Clock Clerk vs Productive: an honest comparison
Productive runs a whole agency: sales, budgets, resourcing, profitability and invoicing. Clock Clerk does the part from the board to the approved invoice, at a fraction of the price. Here is where each one wins.
Checked against Productive's published plans and help pages in November 2026. Plans and prices change, so confirm them on Productive's own site before you buy.
Side by side, question by question
| Question | Clock Clerk | Productive |
|---|---|---|
| Timesheet approvals | Every plan, Free included. One reviewer approves each person's calendar month. Approved hours are locked, and a send-back carries its reason. | Professional and up approves billable time, entry by entry within a budget. Weekly submission, timesheet locking and approval policies are on Ultimate. |
| Project boards | Every plan. A board per project with your own columns; each card has an hour estimate and its own thread. No Gantt, sprints or dependencies. | Every plan. Kanban, list, calendar and Gantt views, with tasks and docs. |
| Client collaboration | Starter and up. Clients join a project's threads as guests, at no charge. They do not see boards, hours or invoices in the app. | A client portal, free for clients, where they see, open and comment on tasks. |
| Invoices from approved time | Team. A draft takes the client's approved, billable hours at your rates and locks them while the invoice stands. US dollars, one tax rate, no online payment. | Yes, from a project's budget; unapproved time is not made billable. Exports to accounting tools are on Professional. |
| Timer and mobile app | Neither. Hours are typed per day and task in the browser, which fits a phone screen. No timer, idle detection or app to install. | Yes. Mobile apps for iOS and Android and desktop apps with a timer. |
| Scheduling and time off | No. A holiday calendar lowers targets on public holidays, but there is no capacity plan, leave request or balance. | Every plan. Resource planning, capacity and time off. |
| Accounting export | Team. Hours, costs and expenses go to QuickBooks Online or Desktop; Enterprise adds other ERPs. Invoices stay in Clock Clerk. | Professional and up. Invoices and expenses go to Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage, NetSuite and others. |
| Who is charged | Only the people who log hours that month. Approvers, administrators, finance readers and client guests are free. | Every employee and contractor, with a minimum of 3 seats. Clients are free. |
| Free plan | Up to 3 people, 10 active projects and 20 clients, with approvals, boards and expenses. | None. A 14-day trial. |
| Sign-in and single sign-on | Single sign-on from Starter, at $3 a filer: Okta, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365 or any OpenID Connect provider. Free signs in with a password, with two-step sign-in and passkeys. Provisioning from Okta or Entra ID over SCIM is on Enterprise. | Every plan. SAML single sign-on with Google Workspace, Okta or Microsoft Entra ID comes with Essential, Professional and Ultimate; making it the only way to sign in takes Ultimate. |
What it costs a 15-person company
Fifteen people who all log time. Productive approves billable time from Professional, and its weekly submission and locking are on Ultimate, priced on request. Productive's list prices as published in October 2026.
| Product and plan | Per person / month | 15 people / month | 15 people / year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clock Clerk Starter, for up to 15 people who log hours: approvals, boards, expenses and client threads, without invoices | $3 | $45 | $540 |
| Clock Clerk Team: adds invoices, contractors and the QuickBooks export | $6 | $90 | $1,080 |
| Clock Clerk Team, when 3 of the 15 only approve and log no hours | $6 | $72 | $864 |
| Productive Essential, billed annually: no time approval | $10 | $150 | $1,800 |
| Productive Professional, billed annually | $25 | $375 | $4,500 |
| Productive Professional, billed monthly | $29 | $435 | $5,220 |
Clock Clerk bills each month for the people who logged hours in it. There is no annual plan, so there is no annual discount either. List prices in US dollars, before tax.
Clockify, Paymo, Productive, Scoro, ClickUp and Workday are trademarks of their owners, who have not reviewed or endorsed this page. Their plans and prices are given as published on the date at the top.
When Productive is the better choice
Productive is an agency management system, and Clock Clerk is not trying to be one. Choose Productive if any of these is what you need.
Budgets, forecasts and margins
Productive tracks each project's budget in money as the work goes on, and forecasts revenue and profit. Clock Clerk shows billing and cost side by side, but it has no project budget in money and no forecast.
Resourcing and time off
Productive books people onto future work, shows capacity, and handles time off. Clock Clerk records the hours that were worked.
Sales and the client portal
Deals, a pipeline, and a portal where clients follow their tasks. A Clock Clerk guest joins a project's threads but does not see its board.
Apps, a timer and other currencies
Productive has mobile and desktop apps with a timer, and exports to several accounting tools. Clock Clerk is a web app in US dollars.
When Clock Clerk is the better choice
Clock Clerk does less than Productive, and costs a fraction of it: a 15-person team pays for the hours it logs, not for an agency system.
You need the sign-off, not the whole system
A monthly approval that locks the hours is on every Clock Clerk plan. In Productive, submission and locking are on its top plan.
Your budget is per person, per month
Fifteen people cost a fraction of Productive Professional on Clock Clerk Team, and people who only approve cost nothing.
You are a small team
Up to three people use Clock Clerk free, with no trial clock. Productive has no free plan and charges for at least three seats.
Contractors file monthly
On Team, a contractor's month becomes a protocol that is countersigned, approved by finance and paid from a file for your bank.
Asked while comparing
Can I bring my Productive history into Clock Clerk?
Not as hours. On Team and Enterprise, Clock Clerk imports tasks from Jira, Azure DevOps, Trello and Notion, but no plan imports time entries from another tracker. Most teams start on the first day of a new month and keep Productive's reports for the months before it.
Does Clock Clerk report profitability?
In part. Reports show each project's hours valued at billing rates and at cost, side by side, on Team. There is no budget in money, no forecast and no report that works out the margin for you.
Why does a Clock Clerk page say where the other product is better?
Because a trial would show you the gaps anyway, a week later. These pages are checked against each product's published plans and help pages on the date at the top. If something here is wrong or has changed, write to us and we will correct it.
Try it on a month of your own hours
Thirty days of the Team plan, no credit card required. When the trial ends, your data stays and stays readable. Start with your work email and set a password from the link we send you.