You’re at the end of the month trying to figure out how many hours you worked on which project. You scroll through your calendar, dig through old notes, and try to remember when you exactly started that task. Sound familiar? Many freelancers and teams struggle with time tracking. Toggl Track promises to put an end to that with simple timers and clear reports. But does it deliver on that promise?
I dove into the tool, tested all features, and gathered experiences from real users. This is what you need to know before you start.
Toggl Track: the company
Toggl Track comes from Estonia and has existed since 2006. The company started as a simple time tracking tool and grew into a complete ecosystem with multiple products. Besides Toggl Track, they also have Toggl Plan (project planning) and Toggl Hire (recruitment). But the time tracking tool remains their best-known product.
The team behind Toggl works completely remote, spread across different countries. You can see this approach reflected in the product: everything is built for teams that don’t sit in the same location. The focus is on simplicity and speed, without unnecessary complexity.
Toggl Track is used by millions of people worldwide, from sole proprietorships to large companies. The tool has built a strong reputation in the freelance and remote work community.
Who is Toggl Track for?
Toggl Track is built for everyone who needs to track time. But some groups benefit from it more than others.
Freelancers who bill by the hour are the ideal users. You start a timer when you begin working for a client, stop it when you take a break, and at the end of the month you export everything to an invoice. Simple and effective.
Small teams up to five people can also work well with the free plan. You can see at a glance who is working on which project and how many hours have already been logged. This makes planning and capacity management much easier.
Agencies and consultancy firms use Toggl Track to separate billable hours from internal time. You can set different rates per project or client and see exactly where you make profit and where you don’t.
People who want to improve their own productivity also find value in the tool. By tracking where your time goes, you gain insight into your work patterns. Maybe you’ll discover that meetings consume much more time than you thought, or that you’re more productive in the morning than in the afternoon.
Where Toggl Track is less suitable: large enterprises with complex approval processes, companies that want to directly link payroll to time tracking, or organizations that need GPS tracking for field workers.
What can Toggl Track do?
Toggl Track is packed with features that make time tracking easier. These are the most important ones:
- One-click timers – Click start and the timer runs. No complicated forms or mandatory fields. You can add which project the time belongs to afterwards. This works on all platforms: web, desktop and mobile.
- Pomodoro timer – Do you like working in 25-minute blocks? The built-in Pomodoro feature automatically reminds you of breaks. You can adjust the intervals to your own rhythm.
- Idle detection – If you forget to stop the timer, Toggl detects that your computer is inactive. You get a notification and can choose whether you want to keep or remove that time. Saves a lot of cleanup work afterwards.
- Billable rates – Set per project or per task what your hourly rate is. Toggl automatically calculates how much you can bill. You immediately see the difference between billable and non-billable time.
- Project budgeting and estimates – Specify how many hours a project is allowed to cost. Toggl warns you if you’re about to go over budget. Handy for monitoring profit margins.
- Detailed reports – Export your hours to PDF, CSV or Excel. Filter by date, project, client or team member. The reports are visual with charts and clear tables. Perfect for invoices or internal analyses.
- Calendar integration – Connect your Google Calendar or Outlook and see your appointments alongside your time tracking. You can even automatically start timers based on calendar events.
- Team dashboard – See in real-time who is working on what. As a team leader, you get insight into your team’s capacity without having to ask everyone what they’re doing.
- Browser extensions – Start timers directly from tools like Asana, Trello, Jira or GitHub. You don’t have to keep switching to Toggl. The extension integrates seamlessly into your workflow.
- Offline functionality – No internet? No problem. The desktop and mobile apps work offline and synchronize everything as soon as you’re back online.
- Tags and labels – Organize your time with tags. For example: “meeting”, “development”, “research”. Later you can filter and analyze where your time goes.
- Reminders – Do you often forget to start the timer? Set up reminders that alert you at fixed times or during inactivity.
The power of Toggl lies in the combination of simplicity and depth. The basics are super simple, but when you need more, the advanced features are there too.
What does Toggl Track cost?
Toggl Track has three pricing tiers: Free, Starter, and Premium.
The Free plan is completely free and always will be. You can track unlimited time with up to five users. You have access to basic reporting and can export your data. What you’re missing: billable rates, project budgeting, and advanced reporting. For many freelancers and small teams, this is enough.
The Starter plan costs €9 per user per month with annual billing, or €10 per month if you pay monthly. This gives you billable rates, project budgeting, required fields, and more reporting options. This plan becomes interesting once you start seriously billing based on your tracked time.
The Premium plan costs €18 per user per month with annual billing, or €20 per month when billed monthly. This adds: estimated time versus actual time, profit calculations, time audits, and priority support. For larger teams or agencies that want to closely monitor their margins.
All paid plans come with a 30-day trial period. You can test without a credit card and only pay when you’re convinced.
Compared to competitors, Toggl sits in the mid-range price-wise. Not the cheapest, but not extremely expensive either. The question is whether you really need the paid features. Many users stick with the free plan for years.
What should you watch out for?
Toggl Track is solid, but not perfect. There are a few things that frustrate users.
The biggest problem: synchronization issues. Some users report that time they track on their phone doesn’t always appear immediately on desktop, or vice versa. Usually this resolves within a few minutes, but if you need to switch quickly between devices it can be irritating. You see this more often especially with poor internet connections.
The price of paid plans is a commonly heard complaint. €18 per user per month adds up quickly as your team grows. For a team of ten people you pay €180 per month, or €2160 per year. That’s a serious investment for a time tracking tool. Some competitors offer comparable functionality for less money.
Toggl has no built-in invoicing. You can export your hours and calculate billable amounts, but you still need to create an invoice yourself in another tool. For those looking for an all-in-one solution, that’s a shortcoming. Harvest for example does have native invoicing functionality.
The mobile app is good, but not as powerful as the desktop version. Some reports are only available on web, and editing old entries is somewhat more cumbersome on mobile. If you work on the go a lot, you run into these limitations.
Customer service gets mixed reviews. Some users are super satisfied, others complain about slow response times. On the free plan you only have access to email support, which can sometimes take days. Premium users get priority, but even there you sometimes hear about long wait times.
Recent updates have caused bugs and instability for some users. Timers that don’t stop, data that disappears, or the app crashing. This doesn’t happen to everyone, but if you experience it, it’s frustrating. The team usually fixes this quickly, but it shows that the software isn’t always stable.
Finally, Toggl is missing a few features that some users expect: no GPS tracking for field work, no payroll integration, and no approval workflows for time tracking. If you need those, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
What do others think?
I looked at reviews from real users and YouTube reviews to get a complete picture.
Most users are positive about the interface. Toggl feels modern and clean. You immediately understand how it works without a manual. That simplicity is exactly what many people choose it for.
The browser extensions receive a lot of praise. You can start a timer directly from your project management tool. That saves a lot of context-switching and makes time tracking much more natural.
The free plan is hugely appreciated. In a world where everything costs money, it’s nice that you can seriously use Toggl without paying. Many freelancers start free and only upgrade when their business grows.
The reports are described as comprehensive and flexible. You can extract exactly the data you need, in the format you want. For people who need to account for or analyze their time, that’s crucial.
But there’s also criticism. George Vlasyev made a YouTube review where he’s positive about the billing capabilities, but finds it pricey for teams. He notes that costs add up quickly as you add more users.
Savage Reviews is more critical. In their video, they point out missing features like GPS tracking and payroll integration. They find the price not proportional to what you get, especially compared to alternatives.
Asim Qureshi appreciates the browser extension in his review, but complains about slow loading times and bugs. He finds the price too high for what you get in return.
On review sites you see a pattern: people who use the free plan are generally satisfied. People who pay expect more and are more critical about the price-quality ratio.
The synchronization problems regularly come up in reviews. It’s clearly a pain point that Toggl needs to solve to keep users satisfied.
Toggl Track alternatives
Doesn’t Toggl Track quite fit what you’re looking for? These are the best alternatives:
- Clockify – Has a similar interface to Toggl but allows unlimited users in the free plan. Choose Clockify if you’re looking for a completely free solution for a larger team without user limits. The paid plan is also cheaper than Toggl, but the interface feels slightly less polished.
- Harvest – Focuses more strongly on the financial aspect with built-in invoicing and expense management. Choose Harvest if you want to directly link time tracking to comprehensive invoicing and expense reports. You can send invoices from the tool itself, something Toggl cannot do.
- Timely – Uses AI to automatically track time based on your activity, while Toggl is more manual. Choose Timely if you want to eliminate manually starting and stopping timers through automation. The tool looks at which apps and documents you use and automatically tracks time.
Each alternative has its own strengths. Clockify wins on price, Harvest on invoicing capabilities, and Timely on automation. It depends on what’s most important to you.
Frequently asked questions
Is Toggl Track really free?
Yes, the Free plan is completely free for teams up to five users and includes unlimited time tracking, projects and report exports. There’s no time limit, you can keep using it for free forever. You do miss advanced features like billable rates and project budgeting, but for basic use it’s more than enough.
Does Toggl Track work offline too?
Yes, the desktop and mobile apps store your data locally and sync everything as soon as you’re connected to the internet again. You can simply start and stop timers without an internet connection. Handy when you’re on the go or working in places with poor wifi.
Can I send invoices from Toggl Track?
No, Toggl Track itself doesn’t send invoices, but you can export data or integrate with accounting software like Xero or QuickBooks. You do see how much you can bill based on your tracked hours and rates, but actually creating and sending invoices has to be done in another tool. For some users that’s a dealbreaker, for others it’s not a problem because they already use accounting software anyway.
Conclusion
Toggl Track does what it promises: make time tracking simple. The interface is clean, the functionality is solid, and the free plan is generous enough for many users.
For freelancers who want to track their hours and small teams who want insight into their time, Toggl is an excellent choice. You’ll be up and running within five minutes and the learning curve is virtually zero.
But Toggl isn’t perfect. The synchronization issues are annoying, the price of paid plans is on the high side, and the lack of native invoicing is a shortcoming. If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution or have a very large team, there are better options.
My advice: start with the free plan. Test whether Toggl fits your workflow. Only upgrade if you really need the extra features. And compare with alternatives like Clockify or Harvest before signing up for a paid subscription.
Toggl Track is a solid time tracking tool that works well for many people. It’s not a miracle cure, but if you’re looking for something that just works without hassle, you’re in good hands here.
