Toggl Track is the reference product for time tracking: a friction-free timer, apps on every platform, idle detection, calendar integration, and reporting polished by a decade of iteration. Freelancers love it because it disappears into the workflow; agencies love the team dashboards.
Then the invoice: $10 per user per month on Starter, $18 on Premium, forever. A freelancer pays $360 over three years to remember when they worked. And billing-critical features like billable rates and time rounding sit on the paid tiers. Timevault is a $29 pay-once tracker built specifically for people who bill clients. Here is the honest comparison.
What Toggl does well
Toggl is the category benchmark for a reason:
- Apps everywhere — browser extension, desktop, mobile — with one-click timers that sync seamlessly.
- Idle detection and Pomodoro reminders that rescue forgotten timers.
- 100+ integrations: start a timer from Jira, Asana, GitHub, your calendar.
- Mature team features — approval workflows, team dashboards, project estimates.
If you track from three devices a day or manage a team's hours, Toggl's subscription buys real, ongoing infrastructure.
Where the subscription model hurts
For a solo freelancer, the math is upside down. $10/month — $120/year, $360 over three years — for storing timestamps and multiplying by an hourly rate. The features that turn tracked time into an invoice (billable rates, rounding) are exactly the ones gated to paid tiers, so the free tier is a demo for anyone who bills.
Your hours also live in Toggl's cloud. Time data is commercially sensitive — it is literally a record of what you worked on for whom — and it is another account, another export format, another subscription to maintain for the decade your business runs. The actual computation involved is something SQLite does in microseconds.
Timevault: the pay-once alternative
Timevault is a $29, one-time purchase. Time tracking for freelancers who bill clients — timers, rates and reports you own. Timevault is built around the invoice: one-click timers with projects, clients, tags and hourly rates; manual entries in any format ("1:30", "90m"); an inline-editable weekly timesheet; reports grouped by project/client/tag/day with exact billable totals; law-firm-style 5/15-minute rounding applied only at report level; overlap detection so double-booked hours never reach a client; and CSV export plus a printable summary.
The source code is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/timevault-tracker — free to build and run yourself, forever. Buying the packaged version on Whop gets you the signed installer, 1-click setup and updates. Either way, there is no account, no telemetry and no renewal date.
Head to head
| Timevault | Toggl | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29 once | $10/user/mo (Starter) |
| Cost over 3 years | $29 | ~$360/user |
| Where your data lives | Your machine / your server | Their cloud |
| Usage limits | None — unlimited use | Rates & rounding on paid tiers |
| Works offline | Yes | Partial (apps cache) |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
Who should stay with Toggl
Stay with Toggl if you need mobile tracking, idle detection or calendar integrations — Timevault has no phone app, and if you track on the move that is decisive. Stay too if you manage a team with approvals and shared dashboards; Timevault is single-workspace by design.
Switch if you work at a computer and bill clients: Timevault's timer survives browser restarts because it is server state, rates and rounding are included rather than tier-gated, and the report for a billing period reads out the exact invoiceable amount.
Making the switch
Step 1 — Buy once on Whop. One-time $29 for the packaged Windows installer with everything pre-built.
Step 2 — Set up projects and rates. Clients, colors, billable flags and hourly rates — archive projects when engagements end.
Step 3 — Track, then invoice from the report. Run timers or enter time manually, open a report for the billing period, apply 15-minute rounding, and read the exact billable amount off the screen.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/timevault-tracker. $29 buys the packaged installer, 1-click setup and updates.
What happens to a running timer if my browser crashes?
Nothing — the timer is server state, not a browser widget. Reload the page an hour later and it's still counting from the original start.
Is there a mobile app or idle detection?
No — honestly. Toggl's native apps, idle detection and calendar integrations are real advantages if you track from your phone all day. Timevault is browser + desktop, aimed at people who work at a computer and bill for it.
The bottom line
Subscriptions make sense when a service does ongoing work for you — hosting, syncing, multi-region infrastructure, human labor. They make much less sense when the work happens on your own hardware and the monthly bill is just a toll booth. Timevault is our bet that for this job, most people are better served owning the tool: $29 once, three months of Toggl pays for Timevault outright — after that, every tracked hour is pure margin.
Timevault is part of OneTimeSuite — 56 desktop and self-hosted apps built on the same principle: your hardware does the work, so you should not pay rent on it. Every app is a one-time purchase with MIT-licensed source on GitHub, no accounts and no telemetry. Want everything at once? OneTimeSuite Complete bundles the whole suite for a single flat $997.
Try Timevault — $29, one time
Signed installer on Whop, or build it free from the MIT source. Your call.
Related comparisons: Clockify alternative — or browse the whole pay-once suite.