This Review Covers:
- Overview
- What Do Users Like About Timely?
- What Don’t Users Like About Timely?
- What Pricing Plans Does Timely offer?
- What are the Standout Features of Timely?
- Selected Positive User Feedback
- Selected Negative User Feedback
- What are Timely’s Review Ratings from Review Sites?
- What’s My Final Verdict on Timely?
Overview
Timely is a time tracking and workforce management software that helps businesses to maximize margins, optimize tracking processes through automation, and drive profitability. It includes AI-powered features for smarter project management and precise tracking of billable hours.
Features offered include automatic time tracking, a memory tracker, AI timesheets, project dashboard, tags and tasks, billable rates, and more. The software also integrates with Zapier and popular workforce management tools such as Jira, Trello, Asana, Harvest, and Quickbooks, as well as with apps such as Gmail, Github, Teams and Zoom.
Timely places significant importance on employee privacy, not offering employee accountability and monitoring tools commonly found in other similar software such as screenshots and keystroke monitoring.
Through their Memory app, all tracking data is exclusively available and editable by the end user only, unlike other software that allows admins full transparency and control over employee timesheets and tracking reports.
This software takes a unique approach to time tracking and workforce management software by emphasizing the importance of employee privacy. While I fully support this focus on privacy, I believe that given its relatively high starting price of $11/mo/user, it would be reasonable for businesses to have access to configurable accountability features.
Timely may appeal to companies by promoting itself as a tool for fostering a positive work environment by emphasizing privacy as its unique selling point. However, most other time-tracking software on the market include optional monitoring settings that can be activated and disabled. This flexibility allows companies to support privacy while still being able to maintain a level of accountability when necessary.
Unfortunately, in its core functions, the software has some drawbacks. the AI sometimes misidentifies tasks, leading to potential issues, and the mobile app is buggy and may not accurately track activities, risking lost billable hours.
Overall, Timely offers useful features but has notable limitations that could affect its effectiveness for some users.
What do users like about Timely?
- Employee privacy
- Great user interface
- Responsive customer service
What don't users like about Timely?
- Mobile app could use work
- Occasional bugs, lagging, and glitching
- High price and lack of a free version
What Pricing Plans does Timely offer?
Timely offers three paid tiers and an enterprise plan, there’s also an optional add-on for the Tasks feature available. While there are no free plans, Timely offers a 14-day free trial for each tier.
Starter
The Timely Starter Plan caters to solo users and small teams, as this plan is limited to 5 users and a maximum of 20 projects.
At 9/mo/user billed annually or $11/mo/user billed monthly, this plan offers automatic time tracking, AI timesheets, idle detection, location tracking, a manual timer, bulk editing, weekly stats, automatic reminders, a project dashboard, billable rates, budgets, and tags.
More features include snapshot reports, high-level reports, report exports, and the ability to log time for others. All the aforementioned integrations are available and access to the API.
Premium
The Timely Premium Plan is intended for teams. It is designed to boost efficiency and cut out manual administrative tasks with more automations. It can be used by a maximum of 50 users for unlimited projects.
At $16/mo/user billed annually or $20/mo/user billed monthly, the Timely Premium Plan has all the features of the Starter Plan, plus budget milestones, anomalies and error detection, internal cost rates, required notes and tags, teams, workspace capacity, and the ability to view entry history, plan time for others, and mark timesheets as billed.
Unlimited
The Timely Unlimited Plan is intended for larger companies and is designed for extra capacity management. This plan accommodates unlimited users and unlimited projects.
At $22/mo/user billed annually or $26/mo/user billed monthly, the Timely Unlimited Plan has all the features of the previous plans, plus time locking, logging nudges, a people dashboard, individual capacity, company view, live reports, and branded reports. It also comes with customized training and communication with a success partner, unlimited API automations, and unlimited sync integrations with Azure AD.
Add-On
Timely has a Tasks add-on that is designed to help teams schedule shifts, assign tasks, and track progress against projects.
The Tasks add-on is available for any plan for $5 per user.
What are the Standout Features of Timely?
1. Automatic Time Tracking
Timely touts its automatic time-tracking system as a more intuitive alternative to the manual timers on the market. It functions in the background, gathering data on employee activities throughout the day.
It detects the apps and websites users visit and tracks this time and organizes it in easy-to-read AI generated timesheets. The tool also logs idle time, ensuring businesses only pay for hours actively worked. Additionally, for jobs requiring specific locations, the software can use GPS tracking to verify that employees are where they need to be at set times.
This system is especially beneficial for employees who frequently switch between tasks, as it removes the burden and potential errors associated with managing manual timers. By reducing these interruptions, Timely allows employees to maintain their focus and momentum, ultimately saving time and potentially boosting productivity.
2. AI Timesheets
Timely offers a quick, efficient approach to managing timesheets, designed to save time and reduce administrative tasks. Users can generate three types of timesheets—Exact, Efficient, and Concise—in under two minutes. powered by AI, these timesheets automatically categorize all the data, such as apps and sites visited, recorded in the background by the software.
Users can further categorize tracked time by project, client, or task with a customizable tagging system. For teams working across different platforms, Timely’s integrations ensure compatibility with various devices and software tools. Real-time syncing keeps data up to date across desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, reducing the need for data transfer and minimizing the potential for manual entry errors.
Timely also offers team collaboration features that allow admins to invite team members, set roles and permissions, and monitor progress. Notifications help teams stay updated on approvals, changes, or deadlines.
Timely’s software is designed to simplify timesheet creation, enhance accuracy, and support collaborative work, aiming to fit seamlessly into various workflows with minimal setup and administrative demands. 
3. Employee Privacy
As mentioned before, Timely does not offer employee accountability features such as screenshots, webcam snapshots and keystroke monitoring.
With a firm anti-surveillance policy, Timely isn’t designed for companies that require employee monitoring. Timely understands the importance of managing a workforce built on peer trust. Timely suggests that when employees feel trusted they produce higher quality work and productivity increases by a whopping 50%.
All the data logged by the software remains under the users control, and nothing is shared unless users choose to do so. All data is owned by employees, who can export or delete it as needed.
Selected Positive User Feedback:
- “Timely is very easy to use and has a very clear and fun, modern interface. Timely offers everything you need for time registration” – Verified User in Judiciary (Source G2)
- “To begin with, it simply works. Zero learning curve, just install and it tracks in the background. Saves me huge mental effort and time of trying to track back what I’ve done across multiple projects to enter manually into previous apps I used..” – Laurence C. (Source G2)
- “It effectively assists in keeping track of daily tasks and obligations, providing valuable support for those who struggle with organization and time management. The app’s user-friendly interface and customizable features make it a great asset” – Evelin C (Source G2)
- “Timely has been a fantastic tool for helping to track time across the projects I’m working on. Installation and setup was easy. The automated tracking of app usage, ‘drag and drop’ assignment of time in apps to projects, and the way Timely learns to categorise your work are great.” – Verified User in Research (Source G2)
- “Reporting is also easy, straight forward, and accurate, and it makes our budget tracking and reporting a breeze!” – Jannie E. (Source G2)
Selected Negative User Feedback:
- “Some bugs in the software, some additional features would be great, there are also issues with double-counting time that should be rectified” – Christopher P. (Source G2)
- “Occasionally the memories app fails to sync with timely and track my activity, which makes it difficult to log time if I don’t immediately log it and forget what I did that day” –Verified User in Consulting (Source G2)
- “Some team members experience glitches with the memory feature that tracks what we’re doing. We’ve realized that depending on the amount of tabs you have open, it may not track accurately becasue of it’s overload. We do wish there was a feature for limits of individual team members’ hours for projects.” Verified User in Consulting (Source G2)
- “Sometimes the apps fail to connect correctly so I’ve had to correct it manually which can be – note the irony – time-consuming. That is their main pain point.” Fabiola A. O. (Source G2)
What are Timely's Review Ratings from Review Sites?
(As of October 2024)
- Capterra: 4.7/5
- G2: 4.8/5
- Software Advice: 4.7/5
- TrustRadius: 6.7/10
- Google Play Store: 3.5/5
- App Store: 3.6/5
What's my Final Verdict on Timely?
Timely delivers a simple, easy-to-use time tracking and workforce management solution. The software’s automatic time tracking and memory-based AI timesheet generation allow users to track billable hours with minimal manual input, helping businesses optimize margins while respecting individual autonomy.
Timely integrates well with popular workforce management tools such as Jira, Trello, and QuickBooks, helping users streamline the software into workflows easily. The project management features, including real-time updates, customizable tagging, and intuitive user interfaces, make managing tasks and budgets simpler.
However, some users, myself alike, may find its pricing model steep, as there is no free tier and plans start at $11 per user per month. The mobile app can be a pain to use and overall features are limited, which could impact its functionality for some businesses. Nevertheless, for companies looking for a time-tracking solution that balances functionality and firm stance on privacy, Timely offers a solid option that emphasizes autonomy and streamlined efficiency.
