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Hourbun vs Harvest

Looking for a Harvest alternative that keeps one price as your clients and projects grow? Hourbun tracks time and sends invoices for a flat price per workspace, and imports your Harvest account.

By Fred Wu, maker of Hourbun · Checked · Report a mistake

The short answer

Hourbun tracks your time and invoices it for one flat price per workspace, with no usage charges and no app fee on online payments. Harvest charges a price per seat plus usage charges for active projects, clients, tasks and the amount invoiced, at rates it does not publish. Harvest fits teams that want native apps or QuickBooks Online.

Why switch

Why teams pick Hourbun over Harvest

  • One flat price with no usage charges: Harvest adds usage charges for active projects, clients, tasks and the amount invoiced to its price per seat.
  • A team of 5 pays $99 a month on Hourbun. On Harvest Teams the same team pays an estimated $275, and a team of 10 an estimated $566.
  • No app fee on online payments, only the fees of Stripe: Harvest adds a small fee on card and ACH payments, except on its Premium plan or Unlimited usage billing.
  • Timesheet approvals on the Team plan: Harvest keeps approvals for its Enterprise plan.
  • Credit notes and deposit invoices: Harvest has no credit notes, and takes payments up front only as retainers.
  • Your Harvest history comes with you: Hourbun imports the team, clients, projects with budgets, time, invoices, expenses with receipts and estimates of a Harvest account.

Head to head

At a glance

Hourbun and Harvest at a glance
Hourbun Harvest
Duo, a month $15 (lower price) Duo ≈ $130 Teams · estimate
Free plan None Free for as long as you like, for 1 active person and 2 active projects.
Free trial 14 days, with no card 30 days with no credit card, with Enterprise features such as profitability reporting and timesheet approvals, but not SAML SSO.
Client invoices Yes Yes
Online payment Yes By card or bank debit, into your own Stripe account Yes Through Stripe or PayPal
Timesheet approvals Higher plan On the Team plan Higher plan On the Enterprise plan
Desktop or mobile apps No A web app with a layout for phones Yes Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android

Same work, two prices

What you'd pay each month

Hourbun costs less in 5 of 5 examples below.

Hourbun

  • One flat price per workspace
  • Duo up to 2 seats · Team up to 30
  • 14-day free trial, no card

Harvest

  • A price per seat a month on Teams and Enterprise
  • Usage charges above an allowance
  • Usage of projects, clients, tasks and amount invoiced
  • Free plan for 1 person and 2 projects
What each example pays a month, billed monthly
Hourbun Harvest
Solo freelancer 1 person · 5 clients $15 (lower price) Duo Save ≈ $16 a month ≈ $31 Teams · estimate
Duo 2 people · 8 clients $15 (lower price) Duo Save ≈ $115 a month ≈ $130 Teams · estimate
Small studio 5 people · 15 clients $99 (lower price) Team Save ≈ $176 a month ≈ $275 Teams · estimate
Agency 10 people · 30 clients $99 (lower price) Team Save ≈ $467 a month ≈ $566 Teams · estimate
Larger team 25 people · 60 clients $99 (lower price) Team Save ≈ $984 a month ≈ $1,083 Teams · estimate
  • USD list prices, billed monthly
  • Before tax and payment fees
  • Highlight = lower price
  • Checked 10 November 2026
Pricing details (13)
  • ≈ marks an estimate. Harvest charges for usage, so its price depends on the usage of each example, under its name in the first column.
  • The usage rates come from MinuteDock: Harvest pricing in 2026 (a third-party report, checked 28 Sep 2026), as Harvest does not publish them. Your own price follows your real usage.
  • Invoices are sent by email or exported as PDFs only with Stripe connected.
  • No QuickBooks Online integration and no data import.
  • Billed yearly: $9 a seat a month, plus usage charges at yearly rates that are not reported.
  • Billed yearly: $14 a seat a month, plus usage charges at yearly rates that are not reported.
  • Harvest charges a price per seat plus usage-based charges calculated on the activity of the prior billing period: active projects, active clients, active tasks and invoicing. Only items with time tracked in the period count, each plan includes an allowance, and for a new account the usage charges begin at the second paid renewal (Harvest help centre, "Information about pricing plans").
  • Harvest's own example: a bill can jump "from a seats-only $44 to $404 once usage is added" (Harvest help centre, "Information about pricing plans").
  • Harvest does not publish its usage rates. The estimates use the monthly Flex rates reported by MinuteDock (checked 28 Sep 2026), not published by Harvest. Each meter is a monthly fee by band: projects (7 included), tasks (5 included), clients (5 included) and the amount invoiced ($2,000 included), from $20 to $960 a month each. The real price follows the real usage.
  • MinuteDock reports that the amount invoiced includes drafts and leaves out invoices paid through Stripe or PayPal, and that clients count when they have tracked time or new invoices.
  • Unlimited billing replaces the usage charges with a fixed usage fee that Harvest quotes in the account and does not publish.
  • Harvest adds a small fee on card and ACH payments, on top of the fees of Stripe, for accounts not on its Premium plan or Unlimited usage billing.
  • The usage of each example: Solo freelancer: 1 person · 5 clients · 6 projects · 5 tasks · 6 invoices and $7.5k invoiced a month. Duo: 2 people · 8 clients · 10 projects · 8 tasks · 10 invoices and $16k invoiced a month. Small studio: 5 people · 15 clients · 20 projects · 10 tasks · 20 invoices and $40k invoiced a month. Agency: 10 people · 30 clients · 40 projects · 15 tasks · 40 invoices and $90k invoiced a month. Larger team: 25 people · 60 clients · 80 projects · 20 tasks · 80 invoices and $220k invoiced a month.

Feature by feature

Features

  • Yes
  • Partly
  • No
  • Only the rows that we could check on a page of Harvest
The features of Hourbun and Harvest
Hourbun Harvest
Time tracking
Timer Yes Yes
Weekly timesheet grid Yes Yes
Day view Yes Yes
Keyboard shortcuts Yes Yes
Billable and non-billable time Yes Yes
Hourly rates by client, project, task and person Yes Partly By project, task or person
Calendar view No Partly Being rolled out to accounts gradually
Automatic or activity tracking (apps, screenshots, GPS) No Not by design: you track your own time No
Desktop or mobile apps No A web app with a layout for phones Yes Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android
Browser extension No Yes Chrome, Firefox and Edge
Invoicing and payments
Invoices from tracked time Yes Yes
Invoice lines of your own (a fixed fee, a product) Yes Yes
Recurring invoices Yes Yes
Estimates or quotes that a client accepts online Yes Yes
Deposit invoices Yes Partly Retainers: a client pays up front, and later invoices draw from the funds
Credit notes Yes No
A currency for each client or project Yes Yes
Exchange rates between currencies No No
A tax on each line, and a second tax Yes Yes
Invoices in your client's language Yes Partly Translated labels of the invoices, set under Invoices > Configure
Email reminders of late invoices Yes Yes
Online payment of an invoice Yes By card or bank debit, into your own Stripe account Yes Through Stripe or PayPal
No fee of the app on online payments Yes Only the fees of Stripe Partly A small Harvest fee on card and ACH payments, except on the Premium plan or Unlimited usage billing
Projects and reports
Project budgets in hours or money Yes Yes
Fixed-fee projects Yes Yes
Cost rates and profit Yes For admins and the owner Higher plan Cost rates from Teams; the profitability report on Enterprise
Reports with a CSV export Yes Yes
Weekly capacity of each teammate Yes Yes
Team
Team roles Yes Member, manager, admin and owner Yes Six built-in roles and custom roles, in permissions that are being rolled out
Timesheet approvals Higher plan On the Team plan Higher plan On the Enterprise plan
Integrations and data
Accounting sync Partly Xero, one way: issued invoices and credit notes, and their payments if you choose Yes QuickBooks Online and Xero: invoices and payments
QuickBooks No Yes
A public API No Yes
Project-tool integrations (Asana, Jira and others) No Yes Asana, Jira, Trello, Basecamp and GitHub
Import from any app by CSV, with past invoices and expenses Yes Time, clients and projects too; a format guide with a prompt for an AI agent Partly Time, expenses, projects, people and clients; Harvest says that invoices cannot be imported
Data export and account deletion Yes A whole workspace as CSV files with receipts, for the owner and admins; your account as JSON Yes

Which one fits

Hourbun or Harvest?

Choose Hourbun if

  • You want a price that stays the same as your projects, clients, tasks and invoices grow.
  • You take card payments online and want no app fee on top of the fees of Stripe.
  • You need timesheet approvals without an Enterprise plan.
  • You use Harvest today and want to bring your history with you.

Where Harvest is better

  • A free plan for one active person and two active projects.
  • Desktop apps for Mac and Windows, mobile apps for iPhone and Android, and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
  • QuickBooks Online, a public API on every account, and time tracking from project tools such as Asana and Jira.

Switching

Switch from Harvest to Hourbun

Moving from Harvest is one import. Hourbun imports a Harvest account with a Personal Access Token of a Harvest Administrator: the teammates and their cost rates, the clients and their people, the projects with their tasks, rates, fixed fees and budgets in hours or money, the time entries, the expenses with their receipts, the issued and draft invoices with their taxes, discounts, payments and history, and the estimates with their discounts and their state. Hourbun checks the account first and shows a preview before it imports anything. You can leave out the past invoices: their time and expenses then come over as billed elsewhere. Recurring invoices and retainers do not come over: a recurring series and the balance of a retainer stay in Harvest. The 14-day trial of Hourbun needs no card.

Questions

Questions and answers

Is Hourbun cheaper than Harvest?

In every example on this page, yes: a solo freelancer pays $15 a month on Hourbun and an estimated $31 on Harvest Teams, and a team of 5 pays $99 against an estimated $275. Harvest does not publish its usage rates, so its prices are estimates. The free plan of Harvest fits one person on two projects.

Does Harvest charge for usage?

Yes. Hourbun has no usage charges: each plan is a flat price per workspace. On its Teams and Enterprise plans, Harvest charges a price per seat plus usage charges for active projects, clients, tasks and invoicing above an included allowance, measured on the previous billing period, at rates that Harvest does not publish.

Can I move from Harvest to Hourbun?

Yes. Hourbun imports a Harvest account with a Harvest Personal Access Token: teammates, clients, projects with their budgets, tasks, time entries, expenses with receipts, invoices with their payments, and estimates. Hourbun shows a preview before the import, and lists what does not come over, such as recurring invoices and retainers.

Does Harvest add a fee to online payments?

Hourbun adds no fee: clients pay by card or bank debit into your own Stripe account, and only the fees of Stripe apply. Harvest takes payments through Stripe or PayPal, and adds a small fee on card and ACH payments for accounts not on its Premium plan or Unlimited usage billing.

Do Harvest and Hourbun have desktop or mobile apps?

Hourbun is a web app with a layout for phones, with no native app and no browser extension. Harvest has apps for Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, and browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.

Sources

  • From the pages of Harvest, unless a source says otherwise
  • A feature that we could not check has no row
  • Prices change: check the pricing page of Harvest
All sources (31)

Harvest is a trademark of Bending Spoons Operations S.p.A., and Hourbun is not affiliated with it.

Try Hourbun for free.

14 days, no card. Add a client, track your first hour, and send the invoice.