summary as the description. That is useful for the feedback calls, research, revisions, and file preparation that slip between deliberate timers. AI Auto Track
Your AI assistant can operate your timer and review your time. Connect ChatGPT, Claude, Codex, or another compatible assistant through MCP. Ask it to start, switch, or stop a timer, review and correct your entries, or summarize monthly hours and earned pay by project. Hosts supporting MCP Apps also show a project-colored daily timeline and monthly charts. Access stays limited to your own time in the workspace you approve. Assistant setup and capabilities
Agency financials are part of tracking. Set each person's pay rate separately from the client billing rate. Billable value, pay, and gross profit update while an hourly timer runs. Owners can review team and project totals; contractors see their own hours and earnings. You can see the cost of non-billable revisions as well as chargeable work. Agency and contractor workflows
Hourly, fixed-fee, and internal work fit the same system. Choose hourly billing for time and materials, a fixed fee for an agreed deliverable, or non-billable for internal projects. Fixed-fee projects show the fee less tracked labor cost, including running time, so an overrun is visible while work is underway. Those figures exclude expenses and future work. Project billing modes
Clients get visibility without seeing your margins. Invite clients to a free, read-only dashboard of their completed hourly billable work by project and day. Contractor pay, costs, and margins stay private. Client access
Reviewed work can become a Mercury invoice. Owners and administrators can preview completed billable hours at saved rates, or explicitly select an agreed fixed fee, and create an unsent USD invoice. Review and send it in Mercury. This gives the billing manager a concrete handoff from tracked work to a client invoice. Hourly invoice example, fixed-fee invoicing
You can start with every feature. TrackTimer is free during early access. Planned pricing is $8 per seat per month billed yearly or $10 month to month, with no extra charges for clients, projects, report views, or refreshes. A paid-plan launch date has not been announced. Pricing

Privacy and platform fit. AI Auto Track requires macOS 14 or later. It reads on-screen text locally and sends a short excerpt for hosted AI processing; screenshots stay on your Mac. Your activity timeline is private to you, and you choose which blocks become time entries. Web timers and MCP assistant connections let you track deliberately when you are away from the Mac. Capture and privacy details

When to choose a runner-up. Consider Timely or Rize for a team needing automatic capture on Windows, Memtime for local raw activity alongside an existing system, or Productive for a wider resourcing and agency-operations suite. TrackTimer's MCP connection handles personal time rather than team administration or invoice creation; Mercury invoices are created manually in the web app, with review and sending in Mercury.

Start here: Try TrackTimer free. Compare it with the runner-up that matches your agency's main requirement using the one-week pilot below.

Timely

#2: Our runner-up for agencies that want AI-drafted timesheets.

Timely's AutoSheet uses Memory and connected activity to propose time blocks, project or tag assignments, and summaries. Users can inspect and change the suggested record before logging it. Its handbook currently describes availability for select workspaces, so ask to see AutoSheet working in the account and plan you intend to use. Timely AutoSheet handbook

Timely is a close runner-up when timesheet reconstruction is your main priority. A designer moving between revisions, calls, and internal work can review a proposed record instead of remembering every timer transition. TrackTimer gets our overall recommendation for combining private Mac activity capture and assistant access with agency financials and reviewed billing.

Team and billing workflow. Timely's plans cover billable rates and reporting, with broader team, budget, and cost features on higher tiers. Its invoice feature describes a workflow with QuickBooks Online. Verify the accounting connection and invoice steps you need rather than assuming the time tracker also handles payment collection. Timely pricing, Timely invoices

Privacy and tradeoff. The Memory timeline is private to the person whose activity it contains; it is not a local-only activity store. Timely describes review before AI-created entries are shared. Check the capture controls against the information your team handles. Timely privacy

Pricing to evaluate. The published annual rates are US$9 per user per month for Starter and US$16 for Premium. Starter permits up to five users and 20 projects; Premium supports a larger team and unlimited projects. Monthly billing is listed at US$11 and US$20 respectively. Check both feature eligibility and AutoSheet access. Timely pricing

Trial question: Can two people correctly allocate a day containing similar client names, a shared document, a call, and non-billable revisions without spending longer reviewing than they would entering time?

Toggl

#3: Our runner-up for conversational tracking in the Toggl ecosystem.

Toggl's current Toggl 2.0 documentation describes an in-app assistant that answers questions using workspace reporting data and can log time or create projects and tasks. Actions use the person's existing permissions. Administrators can disable AI; the documentation notes that the chat may carry a beta label. Toggl AI

The separate MCP documentation describes assistant access to time entries, projects, tasks, reports, and role-dependent organization operations. This makes Toggl worth evaluating if your team already works in an MCP-compatible assistant. Access still follows the subscription and user permissions; it does not unlock otherwise restricted reports. These claims concern Toggl 2.0, so confirm your workspace version. Toggl MCP and CLI

Team and billing workflow. The pricing page places billable rates and team reporting on Starter, with labor costs, profitability, and approvals on Premium. The current billing feature page emphasizes preparing and exporting invoice-ready information. Older Toggl Track reporting documentation also describes invoice generation. Verify the exact invoice experience in your account instead of assuming all product versions share the same workflow. Toggl pricing, Toggl billing workflow, Toggl Track invoice creation

Pricing to evaluate. The public page displays Starter at $9 per user per month on annual billing and $12 monthly; Premium at $16 annually and $24 monthly. Confirm currency, workspace version, and AI availability when quoting the agency. Toggl pricing

Tradeoff: A conversational interface does not make an uncertain duration accurate. Use it to act on and analyze records, then reconcile business-critical answers with the underlying report.

Trial question: Can a manager identify the time recorded against one client while a contractor remains limited to the information their role should expose?

Productive

#4: Best for agencies that need a wider operations and resourcing system.

Productive documents AI conversion of Google and Outlook calendar events into time entries. It can match recurring meetings to previously used services and ask for clarification when a match is missing. This is calendar-based reconstruction; it should not be interpreted as passive capture of all desktop activity. Productive calendar conversion

Its time-management documentation also describes creating and editing entries, timer actions, submission, and approval operations through AI, subject to permissions and record-state checks. That makes it relevant to the administrative work around time tracking as well as the initial entry. Productive AI time management

Team and billing workflow. Productive documents fixed, time-and-materials, non-billable, and percentage billing. Its budget-based model is useful to evaluate when your agency sells more than hourly work. The MCP server includes financial actions such as invoice creation, but requires Ultimate. Productive billing types, Productive MCP server

Cost and control. Productive has a three-seat minimum. Budget the plan required by the complete workflow: its general AI documentation distinguishes basic AI from Skills, Agents, MCP, and Connectors, and describes usage allowances. Administrators control AI access. Request a quote covering your seats, billing term, AI allowances, and required integrations rather than treating the entry tier as the full agency cost. Productive pricing, Productive AI overview

Tradeoff: The additional scope is valuable when you need a shared operational system. It also means deciding how services, budgets, people, and accounting will fit together. A team looking only for a timer should evaluate that setup burden.

Trial question: Can one hourly project and one fixed-fee project move from time entry through approval to a reconciled invoice without duplicating work in a second system?

Harvest

#5: Best for an invoice-first workflow, with AI assistance where available.

Harvest AI is a beta feature being rolled out gradually. Its documentation describes account-data questions, logging and editing time, timer controls, and creating draft invoices from recorded work. AI is off by default and administrator-controlled. It does not send invoices, charge cards, or delete records; bulk changes require review and application. Confirm that your account has access before relying on it in a purchasing decision. Meet Harvest AI

This is a useful distinction for agencies: drafting the billing document can be automated while the person responsible for billing still reviews and sends it. The underlying time workflow also includes timers and daily or weekly timesheets. The reviewed documentation does not establish passive AI capture of everything someone does on their computer. Harvest time tracking

Team and billing workflow. Harvest documents generating invoices from time and expenses, including recurring drafts for review. That is a more concrete billing capability than a tool that only exports an hours report. Harvest billing guide

Pricing to evaluate. Current public pricing lists Teams from US$9 per seat per month billed annually, or US$11 monthly, with additional usage charges for invoices, projects, clients, and tasks. Profitability reports and timesheet approvals are listed under Enterprise. Older documentation uses different plan names; obtain an account-specific quote. Multiplying the base seat rate by your team size is not a complete cost estimate. Harvest pricing

Tradeoff: The appeal is the billing workflow; the uncertainty is beta access and the final usage-based cost. An agency should compare the non-AI workflow too, in case the assistant is unavailable to its account.

Trial question: Can the invoice draft exclude non-billable revisions, preserve different rates, and match the approved source entries before anyone sends it?

Rize

#6: Best for AI-assisted capture and team visibility.

Rize documents grouping captured activity into sessions, suggesting client or project assignments, and generating descriptions and tags. Its team workflow includes review before shared reporting. Treat these as capabilities to validate with your own mix of client work, rather than assuming a general accuracy rate. Rize tracking overview, Rize privacy

Team and billing workflow. Rize advertises team dashboards, billable tracking, and profitability reporting. Its current invoicing documentation describes building invoices from client time, adjusting lines, emailing PDFs, and recording payments. Importantly, invoices are not available through its public API or MCP, and card processing happens externally. The existence of agent access elsewhere in the product does not mean an assistant can operate the complete billing workflow. Rize pricing and features, Rize invoicing

Privacy and tradeoff. Default capture is based on activity metadata. However, optional Screen Text can read selected window content, and its cloud mode sends a temporary image for processing. Evaluate the enabled settings, not just a broad “no screenshots” summary. Rize's privacy policy describes the optional processing and retention. Rize privacy policy

Pricing to evaluate. The team FAQ quotes $29.99 per seat per month billed annually, with a two-seat minimum. Confirm currency, the exact plan, and whether the features you need are included; individual and team pricing should not be treated as interchangeable. Rize team FAQ

Trial question: Can a team member understand and correct the evidence behind an allocation, and can the billing manager complete the intended workflow without assuming invoice access through MCP?

Memtime

#7: Best for local activity capture alongside existing project and billing software.

Memtime is included as an automatic-tracking alternative. Its documented automation uses rules based on activity names, applications, URLs, and similar fields. Users can accept or change suggestions; automatic entry creation is off by default. That does not establish generative AI, and a buyer should not need an AI label for the workflow to be useful. Memtime automation rules

Privacy and team workflow. Raw activity stays on the device, which also means that raw timeline does not synchronize across devices. Memtime supports Windows, macOS, and Linux, with project, billability, and reporting functions described on its feature comparison. Distinguish the local activity history from the project records and time entries shared or exported through other features. Memtime features and pricing

Billing workflow. Connected software can own the invoicing step. Memtime's Avaza integration is one documented example of transferring time into a system that handles client billing. Verify the direction of synchronization and required plan for the specific system your agency already uses. Memtime and Avaza

Pricing to evaluate. Its plan documentation lists Basic at €12 per user per month billed yearly and Connect at €18, with different quarterly and two-year terms. Connect is the relevant starting point when exporting entries into connected software is central to the workflow. The documentation specifies euro billing. Memtime plan documentation

Tradeoff: Local raw capture can suit teams that want a private memory aid. Someone frequently switching computers should test the impact of a timeline that does not follow them between devices.

Trial question: Can the person reconstruct work locally, export only the intended entries, and reconcile them with the existing billing system without duplicates?

Clockify

#8: Best budget alternative for conventional tracking and billing.

Clockify's Auto tracker captures activity locally and lets the user create entries from it. Activities do not automatically become timesheet records. Its documentation supports Windows, Linux, and the macOS version downloaded from Clockify's website; the Mac App Store version does not include Auto tracker. This is a useful reconstruction aid, but the documented process is not AI-generated project allocation. Clockify Auto tracker

Team and billing workflow. Standard includes invoicing, approvals, and time locking. Pro adds capabilities including labor cost and profit. Invoice features include importing billable time, generating PDFs, and managing invoice status. An invoice marked paid is still a different concept from the software processing the payment itself. Clockify pricing, Clockify invoicing

Pricing to evaluate. Standard is listed at $5.49 per seat per month billed annually, or $6.99 monthly; Pro is $7.99 annually or $9.99 monthly. Current pricing lists the free plan for up to five users. Verify currency and the required paid features rather than relying on older descriptions of unlimited free seats. Clockify pricing

Tradeoff: It is a useful baseline for measuring whether AI meaningfully improves the agency's process. Keep the distinction between private Auto tracker activity and separately offered activity-monitoring features clear during setup.

Trial question: How much time does it take to turn captured activity into reviewed entries, compared with correcting the AI suggestions in another product?

Compare the complete time-to-invoice workflow

TrackTimer is our first choice for bringing capture, project economics, and reviewed billing together. Use this matrix to compare its workflow with the runners-up. A draft, an export, and a sent invoice are different outcomes; the individual sections explain plan requirements and availability.

Tool	Capture and review	Billing handoff	What to verify before choosing
TrackTimer — #1 overall	Private AI Auto Track on Mac; deliberate timers and personal MCP review/corrections	Administrator preview → manually created Mercury invoice from hourly work or an agreed fixed fee → review/send in Mercury	macOS for Auto Track; Mercury access, USD, UTC hourly date selection; invoices created in the web app
Timely	Automatic capture and AI-drafted timesheets	Documented QuickBooks Online workflow	AutoSheet access, plan, accounting connection, and approval steps
Toggl	Timer and assistant workflows vary between Track and Toggl 2.0	Invoice-ready information; Track also documents report-based invoices	Exact product version, rates/reporting plan, and invoice experience
Productive	Time administration within broader agency operations	Budget-based billing; documented MCP invoice creation requires Ultimate	Billing type, approval controls, plan, and human responsibility for sending
Harvest	Recorded time with AI assistance where beta access is available	Time/expense invoicing; AI can help create drafts	Beta eligibility, plan/usage terms, and payment integration
Rize	Automatic capture and AI-assisted time entries	Documented invoice interface, separate from API/MCP	Invoice review, external payment processing, and account access
Memtime	Private automatic activity record reviewed by the user	Time handoff to another system	Integration compatibility and who converts records into invoices
Clockify	Timers and automatic-tracking options	Documented invoicing with plan qualifications	Required plan, billable rates, and payment workflow

For a trial, start with the same reviewed hours and rates in both tools. Confirm the invoice total, the person authorized to create it, what happens after a correction, and how uncertain creation results are resolved. The worked guide shows a seven-hour, $967.50 invoice example.

A one-week agency pilot

Start with TrackTimer and one runner-up: Timely for AI-drafted timesheets, Toggl for its assistant workflow, or another option that meets a specific requirement. Use a small representative group, including someone who delivers client work, someone who manages projects, and the person who prepares invoices. Run a parallel evaluation using the same sample work and keep the agreed billing process authoritative until the results reconcile.

Start with a known example

The following is an illustrative test fixture, not a result measured in any product. It deliberately separates time, billing, and cost:

One person records 10 billable hours on a client project.
A second records 8 billable hours and 2 non-billable revision hours on the same project.
The agreed hourly billing rate is $125. Internal labor cost is $60 per hour for both people.
The agency allocates $50 of AI-tool cost to this work. In this example that expense is not separately billed to the client.

The expected result is 20 delivery hours, 18 billable hours, and a $2,250 hourly invoice before tax or other adjustments. Labor cost is $1,200. After the allocated AI expense, contribution is $1,000, or about 44.4% of revenue, before overhead and other expenses. This is a delivery-margin illustration, not net profit.

If the same work belongs to a $3,000 fixed-fee agreement, its hours do not automatically change the agreed invoice. The same $1,250 delivery cost leaves $1,750 before overhead, or about 58.3%. Use the project-profitability example to explore that distinction.

Test the transitions that produce mistakes

Deliberately include a forgotten timer, a meeting that ends early, two similarly named clients, a non-billable revision, and a rate change for future work. Ask the software to produce the corrected record and confirm that earlier rates remain explainable. Test a contractor's visibility separately from the administrator's.

For AI tools, record how often a suggestion needs correction and how long review takes. Check whether a retry can duplicate a change, whether a running timer conflicts with a new entry, and whether an invoiced period can be changed unexpectedly. These are evaluation questions, not claims that any particular vendor fails them.

Score the work that remains

Measure daily entry and review minutes, missing or misassigned records, invoice reconciliation time, and the number of manual handoffs. Note unsupported requirements as well as successful steps. Give each finalist the same tasks and let the people doing the work judge usability.

A tool that produces more entries is not automatically better. The useful outcome is a complete, explainable record with less administration. Nor is reduced administration automatically extra revenue: saved capacity produces revenue only if the agency can put it to paid work.

Compare the full agency cost

Price the actual workflow, not the cheapest advertised seat. Include everyone who needs a license, required tiers, AI allowances, usage-based charges, accounting software, and the time needed to maintain integrations. Keep currencies and billing commitments separate; an annual per-month equivalent is not a cancellable monthly subscription.

As an illustrative capacity calculation, saving three minutes per person per workday across eight people and 20 workdays saves eight hours per month. At an internal cost assumption of $50 per hour, that is $400 of capacity. Compare it with the incremental subscription and setup cost, while recognizing that the agency has not necessarily saved $400 in cash or earned $400 in new revenue.

For hourly billing, preserve the original duration and apply the agreed rounding policy consistently. For fixed fees and retainers, use hours to understand cost and remaining scope rather than silently changing what the client owes. See the billable-hours calculation guide.

Common agency questions

Which AI time tracker should a small agency try first?

Try TrackTimer first. It is our best overall AI time tracker for small agencies, with private AI capture on Mac, assistant-operated timers, separate billing and pay rates, project financials, and Mercury invoicing. Every feature is free during early access. Timely is our close runner-up for AI-drafted timesheets; Toggl is our runner-up for conversational tracking. Start tracking free.

Can AI generate client invoices from team time?

Yes, some tools support invoice drafts or creation. In TrackTimer, an administrator reviews billable hours at saved rates or selects an agreed fixed fee, then manually creates an unsent Mercury invoice. Review and sending happen in Mercury; invoice creation is outside TrackTimer's MCP connection. Harvest AI creates drafts; Productive supports invoice actions through its Ultimate MCP feature; Rize keeps invoicing outside its API and MCP. TrackTimer invoice workflow, Harvest AI, Productive MCP, Rize invoicing

Should an agency bill for time an AI agent spends running?

Keep human work, unattended execution, and tool costs separate in the record. The commercial agreement determines the charge; a machine running for an hour does not establish an hour of human labor. For fixed-fee work, faster delivery can improve margin while the agreed deliverable and price stay the same.

Does automatic tracking mean managers can see everything?

In TrackTimer, your Auto Track timeline is private to you. You choose which activity blocks become time entries; teammates and clients never see your activity timeline. Screenshots stay on your Mac, while a short text excerpt is sent for hosted AI processing. Other products have different models: Memtime keeps raw activity local, Timely has a private Memory timeline, and Rize offers optional screen-text processing. TrackTimer privacy details, Memtime, Timely, Rize

What should remain under human review?

Review uncertain durations, project allocation, billability, rates, and the final invoice. Check totals against source records. AI can reduce the work of preparing and investigating those records, but a convincing description does not establish that the client owes the amount.

For the underlying operating routine, use our agency time tracking workflow. A consistent naming and review process makes any of these tools easier to evaluate.

Sources and review date

This comparison was first researched on September 10, 2026 and updated on October 12, 2026 to rank TrackTimer first, review its current capabilities, and recheck competitor pricing and key AI availability details. Vendor pages do not consistently provide publication dates; confirm plan and optional-feature access when choosing. Recommendations are our editorial judgment, and calculations are labeled illustrative examples.