Automated time tracking and task planning app for project-based businesses
Table of contents
Verdict: 7.8/10
In addition to standard time tracking features like timesheets, invoicing, billable rates, and reporting, Timely offers automatic time tracking. It records users’ activities and GPS locations and adds selected entries to their timesheets.
This makes it a great solution for both desk-based and dispersed teams with hourly or project-based tasks. Plus, with support for 50+ currencies, it works for businesses worldwide.
That said, Timely has its flaws. Its impressive task management tool is available only as an add-on. Its relatively high price point also makes it less accessible to businesses on tighter budgets.
Additionally, it doesn’t integrate with any payroll solutions, which won’t work for those looking for an all-in-one solution.
Key Features:
- Manual time tracking. Create a manual time entry on Timely by logging hours and adding associated projects, tags, and notes.
- Memory time tracker. Let Timely capture your workers’ activities and GPS locations so they can add these entries to their timesheets with an easy drag-and-drop tool.
- Timesheets. View, filter, edit, and export employee timesheets with a few clicks from your reporting dashboard.
- Projects and clients. Create multiple projects and clients that users can add to their time logs. See detailed productivity and progress reports for these projects and clients.
- People dashboard. See team members’ planned time, logged hours, capacities, overtime hours, and scheduling conflicts.
- Reporting. Choose from existing reporting templates—such as employee hours and monthly project reports—or create your own dashboard. Create custom company-branded reports to send to clients.
- Invoices. Create invoices with a few clicks and integrate them with accounting software like QuickBooks.
- Integrations. Connect Timely with third-party communication, project management, accounting, and other software.
| Pros ✅ – AI-powered time tracking – Multiple currency support – Many third-party integrations – Branded reports for clients | Cons ❌ – Task management available only as an add-on – No payroll integrations – No 1-click timer |
Timely Pricing
Timely offers 3 pricing plans, summarized below.
| Starter | Premium | Unlimited |
| $11/user/month | $20/user/month | $28/user/month |
| Max 5 users | Max 50 users | Unlimited users |
| 20 projects | Unlimited projects | Unlimited projects |
| Automatic time tracking | Everything in Starter | Everything in Premium |
| AI timesheets | Planned time | Capacity management |
| Project dashboard | Team management | Overtime and undertime |
| Billable hours | Budgeting and cost management | 50+ currencies |
| Basic reporting | Time entry edit history | Branded reporting |
| Integrations | Sync with project management tools | Azure user management |
| In-app customer support | Accounting integrations | Premium customer support |
Despite these plans, I wasn’t a fan of the prices or the pricing structure.
Any business with more than 5 users must pay at least $20/user/month and still won’t have access to multiple currencies, overtime indications, and other essential tools.
Also, Unlike other apps like Clockify, Timely doesn’t have a free plan.
Here’s how Timely’s monthly premium plan checks out against competitors’ pricing.
| Team size | Timely (Premium) | Deputy (Premium) | Clockify (Pro) | Connecteam (Basic) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Users | $160.00 | $60.00 | $99.90 | Free for life—all features and dashboards |
| 20 Users | $320.00 | $120.00 | $199.80 | $29 |
| 30 Users | $480.00 | $180.00 | $299.70 | $29 |
| 50 Users | $800.00 | $300.00 | $499.50 | $39 |
Further, unlike other solutions like Toggl Track—which lets you choose a plan depending on the features you want—Timely’s plans are largely based on team size.
While smaller teams with fewer than 5 users can choose any of the plans, larger teams have no choice but to upgrade to more expensive options if they exceed the minimum number of users—even if they don’t need advanced features.
Further, the task planning tool must be purchased as an add-on regardless of your plan. Starting at $5/user, this adds heavily to your cost.
I appreciate that Timely offers up to a 22% discount if you pay annually. It also has a 14-day free trial with access to all Timely’s tools and features. This way, you can properly explore the platform before committing to a plan.
Verdict: 5.5/10
Timely Usability and Interface
Setting up an account with Timely was very straightforward. I simply input my company’s name, industry, and number of employees, and my web account was ready in under a minute.
It also asked me if I wanted to download Timely’s memory tracking app during setup, which was helpful. But when I clicked “install,” nothing happened.
Once in, I encountered a clean user interface. Timely’s white and blue color theme, modern design, and readable font were appealing to look at. Further, with all key features neatly displayed in the left sidebar, I easily found my way around.
Although I was unsuccessful in downloading the Memory app during setup, I found and installed it from the “hours” feature.
Once set up, it ran automatically in the background, tracking my desktop activity throughout the day. While this was pretty neat, I think there’s room for improvement with how quickly the tracked location or activities—the “memories”—show up on the web app. The “loading” icon kept running, and I hit refresh a few times before my activities were displayed in the app.
Additionally, Timely lacks accessibility options for those with visual, hearing, or other impairments.
Despite these minor blips, however, Timely’s web app still has one of the better user interfaces I’ve seen.
Verdict: 7.5/10
Mobile app and memory desktop app
Timely doesn’t have its own full-featured desktop app. But, it has the Memory app for Windows and Mac desktops. This app doesn’t have any features, but once installed and enabled, it records users’ location and activity memories in the background and feeds this data to your Timely web or mobile apps. I think Timely’s web app is good enough, so I didn’t miss having a full-featured desktop app.
The platform also offers a feature-rich mobile app for iOS and Android users. Here’s how it compares to the web portal.
| Menu Item | Admin | Employee | ||
| Website | Mobile App | Website | Mobile App | |
| Core Features | ||||
| Hours dashboard | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Memories | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Manual time tracker | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Task planner | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Option to add new projects | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Option to add new clients | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Team management | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Invoices | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Integrations | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Analysis features | ||||
| Projects dashboard | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| People dashboard | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Reporting | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Timesheets | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Management features | ||||
| Option to edit timesheets | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Notifications | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Settings | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Subscriptions | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
Overall, I really liked Timely’s mobile app. Like the web app, it had a clean interface and easy navigation. It was also much quicker at loading memories than the web portal. This means, however, that the mobile app’s and web portal’s recorded activities weren’t always in sync.
I made peace with the lack of invoicing on the mobile app, but I would’ve liked to see Timely’s task management tools and the ability for managers to edit timesheets.
My other complaint is that Timely doesn’t offer offline time tracking. Compare this to Toggl Track, where users can count their hours even without an internet connection. This had me questioning whether Timely is good for businesses on the move or operating from locations without strong internet connections.
Verdict: 7.5/10
Timely Core Functionalities
Time tracking
Timely prides itself on its automatic time tracker. Here’s how it works:
- Users can download the Memory app for their desktops and Timely’s mobile app.
- They then allow the apps to track their locations and background activities.
- These activities show up as memories on users’ private Timely time tracking tool (the tracker even accounts for idle hours).
- Users can drag and drop the memories they want to log as hours worked into their timesheets.
- Over time, Timely’s AI tool will predict which memories should be logged versus ignored.
I found this extremely useful. Users commonly forget to log hours or make errors in estimating how long they’ve spent on their tasks. This tool does all the memorizing for them, keeping time entries accurate and ensuring nothing is missed.
That said, technology can be prone to mistakes. If memory has overestimated time spent or must be edited, users and admins can easily tweak the data.
Further, Timely lets you create manual time entries where you can add time spent, notes, offline projects, offline remote work, and more. This is especially useful if you have a lot of offline work or aren’t comfortable with the Memory app tracking your activities or locations—for instance, in highly regulated or sensitive sectors or when dealing with confidential client data.
Timely does have a stopwatch-like timer tool, though it took me some to find. Unlike most apps where you can easily spot and use it with a single click, with Timely, using the timer isn’t so easy. You must create a new time entry and can then find the timer hidden within the fields—not ideal.
Finally, admins can set planned hours for team members, suggesting how long team members should work each day and on what. While it’s not called “scheduling” in the app, essentially, that’s what it is.
The “hours” feature gives you a calendar or list view showing both planned and unplanned time entries. It provides team members with guidance on how best to use their hours and helps prevent overworking and underworking.
Verdict: 8.5/10
Digital timesheets
You can view your team members’ time entries at any time from the hours tab in the app. My preferred method, however, is using the timesheets tab in the reports dashboard, where I can build a custom timesheet report.
Here, you can choose a day, month, or year and filter by people, projects, tags, or timesheet status (e.g., billed, logged, invoiced).
Plus, admins can click into time entries and edit them. Some apps like Toggl Track don’t let you do this, so I was happy to see the option.
Finally, you can export timesheets as Excel, CSV, or PDF files. This helps you maintain a record of employee timesheets and use them to process payroll.
Verdict: 9/10
Task planning
Timely’s task planning functionality was one of my favorites. It’s an all-in-one task management, employee scheduling, and progress tracking tool. Managers and admins can create new tasks, assign them to team members, add expected hours, and track progress from the task planning dashboard.
You can even see if employees have more capacity for a task before assigning it to them. This helps prevent overworking and burnout and ensures a fair workload distribution.
Employees get notified of their tasks through email or push notifications on their mobile apps. They can also view their scheduled work through a timeline or list view on the web or mobile app. Timely’s setup is such a simple and effective way to manage work and track both time and progress on your company’s projects.
I can’t fault the feature itself. I just wish it wasn’t available as an add-on only.
Verdict: 9.5/10
Project and client management
Another excellent offering, Timely’s projects tool lets you organize and manage multiple projects simultaneously. You can create new projects, assign them to clients, choose team members, and set project-specific billable rates that apply to any work done. You can even color-code projects, which helps visually separate them across all dashboards, views, and reports.
Moreover, you can set time tracking rules—for instance, requiring team members to use tags or add default project tags for all time entries relating to a project. The platform lets you set both money and time-based budgets for projects, which differentiates it from most other competing systems I’ve explored. You might set maximum time limits for internal administrative projects, for example.
Finally, the projects dashboard shows you exactly how long your team spends on each project, ensures you’re not exceeding budgets, and lets you track progress on projects so you don’t miss deadlines.
Verdict: 10/10
People and team management
This feature provides everything you need to manage your employees. It lets you add new users, set access levels, establish working days and hours, set custom billable rates and labor costs, and even categorize users into teams. If you don’t have teams set up already, you can create a new team and add team members—plus a team lead.
My one complaint with the labor cost and billable rates fields is that you can’t set different currencies for different team members’ rates. Timely auto-assigns the workspace or project currency. With remote work on the rise and teams becoming more global, this is a missed opportunity.
The people dashboard, also part of this feature, gives you a snapshot of your team’s logged hours, planned hours, capacity left, overtime, and more. Finally, there’s a small icon on the right side of the dashboard that lets you remind all employees to log their hours.
While this feature is incredibly useful, I’m not sure why it’s placed on the dashboard. It would make more sense to see this option under the time tracking tab.
Verdict: 8/10
Invoices
I think this was one of Timely’s least impressive features. Creating an invoice is quick and straightforward. All you must do is input key details like date range, project, and your chosen line items.
However, once created, you have only a few options. You can either view the invoice, void the invoice, or integrate it with QuickBooks. This is useful for QuickBooks users, but with no way to export invoices, the feature seems pointless for anyone else.
Verdict: 3.5/10
Integrations
Timely offers several third-party integrations. I was impressed to see the option to connect with many popular time tracking, project management, scheduling, and other software.
My key concern, however, was a lack of payroll integrations. To me, a good time-tracking app makes it effortless to sync timesheets with payroll, saving time and reducing manual errors. Many competitors with time-tracking features, like Deputy, offer this.
Here’s a summary of Timely’s integrations.
- Timely’s time tracking plug-in with apps like Google Calendar, Office 365, Trello, Jira, Zoom, and more captures your active work while you’re using these apps and creates detailed records, including time spent.
- Sync integrations, available on the Premium or Unlimited plans, transfer information between Timely and other tools, such as Toggl, QuickBooks, ClickUp, Monday.com, and more.
- Timely’s API and webhooks tools let you connect it and transfer real-time data to other software. Timely’s support team can help you understand what is and isn’t possible.
- Integrations with automation tools like Zapier and Make let you create and automate your workflow between Timely and other apps. I think this differentiates Timely from other apps since many don’t offer this.
Verdict: 7.5/10
Timely Security Features
Here’s what Timely does to ensure its data is private and secure.
- Timely’s Memory app collects basic information only, such as the titles of the pages users visit and their active timestamps.
- Memories are strictly private to the user unless they share them on their public timesheets.
- AI timesheet entries are never shared without users’ review and approval.
- Users can delete their information and data whenever they want.
- All data is end-to-end encrypted to prevent leaks in the case of hacking or other cyber-attacks.
- Credit card information is processed using Stripe’s bank-level security encryption.
- Backend engineers access data only after securing user consent.
- Admins can set custom permission levels for team members, ensuring only authorized personnel can access sensitive data.
- Timely’s data protection officer regularly reviews its privacy policies and procedures, such as staff training, reporting and escalation processes, and incident response plans.
- Timely’s dedicated emergency response team has quality assurance, support, backend, and operations team members ready to go in the event of a system incident or data breach.
Timely is fully compliant with the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation GDPR laws, making it a great solution for companies that operate in the EU and the United Kingdom.
Additionally, while the app itself isn’t compliant with Systems and Organizational Control (SOC 2), it’s hosted on Amazon Web Services, which is SOC 2 compliant. So, its cloud infrastructure meets strict security and reliability standards.
However, I saw no mention of the app being HIPAA-compliant. US-based healthcare companies might benefit from other HIPAA-compliant solutions like Connecteam. I would’ve also liked to see additional user-level security controls, such as the ability to set 2-factor authentication or mandate stronger passwords.
Verdict: 7.5/10
Timely Reporting & Analytics
Timely offers a robust set of reporting and analytics tools. Here’s a breakdown of the key reports you can generate.
- Project dashboard: Review logged hours, planned hours, and money spent and budgeted for each project. You can view this data for individual projects, specific team members, or even tags to categorize different types of work.
- Task progress report: Monitor individual tasks’ progress against deadlines and planned hours. I love how easily you can monitor what’s done and what’s still pending.
- People dashboard: See the hours each person has logged, their planned hours, their capacity, and any missing hours or overtime. It’s great for managing workload and ensuring no one is over or underworked. Further, you can see the activity history for all your users for better control and oversight.
- Detailed reports: Generate detailed reports like employee hours, unbilled hours, and monthly project reports for deeper insights into where time is being spent and help with financial planning and analysis.
- Full workspace report: See all data in 1 comprehensive report. It’s handy for broad overviews and presentations.
Exporting Reports
While the people and project dashboards provide excellent visual charts and summaries, they can’t be exported directly from the dashboard views. This disappointed me, as these visuals could be great additions to internal or external presentations.
That said, any line-by-line report under the reporting tab can be easily exported in Excel, CSV, or PDF formats. You also have the option to create a custom reporting template, which can be tailored to meet your specific needs and then exported. So, you could create your own visuals using the raw data. I found this very impressive.
Customizing report settings
The settings tool lets you choose the order in which columns appear in your time and task reports, so prioritizing the information that matters most to you is easy.
What’s more—you can add your company branding, such as colors or your logo, to reports. This helps maintain a professional appearance in client and stakeholder communications.
Verdict: 9.5/10
Timely Customer Support
Timely offers in-app customer support, available as a permanent widget on the bottom right corner of your web app.
Here are the types of support offered.
| Support | Timings | Response time |
| Anytime | Within 24 hours | |
| Live chat (bot) | Anytime | Within a few hours |
| Help Center | Anytime | Instant |
| Feedback Center | Anytime | Instant |
I liked Timely’s help center, which answered questions about its key features and tools. But what I really liked was Timely’s “Submit a Feature Request.” This is essentially a feedback center where you can provide feedback and suggestions.
Additionally, you can see the latest improvements and what’s in the product pipeline. This kind of transparency is unseen in competing apps, and I appreciated it.
While I was happy to see live chat functionality, I was disappointed that instant messaging was limited to bot interaction. You can leave a message to speak to a human customer support agent, but the reply isn’t instant.
This would’ve been okay if Timely had a phone number I could contact for urgent support. However, Timely offers email support only. Overall, Timely can provide needed support, but it won’t always be immediate or even quick.
Verdict: 7.5/10
Conclusion
Timely is an excellent solution that uses cutting-edge technology and AI to streamline and improve time tracking for hourly or project-based businesses.
With the added benefit of task and project management, custom reporting, GPS tracking, and a feature-rich mobile app, Timely is almost the perfect solution for both desk-based and scattered employees.
However, most companies look for an all-in-one time tracking and payment platform.
With Timely, they miss out on the time-saving benefits of syncing these functions and must pay a hefty fee—first for Timely and then for a separate payroll tool.
I strongly believe these factors are holding Timely back in its success with customers. Resolving these issues sooner rather than later could be game-changing.
