Toggl Track vs TradesTimer
What Toggl Track is
A polished, manual time-tracking tool designed for freelancers and agencies to manage tasks and projects via one-tap timers and detailed reporting.
Best for: Freelancers, agencies, and desk-based professionals who need precise, manual control over task durations and project-oriented reporting.
Pricing at a glance
$9 FREEMIUM
Free for up to 5 users (manual timers); Starter roughly $9/user/mo billed annually. Pricing changes — verify.
Verified 2026-06-08
$0 FREE — FULL APP
Where Toggl Track is strong
- Highly polished user interface and reporting capabilities
- Easy-to-use one-tap timers for manual task tracking
Where Toggl Track falls short for trades
- Requires manual interaction to start and stop timers while transitioning between job sites
- Lacks automatic detection of travel distance between locations for mileage logs
Toggl Track problems, in users' own words
These aren't our words — they're from public threads written by people using Toggl Track (or shopping for a way out). Each quote links to the original discussion.
Toggl is great because I can set up some automated rules to start/stop the timer, and it keeps a log of what I had open which is useful if I forget to start/stop the timer manually.
Even people who love Toggl build a safety net for forgetting. On a jobsite there are no browser tabs to reconstruct from — but there is location, which is what TradesTimer uses.
Manual edits are easy if you forget to start a timer … Starts getting pricey if you want more features. IMO, $9 per month, when I just want insights and billable rates is just too much.
'Easy manual edits' means you're still reconstructing your day from memory — the exact chore automatic tracking removes.
Why I built a Toggl Track alternative
Toggl's one-tap timer is about as low-friction as deliberate tracking gets — and it still loses to a tradesman's morning. I kept hours in notebooks for years working for contractors; the discipline is the hard part, not the tool. You don't forget to write in the notebook at your desk. You forget on the ladder.
Toggl's own ecosystem admits this: autotracking rules, calendar backfill, editable entries — all safety nets for the forgotten timer. TradesTimer just removes the timer. Your stops and drives are logged from location, on-device, and the billable summary is free.
What TradesTimer does differently
- Automatically reconstructs the workday and travel trips using background GPS
- Generates an automatic mileage log for tax purposes without manual entry
The verdict
Toggl Track is a superior manual tracker for desk-based project management and agency reporting. For solo tradespeople on the move, TradesTimer provides a hands-free alternative by automatically logging jobsite stops and travel mileage via GPS.
Page last verified 2026-06-08. If Toggl Track 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.