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 FREEMIUM
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
Where Clockify is strong
- Detailed project and task hierarchy
- Robust reporting for team productivity
Where Clockify falls short for trades
- The user must manually press start and stop for every new jobsite
- The user must manually record trip distances to maintain a mileage log
Clockify problems, in users' own words
These aren't our words — they're from public threads written by people using Clockify (or shopping for a way out). Each quote links to the original discussion.
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
The verdict
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 and this page is stale, email support@tradestimer.com and we'll fix it.
Free. The whole app.
The whole time-tracking app is free — no trial, no feature gate, no ads, no per-user fees. (Encrypted cloud backup is on the roadmap.)
- Automatic day reconstruction from background GPS
- Unlimited stops, drives, and days
- Review and edit any block
- Rounded billable-hours summary, shareable as plain text
- Automatic mileage log, exportable for taxes
- 7-day summary view
- All location data stays on your device
Your location history stays on your phone.
There is no TradesTimer server storing your location trails. No account. No sign-up. Your GPS history lives on the device that recorded it — for as long as you want it. The only time anything leaves your phone is when you choose to share your billable-hours summary yourself.
The app does not talk to any third-party service with your location. Nothing about where you've been is uploaded anywhere. See the privacy policy for the full detail.