ClickUp time tracking runs on a ClickApp that a Workspace owner or admin must activate before anyone sees a timer. Once it is on, people start and stop timers from tasks, views, the toolbar, or the Timesheets Hub. Every entry then rolls up into timesheets and Dashboard cards for capacity planning and client billing.
Setup takes about two minutes. What catches teams out is everything after that: usage ceilings on the lower plans, which actions only admins can perform, and a timesheet grid that behaves differently from the spreadsheet people expect. What follows covers the configuration, the plan boundaries as ClickUp currently documents them, and the failure modes that appear once a team of ten starts logging billable hours.
Activate the Time Tracking ClickApp
Nothing appears in the interface until an owner or admin switches this on. Members and guests cannot do it themselves, so if your team says they cannot find the timer, this is almost always why.
- Open the App Center.
- In the App Center’s left sidebar, click All ClickApps.
- Search for the Time Tracking ClickApp.
- Click the toggle to activate it.
- Use the dropdown menu to restrict the ClickApp to specific Spaces if you only want it live for client-facing work.
- If you invoice from tracked hours, click Default new time entries to billable so nobody has to remember to flag each entry.
Scoping to individual Spaces is the underused option here. Agencies that track only client Spaces keep internal admin time out of billable reports without asking anyone to change behaviour. ClickUp’s walkthrough is on the Activate time tracking help page.
Turn on the Time Estimate ClickApp at the same time. Without it, the progress bar comparing tracked time against an estimate never renders in List view, and you lose the most useful at-a-glance signal in the whole feature.
Where the timer actually lives
ClickUp exposes the timer in more places than most people realise. The entry points that matter:
- From a task: click the start button below the task name, next to Track Time.
- From List, Board, Gantt, or Calendar view: right-click a task and select Start timer.
- From List or Table view: add the time tracked field, then click start on the row.
- From the toolbar: pin Tracked Time to the toolbar, click the time tracking icon, and start from the Track Time modal.
- From an existing entry: open the Track Time modal and click start next to a previous entry to create a fresh entry carrying the same details.
A running timer stays visible in the toolbar in the upper right, and clicking it shows a progress bar against your daily capacity. That detail is what prevents the classic mistake of leaving a timer running over a weekend.
Retroactive entry is where most real logging happens. Adding time manually, ClickUp accepts three formats: full words (2 hours, 10 minutes, 30 seconds), abbreviations (2h, 10m, 30s), or colon notation (2:10:30).
What each plan actually gives you
This is the part the marketing pages gloss over. ClickUp does not simply gate time tracking behind a paywall; it meters it. The Free plan includes time tracking with a hard usage ceiling, and several capabilities most teams consider basic sit in an “advanced” bucket that stays capped even on paid tiers. The figures below come from ClickUp’s Time Tracking feature availability and limits documentation.
| Capability | Free Forever | Unlimited | Business | Business Plus and Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create, edit, and delete time entries | 100 uses | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Advanced entries: descriptions, tags, billable marking, entries created from Timesheets, entries logged for other users, time not attached to a task | 40 uses | 40 uses | 100 uses | Unlimited |
| Timesheet submission, change requests, and approvals | No | No | No | Yes |
| View team timesheets custom role permission | No | No | No | Yes |
| Third-party time tracking integrations | Yes, and usage counts toward the limits above | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| List price | Free | $7 per user/month billed yearly, $10 billed monthly | $12 per user/month billed yearly, $19 billed monthly | Enterprise is quoted by sales; Business Plus is not shown on the public pricing page |
Read that second row twice. Marking an entry billable counts as an advanced use, and Unlimited gets no more of them than Free does. A four-person agency on the $7 tier will exhaust 40 billable-flag actions inside a fortnight. If invoicing from ClickUp hours is the reason you are turning this on, Business is the realistic floor and Business Plus is where the meter stops mattering.
ClickUp also states that timesheet and approval availability is subject to change, and that Workspaces may get unlimited usage of these newer features on any plan for a limited period. Confirm what your own Workspace shows before building a billing process on top of it, and check current tiers on ClickUp’s pricing page rather than trusting a comparison article.
Running timesheets without losing entries
The Timesheets Hub is the reviewing surface: open Global Navigation and select Timesheets, or click More if it is not pinned. Pin it. People will not adopt a weekly habit that takes three clicks to reach.
Two display modes sit in the upper right. Timesheet groups entries by task across the date range, which is what you want for client review. Time entries lists everything chronologically by date, which is what you want when hunting a mis-logged block. Filters for Billing, Tag, and Tracked time sit under the date range, and admins get an All timesheets tab covering the whole Workspace.
One behaviour causes more confusion than anything else in this feature. Typing a number into a cell that already contains time does not overwrite it. If a cell holds one hour and you type two hours, ClickUp creates a new one-hour entry so the total reaches two. Correcting a mistake by retyping the intended figure therefore inflates the week rather than fixing it. Use the ellipsis menu on the row and choose Delete Entry, or open the entry and edit it directly.
The same ellipsis menu handles the other recovery cases: Change date moves an entry to the right day, Move to Task reassigns work logged against the wrong ticket, and Remove from Task parks an entry under “No task selected”. Delete row in the Total column wipes every entry on that task, which is worth flagging to anyone holding admin rights.
Capacity is set per person under the settings icon in the upper right as a weekly figure. Daily capacity is a Business Plus and above setting, which matters if you manage part-time staff whose availability varies by day. If timers behave strangely or entries fail to appear where you expect, our walkthrough of common ClickUp time tracking failures and how to fix them covers the usual causes.
Approvals lock entries, permanently
Timesheet approvals are a Business Plus and Enterprise capability. An owner or admin configures them from the Approvals tab in the Timesheets Hub, setting a weekly deadline, optional reminders, then a list of submitters and their approvers.
The consequence people miss: time entries lock the moment a timesheet is submitted. Locked entries render greyed out and cannot be edited. A submitted timesheet sits at Pending, moves to Changes needed if an approver requests revisions, or to Approved, after which it cannot be edited at all. Submitters can withdraw a submission before review; approvers can reopen an approved timesheet, which reverts it to Changes needed and makes it editable again.
Owners and admins keep the ability to edit locked and approved entries, so a single admin becomes the bottleneck for every correction. Bulk approval exists, and it is tempting, but approving fifteen timesheets with one click removes the review step you introduced approvals to get. ClickUp documents the full flow, including notification timing, in its timesheet approvals guide.
Reporting on tracked time
Five Dashboard cards handle time reporting. Time Reporting shows all entries with filtering and custom grouping. Billable Report narrows to billable entries only, which is the card to build an invoice from. Timesheet covers a week, month, or custom range. Two legacy cards, Time Estimated and Time Tracked, remain available for older setups.
Tracked time also works as a y-axis data point on custom Bar Chart, Pie Chart, and Battery Chart cards, which is how you get utilisation by person or client without exporting anything. See our guide to setting up ClickUp Dashboards for the mechanics.
For data leaving ClickUp, export directly from a Time Tracking card or export a List or Table view with the time tracked column added. The API exposes entries within a date range, running timers, entry labels, and timer start and stop, with task, status, tag, Space, Folder, and List context on each call.
Native tracking versus an integration
ClickUp maintains native connections to Clockify, Everhour, Harvest, Hubstaff, Memtime, PomoDone, TimeCamp, Time Doctor, Timely, Timeneye, TMetric, Toggl, and Rize. They are available on every plan. Two constraints decide whether an integration earns the extra tool.
| Consideration | ClickUp native | Time tracking integration |
|---|---|---|
| Additional cost | Included in your ClickUp plan | Separate subscription in most cases |
| Counts toward ClickUp usage limits | Yes | Yes, integration usage also counts |
| Screenshot or activity monitoring | Not available; ClickUp does not take screenshots | Available in some tools, such as Time Doctor |
| Guests and limited members | Guests can track time if an admin enables it and they hold edit or full edit task permissions | Guests and limited members cannot track time through integrations |
| Invoicing and rate cards | Billable flag and export only | Native invoicing in Harvest, TimeCamp, and similar |
| Platform coverage | Web, desktop, and mobile; start on one device, stop on another | Several run on a Chrome extension and work only in the ClickUp web app |
Because integration usage counts against the same ceilings, bolting Toggl onto a Free Workspace does not buy extra headroom. It buys better reporting on the same metered actions. Details sit in ClickUp’s time tracking integrations documentation.
Where this approach struggles
This fits teams already living in ClickUp who need defensible hours against tasks. It is a poor fit in three situations.
Compliance-grade payroll. Approvals exist only on the top tiers, and admins can edit entries even after approval. Payroll teams needing signed, immutable records should keep a dedicated system.
Workspaces where work is not modelled as tasks. Time not attached to a task is an advanced use, and task selection only becomes optional on Business and above. Consultancies logging research or standing retainers burn through allowances quickly, or end up creating placeholder tasks purely to have something to log against.
Teams that need monitoring. ClickUp does not capture screenshots or activity levels. If your requirement is proof of attention rather than proof of hours, native tracking will not meet it, and an integration is doing the actual work.
Adoption is the other quiet failure. Timers that depend on people remembering a button decay within weeks. Teams that sustain it enforce a Friday timesheet ritual, cut the friction with ClickUp Automations that prompt on status change, and start from a structure that already carries time fields rather than a blank Space, which is one argument for working from proven ClickUp templates.
Common questions
Is ClickUp time tracking free?
Yes, with a ceiling. The Free Forever plan documents 100 uses of core time entry actions and 40 uses of advanced actions such as marking entries billable or adding tags. Unlimited removes the core cap but keeps the same 40-use advanced allowance, so paid does not automatically mean unmetered.
Can ClickUp take screenshots of my team’s screen?
No. ClickUp’s documentation states plainly that its time tracking does not take screenshots. That level of monitoring comes from a connected tool such as Time Doctor, not from ClickUp itself. The native feature records durations, descriptions, tags, and billable status only.
Why can’t I edit a time entry?
The entry is almost certainly locked because its timesheet was submitted for approval or already approved. Locked entries appear greyed out. A submitter can withdraw a pending timesheet, an approver can request changes to reopen it, and owners and admins can edit locked and approved entries directly.
Can guests track time in ClickUp?
Guests can track time if a Workspace owner or admin has enabled time tracking for them and they hold edit or full edit permissions on the task. Guests can also submit timesheets. They cannot track time through third-party integrations, and neither can limited members.
Do I need Business Plus for timesheet approvals?
Yes, under ClickUp’s current documentation. Submission, change requests, and approvals are listed for Business Plus and Enterprise only, though ClickUp notes some Workspaces may receive early access on lower plans. Check your own Approvals tab before assuming the feature is unavailable.
Time tracking exposes whether your ClickUp hierarchy is sound. Hours logged against vague catch-all tasks produce reports nobody trusts. Fix the task structure first, scope the ClickApp to the Spaces that need it, and confirm your plan’s allowances match the volume your team will generate. Still choosing a platform? Our comparison of ClickUp and Asana covers how each reports on delivered work.
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