Harvest Alternative

Looking for a Harvest alternative?

Q: Is there a free plan on Tidybill?

Yes. The Free plan is free forever: 1 company, 5 clients, 5 invoices per month, 3 projects, 1 team member. No credit card required.

Harvest does time tracking and invoicing well, but per-seat pricing and project limits push many freelancers to look for something more affordable. Tidybill covers the same workflow from $7/month.

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Why people leave Harvest

Where Harvest falls short for solo freelancers

Harvest is a solid product. These are the specific friction points that send freelancers searching for alternatives.

Free plan is extremely limited

Harvest's free tier allows only 1 seat and 2 active projects. A freelancer juggling three or four clients simultaneously has nowhere to go but the paid plan. There is no middle ground between 2 projects and the full Pro plan.

Per-seat pricing penalises growing teams

Harvest charges per seat, whether billed monthly or annually. Adding a part-time contractor or a second person to your account doubles the bill. Most invoicing tools charge a flat rate regardless of headcount.

No recurring invoice management

Harvest does not have recurring invoice functionality built in. Freelancers with retainer clients who bill the same amount monthly need to manually re-create invoices or rely on a separate tool to handle automatic billing schedules.

No client portal

Harvest sends invoices by email. Clients who want to review all their invoices, download PDFs, or check outstanding balances have no self-service portal. Each request comes back to you to handle manually.

What makes Harvest popular

Harvest has earned a strong reputation for its time tracking interface. The desktop and mobile apps are reliable, the timer is easy to start and stop, and the reporting on tracked hours is genuinely useful for project managers and creative agencies. The ability to turn tracked time directly into an invoice is a clean workflow that appeals to hourly-rate freelancers.

Where Harvest has clear gaps is in the billing side. Invoicing in Harvest is functional but basic. There are no recurring invoice templates, no payment reminders with flexible scheduling, and no client-facing portal for self-service access.

How Harvest pricing is structured

Harvest offers two plans:

Free: 1 seat, 2 projects, unlimited clients and invoices
Pro: billed per seat, monthly or annually

Harvest bills per seat, so the cost scales directly with headcount: a two-person team pays double what a solo freelancer pays, and the bill keeps climbing as the team grows. See the Harvest website directly for current pricing.

How Tidybill compares

Tidybill includes built-in time tracking on the Starter plan. You can track time against projects, assign hourly rates, and convert time entries into invoice line items with one click. The Starter plan costs $7/month billed annually and covers up to 25 clients, 50 invoices per month, 3 team members, and 10 projects.

Features Tidybill has that Harvest lacks:

Recurring invoices: set up a retainer to bill automatically on any schedule
Client portal: clients can log in to view invoices, download PDFs, and pay online
Payment reminders: automated emails before and after due dates
Late fees: automatic late fee rules applied to overdue invoices
Quotes: send estimates that convert to invoices on client approval

For team usage, Tidybill Pro ($15/month billed annually) includes up to 25 members with no per-seat charge. Harvest bills per seat, so its cost multiplies with headcount, while Tidybill Pro stays a single flat price regardless of team size.

Migrating from Harvest

Harvest allows CSV exports of clients, projects, time entries, and invoices from the Reports section. To migrate to Tidybill:

Export your client list from Harvest as CSV
Import clients into Tidybill under Settings
Recreate your active projects and link them to clients
Set up recurring invoices for any retainer clients

Historical time entries from Harvest are not importable into Tidybill's time tracking, but client and billing records transfer cleanly. See our pricing page for plan details, or compare with the FreshBooks alternative page if you are also evaluating FreshBooks.

Side by side

Tidybill vs Harvest

Focused on what freelancers and small teams actually use.

Feature	Tidybill	Harvest
Free plan	5 clients, 5 invoices/mo	1 seat, 2 projects only
Time tracking	Built-in, Starter	Core feature
Recurring invoices	Starter ($7/mo)	Not available
Client portal	Starter ($7/mo)	Not available
Payment reminders	All paid plans	Basic only
5 team members, flat rate	$15/mo (Pro)	Per-seat pricing
Quotes and estimates	Starter ($7/mo)	Not available

Time tracking and invoicing, from $7/month

Track hours, send invoices, and get paid. No per-seat charges, no project limits on paid plans. Start free today.

Start for free

Free plan is free forever. Paid plans from $7/mo.

Frequently asked questions

How is Harvest priced?

Harvest offers a free plan limited to 1 seat and 2 projects. The Pro plan is billed per seat, whether monthly or annually, so teams with multiple members pay more as headcount grows. Check Harvest's pricing page for current rates.

Why do freelancers look for a Harvest alternative?

Harvest's per-seat pricing becomes expensive as a team grows, and moving to the Pro plan is a significant jump for a solo operator. The free plan's 2-project limit is also too restrictive for most freelancers. Budget alerts and expense tracking are included, but Harvest lacks recurring invoices and a client portal, which are standard requirements for retainer-based work.

Does Tidybill have time tracking like Harvest?

Yes. Tidybill includes a built-in time tracker on the Starter plan ($7/mo). You can log time against projects, add notes per entry, and convert time entries directly into invoice line items when billing a client. The workflow is: track time, open invoice, pull in time entries, send.

Can I import my data from Harvest?

Harvest lets you export clients, projects, and time entries as CSV files from the Reports section. Tidybill supports CSV import for clients. Project structures and historical time entries need to be recreated manually, but your client billing records and contact information migrate cleanly.

Is there a free plan on Tidybill?

Yes. The Free plan is free forever with no credit card required. It includes 1 company, 5 clients, 5 invoices per month, 3 projects, and 1 team member. If you need more, Starter is $7/month billed annually.