Timely vs Toggl: A Definitive Comparison [March 2024]

Timely and Toggl have a lot in common when it comes to time tracking. They both value employee privacy, keep track of billed and unbilled hours, allow users to bulk edit time entries, and are available on iOS, Android, and desktop.

But look past their privacy policies and multi-platform support, and you’ll notice a difference in how they track time and assist businesses in developing customer relationships.

Timely is an automated time tracker. It uses AI to recognize your work patterns and suggest time logs. You only need to accept them when you are done for the day. It’s a nice choice for anyone who has trouble consistently tracking their work time and wants to make the process seamless. However, it’s not the best option for larger teams that are using their tracked time data to optimize workflows.

On the other hand, Toggl Track is a time management software that values its automated time tracking toolset as much as its manual options. 

It’s a great choice for freelancers, teams, and large businesses that want a classic time tracking app with in-depth analytics and intuitive productivity insights. It offers an Autotracker that allows users to automate the time tracking process and a Manual Timer for employees who prefer the classic method.

To help you better understand the difference between Timely vs Toggl Track, we will take a closer look at how they stack up in the following areas: 

• Time Tracking 
• Project and Team Management 
• Analytics, Reporting, and Insights
• Billing and Invoicing 
• Pricing 

The comparison summary below also touches on AI, automation, integrations, and user experience. Our goal is to give you a solid picture of each tool’s strengths so you can pick the right one for your needs. 

Comparison Summary: Timely vs Toggl Track

What is Timely?

“AI-powered time tracking software.”👩‍💻

Timely is an AI-powered time tracking app founded in 2013 by Mathias Mikkelsen. 

It offers an unconventional time tracking approach that projects a world where users can make “Memories” of every software and website they visit during the day. Then, they can drag and drop these memories into assigned tasks or projects to create a timesheet whenever convenient.

The idea is to help users learn patterns in their time tracking activities and, after the first day or so, start making suggestions for categorizing activities as projects. Some other notable features include its One-click invoicing tool, Billable rate, Unbilled reports, Customizable dashboards, and task management add-on. 

Timely is a powerful tool for freelancers, small business owners, and busy teams who need a stack of AI-powered tools to track and categorize computer-based work. 

What is Toggl Track?

“Time tracking software for any workflow.” 📈

Toggl is management software created in 2006 by Alari Aho and Krister Haav to help people effortlessly track time, manage projects, and coordinate team members. Later, two more products were added to the lineup: Toggl Plan and Toggl Hire, while the initial app was renamed to Toggl Track. 

Toggl Track embodies a philosophy of time tracking for self-reflection and career growth while providing users with insights to increase profitability without micromanaging or monitoring employees. So, most of its features are geared towards helping users track time for better work, not overwork. 

Toggl allows you to log time automatically and manually, filter weekly stats and team summaries, generate detailed reports, create client-ready invoices, and extract more insight from tracked time.

Overall, Toggl Track serves large and small agencies and freelancers needing an insightful, stopwatch-like tracker to keep tabs on on-screen and off-screen activities effortlessly. 

Time Tracking: Timely vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Both tools support manual and automatic time tracking, but Toggl Track has an edge with its stopwatch-like tracker and the productivity insight it provides.

Toggl offers manual and automatic tracking, while Timely is fully automated.

Toggl Track is a super intuitive tool for tracking billable and non-billable hours. There are five ways to track time on Toggl:

• The Timer Mode on the web, mobile, and desktop app, which lets you track time with a start/stop button. 
• The Timeline feature, which allows you to record every website and program you view on your computer for over 10 seconds. 
• The Outlook and Google Calendar import option for creating or starting time entries based on calendar events. 
• The Browser Extension for Chrome and Firefox to track time in your favorite web tools wherever you are on the web.
• And there’s also a Manual Mode so you can manually add/edit time entries.

Overview of Toggl Manual Mode 

Timely, on the other hand, offers automatic time tracking without the stop/start twist. You have to download its Memory App to monitor web and app usage, then manually drag and drop “memories” to log entries in your timesheet.

Timely’s timesheet 

And while Timely doesn’t have a stopwatch-like timer or support manual time input from calendar events like Toggl does, Timely users can log extra entries in their timesheet with the Planned and Logged time feature or the Timestamps option. 

Timely’s Planned and Logged time feature 

On the views front, Toggl offers more views than Timely. Toggl’s web app has a weekly and daily view option, each offering a filtered summary report of your activities within the specified timeframe. Then, a List-View to help duplicate and bulk edit time entries. 

Toggl time entry views 

Toggl also supports extra visualizations on its desktop and mobile apps, such as Calendar View and a Pomodoro Timer.  

But with Timely, users can only switch between a daily, weekly, or monthly view. However, Timely’s filtering options are more robust. Users can filter and bulk edit logged time based on solo activities, company-wide projects, billable and non-billable hours, locked time, and more. 

Timely has a built-in AI feature to help categorize where work belongs and automatically assign it to projects and clients.

Timely’s automatic time tracking software is big on automating the time tracking process and eliminating guesswork. 

It offers various AI tools that automatically sort your tracked memories into time entries and generate actual time estimates based on historical data, project complexity, and your team’s capabilities.

Timely’s AI tool dashboard 

Toggl Track doesn’t have an AI stack as robust or proactive as Timely’s. However, its Desktop App offers an Autotracker that can help you set time tracking rules with various triggers, automatically reducing the time tracking done by hand. 

Toggl allows users to create random time entries, gain an overview of each project’s forecast, and natively plan Pomodoros for the day ahead.

Unlike Timely, which requires that every hour logged must be linked to a project, Toggl allows you to create time entries for non-project activities too. This means you can use Toggl as a stopwatch for everyday tasks.

Toggl’s time tracking feature also edges Timely’s in terms of project forecast. For example, in the heat of a project, admins and busy managers can easily get a bird’s eye view of tracked time plus estimates of billable hours using the Go To Project feature. 

Toggl’s project forecast option

Plus, Toggl’s Desktop app natively supports Pomodoro time tracking, ensuring users don’t feel burned even on a heavy workday. 

Toggl Track’s Pomodoro Timer

Timely also supports Pomodoro tracking in a fun way. But it doesn’t offer the same flexibility as Toggl. 

Project and Team Management: Timely vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Timely’s project and team management features are sustainable for admins who need quick progress indicators, while Toggl is for managers who want to keep an eye on project profitability in real time.

Toggl Track provides detailed insights into the profitability of each project, while Timely keeps track of user’s work patterns. 

Toggl Track’s Projects feature gives admins and team members all the data they need to make profitable decisions. 

It offers a comprehensive overview of each project’s timeframe and billable status. You can filter projects based on members, clients, templates, and more. 

And unlike on Timely, Toggl’s Projects grants users access to a trendline graph of billable hours.

Toggl’s Trendline view 

Timely, on the other hand, prioritizes users’ work patterns. So, instead of insights on profitability, the project dashboard highlights planned and logged hours, empowering users to oversee every aspect of their work.

Overview of Timely’s project status 

Both Toggl Track and Timely offer great team management but Toggl Track gives a more complete overview of each employee.

Timely’s People Dashboard offers a company view showcasing team members’ tracked and logged time so admins can edit timesheets and track assigned tasks. 

Timely’s People Dashboard

Managers can also create a custom graph of logged hours for different projects and filter through the list using criteria such as missing hours and overtime.

There’s also a nifty notification feature in its team hub that admins can use to notify the whole group to track work hours.

Alternatively, team management on Toggl Track happens in its Organization hub. 

The Organization hub provides crystal-clear insights into what your employees do with their time so you can see who is overworked, and who can take on more work. 

Within the hub, you will find a Member’s page highlighting each employee’s worked hours and billable rate, so you can:

• edit and set time entries, 
• group employees into workspaces,
• and manage subscriptions. 

Toggl’s Organization hub is also where admins assign workspace permissions for each user and edit access rights. 

Toggl Track’s team access management

Both tools require additional subscriptions for task management, but you will enjoy setting up workspaces on Toggl more because of its CSV import capabilities. 

The task management feature on Timely comes as an add-on product that requires a $5/user/mo subscription. 

Meanwhile, with Toggl task management happens on the Toggl Plan, which comes with availability/time off, capacity, and workload planning features. You can integrate Toggl Plan into your workspace for $9/user/mo. 

Overview of Toggl Plan

When setting up workspaces—migrating your users, projects, and team data from one tool to another—Toggl Track edges with its one-click CSV import feature. 

Timely doesn’t support CSV import but can connect with several tools, including Toggl Track. 

Analytics, Reporting, and Insights: Timely vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Timely provides snapshots and live reports to keep clients updated, but Toggl Tracks wins the round with its customizability and Insight hub that helps spot data trends and time sinks.

Timely and Toggl Track provides a detailed dashboard on full workspace reports, monthly projects, and billable hours.

When it comes to reports, Timely and Toggl Track have a lot in common. 

Both tools support team-wide expense tracking, provide monthly overviews and daily summaries of work patterns, and insights on billable and non-billable hours. Busy admins also enjoy detailed, full workspace reports with lots of filters to see who recorded more or less time. 

Toggl’s detailed Reports dashboard 

So, from data trends to earnings-per-member to budget to milestone setting, both tools’ reporting toolsets show everything you need to understand how your team works. And they both allow users to export all reports as PDF, CSV, or Excel files.

Toggl Track has a dedicated data and profitability insight dashboard, while Timely offers live and snapshot reports. 

Having solid reports is one thing; knowing how those reports can lead to profit is another. And this is where Toggl shines. Toggl offers a dedicated Insights hub and a Projects dashboard that show you real-time data on: 

• project profitability, 
• employee profitability, 
• data trends and estimates,
• trends vs real data comparisons,
• and a comparative analysis of how projects and team members perform. 

The Insights hub also allows admins to round up members’ logged time from the last minute tracked to the last 4 hours, giving them an accurate overview of how team members spent their time. You also get a budget overview of each team member’s earnings, labor costs, and balance. 

Toggl Track Insights hub

Timely, on the other hand, doesn’t offer something similar to the Toggl Track’s Insights. However, two unique reporting features caught our attention: Live and Snapshot reports. 

Overview of Timely’s Live and Snapshot reports 

The Live reports provide admins with a live report link they can give to clients who want to check in on progress whenever they want. While the Snapshot reports provide a shareable link with a static record of your report you can send to clients for a one-time overview.

Both tools allow admins to create custom reports, but Timely’s color coding is a bit pale compared to Toggl Track.

Timely and Toggl Track are great tools for creating custom report dashboards and charts that display insights tailored to your team’s needs. 

Toggl’s Analytics hub provides customizable widgets admins can use to monitor the overall progress of their teams, projects, and resources. The hub comprises a combination of charts you can edit to style and dashboards you can create using those charts. 

Toggl’s Chart library 

Timely’s reporting feature, on the other hand, isn’t as robust as Toggl’s in terms of customization. It only allows users to create custom dashboards by adding tables or doughnut charts based on criteria like hours, people, projects, and such. 

Timely’s custom chart builder 

Overall, Toggl’s custom reports stand out due to the unique mix of colors they support. They paint a more vivid picture of your team’s analytics than Timely. Plus, Toggl’s appealing visuals have a renowned track record of helping Togglers effortlessly build trust with clients. 

Billing and Invoicing: Timely vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Timely prioritizes one-click invoices. Toggl Track offers more native integration options with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Zoho Books. Plus in terms of invoice customization capabilities, Toggl Track is miles ahead.

Both tools allow admins to set project budgets, export timesheets, and track payrolls in real time, but in different ways.

Toggl Track offers a Billable Rates feature that allows admins to apply granular rates to time entry durations, giving them an estimable summary of:

• workspace cost,
• workspace member cost,
• project cost,
• and project member cost.

Overview of Toggl’s Billable Rates hub

By managing billable rates this way, admins can assess overall profitability and always be a step ahead in budgeting and payroll tracking. 

Timely also offers a Billable Rates feature, but it’s not for ASSESSING profitability. 

Instead, it’s focused on helping admins reflect the diversity of each team member’s skillsets in their timesheets so they can easily MAXIMIZE profitability.

Timely natively integrates with QuickBooks and automatically generates one-click invoices, while Toggl integrates with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Zoho Books and offers more customization options.

Creating an invoice on Timely requires little to no effort. Admins don’t need to struggle with complex formulas because Timely automatically calculates totals. 

Timely’s invoice preview

Timely integrates with QuickBooks, guaranteeing no more duplicate entries or the hassle of manually updating your financial records.

Timely’s integrations 

Plus, all generated invoices are automatically synced with QuickBooks online, meaning once the payment is marked as received, the invoice status gets reflected on QuickBooks.

Compared to Timely, Toggl Track offers more native integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and Zoho Books accounting software. But its invoice generation toolset isn’t effortless and requires manual input. 

And while admins can create invoices from Toggl’s Summary Reports, they cannot automatically send them via the Toggl Track app — they are only downloadable as PDFs.

However, when it comes to invoice customization options, Toggl Track beats Timely. It gives users more flexibility to edit:

• the invoice date,
• the description (based on your data grouping settings),
• the quantity (based on your tracked hours),
• additional taxes,
• and the total billable amount.

Toggl Track’s Invoice portal 

Pricing: Timely vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Toggl Track has an entirely free plan, a more extended trial period than Timely, and cheaper paid plans.

Both tools use per-user pricing models, offer free trials, and require additional subscriptions for task management. 

Toggl Track and Timely have a lot in common in terms of pricing. 

For one, they both use per-user subscription models. So, if you have five people on your team, you must pay the monthly or yearly subscription applicable to all five users. 

Secondly, they both offer free trials. The only difference is that Toggl Track gives you 30 free days, while Timely’s free trial is limited to 14 days. 

Finally, both tools require additional subscriptions for task management. 

The task management feature on Timely comes as an add-on product with a $5 per person subscription tag, while on Toggl, task management happens on Toggl Plan for $9 per user. 

Toggl Track offers a free plan for up to 5 team members and its paid plans support as many users and projects as needed. Plus, it offers a 10% discount on yearly plans. 

Toggl has a free version you can use to automate the time tracking process and keep tabs on client work. By signing up with Toggl, you and five team members can enjoy free lifetime access to unlimited time tracking. 

Moving to paid plans, Toggl offers four pricing packages. 

The Starter plan is priced at $10/mo, and it arms freelancers and small teams with all the features they need to track time without a lot of overhead. 

The Premium plan costs $20 per month and offers all the tools SMEs and growing businesses need to keep their teams aligned and agile. 

And if you need a solution for a company with multiple large departments, Toggl Track’s Enterprise plan has you covered. However, you‘ll have to contact support for a custom plan. 

Timely’s Starter plan supports a maximum of 5 users and 50 projects, and you can save up to 22% on its yearly plan. 

Timely’s pricing plans are just as comprehensive as Toggl’s but are limited in usage. 

The Starter plan ($11/mo), comparable to Toggl’s freelancer and small teams plan, is quite pricey for small teams. Apart from the extra $1 cost, it doesn’t support more than five users or over 50 projects.

The Premium plan, an efficient choice for small teams needing robust automation features and less admin work, is priced at $20/user/mo. It supports unlimited projects but is limited to a maximum of 50 users. 

And Timely’s Unlimited plan, priced at $28, is a good choice for large teams and enterprise usage, but it can get pricey on a monthly subscription. However, you can get a 22% discount from its yearly plan. 

Timely vs Toggl: Pros and Cons

Final Verdict: Timely vs Toggl Track

In a nutshell, Toggl Track is best for decision-makers who need detailed insights and analytics to spot inefficiencies. At the same time, Timely is best for managers who want to learn about members’ work patterns.

Both tools don’t support employee monitoring, allow admins to lock time entries, and synchronize across multiple devices—making them great solutions for remote teams. 

However, at its core, Toggl Track is better suited for teams that need simple time tracking and powerful analytics to improve profitability. At the same time, Timely is an excellent choice for teams that need AI tools to see who’s at capacity and who’s over-scheduled.

It completely depends on your needs, but based on your research and testing, we recommend you to…

Use Timely if:

• You want a fully automated tracker. 
• You want to create one-click invoices without the manual hassle.
• You want AI suggestions on categorizing projects and monitoring work patterns.

Click here to get started with Timely!

Use Toggl Track if:

• You want a stopwatch-like tracker to keep tabs on on-screen and off-screen activities effortlessly.
• You want detailed insight into what’s driving profitability and what isn’t. 
• You need powerful analytics to help you improve team productivity. 

Click here to get started with Toggl Track!

Note: Need more research for the best time tracking tool for diverse use cases? We also compared Clockify vs Toggl Track, Harvest vs Toggl, and several employee time tracking software.