For agencies
Hoursmith for agencies who actually bill by the hour.
Agency runs on Hoursmith if you bill clients by tracked time and want a fixed-price, your-Stripe, your-domain stack. Studio covers up to 10 members at $4.08/mo annual; Agency starts at 25 seats for $8.33/mo annual per quantity, with more seats available in blocks of 25, and adds private Payouts, internal bills, team profitability, advanced reporting, audit log and guided onboarding.
Free for solo freelancers · No credit card required
What gets in the way of billing
Per-seat pricing makes growth painful
Hiring a contractor for a 6-week project shouldn't add a per-person charge. On Hoursmith, adding people within your purchased capacity leaves the bill unchanged. Agency starts with 25 seats and expands in 25-seat quantities when you need more room.
Members shouldn't see client rates or invoice totals
Your billable rate is org-private — between you and the client. Hoursmith server-strips money columns from Member payloads. The Rate and Amount fields don't render for Members because they aren't in the response.
Projects need per-member access
A team member working only on one client shouldn't see the rest of the workspace. Hoursmith's project-member scoping (Stage 2 enforcement) limits Members to projects they're explicitly enrolled on — fail-closed, integration-tested.
Approving and consolidating invoices across team members
Five members tracked time on one client's three projects this month. You want one invoice grouping by project, rounded to 15-min units, all rates correct. That's the default Hoursmith flow — no copy/paste, no spreadsheet.
Compliance + audit needs
Agency adds a full activity & audit log of every workspace mutation — who-did-what-when. Useful for client audits, internal reviews, and incident forensics.
Where Hoursmith fits
Private Payouts and internal bills
Owners and Admins set dated pay rates, review member work into internal bills, and record partial or full payments made elsewhere. Explicitly include selected nonbillable or internal time when you want to pay it without charging clients. See what is owed, estimated or already paid without exposing rates or history to Managers or Members. Optional payment confirmations contain no internal bill or history links.
Client revenue alongside team costs
Agency team reports separate client revenue, receipts, approved costs, estimates awaiting review and team payments. Review fixed-fee or manual revenue shares, keep unallocated revenue explicit, and export the results with dated reporting currency rates when needed.
Fixed price per seat block
Studio is $4.08/mo annual for up to 10 members. Agency starts at $8.33/mo annual per 25-seat quantity. Adding members within your capacity does not change the price. Members-no-money UI gating means contractors can track time without seeing your rates.
Project-level Member access
Members only see projects they're enrolled on. Auto-add on assignment, escalation guard (Owner/Admin only). Hard 403 on direct access to a project they're not on.
Reports + Time CSV/PDF export
Studio adds four /reports tabs: Time, Revenue, Projects, and Uninvoiced. Time has filters, grouping, and CSV/PDF export; Agency adds advanced reporting such as per-member billability.
Recurring invoice operations
Managers can run recurring billing without workspace-billing access: schedule manual-fee, usage, or hybrid invoices; review projections and history; edit one or future occurrences; and pause, skip, resume, end, or clone a series. Guarded auto-send emails invoices but never charges a client automatically.
Audit log
Agency plan ships a complete activity log of every workspace mutation. Filterable, exportable.
Client portal + per-client branding
Studio+ unlocks the passwordless magic-link portal scoped per-client. The header shows your org name and logo — clients see your brand.
Per-org isolation, structurally
Every query goes through forOrg(orgId) via a Prisma extension; missing scope is impossible by construction. An integration test suite actively tries to cross orgs and every attempt returns 0 rows.
Tasks stay connected to the bill
Plan client work on a global or per-project Kanban board, switch to a compact list, and keep multiple assignees, dates, priority, estimate, tags, checklist, comments, mentions, and files on the task. Start the timer there, add billable expenses to the client, then carry eligible time, fixed fees, expenses, and custom lines into the invoice.
Best fit
Service teams that want lightweight coordination and billing context in one web workflow.
Not designed for
Custom task columns, recurring tasks, Gantt charts, dependencies, resource planning, CRM, accounting, proposals, contracts, or native mobile apps.
Common questions
What happens when we need more than 25 Agency seats?
After activating paid Agency, an Owner or Admin can choose another quantity in Billing. Two quantities provide 50 seats, three provide 75, and each quantity costs the same Agency price. Stripe shows the immediate prorated charge before you confirm. Reducing quantities later gives a prorated billing credit when your active members and valid pending invitations fit; it does not automatically refund your card.
Can different members have different rates on different projects?
Client billing uses per-project rates, so all members bill at the same hourly rate on that project. Agency Payouts separately supports private, effective-dated hourly pay rates and project, weekly or monthly fixed-pay agreements for each team member. Client billing rates and member pay rates serve different purposes; per-member-per-project client billing rates are not supported.
How does role-based access work?
Owners and Admins manage the workspace and private Payouts. Managers retain their client and project finance access but cannot see pay rates, internal bills or team payment history. Members track their time and see enrolled projects; Payouts is completely hidden from them. Ownership transfer remains Owner-only.
What's in the Agency plan that Studio doesn't have?
Member cap (25 vs 10), private Payouts with dated pay rates and internal bills, team profitability, advanced reporting (utilization + lifetime value + week-over-week trends), activity & audit log, priority support and guided onboarding.
Related
Start free. Upgrade when you grow.
Free for solo freelancers, $4.08/mo annual for studios up to 10, and Agency from $8.33/mo annual per 25-seat quantity. No card to try it.
Free for solo freelancers · No credit card · Cancel any time