Best day planner for freelancers who bill by the hour

The best day planner for a freelancer who bills by the hour depends on which half of the job you need covered: planning the day in hours, or turning those hours into something a client pays for. Sunsama has the most thoughtful daily planning ritual, Toggl, Clockify and Rize are trackers with billable rates and client reports, and TaskBerry is the one built to do both for one person.

Most planners don't bill and most trackers don't plan ahead. So the honest answer is a pick per use case, not one winner.

Updated October 2026. Prices checked on each vendor's own pricing page on 5 October 2026.

Which day planner fits a freelancer who bills by the hour?

Vendor prices are in USD. TaskBerry's price is in EUR including 21% VAT.

Sunsama: best for a calm daily planning ritual

Best for: freelancers who want a calm daily planning ritual and a real warning when the day is overbooked. Sunsama adds up your planned task time against a daily hour limit you set, and it warns you when you've overcommitted. It's the incumbent here, and the mechanic works.

Not for: turning hours into a client deliverable. It has time tracking but no rates and no client reports, so billing runs through a Toggl integration. See the Sunsama comparison.

Price: around $20 per month, no free plan, 14-day trial (as of October 2026). Sunsama pricing

TaskBerry: best if you plan and bill your own hours

Best for: a solo freelancer who wants one screen for "does today fit?" and "what do I report to this client?". TaskBerry is a day planner where every task gets a size from 30 minutes to 6 hours and your day gets an hour limit. When the plan goes over, the planner turns red before you start. You log time to the task you're working on, each task can carry a client label, and on Pro the hours become a PDF report per client with an AI summary. Berry, the AI assistant, turns a pasted email or brain dump into structured tasks.

Not for: teams, phone-first planners or calendar people. It runs in the browser in English and Dutch, with no native iOS or Android app and no calendar sync. It connects to far fewer tools than Todoist. Pro also costs more than Todoist, TickTick or Clockify.

Price: free plan with unlimited tasks, the capacity bar, time tracking and 3 labels. Pro is €9.95 a month or €99 a year, with a 14-day trial and no card needed (as of October 2026). TaskBerry pricing

Toggl: best for billable hours and invoicing

Best for: freelancers whose main job is capturing every billable minute. Toggl has billable rates, invoicing and profitability reports, and it now folds capacity and planning into the tracker.

Not for: deciding this morning whether today fits. Toggl looks back at where time went first, and its capacity features are framed for teams.

Price: free for a limited number of users, Starter $9 and Premium $16 per user per month billed yearly ($12 and $24 monthly), as of October 2026. Toggl pricing

Clockify: best for billing at the lowest price

Best for: pure tracking and invoicing at the lowest price. Billable rates come with the Basic plan and invoicing with Standard.

Not for: planning forward. Its resource planning schedules a team, not your own day. It tells you where time went, never whether tomorrow fits.

Price: free, Basic $3.99, Standard $5.49, Pro $7.99 per user per month billed yearly (as of October 2026). Clockify pricing

Morgen: best for an AI-built day inside your calendar

Best for: calendar-first people who want an AI planner that builds the day in their calendar and highlights tasks that are unscheduled and at risk of being late.

Not for: billing. There's no client reporting, and its capacity view is anchored to the calendar, not to an hour budget you own.

Price: $15 a month billed yearly, $30 monthly, no free plan, 14-day trial (as of October 2026). Morgen pricing

Motion: best for AI that reshuffles your calendar

Best for: people who want software to rearrange their calendar for them. The automatic scheduling is powerful.

Not for: a solo freelancer counting billable hours. It plans your calendar, not your commitments, has no billing, and is priced per seat. See the Motion comparison.

Price: Pro AI $19 and Business AI $29 per seat per month on yearly billing, no free plan (as of October 2026). Motion pricing

Rize: best for tracking that runs on its own

Best for: freelancers who would rather not start timers by hand. Rize tracks automatically, captures time per client and sends scheduled client-ready PDF or CSV reports.

Not for: planning. Its workload view comes from tracked history, so it can tell your client what happened but not tell you this morning that today won't fit.

Price: from $12.99 a month, no free plan (as of October 2026). Rize pricing

Todoist: best for a mature, reliable task list

Best for: anyone who wants the most mature, reliable task manager there is, with excellent apps and a free plan.

Not for: knowing whether your list fits the day. Pro adds task durations and a calendar layout, but there's no total against an hour budget and no billing. See the Todoist comparison.

Price: free, Pro $5 a month, Business $8 per user per month (as of October 2026). Todoist pricing

How we chose

We make TaskBerry, so read this list with that in mind. Every tool was judged on the questions in the table: does it plan the day in hours, does it track billable hours per client, can it produce a client report, is there a free plan, and what does it cost. Competitor features and prices were checked against each vendor's own pages on 5 October 2026. The "best for" and "not for" lines are our judgement.

If you want a planner and a tracker that talk to each other, pair Sunsama with Toggl. If you'd rather keep both in one place, see how TaskBerry plans a day.

Try TaskBerry free, no card needed →