Toggl–free, web-based time tracking, worth a solid look

One of the banes of consultants is often time tracking.  Good time tracking software is hard to find, regardless of price, good, free time tracking software is nearly impossible to find.  Believe me, I’ve looked.

So whenever the words, “free” and “time-tracking” appear in a post title my ears perk up.  But when you mix “web-based” into it … well I don’t get my hopes up.  I’ve seen lots of ways to do it, and for me simplicity is key.

DownloadSquad highlights Toggl as something worth a serious look, and I agree.  Toggl (strange name for sure)–which from the looks of their blog has been around since at least last fall–offers very timetracking.  I went to the site and really in less than a minute I was tracking time on my test project.

Right now the features are pretty bare.  Basics are covered, including the essential reporting.  Your per hour rate isn’t there that I could find, but I think we’re all smart enough to figure that one out.  I didn’t test if you could have multiple timers going (sometimes I like to track overall time of an activity, say reading feeds, when only a portion is billable to a client), though you can now close the browser window and the clock won’t stop.  Nice if your browser (or machine) crashes–yeah I know that never happens.

I think this app looks promising.  It’s simple, slick and intuitive.  Even if you just want to track some project for information and not real billing, it’s cool.

The key question will be business model.  It’s free now, but how will they fund continued development and such.  I’m betting that they will either a) get scooped up, b)put ads on the site, or c) offer premium services.