Timescanner vs Timely: does auto-tracking solve the right problem?

Timely’s promise is compelling. You don’t need to remember to track anything — it runs in the background, monitors the apps you use, and builds a timeline of your day automatically.

For freelancers who forget to start the timer, that sounds like the solution.

The problem: the assumption is wrong. Most freelancers don’t lose billable hours because they forgot to log them. They lose them because they don’t know which hours were actually billable — prep time, short calls, async feedback rounds that never get a calendar block. Auto-capture doesn’t fix that.

What Timely does

Timely runs a background process that records which apps you used, which documents you had open, which websites you visited, and for how long. Its Memory AI turns that raw data into a timeline — then you review and approve entries.

The output is detailed. You can reconstruct any day from app usage data. For work that’s entirely computer-based, it’s accurate.

What it requires: a running background process on every device, regular review of auto-suggestions, and trusting a third-party service with a real-time stream of your activity data.

The costs that matter

Privacy. Timely’s model is built on monitoring all your activity — tabs, documents, time spent in Slack, Figma, or your code editor. That data goes to Timely’s servers. For a freelancer handling client NDAs, working under confidentiality clauses, or simply uncomfortable with full activity surveillance, that’s a real constraint.

Gaps. Auto-tracking only captures computer activity. Phone calls from the road, in-person workshops, conversations at a co-working space — none of that gets logged automatically. You’re back to manual entry for a significant chunk of freelance work.

Price. Timely starts around $9/month. Plans with unlimited projects cost more. At €79/year for Timescanner, the gap is significant for a solo freelancer.

Why the calendar already solves this

Most freelancers have a working calendar. Client calls are scheduled. Project blocks are reserved. The work is already there — it just isn’t labeled for billing.

The bracket naming convention fixes that: [ClientName] at the start of any billable event. That 5-second habit when you create or edit an event is the only new behavior required. No background process. No activity surveillance.

Timescanner reads the iCal feed from any calendar — Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, Proton Calendar, Notion Calendar, Fastmail. It separates billable from non-billable, applies your hourly rate by client, and outputs the invoice total. Month-end billing takes 15 minutes instead of three hours.

Your activity data never leaves your calendar. Timescanner doesn’t store events server-side — it reads the feed, runs the calculation, returns the result. Nothing cached.

What about hours outside the calendar?

The objection is legitimate: not everything lands on the calendar. Quick Slack calls, spontaneous reviews, work done outside scheduled blocks.

Timely captures those automatically if you’re at a computer. Timescanner doesn’t.

But the practical question is: what’s the actual volume of those hours, and does running surveillance software on every device justify capturing them? For most freelancers working with 2-5 clients, the hours outside the calendar are small. A weekly 15-minute review of what didn’t make it onto the calendar covers the gap — without background monitoring.

Pricing

Timely: from around $9/month, with higher-tier plans at $16–22/month.

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

At $16/month, that’s roughly $192/year vs €79/year. Nearly 2.5× the cost, plus the privacy trade-off.

Which one you actually need

If your work is entirely computer-based, you forget about tracking consistently, and you’re comfortable with full activity monitoring — Timely will capture hours you’d otherwise miss.

If you already use a calendar to plan client work, want billing output and not just time awareness, and aren’t willing to run surveillance software on every device — Timescanner covers the same billing problem with a fraction of the friction.

The calendar you already use is closer to a billing system than it looks. The gap is usually labeling, not capture.

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.