Harvest vs Time Doctor: Full Comparison
Harvest turns a tracked timesheet into a client invoice with one click. Time Doctor watches how hours were spent, with screenshots and activity scores.
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Our quick verdict on both tools
Pick Harvest if you bill clients by the hour and want time, expenses, and invoices to flow into one payable bill. Pick Time Doctor if you manage remote or outsourced staff and need proof of work, activity data, and payroll in one place.
Start tracking freeWhat this comparison covers
Harvest and Time Doctor are both time tracking tools, compared here side by side so you can see how they differ.
If neither tool fits, TimeTracker is a third option worth a look for teams that want budgets, approvals, and invoicing tied to the same tracked hours, without screenshots or activity monitoring.
Compare the two products at a glance
Both tools solve time tracking. Here is what each one includes, side by side.
Harvest
Ties time tracking directly to invoicing: timesheets turn into client invoices with one click, built around the agency billing workflow.
- Best for
- Small to mid-size agencies and consultancies that bill clients hourly and want invoicing built in.
- Pricing
- Free for 1 seat and 2 projects. Paid from $9/seat/mo ($108/seat billed annually) and $14/seat/mo ($168 annually), both with unlimited seats. Harvest's pricing page notes that some features carry usage fees. 30-day trial.
- One-click timers and weekly timesheets
- Auto-converts time and expenses into invoices
- Online payments via Stripe and PayPal
- Two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero
- Project budgets and profitability reports
- 70+ integrations (Asana, Trello, Jira)
- Free plan for a single user
Time Doctor
Pairs strict activity monitoring (screenshots, keystroke activity, idle alerts) with built-in payroll and client-facing reports.
- Best for
- Distributed and outsourced teams, agencies, and BPOs that need proof-of-work evidence tied to billing.
- Pricing
- No free plan, 14-day trial only. Billed annually: Basic $6.67, Standard $11.67, Premium $16.70 per user a month. Month to month it is $8, $14 and $20. Eleven paid add-ons sit on top, from $2 a user a month up to $200 a month each for payroll sync, HRIS sync, SSO and provisioning.
- Idle detection and distraction alerts
- Random screenshots with optional blur
- Activity level scoring
- Website and app usage tracking
- Payroll reports and attendance data (Standard+)
- 60+ integrations (Standard plan+)
- Client login for shared reports
See how they stack up
Pricing, best fit, and top strengths for both tools, side by side.
Pricing checked 2026-07-31. Confirm current pricing on each vendor's site.
Which one fits your team
Choose Harvest when…
You bill clients by the hour and want to send an invoice with the fewest steps.
Harvest turns a tracked timesheet straight into a client invoice, so billing takes one workflow instead of moving hours into another tool.See how
You want clients to pay their invoice online without a separate step.
Harvest accepts payment through Stripe and PayPal right on the invoice, so a client can pay the moment they see the bill.See how
You already run your books in QuickBooks or Xero and want hours to sync automatically.
Harvest keeps a two-way sync with QuickBooks and Xero, so invoiced hours and payments line up with your accounting without manual entry.See how
You want to see if a project is on budget while the work is still running.
Harvest's project budget and profitability reports show planned hours against actual hours, so a losing project shows up before the invoice goes out.See how
You track billable expenses alongside hours on the same client project.
Harvest lets you attach an expense to a project and roll it into the same invoice as the tracked time, no separate spreadsheet needed.See how
You do not want to monitor staff with screenshots or activity scores.
Harvest sticks to timesheets and invoicing rather than tracking keystrokes or taking screenshots, which suits a trust-based team culture.See how
Choose Time Doctor when…
You manage remote or outsourced staff and need proof that hours were actually worked.
Time Doctor's screenshots and activity scores give a manager evidence to check against a timesheet, useful when staff work unsupervised.See how
You want payroll paid out from the same tool that tracked the hours.
Time Doctor pays staff directly from tracked hours, so there is no separate step to move approved time into a payout.See how
You bill a client for outsourced staff and want them to see the same activity data you do.
Time Doctor's client login shares reports directly with a client, a feature most time trackers do not offer.See how
You need idle detection and distraction alerts to catch time not actually spent working.
Time Doctor flags idle periods and distracting websites in real time, which a plain timesheet tool cannot catch on its own.See how
You want website and app usage tracked alongside the hours worked.
Time Doctor logs which sites and apps staff use during tracked time, giving a manager a fuller picture than hours alone.See how
You run a BPO or agency managing offshore staff at scale.
Time Doctor is built around outsourcing workflows, pairing activity evidence with payroll so a manager does not need two separate systems.See how
Popular features
Employee time tracking your team will actually use
One click starts a timer, or people type hours in by hand. Every entry ties to a client, project, and task, so the record stays clean.
Explore Time Tracking→Bill for every hour you earn
Mark each entry billable or non-billable while you work. Approved hours roll straight into reports you can bill from.
Explore Billing→See where the time really goes
Break hours down by client, project, and team member. Find the work that pays off and the projects that run over.
Explore Reports & Dashboards→Use cases this solves
Invoicing From Tracked Time
Turn approved hours into a client invoice without re-entering numbers.
Explore→Timesheet Approvals
Let a manager sign off on a week's hours before they turn into a bill.
Explore→Project Profitability
See if a project is still making money while the work is still going on.
Explore→
Frequently asked questions
- Is Harvest cheaper than Time Doctor?
- Yes, for most teams. Harvest's Teams plan runs about $9 to $11 a seat a month. Time Doctor starts at $8 a user for its Basic plan but that tier has no integrations or payroll, so most teams need the $14 Standard plan to match what Harvest includes. See the billing page for how billing plans usually compare.
- Which tool is better for sending client invoices?
- Harvest wins here. It turns a timesheet into an invoice with one click and takes online payment through Stripe or PayPal. See how invoicing from tracked time works. Time Doctor does not build client invoicing into the product at all.
- Does Time Doctor take screenshots of my staff?
- Yes. Time Doctor can take random screenshots with an optional blur, plus score activity from keyboard and mouse use. Harvest does not monitor activity at all, it sticks to plain time tracking and timesheets.
- Which tool has payroll built in?
- Time Doctor does. It pays staff directly from tracked hours, so approved time and payout live in one workflow, see timesheet approvals for how hours get signed off first. Harvest has no payroll feature at all.
- Does either tool have a free plan?
- Harvest has a free plan, but it is capped at a single user, so it fits non-billable time tracking for a solo user more than a growing team. Time Doctor has no free plan at all.
- Which tool shows project profitability better?
- Harvest is built for this. Its budget and profitability reports compare planned hours to actual hours per project, so you can see project profit while work is still happening. Time Doctor focuses on activity evidence, not project financials.
- Can clients see reports in either tool?
- Time Doctor offers a client login so an outsourcing client can see the same activity reports a manager sees. Harvest does not share a client login, but a client can review hours through an invoicing from tracked time workflow instead.
- Which tool fits an agency billing clients by the hour?
- Harvest usually fits better here, since invoicing and payments are built around client billing from the start. See the reports and dashboards Harvest offers for utilization by person, which most billing agencies check regularly.
- Which tool fits managing offshore or outsourced staff?
- Time Doctor fits better here. Its screenshots, activity scores, and website tracking give a manager evidence of time tracking for staff working unsupervised, which Harvest's plain timesheets do not offer.
- What if neither Harvest nor Time Doctor fits my team?
- Both cover their own use case well, but a team that wants budgets, approvals, and invoicing tied to the same hours, without activity monitoring, sometimes looks at TimeTracker as a third option. Our alternatives page covers more tools to weigh beyond this one comparison.
Still weighing your options?
Harvest and Time Doctor solve different problems well. See how TimeTracker handles budgets, approvals, and invoicing together instead.
See TimeTracker