Harvest

Review Summary

Harvest is a polished tool for time tracking. It excels at turning employee hours into client invoices. The interface is clean and easy to learn. Teams can track time, log expenses, and monitor project profitability. It is a great choice for service-based businesses.

However, Harvest's pricing model has changed significantly. The company was acquired by Bending Spoons in 2025. Now, plans combine a per-seat rate with usage-based fees. Your final bill can be higher than the advertised price. This makes budgeting difficult for growing teams.

What is Harvest

Harvest is software for tracking time and creating invoices. It helps businesses capture billable hours accurately. You can track time using a timer or a timesheet. The platform also lets you log project expenses. You can even attach receipts for reimbursement.

Harvest connects your tracked time directly to invoicing. It generates invoices based on hours and expenses. Clients can pay you online through integrations like Stripe and PayPal. The software also includes reporting features. You can see project profitability, team capacity, and more. It is designed for agencies, consultants, and other professional services.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Clean, intuitive user interface.
• Simple workflow from time tracking to invoicing.
• Powerful reporting on profitability and team capacity.
• Desktop and mobile apps work seamlessly.
• Integrates with over 40 other business tools.

Cons

• Pricing includes unpublished usage-based fees.
• Final monthly bill can be unpredictable.
• The free plan is very limited (1 seat, 2 projects).
• Lacks advanced project management features.

Key Features

Harvest organizes its features around the core loop of a service business. You track work, manage costs, and get paid.

Time and Expense Tracking

Harvest offers flexible ways to log hours. You can use a real-time timer from your desktop or phone. You can also fill out a weekly timesheet. The platform can connect to your calendar. This allows you to log time directly from events. For expenses, team members can log costs and attach receipt photos. This simplifies reimbursement and client billing.

Invoicing and Payments

Creating invoices is a core strength. Harvest automatically pulls in tracked time and expenses. You can build a detailed invoice in minutes. It integrates with payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal. This lets clients pay you directly from the invoice. The system can also send automatic payment reminders for overdue invoices. This helps reduce administrative work and improve cash flow.

Reporting and Budgeting

Harvest provides visual reports to monitor business health. You can see which projects are profitable. You can also see which ones are running over budget. Budget alerts notify you before you exceed set hours or fees. Team reports show who is overworked and who has capacity. These insights help you make better decisions about staffing and project planning.

Team Management and Forecasting

Harvest includes tools for managing your team's time. You can set different roles and billable rates per person. Timesheet approval workflows ensure managers review hours before billing. A newer feature, Forecast, provides scheduling and capacity planning. It helps you map out future projects. You can see projected workload and revenue over time.

Pricing

Harvest's pricing structure has become a major point of discussion. Following its 2025 acquisition by Bending Spoons, the model changed. It now combines a base per-seat fee with usage-based billing. This is a critical detail.

• Free: Costs $0. It is for one person. It includes up to 2 projects.
• Teams: Starts at $11 per seat, per month. The annual rate is $9 per seat, per month. This plan includes unlimited projects and clients.
• Enterprise: Starts at $17.50 per seat, per month. The annual rate is $14 per seat, per month. It adds advanced reporting, approvals, and SSO.

All paid plans operate on the new hybrid model. The advertised price is only the base rate. The official site notes that usage of features like invoices, projects, and clients may incur extra fees. However, the specific thresholds and costs are not published on the pricing page. This makes it very difficult to predict your final monthly bill. Your cost will grow with both your team size and your business activity.

Final Verdict

Harvest remains a well-designed tool for its core purpose. It makes time tracking and invoicing simple. If you run a service business and prioritize a clean user experience, Harvest is compelling. The workflow from timesheet to payment is excellent.

The dealbreaker is the unpredictable pricing. The shift to usage-based fees on top of seat licenses creates budget uncertainty. If you need a fixed, predictable monthly software bill, Harvest is no longer a safe choice. Many long-time users have expressed frustration with this change.

Start with the 30-day free trial to evaluate the workflow. Pay close attention to your usage of projects, clients, and invoices. Before committing, contact their sales team. Ask for a detailed breakdown of how usage fees will apply to your team.