The Harvest Alternative Built for Solo Freelancers
Verdict
Harvest still wins at invoicing and payments. For a solo who hit the two-project free cap or a seat-plus-usage renewal, CronLoom is the independent flat-$9 tool that shows which clients still pay the floor you set.
Pricing verified 2026-08-20. Figures change, so check each tool's pricing page for current numbers.
The longer story
Harvest was the default time-and-invoicing tool for freelancers and small studios for years. That changed in July 2025, when Bending Spoons acquired it. The Milan company is also behind Evernote, Vimeo and WeTransfer, and is known for reworking prices after a purchase. Harvest's public pricing page now lists Free at $0 for one seat and two projects, Teams from $9 per seat per month billed annually ($11 monthly), Enterprise from $14 per seat per month billed annually ($17.50 monthly), and a custom Enterprise Plus tier. On top of the seat fee, Harvest charges usage-based fees for invoices, projects, clients and tasks. It does not publish those per-unit amounts, so the listed seat rate is a starting price, not a cap.
If you are one person, the Free plan runs out at two projects. Paid Harvest is a seat plus usage, built for studios that invoice inside the tool. CronLoom stays on one person at a flat $9/month (free in early access), hosted in the EU, with no usage meter. You set a floor rate and CronLoom keeps score against it: which clients still pay it, how a fixed bid is tracking, where the month lands. Harvest's profitability reporting sits on the higher plans. CronLoom ships that as the product, not an add-on.
Side by side
Harvest vs CronLoom at a glance
| What you get | Harvest | CronLoom |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Teams from $9/seat/mo billed annually ($11 monthly) plus unpublished usage fees; Enterprise from $14/seat/mo billed annually ($17.50 monthly) | Free in early access, then $9/mo flat |
| Free tier | 1 seat, 2 projects | Free during early access, no permanent free tier |
| Ownership | Bending Spoons (acquired July 2025) | Independent, founder-owned |
| Profitability analytics | Reports on lower tiers; profitability reporting on Enterprise | Floor, who still pays it, fixed-fee margins, included |
| Built for | Teams, agencies, enterprise | Solo freelancers |
| Hosting / privacy | US-hosted (Google Cloud) | EU-hosted, GDPR-first, no ad trackers |
| Invoicing | Full invoicing + payments | Billing-ready PDF/Excel export |
Where Harvest genuinely wins
- Mature invoicing and online payment collection built into the product.
- Accounting integrations (QuickBooks, Xero and others) for studio bookkeeping.
- Team timesheets, approvals and project tools for multi-person shops.
Where CronLoom fits better
- Flat $9/month with no seat count and no unpublished usage line.
- Shows which clients still pay your floor, and flags a fixed bid that has gone underwater, on every plan.
- EU-hosted and independently owned in Germany, not part of a product conglomerate.
- Built for one person: no team seats to buy for a workflow you do not have.
The reason to switch
The analytics are why people move
You set a floor rate, and CronLoom keeps score against it: which clients really pay it, how fixed bids are tracking, where the month lands. It's visible at a glance and updates as you track.
Join the waiting listNo credit card · no contracts
Bringing your history
Switching from Harvest
Export your time entries from Harvest as CSV (Reports → Detailed time → Export). CronLoom reads that shape, but treat it as experimental: the reader was built from Harvest's documentation, and no real export has been through it since Bending Spoons took the company over. One thing to know up front: Harvest's default detailed CSV often carries no clock times, so CronLoom places each entry at 09:00 and warns you. The hours are right; the times are a guess. Read the preview before you confirm.
Questions, answered straight
Frequently asked questions
- Is CronLoom cheaper than Harvest?
- For one person, usually. CronLoom is free in early access, then a flat $9/month with no seats and no usage meter. Harvest's public list is Free (1 seat, 2 projects), Teams from $9/seat/month billed annually ($11 monthly) plus usage fees it does not itemize, and Enterprise from $14/seat/month billed annually ($17.50 monthly). Figures checked 20 August 2026 on getharvest.com/pricing.
- Can I import my Harvest data?
- Experimentally. Export time entries as CSV and CronLoom will read them, but we have not run a real Harvest export through it, and the default CSV has no clock times, so entries land at 09:00 with a warning. Client and project names carry over; rates do not.
- Does CronLoom do invoicing like Harvest?
- No. CronLoom tracks time and keeps score against your floor, then exports billing-ready PDF and Excel. Harvest still wins if you need invoices and card payments inside the tracker.
- Where is my data hosted?
- In the EU. CronLoom is GDPR-first, with privacy-friendly EU analytics and no ad-tech.