Harvest Review: Overview, Features, Pricing & Alternatives in 2025

Timesheets taking too much of your day?

If you’re searching for a way to stop losing hours to clunky time tracking, scattered expenses, and manual invoicing headaches, that’s why you’re digging into Harvest.

It’s a real struggle—I know firsthand how badly lost billable hours eat into your profits and leave you constantly second-guessing if your projects are really worth it.

Harvest goes beyond simple timers by bringing together efficient time capture, expense tracking, proactive budget monitoring, and clear profitability reports—all in one intuitive dashboard. Their integrations with apps you already use make it less of a hassle and more of a help.

In this review, I’ll walk you through how Harvest gives you clear control over your time, money, and projects so you don’t have to deal with clunky spreadsheets or vague reports anymore.

You’ll discover, in this Harvest review, everything from real-world feature value to pricing details, and see how Harvest stacks up against key alternatives.

By the end, you’ll know whether you’ve found the features you need to finally take control of your billing and project tracking.

Let’s dive into the analysis.

Harvest Overview

I’ve followed Harvest for a long time; they’ve been a key player in simplifying time tracking since 2006. Born from an agency’s own needs in NYC, they are now a fully remote company with global reach.

What I really appreciate is their clear focus on helping professional services work smarter. They don’t try to be a jack-of-all-trades, instead catering to freelancers, agencies, and consultancies that need straightforward tools.

In preparing this Harvest review, it’s impossible to ignore they’ve tracked over 2 billion customer hours. That milestone really speaks to the platform’s maturity and long-term stability.

Unlike tools that are just simple timers or overly complex accounting suites, Harvest hits a perfect sweet spot. I find its mastery of the core workflow of time to invoice is its greatest strength, avoiding feature bloat.

You’ll see them used by successful design studios, software development shops, and legal firms. These are businesses where tracking every billable hour directly impacts the bottom line.

From my perspective, their strategy is about turning raw data into actionable business intelligence. They are obsessed with giving you true clarity on profitability and team capacity.

Let’s dig into their specific features.

Harvest Features

Managing project finances often feels like guesswork.

Harvest features are specifically designed to simplify time tracking and financial management, giving you the clarity needed to run profitable projects. Here are the five main Harvest features that can transform your business operations.

1. Time Tracking

Losing track of team hours?

Inaccurate time logging can lead to significant billing errors and miscalculated project estimates, causing frustration for both your team and clients. It’s a common headache for many businesses.

Harvest’s core feature allows you to accurately capture all hours with flexible entry methods, from one-click timers to mobile apps. From my testing, the intuitive one-click timers are incredibly simple and effective for daily use. This helps you understand exactly where time is being spent.

This means you can achieve precise time allocation, leading to more accurate client billing and optimized project planning.

2. Invoicing & Payments

Billing clients a constant headache?

Manual invoice creation and chasing payments can consume valuable time and delay your cash flow, creating unnecessary financial stress for your business.

Harvest streamlines this by automatically converting tracked time and expenses into professional invoices you can send with ease. What I love is how Harvest automates converting tracked time into invoices, integrating with Stripe and PayPal for direct client payments.

The result is faster payment collection and a significantly smoother billing process, freeing you up to focus on core work and client relationships.

3. Expense Tracking

Project expenses slip through the cracks?

Overlooking project-related expenditures can lead to lost revenue and an incomplete picture of your true project costs, impacting your overall profitability.

Beyond time, this Harvest feature lets you log project expenses, attach receipts, and include them directly on client invoices. This helps you capture every billable cost. This Harvest feature ensures all project expenditures are accounted for and accurately billed.

So you get a holistic view of your project costs, preventing revenue leakage and ensuring you recoup all billable expenses.

4. Reporting & Analytics

Guessing project profitability?

Without clear insights into your team’s performance and project health, making informed decisions about future work becomes challenging and often based on intuition, not data.

Harvest transforms raw data into actionable intelligence through insightful reports on billable hours, profitability, and team capacity. Here’s what I found: the reports turn raw data into actionable intelligence, empowering smarter business decisions.

This means you can easily identify inefficiencies, understand your most profitable projects, and make strategic choices for growth.

5. Project Budget Monitoring

Budget overruns a recurring nightmare?

Unexpectedly exceeding project budgets can erode your profit margins and strain client relationships, making financial forecasting a constant struggle.

This critical Harvest feature allows you to set clear hourly or fixed-fee budgets for each project, actively tracking progress against them. This is where Harvest shines, providing proactive alerts against budget limits to keep you on track.

You can then prevent costly overruns and ensure your projects remain profitable, leading to greater financial stability.

You’ll appreciate how these Harvest features seamlessly work together to create a cohesive financial management system, ensuring data flows smoothly from tracking to invoicing and reporting.

Harvest Pricing

Hidden software costs can be frustrating.

Harvest pricing offers a transparent, tiered structure, making it straightforward to understand your investment. This approach ensures you can easily select a plan that aligns with your specific time tracking and project management needs.

Plan	Price & Features
Free	$0 • 1 User • 2 Active Projects • Basic Time Tracking • Simple Reporting
Pro	$13.75/user/month (monthly) or $11/user/month (annually) • Unlimited Users & Projects • Comprehensive Time Tracking • Invoicing & Payments • Team Reporting & Integrations • Scheduled Phone Support
Premium	$17.50/user/month (monthly) or $14/user/month (annually) • All Pro Features • Profitability Tracking • Timesheet Approvals & Audit Log • Custom Reports & Data Exports • SAML-based SSO & Onboarding (50+ users)

1. Value Assessment

Clear value for your investment.

From my cost analysis, Harvest’s per-user pricing scales directly with your team’s size, ensuring you only pay for what you actually use. What impressed me is how the Pro plan offers significant team value by unlocking unlimited projects and users. Their transparent pricing approach helps you avoid overpaying for unnecessary features your business doesn’t require.

This means your budget remains predictable. You gain cost-effective access to essential time tracking and invoicing tools as your operations expand, ensuring your software spend is optimized.

2. Trial/Demo Options

Evaluate before you commit.

Harvest offers a valuable 30-day free trial for its paid plans (Pro and Premium) with full feature access, requiring no credit card. What I found regarding pricing is how this generous trial reduces your risk, allowing you to fully test time tracking, invoicing, and reporting capabilities with your team before any financial commitment is required.

This lets you validate its utility and user adoption, ensuring the software truly meets your operational needs before you commit to their ongoing pricing.

3. Plan Comparison

Choose your ideal plan.

The Free plan works for individuals, but for growing teams, the Pro plan provides the best value, unlocking unlimited users and projects. Budget-wise, what stood out is how Premium adds crucial enterprise features like profitability tracking and SSO for larger organizations, justifying the higher per-user pricing structure.

This tiered structure helps you align your investment with your current business size, ensuring you acquire exactly the capabilities your team truly requires for optimal efficiency.

My Take: Harvest’s pricing model clearly targets freelancers and SMBs with its scalable per-user costs and robust Pro plan. It delivers predictable expenses, although large teams might find per-user pricing expensive without volume discounts.

Overall, Harvest pricing reflects a transparent, value-driven approach. It empowers you to manage project finances effectively while offering clear paths for growth. I recommend evaluating the Pro plan’s features during the trial to assess its full budget impact for your team.

Harvest Reviews

Real user feedback reveals the truth.

To give you a clear picture of Harvest, I’ve analyzed countless Harvest reviews from platforms like G2 and TrustRadius. What I found in user feedback provides balanced insights into real-world user experiences.

1. Overall User Satisfaction

Users generally report high satisfaction.

From my review analysis, Harvest consistently maintains strong ratings, averaging 4.5 stars on G2. What impressed me most is how users appreciate its intuitive interface and reliability, leading to genuinely positive long-term engagement. These Harvest reviews reflect a truly dependable user experience.

This indicates that simplicity, accuracy, and efficiency in core functionalities are what truly drive user contentment with Harvest’s offerings.

2. Common Praise Points

Its overall simplicity wins over most users.

Review-wise, users consistently highlight Harvest’s clean and intuitive interface as a major strength. I found feedback praising the simplicity of time tracking and the effective invoicing system that automatically pulls billable hours. Robust reporting features are also frequently lauded in user reviews.

This means you can expect quick adoption, significant time savings in billing, and insightful data for project profitability and team productivity.

3. Frequent Complaints

Cost and customization are common gripes.

Review-wise, the per-user pricing model is a frequent drawback, especially for larger teams where costs escalate quickly. Customers often complain about limited customization options for reports and invoices, noting only one basic template. Some Harvest reviews also mention lacking advanced project management.

These complaints are typically minor unless your team is large or you require extensive customization features or advanced PM tools.

Overall, Harvest reviews reveal consistent satisfaction rooted in simplicity, balanced with specific frustrations around pricing for scale and customization. Your experience will likely mirror these clear user feedback patterns.

Best Harvest Alternatives

Many strong Harvest alternatives await.

Navigating the time tracking and invoicing market can be complex. The best Harvest alternatives offer distinct advantages, making your choice dependent on specific business priorities and scale.

1. Toggl Track

Prioritizing effortless, automated time capture?

Toggl Track excels for individuals and small teams seeking truly effortless time capture and in-depth productivity insights. Alternative-wise, its robust automatic time tracking surpasses Harvest’s emphasis on manual entries for sheer ease of use, even offering a more generous free plan for up to five users.

Choose Toggl Track if automatic time tracking and a generous free plan for smaller teams are your top priorities.

2. Clockify

Seeking budget-friendly scalability?

Clockify stands out with its incredibly generous free plan and budget-friendly paid options, making it ideal for cost-conscious growing teams. What I found comparing options is that this alternative provides powerful time tracking at a lower cost than Harvest, while still offering solid reporting and customizable invoices.

Opt for Clockify when you need scalable time tracking and invoicing on a tighter budget with unlimited user capacity.

3. FreshBooks

Need integrated accounting and invoicing?

FreshBooks shines as a comprehensive accounting solution with strong invoicing, time, and expense capabilities. From my competitive analysis, this alternative offers superior digital receipt management and accounting features, going beyond Harvest’s core time and billing focus. Its mobile app is also highly praised.

Choose FreshBooks if comprehensive accounting alongside robust invoicing is your main business requirement.

The best Harvest alternatives depend on your specific business size and financial needs, not just features. Carefully assess your priorities.

Setup & Implementation

Harvest implementation: easier than you might expect.

In this Harvest review, I’ll detail what you can expect when bringing the software into your business. Its straightforward design generally leads to a smoother implementation, but preparing properly remains key for quick adoption.

1. Setup Complexity & Timeline

Getting Harvest up and running is quite simple.

From my implementation analysis, Harvest’s intuitive interface means you’ll find setting up projects and inviting your team streamlined. Most small to medium teams can get started quickly, typically within days to a couple of weeks, depending on the complexity of your initial data import needs and existing project structures.

You’ll want to prepare your project lists and team member data in advance to ensure a smooth, rapid initial deployment for your business.

2. Technical Requirements & Integration

Minimal technical hurdles here, thankfully.

What I found about deployment is that Harvest operates as a cloud-based solution, requiring minimal technical infrastructure on your end. You’ll use web browsers or native desktop/mobile apps, with data securely hosted. Integrations are primarily API-based, simplifying overall technical implementation needs.

Your IT team primarily needs to ensure stable internet access and the ability to install desktop/mobile apps, if you choose to use them.

3. Training & Change Management

User adoption? Often smoother than expected.

Implementation-wise, Harvest’s highly intuitive and clean interface contributes to a minimal learning curve for new users. Staff can quickly grasp time tracking, project setup, and basic invoicing without extensive formal training. This ease of use leads to significantly faster productivity and adoption rates.

Focus on internal champions and clear communication about new workflows. This approach minimizes resistance and maximizes user engagement with the platform.

Overall, Harvest implementation is genuinely accessible for most businesses, prioritizing ease of use over complex configurations. This focus means you can achieve significant benefits with minimal disruption, making it a strong choice.

Who’s Harvest For

Is Harvest right for your business?

This Harvest review helps you pinpoint its ideal users. I’ll analyze specific business profiles, team sizes, and use cases, guiding you to see if Harvest aligns with your operational needs.

1. Ideal User Profile

Freelancers, consultants, and creative agencies.

Harvest is perfect for professional services, design firms, and small to medium-sized businesses that prioritize accurate billable hour tracking. From my user analysis, its intuitive interface simplifies client invoicing, ensuring you capture every billable minute and expense. If you’re a service-based business, you’ll likely find this a perfect fit.

These users achieve maximum success by gaining clear insights into project budgets and team capacity, improving their overall profitability without complexity.

2. Business Size & Scale

Small to medium-sized teams.

Harvest generally serves businesses with 1-50 employees effectively, fitting well within the SMB bracket. What I found about target users is that it streamlines operations without overwhelming smaller teams with unnecessary complexity. Your team will benefit most if you’re not a large enterprise needing extensive project management features.

You’ll know your business size is a good fit if your focus is on efficient time and expense tracking, not complex resource leveling.

3. Use Case Scenarios

Accurate time tracking and client billing.

Harvest excels for workflows requiring precise tracking of billable hours and expenses, directly feeding into streamlined invoicing. From my analysis, this software simplifies collecting payments for services rendered. You’ll find this works when your primary need is robust financial oversight tied to project time, rather than comprehensive task management.

Your use case aligns if you need to generate professional invoices automatically from tracked time, ensuring no billable moment is missed.

4. Who Should Look Elsewhere

Large enterprises and complex operations.

Harvest isn’t ideal for very large enterprises needing highly complex project management functionalities like Gantt charts or advanced task dependencies. User-wise, businesses requiring extensive employee monitoring features or deep invoice customization beyond available templates will find it limiting.

Consider full-fledged enterprise PM suites or specialized monitoring software if your needs extend beyond Harvest’s core time and billing.

This Harvest review confirms that its best fit is service-based SMBs prioritizing streamlined time tracking and billing. Your situation requires accurate financial management tied to projects.

Bottom Line

Harvest simplifies time and financial management.

My Harvest review provides a thorough assessment of its capabilities. I’ve analyzed its strengths, limitations, and overall value, helping you confidently determine if this time tracking and invoicing solution fits your business needs.

1. Overall Strengths

Harvest excels in user experience and efficiency.

From my comprehensive analysis, Harvest’s clean, intuitive interface makes time tracking effortless, leading to quick user adoption. Its effective invoicing system, automatically pulling billable hours, consistently streamlines financial operations. Robust reporting also provides critical insights into project profitability and team productivity.

These core strengths translate directly into significant time savings for your payroll and tax preparation, while also improving payment collection schedules.

2. Key Limitations

Harvest has some clear limitations.

The per-user pricing model quickly escalates costs for larger teams, and volume discounts are notably absent. Additionally, customization options remain limited, particularly for invoices with only one basic template. It also lacks advanced project management features like Gantt charts.

These limitations are important considerations, but for many businesses, they represent manageable trade-offs rather than absolute deal-breakers for overall value.

3. Final Recommendation

My recommendation for Harvest is clear.

You should choose Harvest if you are a freelancer or SMB prioritizing straightforward time tracking and invoicing over advanced project management. From my analysis, it truly shines for service-based businesses like marketing, design, or consulting agencies seeking streamlined financial operations.

My confidence in this recommendation is high for its target audience, ensuring a valuable and efficient investment for your business.

This Harvest review confidently shows a robust solution for specific business needs. I believe it offers significant value for its intended users, helping simplify critical financial and time management tasks effectively.