For small studios
Hoursmith for small studios at the 3-10 member sweet spot.
Two principals, an assistant, and a couple of contractors. You bill by the hour or by the project. Tooling shouldn't be the thing that grows fastest as you do. Studio is $4.08/mo annual flat-fee for up to 10 members — and you can keep going without changing the workflow as you bring on help.
Free for solo freelancers · No credit card required
The pain we hear most
The 'just three of us' problem
At 3 members, per-seat pricing looks fine. At 7, it doesn't. Studios scale in fits and starts — adding a contractor for one project, a part-time admin for the busy season. Per-seat tools penalize that volatility.
Tools designed for teams of 100 are wrong for teams of 5
Enterprise PM tools have 4 layers of approval workflows and a settings page deeper than your call sheet. Studios need clarity, not configurability.
Cross-client tracking is the actual workflow
A studio principal might log time against three clients in a single afternoon. Switching context shouldn't cost five clicks. Hoursmith's top-bar timer remembers your recent projects and fuzzy-searches across all clients in one input.
Invoice consistency across the team
Five team members tracked time on one project. You want one invoice that adds it all up correctly. No spreadsheet, no copy/paste — generate, review, send.
Where Hoursmith fits
Studio: $4.08/mo annual, up to 10 members
Includes recurring invoices, online payments, BYO email, reports & CSV/PDF export, client dashboards, and one-click or scheduled overdue reminders. The flat-fee math compared against per-seat pricing reverses around 5 members — read /compare/per-seat-vs-flat-fee-billing-software for the numbers.
Monthly billing that survives exceptions
Schedule a repeatable manual service fee, unbilled hourly work and expenses, or a hybrid. Review the next dates, change one or all future occurrences, and pause or skip without shifting the original cadence or sending a backlog when the studio resumes.
Billability that follows project policy
Hourly projects let you mark individual entries non-billable. Fixed-fee and internal projects enforce non-billable tracked time, so delivery effort stays in utilization math without becoming an hourly invoice charge.
Fixed projects and custom invoice lines
Mix selected hourly time, reconciled fixed-project fees, expenses, and optional custom lines on one invoice. Custom lines pass through exactly as entered (no 15-minute rounding).
Shareable invoice link + view tracking
On every plan including Free. Every sent invoice gets a public page; the green Viewed ✓ pip lights up when your client opens it, and the same URL becomes the paid receipt.
Mobile installable
PWA — add to your team's home screens. Start a timer at the client site, stop it at the train station.
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
We're 4 people now but expect to be 8 by year-end. Plan?
Studio is $4.08/mo annual today and $4.08/mo annual when you're 8 — same plan, same price. Member 11 is when you move to Agency at $8.33/mo annual; before that, no change.
Can we run our personal freelance practice alongside the studio?
Yes — multi-workspace on every plan. Two principals can each have a personal Free workspace + a shared studio Studio workspace under one login. Workspaces are isolated; each bills independently.
Is there team time approval?
No — Hoursmith doesn't have an explicit approval step. Members can edit their own entries until invoice; Owners and Admins can edit anyone's. The audit log records every change on Agency. If formal approvals are a hard requirement, we may not be the right tool.
Related
Start free. Upgrade when you grow.
Free for solo freelancers, $4.08/mo annual for studios up to 10, $8.33/mo annual for agencies up to 25. No card to try it.
Free for solo freelancers · No credit card · Cancel any time