Harvest Review

Pros

• Excellent time tracking
• Good customer support
• Easy to use
• Strong integrations

Cons

• Limited invoicing features
• No inventory management
• Best suited for service businesses

What Is Harvest?

Harvest is cloud-based time tracking and invoicing software designed for freelancers and service-based businesses. In addition to tracking billable hours, Harvest lets users create estimates and invoices, manage projects, and track team time from a simple, intuitive interface.

Harvest excels at time tracking and project management, but its invoicing tools are more limited than what you’d find on dedicated invoicing platforms. With minimal invoice customization, few automations, and no inventory management, it’s less suitable for product-based businesses.

Harvest Pricing

Harvest offers three plans, including a forever-free option.

There are no contracts, and you can pay monthly, although a discount is available if you purchase an annual plan upfront. A 30-day free trial is available to test out the software, and a credit card isn’t required to sign up.

Unfortunately, Harvest has discontinued its program for free software for teachers and classrooms since our last review update.

Harvest Free

This plan includes:

• One user
• Up to two projects
• Unlimited invoices
• Unlimited estimates
• Unlimited clients
• Time tracking
• Basic reports
• 50+ integrations
• Mobile apps

Harvest Teams

This plan includes everything from Harvest Free, plus:

• Billable and cost rates for teams
• Team reporting
• Import projects and people
• Scheduled phone support
• Accounting and payment integrations

Harvest Enterprise

This plan is best for larger teams and includes everything from Harvest Teams, plus:

• Timesheet approval
• Profitability reporting
• Saved reports
• Custom exports
• Require notes
• Custom onboarding support and training

Additional Services

In addition to Harvest’s time tracking app, you can also sign up for Harvest Forecast. This team scheduling and management solution allows small businesses to easily manage teams and projects and includes job costing and project analytics.

A 30-day free trial is available.

Is Harvest Easy To Use?

Harvest is an easy-to-use, beautifully designed software program. The UI is well-organized, and with good customer support resources, anyone can learn and use Harvest in very little time.

Harvest has over 50 integrations with popular software and apps like Asana, Slack, QuickBooks Online, and Xero. It is a bit disappointing that it only integrates with two payment processors — Stripe and PayPal — so it would be nice to see more options in the future. API is available for developers.

One last thing worth noting is that some reviews do mention occasional glitches, although these seem to be more of an issue with Harvest’s mobile apps.

Harvest Features

Unlike most invoicing programs we’ve reviewed, Harvest excels at advanced features, such as project management and time-tracking, and drops the ball on the basics, such as invoicing and contact management (usually, it’s the other way around).

Harvest also lacks an inventory feature and invoice automations like auto-scheduling and late payment reminders.

Here are the main features Harvest offers:

Harvest Customer Service

Harvest offers multiple ways to get in touch, as well as self-service support options to get the most out of your software.

While Harvest does lack phone support, you can get in touch by email or by filling out an online form. The real standout is the help center, which can easily be accessed from within the software. The help center points you to everything from video tutorials to walk-throughs and a free 30-minute webinar.

There’s also an in-software chatbot, support forms, business guides, a company blog, and the Harvest YouTube channel. Harvest also has profiles on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

The software is pretty intuitive, so users rarely have to reach out for assistance. However, those who do generally have positive experiences.

User Reviews

The majority of user reviews for Harvest are positive. The software earns ratings of 4.3/5 (based on 800+ reviews) on G2, 9/10 (based on 200+ reviews) on TrustRadius, and 4.6/5 (based on 645+ reviews) on GetApp.

Negative Reviews & Complaints

While most users seem satisfied with the software, there are a few recurring issues mentioned in reviews:

• Limited reports
• Lack of advanced features and automations
• Limited integrations
• Lack of payment gateways
• Too simple

Positive Reviews & Testimonials

Here are a few of the positives people note about Harvest:

• Easy to use
• Well-organized and easy to learn
• Good time tracking feature
• Strong mobile apps
• Good invoicing and time-tracking tool for freelancers
• Easy to integrate with other apps

Is Harvest Secure?

Harvest uses SSL encryption, firewalls, and redundancy to protect customer data. Data is stored in multiple facilities and gets backed up several times a day. The data center security is tested biweekly, and backups are stored for 180 days (so be sure to create your own personal backups before that time is up).

Harvest also boasts an impressive 99.9% uptime on average. Any outages or software issues are posted and updated in real-time. Check out Harvest’s privacy policy and security page for more details.

Final Verdict: Is Harvest Worth It?

As a time tracking solution, Harvest is great. As a project management software, brilliant. As an invoicing solution, it needs some work. Harvest’s features are a bit limited compared to those of other invoicing platforms.

For example, there are very limited invoice customizations and only a single invoice template. The contact management and expense-tracking features are also very basic, and there are no live bank feeds (which nearly all invoicing software programs offer). If you’re a product-based business, there’s no way to save inventory or sales tax.

Despite these drawbacks, the company has continuously worked to improve the software and has added several features over the years since we first reviewed Harvest. It also has a solid number of integrations, good support resources, and mobile apps that are easy to use (although occasional glitches may occur).

If you have a larger team, the monthly pricing can add up quickly. For freelancers, the forever-free plan is a great option for project-based businesses.

Before making a decision, we always recommend trying out the software yourself. You can easily do this by signing up for the free plan or giving Harvest’s 30-day free trial a go.