Timing vs Toggl: Which Is Better for Freelancers on a Mac in 2026?

For a freelancer working only on a Mac, Timing is usually the better fit. It records apps, sites and documents automatically and has billing status tracking and report rounding, from $9 per month billed annually. Choose Toggl if you also log time on Windows, phone or web, want a free plan, or bill with a team. Dayflow, our app, is a free daily record, not a billing tool.

Timing and Toggl both say they are for freelancers, but they start from opposite ends. Timing records what you do on your Mac automatically and lets you sort it into billable projects afterward, while Toggl (formerly Toggl Track) is built around timers you start and stop, with apps on every platform and team billing features on top.

That difference decides most of this comparison. For longer single-tool write-ups, see our Timing alternative comparison and our Toggl for Mac comparison.

Disclosure: we make Dayflow, a free, open-source Mac app that records the screen at one frame every 10 seconds and has AI write your day into a readable timeline. It appears below as a third option, labeled as ours. This article compares each vendor’s own documentation as checked on October 4, 2026 (Dayflow facts reflect version 2.2.0). Prices are US list prices and may vary by region or tax.

Quick comparison

Tool	Best for	How it tracks	Price	Platforms
Timing	Solo Mac freelancers who bill by the hour and don’t want to run timers	Automatic record of apps, websites and documents, down to URLs and Mail threads, plus manual entries	From $9/month billed annually or $11/month billed monthly; no free tier	Mac
Toggl (formerly Toggl Track)	Freelancers who work across devices or bill alongside a small team	Manual and real-time timers, timesheets, calendar integrations; desktop app also lists background tracking	Free for up to 3 users; Starter from $9/user/month billed annually or $12 billed monthly	Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, browser extensions
Dayflow (ours)	Remembering and reviewing what you worked on, not billing	Screen recorded at one frame every 10 seconds; AI writes a timeline	$0, MIT licensed; optional Pro at $20/month	Mac (macOS 14 or later)

Key takeaways

• Timing captures time without you starting anything. Toggl mostly relies on you starting a timer or filling in a timesheet, although its desktop app lists background tracking and a timeline.
• Timing keeps tracked time on your Mac by default, with optional sync. Toggl is a cloud service that syncs across web, desktop and mobile.
• Toggl has a free plan for up to 3 users. Timing has no free tier, only a 30-day trial with no credit card required.
• For one person on annual billing, Timing Professional and Toggl Starter cost the same: $108 a year.
• Dayflow is free and open source, but it has no invoicing, billable rates, team reports or website blocking. It is a memory tool, not a billing tool.

What Timing does better: is automatic tracking worth paying for?

It records the day without timers

Timing’s core promise is that you never press start. It records time across apps, websites and documents on the Mac, down to specific URLs and Mail threads. For a freelancer, the practical benefit is the forgotten block: the stretch you spent answering a client’s email thread before lunch shows up in the record even though you never told the app it was billable.

You still do the sorting. Automatic capture gives you raw material, and you assign it to clients and projects. Timing lists AI-powered suggestions for time entries to speed that up, plus AI activity summaries and AI integration via MCP on all plans.

Manual entries are there for work that happens off the Mac, and the vendor also lists iOS activity import and call tracking.

Your data stays on your Mac by default

Timing states that tracked times are stored locally and never leave your Mac unless you opt into sync. Sync and Cloud Backup is listed on all plans, so you can turn it on, but it is a choice rather than the default. If you handle client material under NDA, a local-first record is easier to reason about than a cloud workspace.

Billing details that freelancers actually use

Timing lists billing status tracking, so you can see what has been invoiced and what hasn’t, along with customizable reports with report rounding. Rounding matters if your contracts bill in fixed increments.

It also lists two-way sync with ClickUp, Linear and Clio, and a GrandTotal invoicing integration, all plan dependent. Clio is legal practice software, which fits the vendor’s stated focus on freelancers, developers and legal professionals. Scripting, a Web API and Zapier are also listed, again depending on plan.

The catch

Timing is Mac only, subscription only, and the Professional plan covers one Mac with limited web app access. If you split work between a desktop and a laptop, check which plan covers that before you commit.

What Toggl does better: is a free cross-platform timer enough?

It runs everywhere

Toggl lists apps for web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android, plus browser extensions, all syncing to the same cloud account. If you start a timer on your phone when you arrive at a client’s office, then stop it from your Mac later, Toggl handles that naturally. Timing can’t, because it only runs on the Mac.

A real free plan

The vendor describes Toggl’s Free plan as free forever, for up to 3 users, with timers, focus mode, calendar integrations, tasks and boards. For a freelancer just starting out, that is a way to build the habit at no cost. The limit to know about: Toggl lists billable rates as a paid-plan feature, so if you want rates attached to your entries, budget for at least Starter.

Timesheets and calendars instead of reconstruction

Toggl is built around deliberate entry: real-time timers, timesheets and calendar integrations. Some freelancers prefer this. You decide what counts as work as you go, rather than cleaning up an automatic record at the end of the week. If your billable work is mostly meetings and scheduled sessions, pulling from a calendar can be faster than sorting app activity.

It scales past one person

Toggl targets agencies, professional services firms, software teams and law and accounting firms as well as freelancers. It lists billable rates and team reports, project planning with timelines, tasks and capacity management, and on Premium, timesheet approvals, profitability reports and Jira and Asana integrations. If you subcontract to two other people, Toggl’s team features are more developed than Timing’s, which offers shared projects on its Connect plan.

No screenshots, by design

Toggl states that it does not take screenshots or record keystrokes. If you want time tracking that cannot capture what was on your screen, that is a clear line. The tradeoff is that your entries live in Toggl’s cloud rather than on your Mac.

On AI, Toggl lists Toggl AI for natural-language questions about workspace data and admin tasks, an MCP server and an AI Task Creator.

Head-to-head table

Capability	Timing	Toggl	Dayflow (ours)
Automatic capture	Yes: apps, websites, documents, URLs and Mail threads	Desktop app lists background tracking and a timeline; mainly timer-based	Yes: one screen frame every 10 seconds, written into a timeline
Timers and manual entry	Manual time entries	Manual and real-time timers, timesheets, calendar integrations	Not offered; records automatically
Billing and invoicing	Billing status tracking, report rounding, GrandTotal invoicing integration (plan dependent)	Billable rates on paid plans; profitability reports on Premium	No invoices or billable rates
Team reports	Shared projects on Connect	Team reports; timesheet approvals on Premium	None
Website blocking	Not listed in vendor documentation	Not listed; Free plan includes focus mode	None
AI features	AI activity summaries, MCP integration, AI suggestions for time entries	Toggl AI for questions about workspace data, MCP server, AI Task Creator	AI writes the daily timeline; local, your own provider, or Pro
Data location	Local, with optional sync	Cloud, synced across apps	Recordings and timeline on your Mac; analysis local or cloud depending on mode
Free tier	None; 30-day trial, no card	Free plan for up to 3 users; 30-day trial on paid plans	Free app at $0
Platforms	Mac	Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, browser extensions	Mac, macOS 14 or later
Open source	No	No	Yes, MIT

Pricing compared: what does one freelancer pay per year?

Tool and plan	Billed annually	Billed monthly
Timing Professional	$9/month	$11/month
Timing Expert	$11/month	$14/month
Timing Connect	$16/user/month	$20/user/month
Toggl Free	$0 (up to 3 users)	$0
Toggl Starter	$9/user/month	$12/user/month
Toggl Premium	$16/user/month	$24/user/month
Toggl Enterprise	Contact vendor; see the vendor’s pricing page	Contact vendor
Dayflow	$0	$0
Dayflow Pro (optional)	Monthly price only	$20/month

For a solo freelancer who needs to bill, the cheapest plans that fit are Timing Professional and Toggl Starter. On annual billing, both come to $108 a year ($9 x 12). On monthly billing, Timing Professional is $132 a year ($11 x 12) and Toggl Starter is $144 ($12 x 12). If you need Timing Expert, that is $132 a year billed annually or $168 billed monthly.

Toggl’s Free plan costs nothing, but billable rates need a paid plan, so it suits tracking more than billing. Dayflow costs $0 if you run analysis on your own Mac or bring your own provider (that provider’s charges apply), or $240 a year if you pay for Pro monthly ($20 x 12). None of the Dayflow options replaces a billing tool.

When to choose Timing

• All your client work happens on one Mac, and you would rather sort an automatic record than remember to start timers.
• You often lose small blocks of billable time: quick emails, a document review, a short fix.
• You want tracked time kept on your Mac unless you choose to sync.
• You bill in rounded increments and want to see which time has been billed.
• You already use GrandTotal for invoices, or Clio, ClickUp or Linear for your work, and the integration on your plan matches.
• You are fine paying from day one after a 30-day trial.

When to choose Toggl

• You track time on more than one platform: a Windows machine, an iPhone, an Android phone, or a browser on someone else’s computer.
• You want to start on a free plan and only pay when you need billable rates.
• Your billable work maps cleanly to meetings and scheduled sessions you can pull from a calendar.
• You work with one or two collaborators and want shared team reports, project planning or, on Premium, timesheet approvals and profitability reports.
• You prefer a tool that states it takes no screenshots and records no keystrokes, and you’re comfortable with a cloud account.

Where do both fall short?

The gap neither covers is a combination: a tracker that is cross-platform and keeps your record local. Timing is local-first but Mac only. Toggl runs everywhere but stores data in the cloud. No tool in this comparison closes that gap, including Dayflow, which is also Mac only.

A second gap is cost and openness. Both are closed source, and both require a paid plan for real billing work: Timing has no free tier, and Toggl puts billable rates behind a paid plan. Dayflow covers the open source and $0 part under the MIT license, but not the billing part.

A third gap is memory rather than hours. Timing tells you which apps, URLs and documents you were in. Toggl tells you which timers you ran. Neither is built to show you what was actually on screen when you’re trying to reconstruct a messy afternoon, and Toggl rules that out on purpose. This is the part Dayflow covers: it keeps screen recordings and a local timeline on your Mac, and AI turns them into a readable account of the day. That’s useful when a client asks what happened on a Tuesday three weeks ago, or when you want to remember what you worked on before writing an update. If you want to keep screenshot analysis on-device, Dayflow can run a local model through Ollama or LM Studio. Our local and cloud processing page explains what leaves your Mac in each mode.

Some freelancers pair the two kinds of tools: a billing tracker for invoiced hours, and a record like Dayflow for recall. Our guide to a Mac timesheet without manual entry covers that approach, and you can export your work history as Markdown from Settings → Export.

Where Dayflow is the wrong pick

Dayflow is our product, and it’s the wrong choice for several freelance jobs:

• Invoicing clients. Dayflow produces no invoices and has no billable rates. Timing, with billing status tracking and its GrandTotal integration, wins here.
• Billing with a team. Dayflow has no team reports or payroll approvals. Toggl, with team reports and Premium timesheet approvals, wins.
• Tracking on Windows, iPhone or Android. Dayflow is Mac only. Toggl wins.
• Rounded, client-ready reports. Dayflow’s AI summaries can miss or misinterpret work, so check them before sharing. Timing’s report rounding and billing status are built for this.
• Blocking distracting websites. Dayflow doesn’t block websites, and neither Timing nor Toggl lists website blocking in its documentation either.
• Older Macs. Dayflow needs macOS 14 or later.

To weigh a wider set of options, our roundup of Mac time trackers covers more tools than these two.

The bottom line: which should a Mac freelancer pick?

For a freelancer who works on one Mac and bills by the hour, Timing is the better default. It captures time without timers, keeps the record on your Mac unless you sync, and has billing status tracking and report rounding, at $108 a year on annual billing for Professional.

Choose Toggl if your work spans devices, if you want a free plan while you get started, or if you bill alongside other people. On annual billing, Toggl Starter costs the same $108 a year as Timing Professional, so platform coverage and how you like to track should decide it, not price.

Dayflow, our app, isn’t a replacement for either when it comes to billing. It’s a free, open-source record of your workday for remembering and reviewing what you did, and it fits next to whichever billing tracker you pick. See Dayflow pricing for what Pro adds.

Frequently asked questions

Is Timing or Toggl better for freelancers on a Mac?

If all your billable work happens on one Mac, Timing is the stronger fit because it records apps, websites and documents automatically and adds billing status tracking and report rounding. Toggl is better if you start timers on a phone or Windows PC, want a free plan, or work with a few collaborators who need shared team reports and billable rates.

Does Timing have a free plan?

No. Timing has no free tier and is subscription only. It offers a 30-day trial with no credit card required. After that, the cheapest plan is Professional at $9 per month billed annually or $11 per month billed monthly, and Professional covers one Mac with limited web app access.

Is Toggl Track still available?

The product is now presented as Toggl, combining time tracking with planning, and toggl.com/track redirects to toggl.com. The vendor describes Toggl Track and Toggl Plan as legacy products that are still available to existing users. New users sign up for Toggl, which has a Free plan plus Starter, Premium and Enterprise tiers.

Does Toggl track time automatically on a Mac?

Toggl is primarily a timer and manual-entry tool. The vendor also lists automated background tracking and a timeline in the desktop app, but it is not built as a full automatic record the way Timing is. Toggl states that it does not take screenshots or record keystrokes, and its data lives in the cloud and syncs across apps.

Where does Timing store my tracked time?

Timing states that tracked times are stored locally on your Mac and never leave it unless you opt into sync. All of its plans list Sync and Cloud Backup as an option. Toggl, by contrast, is a cloud web service whose data syncs across its web, desktop and mobile apps.

Can I invoice clients from Timing or Toggl?

Timing lists billing status tracking, report rounding and a GrandTotal invoicing integration, with the integration depending on your plan. Toggl lists billable rates on paid plans and profitability reports on Premium. For whether Toggl generates invoices itself, see the vendor's pricing page at toggl.com. Dayflow does not produce invoices at all.

Should I use Dayflow instead of Timing to bill clients?

No. For billing, Timing beats Dayflow. Timing has billing status tracking, rounded reports and an invoicing integration, while Dayflow has no invoices, billable rates or team reports. Dayflow is useful next to a billing tool for remembering and reviewing what you worked on, but it should not be your system of record for client hours.

How much does Timing cost per year compared with Toggl?

On annual billing, Timing Professional and Toggl Starter both work out to $108 a year for one person ($9 a month each). On monthly billing, Timing Professional is $132 a year and Toggl Starter is $144. Toggl's Free plan costs nothing, but the vendor lists billable rates as a paid-plan feature.

Is Dayflow free and does it run on older Macs?

Dayflow is $0 and MIT licensed, with an optional Pro plan at $20 a month that manages cloud analysis. It requires macOS 14 or later, so older Macs are not supported. You can keep analysis on-device with a local model through Ollama or LM Studio, or connect your own cloud provider under that provider's terms.

Can I use Toggl on Windows and iPhone as well as my Mac?

Yes. Toggl lists apps for web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android, plus browser extensions, and its data syncs across them. Timing is Mac only, though it lists iOS activity import. If you regularly start timers away from your Mac, Toggl is the more practical choice of the two.