Time tracking for design agencies that protects every fixed fee.
Brand identities, websites, and campaign work are usually sold for an agreed fee, then worn down by extra revision rounds and feedback calls. TrackTimer prices every tracked minute at each person’s pay rate, so you can see how much of the fee is left while the project is still running.
At a glance
- Set a project to Fixed fee and TrackTimer shows the agreed fee, labor cost to date, and fee less cost, including time on running timers.
- Billing rates and pay rates are separate, so a freelance illustrator is paid their rate while the client is billed yours.
- Freelancers and other contractors see only their own hours and earnings. Billing rates and agency margins stay private.
- Clients can have a free, read-only dashboard of completed hourly billable time by project and day.
- On a Mac, AI Auto Track keeps a private timeline of your day, so feedback calls and file prep are not lost when nobody started a timer.
- Every feature is free during early access. Planned pricing is $8 per seat per month billed yearly, with no charge for clients, projects, or reports.
Where design agencies lose time and margin
Revision rounds nobody priced
The proposal promised two concept rounds. The third arrives as a few small tweaks, then a fourth. Without a record of the hours, the studio cannot show what the extra rounds cost or price the next project any better.
Work that never reaches a timesheet
Designers remember the afternoon in Figma. They forget the fifteen-minute feedback call, the export for the printer, and the thread about the logo lockup. Across a month, those gaps decide whether a fixed fee was profitable.
Freelancers on different rates
Studios bring in illustrators, motion designers, and developers at their own rates. A spreadsheet that multiplies every hour by one blended rate hides which part of the team used the margin.
Profit discovered after the invoice
Most studios learn how a project went when the final invoice is sent, if they learn at all. By then there is nothing left to renegotiate, and the next estimate repeats the same assumptions.
How TrackTimer works for design agencies
A project per engagement, a billing mode per project
Create a client for each brand and a project for each engagement. A rebrand can be Fixed fee, ongoing design support Hourly, and your own portfolio Non-billable. If an engagement changes shape, change its mode: TrackTimer previews the effect on past entries before you save.
Watch the fee while the work happens
A fixed-fee project shows the agreed fee, tracked time, labor cost at each person’s saved pay rate, and fee less cost to date, including time on running timers. You see how much of the fee is left while there is still time to act on it.
Pay freelancers their rate and bill clients yours
Each person has a default billing rate and pay rate, and either can be overridden for a client or a project. Rates are saved with each entry when its timer starts, so changing a rate next month does not rewrite last month’s numbers.
Capture the time between design sessions
Start and switch timers on the web, on iPhone, or in Raycast. On a Mac, AI Auto Track keeps a private timeline of your day, titles and summarizes each block, and turns any block into a time entry with its summary as the description. Teammates and clients never see the timeline.
Show clients the hours without showing your margins
Invite a client contact to a free, read-only dashboard of completed billable hours by project and day, a natural fit for ongoing hourly support. Rates, pay, margins, notes, and the names of the people who did the work stay private.
Invoice from the numbers you reviewed
With Mercury connected, choose a client and dates, review billable hours at saved rates or select a project’s agreed fee, and create an unsent invoice in Mercury. Review and send it from Mercury when you are ready.
Example: a $14,000 brand identity
A three-person studio sells a brand identity for a fixed fee of $14,000, with discovery, two concept rounds, and brand guidelines. An art director and a designer do most of the work; a freelance illustrator draws the icon set. Five weeks in, the project looks like this.
| Person | Tracked | Pay rate | Labor cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Art director | 32h | $75/h | $2,400 |
| Designer | 64h | $50/h | $3,200 |
| Freelance illustrator | 18h | $60/h | $1,080 |
| Total | 114h | $6,680 |
- Agreed fee
- $14,000
- Tracked time
- 114h
- Labor cost to date
- $6,680
- Fee less cost
- $7,320 · 52%
Illustrative example with hypothetical people, hours, and rates. If the client then asks for a third concept round and it takes the designer another 20 hours, labor cost rises by $1,000 and fee less cost falls to $6,320, or 45%. That is the number to have in front of you before agreeing to the extra round.
Set up your first week
Add clients and projects. Create each client, then one project per engagement with its billing mode. Enter the agreed USD fee for fixed-fee work.
Set billing and pay rates. Give each person a default billing rate and pay rate. Add overrides where a client has negotiated rates or a freelancer charges differently on one project.
Invite the team. Invite designers as admins or contractors and assign them to projects. Contractors can track only the projects they are assigned to.
Track an ordinary week. Use timers on the web, iPhone, or Raycast, and AI Auto Track on a Mac. Fix a mistake by correcting the entry with a reason; the audit history keeps the before and after.
Review on Friday. Check fee less cost on each fixed-fee project and billable hours on hourly work. Invite client contacts to their dashboards when the numbers look right.
Frequently asked questions
Can TrackTimer handle fixed-fee design projects?
Yes. Set the project to Fixed fee and enter the agreed amount. Tracked time is included in the fee instead of being billed by the hour, and the project shows labor cost to date and fee less cost. You can invoice the fee through Mercury as a single line.
How should we track extra revision rounds?
Keep them in the same project and name the round in the timer note, or create a separate project for the extra round if you will bill it separately. Either way, the hours and their cost are visible before you agree to more work.
Can freelancers track time without seeing our rates?
Yes. Invite them as contractors. They see their own hours, pay rate, and earnings on the projects assigned to them, never billing rates, other people’s time, or agency financials.
Will clients see how much we pay our designers?
No. The client dashboard shows completed billable hours by project and day. It excludes pay, rates, margins, notes, and the names of the people who did the work.
Does AI Auto Track record designers’ screens?
The Mac app notes the app and window in use and reads on-screen text on the Mac to title and summarize each block. Screenshots stay on the Mac, and each timeline is visible only to its owner. Teammates and clients see the time entries a person creates, never their activity.
What would a five-person studio pay?
Nothing during early access. Planned pricing is $8 per seat per month billed yearly, or $10 month to month, so five seats would be $40 a month billed yearly. Client access is free. No paid-plan launch date has been announced.
See what your time earns.
Set up your first client and project in a few minutes. Free during early access.
Written by TrackTimer about its own product and reviewed . Examples use hypothetical people, hours, and rates. Features and planned pricing can change; the pricing section has the current terms.