Short answer: ClickUp is the best overall project management platform with native time tracking because it combines task-level timers, manual time entries, estimates, timesheets, dashboards, billable labels, and approval-oriented workflows. For client billing and profitability, choose Teamwork.com. For structured cross-functional work, choose Asana; for enterprise resource and budget control, Wrike; for visual customization, monday.com; and for software delivery, Jira.
This is a capabilities-based buying guide, not a hands-on test or a claim that one platform is universally best. Time-tracking features, plan availability, add-ons, and pricing can change, so verify the current plan details before subscribing. Disclosure: If this guide later includes an approved referral link for a product, the site may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Comparison: the best project management software with time tracking
Native time tracking matters because each work session stays connected to the task, project, client, sprint, or work item where it occurred. That is usually more useful than recording hours in a separate timer and reconciling them with project records later.
| Software | Best for | Native tracking | Billable work and resource visibility | Important plan or setup caveat |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ClickUp | Most teams wanting one flexible workspace | Task timers, manual entries, estimates, timesheets, dashboards, and billable labels | Strong workload, estimate-versus-actual, dashboard, and approval capabilities | Basic tracking is presented as available on Free Forever; advanced time-management features vary by plan |
| Teamwork.com | Agencies, consultants, and client-service firms | Project and task timers, manual logging, timesheets, rates, and approvals | Especially strong for capacity, project profitability, budgets, and client workflows | The vendor says built-in time tracking is available on every plan; verify current packaging |
| Asana | Structured cross-functional project and portfolio management | Estimated and actual time, embedded timers, manual logging, and time reports | Strong workload and portfolio visibility; deeper timesheets, rates, budgets, and cost reporting use an add-on | Native time tracking is currently placed on Advanced and higher plans; the Timesheets and Budgets add-on is separate |
| Wrike | Enterprise resource, budget, and time controls | Live timers, manual entries, billable fields, timesheets, approvals, and reporting | Excellent fit for workload, resource bookings, effort, budgets, invoicing, and finance context | Exact time-tracking access may depend on plan or add-on configuration |
| monday.com | Visual teams that want extensive customization | Time Tracking Column with timers, manual sessions, history, and formulas | Workload views, dashboards, widgets, custom billable-cost calculations, and automations | The Time Tracking Column is documented as available on Pro and Enterprise plans |
| Jira | Software development, IT, and Agile delivery | Work-item time logs, original and remaining estimates, and sprint reporting | Excellent for delivery progress and sprint metrics; less naturally billing-focused | Time-based estimates and story points depend on project or space configuration |
How these six were ranked
The ranking weighs five practical questions:
- How native is the tracking? A built-in timer and manual logging are more useful when they attach directly to tasks or work items than a disconnected third-party timer.
- Can the software compare planned effort with actual effort? Estimates versus actuals help identify scope growth, underestimation, and overloaded projects.
- Does it support billable work? Rates, billable and non-billable labels, approvals, locked periods, profitability, and invoicing context matter to client-service teams.
- Can managers see capacity and budgets? Time logs become more valuable when they feed workload, resource, budget, or portfolio views.
- Does the product fit the team’s operating model? Jira’s issue-and-sprint model is a better fit for Agile software delivery than for a design agency, while Teamwork.com’s client and profitability emphasis is the reverse.
All six products document native or first-party time-tracking features, but “has a timer” does not mean “has a complete timesheet, billing, resource-planning, and approval system.” That difference drives the recommendations below.
#1 Best Overall
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1. ClickUp: best overall for native time tracking and flexible project management
Best for: Teams that want tasks, estimates, time logs, workload, dashboards, and approvals in one configurable workspace.
Why it ranks first: ClickUp covers the broadest range of time-management use cases in this group without being limited to a single delivery model. A user can start and stop a timer from a task, enter time manually, add an estimate, review a timesheet, and analyze time through dashboards. Time can also be labeled as billable, which gives service teams a foundation for client reporting.
Its time-tracking model is particularly useful when managers need to compare planned effort with actual effort. For example, a task can have an estimate, while the resulting time entries show whether the work was completed within that estimate. Teams can then use dashboards and workload views to inspect recurring overruns or uneven assignments instead of looking only at a total number of hours.
ClickUp also documents timesheet workflows that support submission, review, approval, reminders, locking, and dashboard visibility. That makes it more suitable than a basic task manager when time entries must be checked before they become an internal record or a client-facing report.
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Basic tracking is presented as available on ClickUp’s Free Forever plan, but advanced timesheet approvals and reporting vary by plan. Confirm the current plan comparison before assuming that a particular approval, report, or administrative control is included.
Choose ClickUp if: You want the broadest all-in-one feature set and are willing to spend time designing a consistent workspace. Look elsewhere if: you need a highly specialized client-profitability system with minimal configuration, or if your team already operates entirely through Jira issues and sprints.
Bottom line: ClickUp is the strongest general recommendation for teams that want native time tracking connected to flexible project management rather than bolted on as a separate utility.
2. Teamwork.com: best for agencies and client-service businesses
Best for: Agencies, consultants, professional-services firms, and other teams that sell project work to clients.
Teamwork.com treats time tracking as part of the client-project workflow. Its documented capabilities include logging time against projects or tasks, running timers, reviewing timesheets, setting rates, approving time, monitoring capacity, and connecting logged hours to project profitability.
That combination is important for an agency. A creative team may need to know not only that a designer worked six hours, but also which client project and task received those hours, whether they were billable, whether the work exceeded the project budget, and whether the remaining team capacity is sufficient for the next milestone. Teamwork.com’s project budgets, milestones, dependencies, client requests, and resource-management features are designed around that type of question.
The platform’s rate and profitability context gives it a clearer client-service orientation than a general-purpose visual board. Approval workflows can help a project manager review time before it is used for billing or profitability analysis. Capacity views can also reveal whether a profitable project is consuming more staff time than expected.
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- Comprehensive Project Planning: Plan for success with a dedicated project timeline and task sections to track milestones and deliverables.
- Manage Tasks Efficiently: Organize your tasks by priority, set deadlines, and stay focused on what matters most.
- Premium Quality Paper: Includes 50 sheets of thick, smooth 120gsm paper that is perfect for daily use without bleed-through.
- Project Overview at a Glance: Visualize your entire project on one page with an easy-to-read, minimalist layout.
- Minimalist Monochrome Design: Clean, modern design that complements any workspace while keeping you organized and focused.
Teamwork.com says built-in time tracking is available on every plan, but plan packaging and limits should still be checked for the specific team size and service model. “Time tracking included” does not necessarily mean that every advanced approval, capacity, billing, or reporting function is included at the same level.
Choose Teamwork.com if: Your business needs client requests, project budgets, rates, approvals, capacity planning, and profitability in the same operating system. Look elsewhere if: you want a lightweight personal task list or a developer-first Agile issue tracker.
Bottom line: Teamwork.com is the most natural choice in this list for agencies and professional-services teams that need to connect hours to client value, project budgets, and staffing decisions.
3. Asana: best for structured cross-functional project management
Best for: Marketing, operations, product, and other cross-functional organizations that prioritize clear project structure, portfolio visibility, and workload planning.
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Asana’s strength is its project-management model. Teams can organize work into projects and tasks, then view it through timelines, calendars, Gantt-style views, Kanban boards, portfolios, workloads, reports, and workflow automations. That structure is useful when time is one part of a broader planning process rather than the central purpose of the system.
Native time tracking supports estimated and actual time, embedded timers, manual logging, task-level time records, and reporting. A project lead can use those records to compare expected effort with actual effort and identify work that consistently takes longer than planned.
Asana’s current pricing materials place native time tracking on Advanced and higher plans. Its Timesheets and Budgets add-on adds a more centralized timesheet experience, approvals, rates, billable and non-billable hours, budgets, and cost reporting. That distinction is important: a team should not assume that choosing Asana automatically provides the full timesheet-and-budget workflow without checking both the base plan and the add-on.
Asana is a strong fit when several departments need to coordinate dependencies and portfolios, and managers need workload visibility across projects. It is less compelling for a small agency whose first requirement is detailed client billing, especially if the team wants rates, profitability, and timesheet controls without assembling additional capabilities.
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Choose Asana if: project hierarchy, cross-team coordination, portfolio reporting, and workload planning matter more than specialized billing. Look elsewhere if: you need time tracking on an entry-level plan or want client profitability to be the center of the product.
Bottom line: Asana is a polished choice for structured organizations, provided its Advanced-plan requirement and the separate Timesheets and Budgets add-on fit your budget and workflow.
4. Wrike: best for enterprise-grade resource, budget, and time controls
Best for: Larger marketing, creative, consulting, engineering, and professional-services organizations with complex resource and financial workflows.
Wrike combines standard project views with Gantt charts, workload charts, resource bookings, effort management, budgeting, dashboards, analytics, invoice management, and time tracking. Its time-tracking tools support live timers and manual entries, billable and non-billable work, timesheet review and approval, restrictions or locking, reporting, and synchronization with finance systems.
Rank #3
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- Each 160 Pages Per Book: Provide ample space for note taking & planning and with the date section at the top for tracking them. With 160 pages for meeting minutes, the manager notebook will cover more than half a year, even in daily use. Also provides index pages for organizing this office planner.
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This makes Wrike a strong candidate when time data needs to flow into several management processes. A resource manager may use bookings and workload charts, a project manager may compare budget with actual effort, and a finance team may need approved time or invoice-related information. The same platform can also accommodate Agile and Waterfall workflows, which is useful for organizations managing different types of work.
Wrike’s advantage is control rather than simplicity. More roles, approval stages, restrictions, budget views, reporting rules, and finance connections can improve governance, but they also require careful administration. A smaller team may spend more time configuring the system than it would with a simpler product.
Exact time-tracking availability can depend on the selected plan or add-on configuration. Confirm whether the required timer, approvals, locking, budget, analytics, and finance features are included together; otherwise, the apparent feature match may become a more complicated purchase than expected.
Choose Wrike if: resource bookings, budget-versus-actual analysis, approvals, reporting, and enterprise controls are central requirements. Look elsewhere if: your team wants a quick, low-administration task board or does not need formal resource and financial governance.
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5. monday.com: best visual and highly customizable option
Best for: Teams that prefer a visual board-based system and want to build custom workflows with columns, formulas, dashboards, automations, and integrations.
monday.com approaches time tracking through its board model. The Time Tracking Column supports start-and-stop timers, manual sessions, and activity history. Teams can use formulas to calculate values such as billable cost, while the Time Tracking Widget summarizes tracked time across boards. Project dashboards, Gantt and timeline views, milestones, dependencies, workload management, automations, and integrations provide the surrounding project context.
This model works well when a team wants time to appear beside the same status, owner, priority, client, budget, or custom field used to manage the rest of its work. For example, a services board could include a client column, a billable-rate column, a tracked-time column, and a formula that estimates billable cost. The exact calculation and reporting design would be up to the team.
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The main trade-off is that customization does not automatically produce a disciplined timesheet process. Teams must define how people record manual sessions, what counts as billable, how corrections are handled, and which dashboards managers should trust. Some reporting and automation behavior also depends on the specific column and plan configuration.
The official support documentation places the Time Tracking Column on Pro and Enterprise plans. There is also an operational detail worth testing: active timer data is not committed until the session is paused or stopped. Users who close a browser or leave a timer running should understand how that behavior affects the record.
Choose monday.com if: a visual interface and custom board design are more important than a prebuilt professional-services timesheet model. Look elsewhere if: you need sophisticated billing approvals or profitability workflows without building them through configuration.
Bottom line: monday.com is the best visual option, but make sure the Pro or Enterprise requirement and your team’s data-entry rules are acceptable before selecting it for time-sensitive reporting.
Rank #4
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6. Jira: best for software and Agile delivery teams
Best for: Software-development, IT, and Agile teams already managing work through issues, boards, sprints, and delivery metrics.
Jira’s native time tracking is built around work items and delivery progress. Teams can record logged work, maintain original and remaining estimates, and use time data in sprint reporting. Atlassian documents time tracking as a way to compare original estimates with remaining estimates, monitor work-item progress, and feed data into burndown and burnup reports.
That connection makes Jira useful for questions such as: How much estimated work remains in the sprint? Are issues consuming more effort than expected? Is the team’s remaining work changing as logged time accumulates? Time-based estimates and story points serve different planning purposes, and the available approach depends on the project or space configuration. Story points measure relative complexity; logged hours and remaining estimates represent time-oriented progress. Teams should decide which metric drives planning instead of treating them as interchangeable.
Jira is less naturally suited to agency-style billing, client profitability, or general-purpose project coordination. It can be configured for those needs, and marketplace apps may extend it, but that adds administration and can split the source of truth. For a development team that already lives in Jira, native work logs are usually more relevant than a separate billing-first platform.
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Bottom line: Jira is the right time-tracking choice for Agile delivery teams, not the universal best tool for every business that wants to record hours.
Which one should you choose?
| Your priority | Best starting point | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One flexible workspace with the widest native feature coverage | ClickUp | Combines task tracking, estimates, timesheets, dashboards, billable labels, and approval-oriented workflows |
| Client billing, rates, profitability, and agency operations | Teamwork.com | Connects time to client projects, budgets, capacity, and profitability |
| Cross-functional projects, portfolios, dependencies, and workload | Asana | Strong structured work-management model with native estimated-versus-actual time |
| Enterprise resource planning and budget governance | Wrike | Links time with resource bookings, budgets, approvals, analytics, and finance processes |
| Visual boards and custom calculations | monday.com | Uses columns, formulas, widgets, dashboards, and automations to shape the workflow |
| Issues, sprints, and software delivery metrics | Jira | Places logged work and estimates directly in the Agile delivery process |
Buyer’s checklist: what to verify before subscribing
1. Timer and manual-entry behavior
Confirm whether users can start and stop a timer from the relevant task or work item, add time manually, edit an entry, and see the activity history. A timer alone is not enough if employees regularly forget to start it or need to correct entries later.
2. Estimates versus actuals
Check whether the platform supports an original estimate, logged time, remaining estimate, and a report that compares them. Also ask whether estimates are visible at the task, project, sprint, portfolio, or workload level. Jira’s time-oriented estimates, for example, operate differently from story-point planning.
3. Billable rates and cost calculations
If you bill clients, verify support for billable and non-billable time, user or project rates, different rate types, rounding rules, currency, and cost calculations. monday.com can support billable-cost calculations through formulas, while Teamwork.com and Wrike have a more direct client-service and profitability orientation. ClickUp and Asana can support billable workflows, but the exact controls depend on the plan and configuration.
4. Timesheet review, approval, and locking
Find out whether a manager can review submitted time, return an entry for correction, approve a period, prevent changes after approval, and receive reminders. These controls matter when hours flow into invoices, payroll, utilization reports, or client records.
5. Resource and workload visibility
Determine whether logged hours feed workload, capacity, resource bookings, or portfolio views. A team may record time accurately yet still lack a way to see that one person is overcommitted or that a project is consuming its budget too quickly.
6. Reports, exports, and integrations
Test the exact report you need, not just a generic dashboard. Look for filters by project, task, client, person, date, billable status, and approval state. Confirm whether the result can be exported or synchronized with accounting, invoicing, payroll, finance, or data-warehouse tools.
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7. Permissions and data ownership
Check who can view, edit, approve, lock, and export time. Client-visible projects may require different permissions from internal work. Also decide whether users can log time to closed tasks, move entries, or edit approved periods.
8. Mobile and desktop capture
If employees work away from a desk, verify mobile tracking, browser behavior, notifications, and how offline or interrupted sessions are handled. Do not assume that a desktop timer and a mobile workflow behave identically.
9. Plan boundaries and add-ons
Check the plan comparison for every feature your workflow requires. In this shortlist, native tracking is presented differently across products: ClickUp’s basic tracking is associated with Free Forever, Asana places native tracking on Advanced and higher, monday.com restricts its Time Tracking Column to Pro and Enterprise, and Teamwork.com says built-in tracking is available on every plan. Wrike may require a particular plan or add-on configuration, while advanced ClickUp timesheets and Asana budgeting and timesheet functions have their own packaging considerations.
10. Adoption and data quality
Decide when a user must log time, what project or task should receive unplanned work, how corrections are documented, and who audits missing entries. A platform’s reporting is only as reliable as the rules behind the entries.
A practical evaluation workflow
Before committing, reproduce one real week of work in each serious candidate. Use the same test project so the results are comparable:
- Create a project and three work items: one planned task, one recurring task, and one unplanned request.
- Add estimates: record the expected effort for each item and check where the estimate appears.
- Run a timer: start it from the task, pause or stop it, and verify that the entry is saved to the correct project.
- Add a manual entry: enter time for work that happened earlier, edit it, and inspect the history or audit record.
- Test billable handling: mark one entry billable and another non-billable; add a rate or formula if the product supports it.
- Test review: submit a timesheet or period for approval, return it for correction, approve it, and check whether locking is available.
- Check management views: compare estimated and actual time, inspect workload or capacity, and review project budget or profitability data where available.
- Export the result: confirm that the report contains the fields your accounting, invoicing, payroll, or client process needs.
- Repeat with permissions: test the same steps as a contributor, project manager, approver, and client or limited-access user.
This evaluation exposes the most expensive mismatches: a timer that cannot be corrected, a report that cannot be filtered by client, an approval workflow available only in a higher tier, or a workload view that does not use logged time in the way managers expect.
Common mistakes when selecting time-tracking software
- Choosing on the timer alone: Starting and stopping a timer is easy to demonstrate. Approvals, estimates, reports, rates, permissions, and exports determine whether the data is useful afterward.
- Confusing time tracking with billing: Logged hours do not automatically create accurate invoices. Rates, billable status, rounding, approval, taxes, currency, and client visibility still need to be defined.
- Ignoring plan restrictions: A product page may advertise time tracking while a specific timesheet, budget, approval, or reporting function sits on a higher plan or add-on.
- Mixing planning metrics: Story points, hours, workload, and remaining estimates answer different questions. Pick a consistent planning model and explain it to the team.
- Over-customizing the workspace: Especially with ClickUp and monday.com, a custom field or formula is not automatically a good process. Use the smallest workflow that produces trustworthy data.
- Failing to define unplanned work: If urgent requests have no valid project or task destination, people will log time inconsistently and project totals will become difficult to interpret.
Final recommendations by team type
- Most teams: Start with ClickUp if you want broad project-management flexibility and native time tracking in the same workspace.
- Agencies and consultants: Start with Teamwork.com when client projects, rates, capacity, profitability, and approvals are core requirements.
- Large cross-functional organizations: Consider Asana when portfolio structure and workload visibility are more important than specialized billing.
- Resource-heavy enterprises: Consider Wrike when budgets, bookings, timesheet governance, analytics, and finance context must coexist.
- Visual and configurable teams: Choose monday.com when boards, columns, formulas, and dashboards match the way your team works and the Pro or Enterprise requirement is acceptable.
- Software and Agile teams: Choose Jira when time logs need to support issues, estimates, sprints, burndown, and burnup reporting.
There is no need to force a software team into an agency platform or an agency into a developer issue tracker. The best choice is the one that makes time capture part of the work your team already manages, then turns those records into the planning, billing, resource, or delivery decisions you actually need to make.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best project management software with time tracking overall?
ClickUp is the strongest overall choice in this comparison because it combines task-level timers, manual entries, estimates, timesheets, dashboards, billable labels, and approval-oriented workflows. Its advanced time-management features vary by plan, so verify the current feature matrix before subscribing.
Which project management software is best for billable client work?
Teamwork.com is the clearest fit for agencies, consultants, and professional-services teams because it connects project and task time with rates, approvals, capacity, budgets, and profitability. Wrike is another strong option for larger organizations with more formal resource and financial controls.
Does every product in the list include time tracking on its entry-level plan?
No. Plan availability differs. ClickUp presents basic tracking on Free Forever, Teamwork.com says built-in tracking is available on every plan, Asana places native tracking on Advanced and higher, and monday.com documents its Time Tracking Column on Pro and Enterprise. Wrike’s access can depend on plan or add-on configuration. Recheck current terms before buying.
Is Jira suitable for agency time tracking and invoicing?
Jira is primarily designed around issues, estimates, logged work, sprints, and Agile reporting. It can be extended for billing or client workflows, but Teamwork.com or Wrike is a more natural starting point when rates, approvals, profitability, and invoicing are central requirements.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Choose ClickUp for the broadest all-in-one combination of project management and native time tracking, Teamwork.com for client billing and profitability, Asana for structured cross-functional work, Wrike for enterprise resource and budget controls, monday.com for visual customization, and Jira for Agile software delivery. Recheck plan inclusion and add-on requirements before making the final purchase.
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