Solo consulting is a confidentiality problem wearing a timesheet. Client names, project names, the domains you visited, the hours per account: under an NDA that list is itself the sensitive document. TimePrivate is a consultant time tracker for Mac that keeps billable hours in a local database on the machine in front of you, with no account for you and no login for the client. They get a PDF when you choose to send one.
TimePrivate is not released. There is no download, no trial and no purchase today. Apple Silicon Macs first, Windows on the roadmap.
Consultants track time by capturing the work close to when it happens, tagging every block to a client and a project, keeping billable and non-billable apart, then correcting the day before it becomes an invoice. TimePrivate is a consultant time tracker that does all four on one Mac. It records the app in front of you and the browser domain, holds the day as a draft until you approve it, and turns the approved hours into a PDF invoice on the same machine. Planned TimePrivate pricing is $9 a month or $79 a year, subscription only, and the app is waitlist only today.
A consultant time tracker has a narrower job than a freelance calculator page. The question is whether the engagement record lives on your hardware, and whether anyone else can open it without you.
Planned TimePrivate pricing is $9 a month or $79 a year, subscription only. The app is waitlist only. There is no download and no trial. A free billable hours calculator already lives on the TimePrivate billable hours calculator, and a free weekly grid lives on the TimePrivate weekly timesheet template, for consultants who just need a number in the browser today.
Consultants track their time with one of five methods, and a consultant time tracker like TimePrivate is built for the last one. Each is listed with the way it actually breaks, because the method you can keep up on a bad Thursday beats the method that is theoretically perfect.
In TimePrivate you create the client, the project and the rate, and paste the bill-to from the SOW. Map the staging host, the repo domain or the app you live in, so the consultant time tracker labels the draft instead of asking you to.
TimePrivate records the frontmost app and the browser domain in the background, and offers idle time back when a timer was left running. Work away from the desk is typed in by hand, because there is no phone client and no screenshot.
Each evening you edit the TimePrivate draft, mark the pitch call and the admin hour non-billable, and approve the rest. Draft rounding of 5, 15 or 30 minutes is available while you clean the day up.
Approved TimePrivate hours become a PDF invoice with rates, tax, expenses, a due date and the client's bill-to, produced on the same Mac. Next month you duplicate the invoice. The entries stay in the local database whatever the client does.
Search "billable hours tracker" and you will land on tools that are good at rates, retainers and a weekly total. Plenty of those are cloud accounts. They will happily store the client list for you, which is convenient when you want a phone app and a partner login, and a problem when the client list is the confidential object. TimePrivate takes the other route and never holds the list at all.
TimePrivate treats billable hours as rows in a local database, with clients and projects in that file, so you can map github.com to a client and a project and have the daily draft arrive labelled. You approve the draft before any of it is billable, then turn those hours into a PDF invoice with rates, tax, expenses, due dates and a per-client bill-to on the same Mac. The client receives the PDF. TimePrivate has no manager dashboard and no screenshots, so if a second person needs the week you hand them a CSV or a PDF, and there is no invite flow because there is no account to invite them into.
The best way to track billable hours is to record them the same day they happen, in one fixed increment, against a named client and project, with a description written for whoever questions the invoice later. TimePrivate enforces the first part by capturing the desk automatically, and the rest is discipline no software supplies for you.
Nine things worth checking before you commit a year of billable hours to any consultant time tracker, with what TimePrivate does about each one. Three things TimePrivate leaves out on purpose: a manager view over other people's hours, a phone app, and any screenshot or keystroke mode.
Utilization rate is the share of your available working hours that you actually billed: billable hours divided by the hours you were available to work, as a percentage. Bill 112 hours in a 160 hour month and your utilization is 70%. The number only exists if the non-billable hours were recorded too, which is why a consultant time tracker that only counts invoice lines tells you half a story. TimePrivate does not ship a utilization dashboard. It marks every entry billable or not and exports all of them to CSV, so the ratio is one formula in a spreadsheet you own.
Effective rate is the other number worth having, and it is the one that decides whether fixed fee work is worth taking. A $6,000 fixed fee engagement that took 48 tracked hours is an effective rate of $125 an hour. Quote the same scope next quarter without the hours behind it and you are pricing on a feeling. If you want to total a week before the app exists, both the TimePrivate work hours calculator and the TimePrivate billable hours calculator run in the browser with no sign-up.
"The rule of 3" is used for at least three different rules of thumb in consulting, and none of them is a measurement of your business. The rate version says to price so that roughly a third of your billing rate covers your pay, a third covers overhead, and a third covers profit and the weeks between engagements. The time version says to expect about a third of the week on delivery, a third on selling, and a third on running the business. The pipeline version says to keep three live conversations going for every engagement you want to start. They are maxims, not data about you. A consultant time tracker is how you replace them with your own split: TimePrivate flags each entry billable or not and exports the approved ones to CSV, so a quarter of your real hours can answer the question in a spreadsheet instead of a LinkedIn post.
Independent consultants get asked to punch into someone else's system. Do that if the contract requires it, and run TimePrivate alongside it so you still have last February after the login closes.
Access to a client portal is a privilege of the engagement. When the SOW ends, so does the login. A dispute six months later is a poor time to discover you cannot export last February.
A portal can round differently, drop a Saturday, or hide a note you typed. Your own billable hours tracker is how you notice that, not how you fight the first invoice.
You may have three clients this month. Their portal knows one. Your machine is the only place the full picture is allowed to live, which is also why it should not be a shared cloud workspace.
Under a typical consulting NDA, the fact of the work can be as sensitive as the work product. A consultant time tracker that lists clients in someone else's database is a second disclosure you may not have meant to make, and TimePrivate is built to avoid making it.
Who you bill, at what rate, for how many hours, is a business secret even when the deliverable is not. TimePrivate stores that roster locally. There is no team directory sitting on a vendor laptop.
A week of browser domains can describe an engagement more clearly than a status email. TimePrivate records the domain, not the page contents, and keeps that list on your Mac. How capture works in detail is on the automatic time tracking page.
Confidentiality is not a reason to skip billing. Approved hours become a PDF with a per-client bill-to on the same machine. The operations path is time tracking and invoicing.
If you use a second Mac, you can point TimePrivate at an iCloud or Dropbox folder you control. That is your sync, not a TimePrivate account. Leave it off if the engagement forbids even that.
Some trackers can be pointed at a desk and told to photograph it. TimePrivate cannot do that. There is no screenshot mode and no keystroke log.
If your contract limits where client data may sit, read the contract. TimePrivate keeps the file local. It does not certify that local is sufficient for your jurisdiction.
Read the TimePrivate column as a plan. The app is not released.
| Question | TimePrivate on your Mac | Typical cloud workspace |
|---|---|---|
| Who can open the client list? | You, on that machine. No account, no shared roster. | Anyone with a seat, plus the vendor that hosts the workspace. |
| Does the client get a login? | No. They get a PDF if you send one. | Often yes, or a guest report, depending on the plan. |
| Where do billable hours sit? | Local SQLite style database. Optional folder sync you control. | Rows in a company database, behind a password. |
| Screenshots or keystrokes? | Neither. App name and browser domain only. | Some tools offer both. You have to trust the off switch. |
| Manager dashboard? | No. If someone else needs the week, you export a file. | Usually yes. That is why the workspace exists. |
| Billable and non-billable split | Flag on every entry. Both land in the CSV export, only billable on the PDF. | Yes, usually with a utilization report built on top. |
| Utilization reporting | No dashboard. Export to CSV and do the division yourself. | Built in on the paid tiers, which is a real reason to choose one. |
| Phone app for a client site | None. Mac only, Apple Silicon first, Windows on the roadmap. | Toggl Track and Clockify both ship iOS and Android apps. |
| Getting your history in and out | Imports Toggl, Clockify and Harvest CSV plus .ics. Exports CSV and PDF. | Export depends on the plan you are on when you leave. |
| What it costs | Planned $9 a month or $79 a year for one person. Waitlist only today. | Often a free tier, then per seat once you want export or invoices. |
The consultant time tracker listicles that rank for this search mostly recommend cloud trackers, so here is the honest positioning against the two most commonly named, with prices read off their own pricing pages on 20 September 2026. Toggl Track has a free plan, Starter at $9 per user a month billed annually or $12 billed monthly, and Premium at $16 billed annually. Clockify has a free plan for up to 5 users, Basic at $3.99 per user a month billed annually or $4.99 monthly, and Pro at $7.99 billed annually. Both are full platforms: web, macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, with team reporting on top. TimePrivate is none of that. It is one Mac app, one person, one local database, at a planned $9 a month or $79 a year with no free tier and no seats. If the account itself is what you are trying to get rid of, the feature by feature versions are on the TimePrivate comparison with Toggl Track and the TimePrivate Clockify alternative page. If you bill in tenths of an hour rather than quarters, the TimePrivate page for lawyers covers the same ground in six minute units.
Day one of an engagement you create the client and a project, set a rate, and write the bill-to you were given in the SOW. You map the staging host and the repo domain so the draft arrives labelled. Each evening you approve or edit. Internal sales calls stay unbillable because you left them that way, not because a workspace admin wrote a policy.
At month end you produce a PDF on the same Mac and send it. If the client wants a timesheet attached, you export a file. They still do not get a login, and they still do not see the other two clients you billed that month. Next month you duplicate the invoice and attach the new approved hours, without a seat, a workspace owner, or a person whose job is to approve your timesheet.
If you need to see other people's hours every Monday, you want a workspace with a manager view. TimePrivate will not grow one. Exporting files is the collaboration model, and that is a poor fit for a staffing roster.
There is no TimePrivate mobile client in the plan described here, so a workshop, a factory floor or a day of interviews is typed in by hand when you get back to the Mac. Consultants who bill most of their week away from a desk want a tracker with a phone app instead.
Plenty of independent consultants work on a Windows laptop the client issued or the one they bought themselves. TimePrivate is an Apple Silicon Mac app first and Windows is on the roadmap, so there is nothing to install on a PC today. Join the waitlist and the Windows note will come with the launch mail.
TimePrivate is waitlist only, with no Stripe page hiding under the button. Use the TimePrivate billable hours calculator if you need a number today, and join the waitlist if you want the Mac app when it opens.
A consultant time tracker records hours against clients and projects so you can invoice the engagement and keep a copy after it ends. TimePrivate does that on your Mac, in a local database, with no account for you or for the client.
Yes, for one person. You approve a daily draft before hours become billable, then you can produce a PDF invoice from those hours. A consulting firm that needs a manager sitting on top of other people's timesheets will want a shared billing system instead.
Not through TimePrivate. There is no client portal and no shared workspace. If you email them a PDF, they see that invoice. They do not see the rest of the database.
If the contract says so, yes. TimePrivate does not replace a client's portal. It is the parallel copy you keep because portal access ends with the engagement.
Export a file. There is no manager dashboard, so a second person gets a CSV or a PDF you send.
No. TimePrivate cannot block other software. If you are on a client laptop that already runs monitoring tools, this app does not hide you from them.
No free tier is planned for the Mac app. Planned pricing is $9 a month or $79 a year. The free billable hours calculator remains on the freelance page, in your browser, with no sign-up.
It depends on whether you need a team around you. A freelancer who wants integrations, a phone app and a free tier is well served by the big cloud trackers. A freelancer whose main worry is who else can read the client list wants a local app, which is what TimePrivate is. The TimePrivate freelance time tracking app page covers that choice for freelancers specifically, with a free billable hours calculator on it.
Not from TimePrivate yet. TimePrivate is an Apple Silicon Mac app first and Windows is on the roadmap, so a consultant working on a PC today needs a different tool. Nothing on this page is installable on Windows.
Yes. TimePrivate imports Toggl, Clockify and Harvest CSV exports along with .ics calendar files, tags and billable flags included, so switching does not mean retyping a year of engagements.
Draft rounding in TimePrivate is 5, 15 or 30 minutes while you clean the day up. Pick one increment and keep it for the whole engagement, because a client who spots two different increments on one invoice will query all of it.
Not as a built-in dashboard. TimePrivate marks each entry billable or non-billable and exports every approved entry to CSV, so utilization is one division in your own spreadsheet: billable hours divided by the hours you were available to work.
Yes. TimePrivate keeps hours in a local database on the Mac and makes no network requests of its own, so a plane, a client basement or a hotel with bad wifi changes nothing. Optional folder sync needs whatever iCloud or Dropbox needs, and you can leave it off.
No. Waitlist only. No download, no trial, no purchase. Apple Silicon Macs first, Windows on the roadmap.
If the client should not hold the only copy of your billable hours, join the TimePrivate waitlist and we will write on the day the Mac app opens.
Not released yet. Leave your email and we will write to you the day it opens.