Hour Cap is time tracking, retainer budgets and invoicing for businesses that bill clients by the hour. A Customer Support Inbox add-on puts client email in the same place, so answering a client and logging the hour happen together. Approved time pushes to Xero as a draft invoice with your descriptions already written as the line items.

Agencies, consultants, software teams, professional services firms, bookkeepers and freelancers. Anything billed by the hour, on a retainer or at a fixed price. It works for one person from day one, and adds roles, per-member rates and timesheet approvals once there is a team.

Can one tool handle time tracking, client email and invoicing?

That is what Hour Cap is built to do. Project work and client email land on the same timesheet, burn the same retainer caps, and leave as one draft invoice in Xero. Most teams run a time tracker and a help desk side by side and keep the two in step by hand.

How do I bill for the time spent answering client email?

Forward your support address and client mail arrives in a shared inbox already matched to the client from your synced Xero contacts. You reply from the thread and start a timer or log a duration there, with the retainer meter visible while you decide how much effort to give. Those hours reach the same invoice as project work.

Do I need Xero to use Hour Cap?

No. Time tracking, retainer caps, approvals and reports all work without it. The integration is included on both plans, and it is what turns approved time into a draft invoice without retyping line items.

Does Hour Cap do resource planning and forecasting?

No. There is no capacity planner, no scheduling board and no revenue forecast. Hour Cap covers the hours themselves: tracking them, capping them, approving them and billing them. If you need to plan who is booked on what next quarter, you want a resourcing tool alongside it.

What does Hour Cap cost?

There is a Team plan and a Business plan, with the Customer Support Inbox as a per-seat add-on on top of either. You choose a plan and add a card when you sign up. The first 7 days are free, and if you cancel in Billing before the trial ends you won't be charged.

Time tracking software with invoicing

Time tracking for agencies and service teams, with retainer caps, a client email inbox, and invoices raised in Xero.

7-day free trial
Cancel anytime
Works with Xero

What it does

From the timer to the invoice

Everything between doing the work and getting paid for it, in one app that talks to Xero.

Track time the way you already work

Start a timer, or type 1h30m into the timesheet. The description you write at the time becomes the line on the invoice, so nobody rewrites it at the end of the month.

A timer or manual entries
Day, week, list and calendar views
Billable and non-billable time

Learn more

The Hour Cap timesheet, with a timer running against a described task

Know before a budget runs out

Put a cap on a retainer or a fixed-price project. Each project shows how much of its budget is used, and the bar turns amber as it gets close, while there is still time to decide what to do about it.

Retainers that reset every period
Fixed-price project budgets
A warning before the overrun

Learn more

The Hour Cap projects list, with a budget bar on each project

Answer client email where the time is tracked

Client mail arrives in a shared inbox that already knows the client and their retainer. Start a timer on the thread and the time goes on that client's invoice.

A shared inbox for the whole team
The retainer balance beside every thread
Requests sent to Linear as issues

Learn more

A conversation in the Hour Cap inbox, with the client's retainer balance and a timer beside the reply

See what your time is worth

Billable hours, their value and your average rate, by client, project and team member, month by month. Add worker costs and the time report shows profit as well.

Revenue by client and project
Profit after worker cost
Export to Excel

Learn more

The Hour Cap revenue report, with billable value by month

Send the hours to Xero as an invoice

Pick a client and the entries to bill. Hour Cap turns them into invoice lines, applies your billing increment and creates a draft in Xero for you to check and send.

Lines grouped by entry, project, date or person
Rounding to 6, 15 or 30 minutes at invoicing
Draft invoices created in Xero

Learn more

Creating an invoice in Hour Cap, with the client's unbilled entries selected

Built for how client work is billed

The details that decide whether the invoice matches the work.

Cascading rates Set a rate on the project, the person or the whole organisation. Each entry uses the most specific one.

Hourly, fixed-price and retainers Bill each client the way you agreed with them, and mix all three for the same client. Unbilled work Every client with tracked, uninvoiced time in one list, with what it is worth. Timesheet approvals Managers approve weekly timesheets before the time can be billed. On the Business plan. Xero Contacts, items and tracking categories sync from Xero, and invoices go back as drafts. Linear Turn a client email into a Linear issue, and see its progress from the thread.

Hour Cap records the time people type in or run on a timer. It takes no screenshots and does not monitor activity.

Built for service businesses that bill hours

Retainers, fixed-price projects and straight hourly work, all tracked the same way and all reaching the same invoice.

Agencies Retainers and projects for every client, plus the email about them.

Retainer caps that warn before an overrun
Client email logged against the retainer
Unbilled work listed by client
Approved hours pushed to Xero

Learn more Software agencies Client requests and the development hours behind them.

Client requests sent to Linear as issues
Rates set per project or per developer
Fixed-price builds tracked against budget
Timesheets approved before anything is billed

Learn more Consultants Hourly, retainer and fixed-price work for the same client.

All three billing models side by side
Billable email time captured in the inbox
Descriptions written once, reused as invoice lines
Revenue by client and month

Learn more Law firms Time records with a description a client can check.

Billing in 6-minute increments
A description on every entry
Approval before time is billed
An activity log of every change

Learn more Accountants & bookkeepers Monthly compliance retainers and advisory hours across your clients.

A monthly retainer and cap per client
Clients synced from your Xero contacts
Unbilled work listed at month end
Invoices raised as Xero drafts

Learn more Freelancers & contractors One person tracking, describing and invoicing their own time.

Works solo from day one
A timer, or type "1h30m" and move on
Your rate applied to every entry
Hours turned into a Xero draft invoice

Learn more

Switching from Harvest, Toggl or another tool? See how Hour Cap compares →

After fifteen years of freelancing I wanted my client work on one system: retainers, fixed-price and hourly, proper descriptions, real profitability, and invoices that land in Xero. Nothing did all of it, so I built it. Every hour I bill still goes through Hour Cap.

Jonathan Bird

Freelance web developer, Brisbane · Creator of Hour Cap

Common questions

Start tracking time today

Try it on real client work for 7 days before you pay.

Start free for 7 days

7 days free

Cancel any time

Set up in minutes

Built by an independent freelancer who bills with Xero every month, not a faceless software company.