Harvest: invoicing software platform
Harvest publishes a free tier at $0 and paid seats from $9 seat/month on annual billing, checked 16 October 2026. Buy it if billable hours are what you invoice. The thing to pin down first is usage billing: additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks are charged on what you use, with no published rate.
Harvest in brief
Harvest publishes a free tier at $0 and paid seats from $9 seat/month on annual billing, checked 16 October 2026.
- Price
- $0 forever (Free, 1 seat and 2 projects) · Per seat per month, plus usage billing above the base rate
- Best for
- Professional services firms invoicing from tracked time
- Watch out for
- The unpriced usage line is the biggest thing you give up, and it is a transparency problem rather than a feature one.
The short answer
Buy Harvest if your invoices are built from tracked time and you want project profitability and team utilisation out of the same data. Teams from $9 seat/month billed annually covers unlimited seats, team reporting and invoicing with accounting and payment integrations, and the Free plan at $0 is a real option for a single freelancer with up to 2 projects.
Skip it if you need the invoice to be the system of record rather than a byproduct of timesheets, because Harvest is a time tracker first and a billing tool second. Skip it if a predictable monthly bill matters, since both paid tiers bill additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks on usage without publishing a rate. And skip Teams specifically if you need profitability reporting, timesheet approvals or single sign-on, which are Enterprise features.
Where Harvest fits
Harvest fits the professional services firm whose revenue is hours. Its own framing is the whole product in four words, turning hours into profit, and the feature set follows that line rather than branching out: one-click timers, daily and weekly timesheets, time logged from a connected calendar, then expenses with receipts and reimbursements, then invoices generated from the billable time and expenses already recorded. Harvest says over 70,000 companies use it, and the industries it names are the ones where the billable hour is the unit of sale: advertising and marketing, architecture, construction, law firms, accounting and finance, consulting and IT, design teams and software development.
The capability that separates Harvest from a pure invoicing tool is the reporting that sits between the timesheet and the bill. Project profitability tracks margin as work progresses, team utilisation shows capacity gaps, and multi-tiered billing rates let you set what each person, project or task type bills at so the right rate applies automatically. Budgets can be set in hours or in fees with live alerts before you go over, and retainers are tracked as hour banks with consumption measured against the agreement. For an agency that has ever discovered a project was unprofitable after delivering it, that is the argument.
Where Harvest stops is the general ledger and anything resembling accounting. It is built to hand data onwards: the paid tiers list accounting and payment integrations including Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Xero and Deel, the comparison table counts 50 or more core integrations, and custom exports exist to push data to whatever you reconcile in. Harvest Forecast is a separate product for resource planning that integrates with it. If you want one subscription that both bills the client and closes the books, this is not it, and FreshBooks or Xero is the shape you are looking for.
The tier boundaries are about control rather than volume, which is unusual and worth reading carefully. Unlimited seats come with Teams, so growth alone does not force an upgrade. What forces it is governance: unlimited custom reports, profitability reporting by client, project, task and team, timesheet approvals, the activity log reviewing all time entries and changes, SAML-based single sign-on, and the ability to require notes on every time entry all sit in Enterprise from $14 seat/month billed annually. Teams is capped at up to 4 custom reports. A firm whose reason for buying is margin visibility is buying Enterprise, not Teams.
The Free plan deserves a sentence of its own because it is narrower than it sounds. At $0 forever it includes 1 seat and 2 projects, with time tracking, invoicing, expense tracking and the Mac and iOS apps. That is a working tool for a freelancer with a couple of ongoing clients and nothing more, and Harvest notes that the usage of some features may require the payment of fees even there. Two projects is the binding constraint, not the single seat.
Harvest pricing
Harvest publishes a rate card and then adds one line that undoes the precision. Read on 16 October 2026, Free is $0 forever for 1 seat and 2 projects, Teams starts from $9 seat/month on annual billing or $11 seat/month monthly, and Enterprise starts from $14 seat/month annually, stated on the page as $168 per seat billed annually. Enterprise Plus is custom pricing. Both paid tiers carry the same note: your base rate includes core features, and as your team grows, additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks are billed based on what you use. No unit rate is published for that usage, which is why every paid price on the page is labelled starting from rather than a fixed figure.
What Harvest publishes
- Free
- $0 forever (No charge)1 seat, 2 projects, time tracking, invoicing, expense tracking, Mac and iOS apps. Harvest notes that the usage of some features may require the payment of fees.
- Teams
- From $9 seat/month billed annually, or $11 seat/month monthly (Per seat per month, stated as $108 per seat billed annually)All Free features plus unlimited seats, team reporting, team capacity tracking, invoicing, and accounting and payment integrations including Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Xero and Deel. Up to 4 custom reports.
- Enterprise
- From $14 seat/month billed annually (Per seat per month, stated as $168 per seat billed annually)All Teams features plus unlimited custom reports, profitability reporting by client, project, task and team, timesheet approvals, the activity log, SAML-based single sign-on, and required notes on all time entries.
- Enterprise Plus
- Custom pricing (By contract with sales, no price published)All Enterprise features plus custom integrations, product customisation, a dedicated customer success manager, custom onboarding support and training, assisted data migration, white labelling and privileged access to product development.
Prices as published on the Harvest pricing page and checked on 16 October 2026, all in USD. The Enterprise monthly rate is printed on the page with a space inside the figure, so only the annual rates of $14 seat/month and $168 per seat billed annually are recorded here. Annual billing is a 20% discount applied automatically.
Three of the four things that move your Harvest bill are published. The fourth is the one to ask about.
- Usage above the base rate, which is unpriced. Both Teams and Enterprise state that additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks are billed based on what you use, and Harvest publishes neither the included allowance nor the overage rate. A firm with many small client projects is exactly the profile this affects, so get both figures in writing before you model a monthly cost. This is the single most important question on this page.
- Seat count, with proration that runs one way. Both paid tiers are per seat per month with unlimited seats allowed. Harvest says you can add seats at any time and will be charged a prorated amount for the days left in the billing cycle, but you cannot remove seats during the current cycle: you can only indicate that the plan should renew with fewer. A business with seasonal headcount should know that before it commits to a year.
- Billing term, worth a fifth of the subscription. Paying for the year up front takes 20% off automatically, which is the difference between $9 and $11 seat/month on Teams. Harvest also says that with 10 or more seats paid annually in advance you can request an invoice and pay by ACH or bank transfer rather than by card, which is worth knowing if card payments to vendors are awkward for your finance team.
- Which tier your controls require, which is the step from $9 to $14 seat/month billed annually across every seat. Profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, the activity log, required notes and SAML single sign-on are Enterprise only, and Teams is capped at up to 4 custom reports. Work out which of those you genuinely need rather than paying the difference on the whole team for one of them.
What costs extra
- No priced add-ons are published. Capability is gated by tier rather than sold as line items.
- Additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks above what the base rate includes are billed on usage, with no unit rate published.
- Enterprise Plus bundles custom integrations, product customisation, a dedicated customer success manager, custom onboarding and training, assisted data migration and white labelling, all under custom pricing.
- Harvest Forecast, the resource planning product, integrates with every tier and is a separate product rather than a priced add-on on this page.
Implementation and commercial terms
The rows below are what the Harvest pricing page and its FAQ confirmed on 16 October 2026. The usage billing row is the one to treat as an open question rather than a settled term.
- Published price
- Yes for Free, Teams and Enterprise. Enterprise Plus is custom.
- Billing basis
- Per seat per month, monthly or annually, with unlimited seats on paid tiers
- Annual discount
- 20% off, applied automatically when you pay for the year up front
- Usage billing
- Additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks billed on usage, rate not published
- Seat changes
- Added mid-cycle and prorated; removable only at renewal
- Payment method
- Card monthly or yearly; invoice and ACH available at 10 or more seats paid annually
- Free trial
- 30 days on Teams and Enterprise, no credit card collected
- Implementation fee
- None published. A consultation is offered for teams with 50 or more seats
Harvest is cheap to start and hard to forecast, and the honest budget reflects both. Take your seat count at $9 or $14 seat/month billed annually, which is the easy half, then get the usage allowances and the overage rate in writing and apply them to your real volume of invoices, projects, clients and tasks. That second number is the whole reason both paid prices say starting from. If your firm runs dozens of small projects rather than a handful of large ones, do not sign an annual term until you have seen it, because the published seat rate will understate your bill and the discount for paying up front locks you in for a year.
Source: the Harvest pricing page, checked 16 October 2026. Confirm current prices with the vendor before you budget.
What Harvest gives up
The unpriced usage line is the biggest thing you give up, and it is a transparency problem rather than a feature one. Harvest prints a precise seat rate and then says additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks are billed based on what you use, without naming an allowance or a rate. Its own framing is that this means you are never overpaying, which may well be true, and it also means you cannot build a budget from the pricing page. Every competitor in this group either includes unlimited invoicing or prints the metric it charges on.
Accounting is not here and will not be. There is no general ledger, no bank reconciliation and no double-entry reporting: Harvest expects to hand data to QuickBooks Online, Xero or your own exports. For a firm choosing between one tool that bills clients and keeps books and two tools that each do one well, that is a real decision rather than a technicality. If you are already running an accounting platform you like, Harvest's narrowness is an advantage. If you are not, it means a second subscription.
Margin visibility, which is the reason most firms buy a time tracker in the first place, costs the Enterprise tier. Profitability reporting by client, project, task and team sits at $14 seat/month billed annually against $9 on Teams, and Teams is also capped at up to 4 custom reports. That is half again on every seat to get the report that justified the purchase, so a ten-person agency should price Enterprise from the start rather than planning to upgrade later.
The governance set is thin on Teams and the trial cannot prove the part that matters most. Timesheet approvals, the activity log over all time entries and changes, and required notes on time entries are all Enterprise features, and Harvest states plainly that SAML-based single sign-on cannot be enabled during the free trial. If single sign-on is a condition of your security review, you are agreeing to buy a control you have not seen work in your own environment. Agree in writing how it will be validated before the annual term starts.
Seat flexibility runs in one direction. You can add seats at any time with prorated charges, but you cannot remove them mid-cycle: the only option is to flag a smaller renewal. Combined with the 20% annual discount, that gives a firm with fluctuating headcount a genuine choice to make rather than an obvious one. Pay monthly at $11 seat/month on Teams and keep the flexibility, or pay annually at $9 and carry seats you are not using until renewal.
How Harvest compares
The comparison that matters for Harvest is what the price is attached to. Harvest charges per seat and then meters usage on top. Bonsai charges per seat with no usage layer. FreshBooks charges a flat fee per account and meters billable clients. Wave charges almost nothing and makes its money on card processing. Every figure below comes from that vendor's own pricing page, checked on 16 October 2026.
| Tool | Best for | Price | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harvest | Firms invoicing from tracked time who need project profitability | $0 free, then from $9 or $14 seat/month billed annually | Additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks billed on usage with no published rate |
| Bonsai | Service firms wanting CRM, proposals and time tracking alongside billing | $9, $19, $29 or $49 per user/month billed annually | Invoicing starts at the $19 tier, and payment processing rates are unpublished |
| FreshBooks | Small firms that want invoicing and double-entry accounting together | $23.00, $43.00 or $70.00 per month, Select by quote | Billable clients capped at 5 and 50, and seats cost $11/mo per user on top |
| Wave | Freelancers who want unlimited invoicing at no subscription cost | $0 Starter, $19 USD/month or $190 USD/year Pro | No time tracking or project profitability, and no team reporting |
What to test in a Harvest trial
Harvest publishes a 30-day free trial on both Teams and Enterprise with no credit card collected, and says most premium features can be tried. Two things shape how you should use it. Most of the Enterprise feature set is available, so test it rather than assuming. And single sign-on is explicitly excluded, so that one has to be handled commercially instead.
- Make the usage question your first call, not your last. Ask Harvest what allowance of invoices, projects, clients and tasks the base rate includes and what each additional one costs, then apply those figures to your real volume. Nothing you test in the product matters as much as this, because it is the only part of the bill the page does not let you compute.
- Trial Enterprise rather than Teams, even if you expect to buy Teams. Profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, the activity log and required notes are all available in the trial, and they are what the $14 seat/month tier is for. Use them on real projects and then decide honestly whether you can live on Teams at $9 seat/month with up to 4 custom reports.
- Track a fortnight of real time with your actual rate structure. Set multi-tiered billing rates by person, project and task type, have two or three people log hours through different routes, the timer, the weekly timesheet and the calendar import, then generate the invoice from that data and check it line by line. If the wrong rate applies anywhere, that is the defect that will cost you money every month.
- Push a cycle through your accounting system and your payment provider. Connect QuickBooks Online or Xero and Stripe, send a payable invoice, take the payment, then inspect the resulting records in the ledger yourself. Harvest's job is to hand data onwards cleanly, so the test is whether the handoff needs manual repair.
- Settle single sign-on and seat terms commercially before the term starts. Harvest says SAML single sign-on cannot be enabled during the trial, so agree in writing how it will be validated and what happens if it does not work. In the same conversation, confirm that seats cannot be removed mid-cycle, decide whether the 20% annual discount is worth that, and ask about invoicing by ACH if you have 10 or more seats.
Frequently asked questions about Harvest
How much is Harvest a month?
Checked on 16 October 2026, Harvest publishes Free at $0 forever for 1 seat and 2 projects, Teams starting from $9 seat/month on annual billing or $11 seat/month monthly, and Enterprise starting from $14 seat/month annually. Enterprise Plus is custom pricing with no figure published.
Is there a free version of Harvest?
Yes. The Free plan is $0 forever and includes 1 seat, 2 projects, time tracking, invoicing, expense tracking and the Mac and iOS apps. Two projects is the binding limit rather than the single seat. Harvest notes that the usage of some features may require the payment of fees.
Is Harvest cheaper if you pay for the year?
Yes. Harvest says paying for the year up front applies a 20% discount automatically, which is the difference between $9 and $11 seat/month on Teams. The page states the annual rates as $108 per seat for Teams and $168 per seat for Enterprise, both billed annually.
What is the Harvest app for?
Time tracking that turns into invoices. Harvest logs hours through timers, daily or weekly timesheets or a connected calendar, records expenses with receipts, then builds client invoices from the billable time and expenses already captured. It also reports on project profitability and team utilisation from the same data.
Why does Harvest say starting from rather than a fixed price?
Because the seat rate is not the whole bill. Both paid tiers state that the base rate includes core features and that additional invoices, projects, clients and tasks are billed based on what you use. Harvest publishes no allowance and no overage rate, so ask for both before you model a monthly cost.
What is the difference between Harvest Teams and Enterprise?
Controls and reporting, not volume. Both allow unlimited seats. Enterprise at $14 seat/month billed annually adds unlimited custom reports, profitability reporting by client, project, task and team, timesheet approvals, an activity log of all time entries and changes, SAML single sign-on, and required notes on time entries.
Does Harvest have a free trial?
Yes, 30 days on both Teams and Enterprise with no credit card collected. Harvest says you can upgrade at any point during the 30 days, and that an un-upgraded trial account is deactivated at the end without the data being deleted. SAML single sign-on cannot be enabled during the trial.
What does Harvest integrate with?
The paid tiers list accounting and payment integrations including Stripe, QuickBooks Online, Xero and Deel, and the plan comparison counts 50 or more core integrations alongside Asana and Slack. Harvest Forecast, its resource planning product, connects to every tier including Free. Custom exports cover anything not integrated.
Can you remove Harvest seats mid-contract?
No. Harvest says you can add seats at any time and will be charged a prorated amount for the days left in the billing cycle, but seats cannot be removed during the current cycle. You can only indicate inside the account that the plan should renew with fewer seats.
Who should not buy Harvest?
Anyone who needs accounting rather than billing, since there is no general ledger or bank reconciliation. Anyone who wants a fixed monthly bill, because usage above the base rate is unpriced. And any small team needing timesheet approvals or single sign-on, which sit in Enterprise at $14 seat/month rather than Teams.