Clockify vs TradesTimer
What Clockify is
A manual time-tracking and timesheet management tool designed for teams and agencies to track time against specific projects and tasks.
Best for: Agencies, freelancers managing multiple clients, and teams that require detailed project breakdowns and manual oversight of billable hours.
Pricing at a glance
$3.99 Free and paid plans
Genuinely free unlimited-user time tracking; paid Basic roughly $3.99/user/mo billed annually adds admin features. Pricing changes — verify.
Verified 2026-06-08
$0 Free — full app
Clockify strengths
- Detailed project and task hierarchy
- Robust reporting for team productivity
Considerations for self-employed tradespeople
- The user must manually press start and stop for every new jobsite
- The user must manually record trip distances to maintain a mileage log
Experiences with Clockify
These quotes come from public discussions about Clockify. Each quote links to its source.
I downloaded Clockify, and I use it to track my time while I'm designing or whatever else for them. -- All too often, I'm finding that I forgot to clock out or clock in, and it throws the whole thing off.
This is the timer-app failure mode in one sentence — and it's worse on a jobsite than at a desk, because your hands are full and your phone is in the truck.
Clockify was close to being my top pick. It’s reliable and flexible, but the mobile experience gave me a headache.
Clockify is desk software first. Trades work happens on the phone in a dusty truck, which is the only platform TradesTimer is built for.
Why I built a Clockify alternative
Before I built this app I tracked my own hours in spiral notebooks, through years of framing, fencing, roofing, concrete, drywall, and painting. A start/stop timer like Clockify is that notebook, digitized: it still runs on you remembering, at 6:45 a.m., with your bags in one hand and a coffee in the other. I forgot with paper; I'd have forgotten with a timer.
Clockify is genuinely good free software for people at desks. But the forgetting problem is the whole problem in the trades — and the fix isn't a better timer, it's no timer. TradesTimer reconstructs the day from where your phone actually was, so a forgotten morning is still a recorded morning.
What TradesTimer does differently
- Automatic detection of jobsite stops and travel trips via background GPS
- Automatic generation of a mileage log for tax purposes
Which app fits your needs?
Clockify is a robust manual timesheet tool built for teams and agencies needing project-based tracking. TradesTimer is a specialized tool for solo tradespeople that uses background GPS to automatically reconstruct workdays and mileage logs without any manual timers.
Page last verified 2026-06-08. If Clockify has changed pricing or features since then contact us at [email protected] to request a correction.
Free time tracking
Record stops and trips, review your hours, and export reports without a subscription.
- Automatic stop and trip recording
- Unlimited stops, drives, and days
- Review and edit stops and trips
- Rounded billable hours, exported as text or CSV
- Travel log with estimated distances
- 7-day summary view
- History stored on your phone
Control your location history
TradesTimer stores your history on your phone. Address lookups send coordinates to an address provider. You choose where to share your hours and travel exports.
See the privacy policy for details about address lookups, exports, and other data use.