Timescanner vs TimeCamp: one source of truth or two?

TimeCamp has an iCal sync feature. You connect your calendar, it imports the events as time entries, and you manage everything inside TimeCamp from there.

On paper, that sounds like the calendar-native workflow freelancers want.

In practice, you’ve just added a new system of record. Your calendar still exists. TimeCamp also exists. When they drift apart — and they will — you have a reconciliation problem, not a billing one.

What TimeCamp does

TimeCamp is primarily a timer-based tool. You log time manually, start a timer, or let the auto-tracking feature record activity from your desktop. The iCal integration pulls calendar events into TimeCamp as time entries — a head start on logging, not a replacement for it.

From there, TimeCamp manages projects, budgets, and has basic invoicing built in. There’s a free tier and paid plans starting around $3–4/user/month.

For teams tracking billable hours across multiple people, it covers the basics. For a solo freelancer, it adds significant overhead.

The sync problem

When you import iCal events into TimeCamp, they become TimeCamp records. Any change you make afterward — adjusting duration, reclassifying a meeting, adding a client tag — happens in TimeCamp, not in your calendar.

Now you have two records. The calendar shows what was planned. TimeCamp shows what was edited and submitted. They’re not the same thing. When you need to justify an invoice to a client, you have to decide which version is the truth.

Timers fail most freelancers because they require a deliberate action at the wrong moment. The iCal sync sidesteps that problem — but it introduces a different one. The calendar was already accurate. Importing it into a second system doesn’t make it more accurate; it makes it harder to maintain.

How Timescanner approaches this differently

Timescanner doesn’t import anything. It reads the iCal feed from your calendar directly — Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Proton Calendar, Notion Calendar, Fastmail, any iCal-compatible source.

The billing logic lives in the event names, not in a separate database. The bracket naming convention marks what’s billable: [ClientName] at the start of any billable event. Add a project: [ClientName][Project]. Mark something as a gift of time: [ClientName][O]. That’s it.

When you run an analysis, Timescanner reads the live feed and computes the result: hours billable per client, total invoice amounts, non-billable breakdown. One source of truth. If you edit an event in your calendar, the next analysis reflects it immediately. Nothing to sync, nothing to reconcile.

Your calendar data never leaves your calendar. Timescanner doesn’t store events server-side — it reads the feed, runs the calculation, returns the result. Month-end billing takes 15 minutes instead of three hours precisely because there’s no secondary system to manage.

When TimeCamp makes sense

If you need team time tracking — multiple people logging hours on shared projects — TimeCamp is built for that. The timer workflow, approval chains, and budget monitoring are designed for that context.

For a solo freelancer billing by the hour, those features create work rather than reducing it. You’re managing a software product that your clients never see, to produce invoice totals you could get directly from your calendar.

Pricing

TimeCamp: free tier with limited projects, paid plans from around $3.99/user/month.

Timescanner: €79/year, any iCal calendar. 30-day free trial, no credit card.

The math shifts quickly if TimeCamp’s free tier isn’t sufficient. At $5/month that’s $60/year — still less than Timescanner, but for a workflow that requires maintaining two systems. At $8–10/month, Timescanner wins on price and simplicity.

Which one you actually need

If you manage a small team and need shared project tracking with approval workflows — TimeCamp is designed for that.

If you work solo, bill clients by the hour, and already use a calendar to plan client work — Timescanner reads what you already have without asking you to mirror it into a second place. Your calendar is already accurate. The only gap is the billing labels, and those take 5 seconds per event.

The calendar was always the source of truth. The question is whether you want to keep it that way.

Comparing more options: best time tracking tools for freelancers.

Timescanner works with Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Proton Calendar, Notion Calendar, Fastmail, and any iCal-compatible calendar.