Best Harpoon App Alternatives for Freelancers

Harpoon is built around one idea: show you how much money you need to earn each month to hit your annual goal, then track whether your actual invoices and time are keeping pace. It is a genuinely clever concept. But at $19 a month for the Solo plan, a lot of freelancers look at their slow months and decide the math does not work. If you are billing under $3,000 a month, that fee is not trivial. And if you mostly need clean invoicing with some time tracking on the side, Harpoon is probably more financial planning software than you actually want.

These are the real alternatives, broken down by what each one actually does well and who it makes sense for.

What Harpoon actually does that you need to replace

Before picking an alternative, it helps to know what you are actually trying to replace. Harpoon bundles a few things: goal-based revenue tracking, time tracking tied directly to project budgets, invoicing, and expense tracking. Most people using Harpoon care most about two of those. Figure out which two matter to you and the alternative list gets shorter fast.

• Revenue goal tracking - you want to know if you are on pace for your annual number
• Time tracking tied to project budgets - you want to see hours logged against what you quoted
• Invoicing - professional invoices, online payment, payment reminders
• Expense tracking - logging what you spent on a project

Almost every tool on this list does invoicing well. Where they split is on the revenue forecasting piece, which is genuinely specific to Harpoon.

WaffleInvoice - free invoicing with no subscription

If invoicing is the main thing you used Harpoon for and the $19 a month started to sting, WaffleInvoice is the obvious first stop. It handles invoicing and estimates with no per-month fee, no transaction percentage, and no limit on how many clients or invoices you can have on the free tier. You get a clean invoice builder, client management, and an online portal where clients can view and pay their invoices. If you want recurring invoices, Stripe payments, or automated payment reminders, that is the Pro plan at $19 a month, which is the same price as Harpoon but covers more of the actual billing workflow.

What WaffleInvoice does not have is Harpoon's revenue goal dashboard. If that specific feature is what you used every week, you will need to pair this with a simple spreadsheet tracking your monthly billings. For most freelancers that is a five-minute task. For the ones who want software to do it automatically, keep reading.

The free invoice generator on WaffleInvoice is a good way to test the output before you commit to anything. No account needed.

Toggl Track - when time tracking is the real priority

Toggl Track's free plan is the best free time tracker that exists for freelancers. You get unlimited projects, unlimited clients, and the core timer with browser extensions and mobile apps. The reporting shows you hours by client, by project, and by date range. Where Toggl falls short is invoicing - the free plan has no invoicing at all, and the paid plans that include it start at $9 per user per month.

The pairing that works well: Toggl Track for time tracking, WaffleInvoice for sending the actual bill. Export your hours from Toggl, pull the total into your invoice, done. It takes about three extra minutes per invoice and costs $0 per month combined.

Harvest - time tracking with built-in invoicing

Harvest is probably the closest thing to a direct Harpoon competitor in terms of the time-tracking-plus-invoicing combo. The free plan covers 1 user with up to 2 active projects, which is useless for most freelancers. The paid plan is $12 per user per month and gives you unlimited projects, invoicing from tracked time, and expense tracking. The invoicing is solid - online payments through Stripe or PayPal, automatic payment reminders, and a clean client view.

What Harvest does not have is the goal-based forecasting that Harpoon centers on. You can run reports on what you billed and what your hours were worth, but there is no dashboard telling you whether you are on pace to hit your annual number. For some freelancers that is fine. For the ones who built their whole workflow around that Harpoon feature, Harvest is a step sideways, not a full replacement.

At $12 per month versus Harpoon's $19, it is cheaper and covers more of the daily workflow, especially if you track time against every project you invoice for.

Bonsai - for freelancers who want contracts too

Bonsai started as a contract tool and added invoicing, time tracking, and expense tracking on top. At $25 per month for the Starter plan it is more expensive than Harpoon, but you are also getting legal contract templates, client intake forms, and a proposal tool. If you are constantly writing contracts from scratch or losing projects because your proposal process is slow, the contract piece alone might justify the price.

The invoicing in Bonsai is good - automatic reminders, online payments, recurring invoices, and a client portal. Time tracking is solid. What it lacks, again, is any revenue forecasting or goal-based dashboard. Bonsai is thinking about your projects more than your annual P&L.

Best fit: freelancers who need contracts and invoicing in the same tool and do not mind paying a premium for it.

AND.CO (now Fiverr Workspace) - simple and cheap

AND.CO was acquired by Fiverr and rebranded as Fiverr Workspace, but the core product is still there and the basic plan is free. It has invoicing, contracts, time tracking, and expense tracking in one dashboard. The free tier limits you to one active client, which is a real restriction if you are juggling multiple projects.

The paid Pro plan is $18 per month, undercutting Harpoon by a dollar, and removes all the client and project limits. The interface is clean and not intimidating. There is no revenue goal tracking, but the dashboard does show you your monthly and annual billing totals, which is a reasonable substitute for most people.

Doing the revenue goal tracking yourself

The one Harpoon feature that genuinely has no clean substitute in any of these tools is the goal-based dashboard: you enter your annual revenue target, and Harpoon shows you how much you need to bill each month to stay on pace, updated in real time as invoices come in.

You can replicate this in a single spreadsheet with about 20 minutes of setup. Annual target divided by 12 gives you the monthly number you need to hit. Track your actual invoices each month in one column. A simple difference formula tells you whether you are ahead or behind. It is not as polished as Harpoon's UI, but it works the same way and costs nothing. If you are on WaffleInvoice Pro, your invoice history is already in one place, which makes the monthly tally quick to pull.

Which alternative is right for you

The honest answer depends on what part of Harpoon you actually used. If you want good invoicing for free: WaffleInvoice. If time tracking is the main thing and invoicing is secondary: Toggl Track free tier plus WaffleInvoice for billing. If you want time tracking and invoicing in one paid tool: Harvest at $12 a month. If you need contracts alongside invoicing: Bonsai at $25 a month.

None of them replicate Harpoon's goal-based forecasting exactly. But for most freelancers that feature is something they found interesting to look at rather than something they used to make decisions. The core need is getting invoices out fast and getting paid reliably. All of these tools cover that. Some of them cover it for free.

For more on the invoicing side of running a freelance business, the guide on payment terms for freelancers covers what net 15 vs net 30 actually does to your cash flow and when to use each one.