Clockify's free plan looks generous until you notice the parts you actually need are split across two different paid tiers above it. Here's the honest, single-user comparison.
Rated against the things a small consultancy with occasional subcontractors actually needs day to day. "Full" means a real, dedicated mechanic built for that purpose.
| Differentiator | Clockify | Bizily |
|---|---|---|
| Bill client / pay worker independently, worker price-blind | ||
| Client portal with a real, logged-in delegate account | ||
| Custom / non-USD currency, non-monetary compensation | ||
| Proactive budget alert | ||
| Flexible billing: fixed / retainer / rolling balance with overage | ||
| Worker payroll statements (draft → finalized → paid) |
Clockify's budget alerts are real (Pro tier and up), but fact-checked as email-only and arriving roughly 30-40 minutes after a threshold is crossed, not a real-time, in-app banner the way Bizily's is.
Clockify's list prices look cheap in isolation. The catch is which tier actually has the feature you need. Here's what a single consultant gets at each price point.
Clockify Free
Capped at 5 users as of an April 2026 change (previously unlimited), 1-month report history, PDF-only export.
Bizily Free
1 client, 2 projects, unlimited users on the business, and every feature Bizily has: client portal, bill/pay split, flexible billing structures, all included. The free plan is capacity-limited, never capability-limited.
The Basic tier, at $3.99/seat/mo billed annually ($4.99 monthly): kiosk mode, billable rates, historical rates. Still no invoicing and no budget tracking; those are one and two tiers up, respectively.
Invoicing alone needs Standard ($5.49/seat/mo annual). Invoicing plus budgets/estimates (the combination most consultancies actually need) needs Pro, at $7.99/seat/mo annual, nearly double Bizily's flat rate, for one seat. Confirmed directly against Clockify's own pricing page and help docs: invoicing and budgets are two tiers apart, not bundled.
A Pomodoro timer, GPS and screenshot tracking (Pro+), kiosk mode with cheaper kiosk-only seats, and 90+ integrations. If any of these matter more to you than a built-in billing system, they're worth knowing about:
Clockify's free plan used to allow unlimited users. As of April 2026, it's capped at 5, and kiosk mode, billable-rate tracking, and full export all moved behind paywalls. If you've seen Clockify described anywhere as "free for unlimited users," that's now out of date, verified directly against Clockify's live pricing page. It's a smaller, more specific version of the same story as Harvest's repricing: a tool that built trust on a generous free tier, tightening it after the fact.
Clockify has no client login or role anywhere in the product: only a no-login shareable report link, the same ceiling as Harvest's dashboard, without even the named-contact detail. A Clockify community forum thread asking for exactly this ("give limited access to the client... to overview") has been open since 2023 with no resolution, confirming it's a long-requested, still-unbuilt feature, not something quietly shipped. Bizily's client portal is a real login, free on every plan.
Clockify's money-based project budgets (Pro tier and up) do give fixed-fee work a real progress bar against a set amount, so that part isn't a workaround. What's missing is a rolling-balance retainer: a balance that carries unused or over-drawn amounts forward into the next period. Bizily's fixed, retainer, and rolling-balance structures are native billing types with that carryforward built in.
Clockify's own site states it "doesn't process payroll directly." What exists is a static downloadable 1099 pay-stub template, and payroll itself is an open community feature request, not a shipped mechanic. Bizily's payroll statements move through a real Draft → Finalized → Paid lifecycle, independent of what the client gets billed.
Free for your first client, flat per-business pricing after that. Nothing you build a workflow around gets paywalled later.
