10 Best Cost Management Software in 2024 [Detailed Overview]

Project cost management software helps businesses efficiently plan, estimate, and manage project costs with features like:

• Cost estimation and forecasting
• Budget management
• Profitability insights
• Expense tracking

To help you choose the right software from the multitude of options available, we analyzed and selected the ten best cost management tools.

In this article, we’ll explore an in-depth review of their key features, pros and cons, integrations, and pricing. 

Disclaimer: The information below is accurate as of {publish date}.

What is the best project cost management software?

1. Toggl Track: Accurate time tracking, detailed reporting, and profitability tool

2. Timeular: Time tracking and leave management tool

3. Timely: AI-powered automatic time tracking tool

4. Harvest: Comprehensive time and expense tracking and invoice management tool

5. Hubstaff: Employee monitoring and workforce management tool

6. TimeCamp: Affordable time billing software

7. Everhour: All-in-one time management software

8. Forecast: AI-powered project and financial management tool

9. Avaza: All-in-one work management software

10. Projectworks: Professional services software

1. Toggl Track

Price: Starts at $10/month

Toggl Track is a time tracking, reporting, and profitability solution that teams can use to monitor project budgets and analyze profitability. 

Available on the web, mobile, and desktop apps or as a browser extension, it seamlessly tracks billable and non-billable hours and generates detailed profitability reports.  

What we like

• Besides accurately tracking time, Toggl Track lets businesses track project expenses, monitor labor costs, analyze the project, client, or employee profitability, and forecast project budgets. 

What’s missing

• You can’t collect payments in Toggl Track or add task billable rates. 

Best for

Toggl Track is best for teams who need a powerful profitability tool to help track and analyze billable hours and project expenses. 

Top features

• Project time estimates: Set hourly time estimates for projects and tasks and track their progress with this Starter plan feature. 
• Labor costs: Add and monitor labor costs for each employee to help calculate profitability. 
• Fixed fee projects: Add fixed fee rates to projects and get notified when you exceed your fixed amount to keep the project within budget. 
• Profitability insights: See data trends, analyze and compare project and employee profitability with visual and easy-to-understand charts and graphs. 
• Project dashboard: Track project expenses like labor and contractor costs and get project billing amount forecasts.

Tool integrations 

Integrations include project management software like Asana, Jira, Trello, Toggl Plan, etc. Toggl Track also integrates with accounting and payroll software such as QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks, and other 100+ popular tools. 

Pricing

Toggl Track offers four pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Solo users who need a time tracker with an intuitive interface
Starter	$10 per user per month	Teams with basic time tracking needs
Premium	$20 per user per month	Teams who need online and offline functionality for tracking time and profitability
Enterprise	Custom pricing	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

Sign up for a free Toggl Track account now

2. Timeular

Price: Starts at $9/month

Timeular is an automatic time tracking and leave management software that tracks project budgets and helps you identify potential cost overruns. 

What we like

• Timeular’s Budget feature lets you easily create time budgets to monitor project and client profitability. You can also set budget overrun alerts to avoid going over budget. 
  With the Personal plan, you can only create one budget. For multiple budgets, you need to subscribe to the more expensive plans. 

What’s missing

• Timeular doesn’t have labor costs or project profitability reporting features. 

FURTHER READING:

10 Top Timeular Alternatives for 2024 [Full Comparison]

Best for

Timeular is best for teams who want an automatic time tracker with budget-tracking features. 

Top features

• Billable time tracking: Timeular automatically tracks billable and non-billable hours on its desktop app. 
• Project budget estimates and alerts: Set up budget estimates for each project and client, and Timeular sends warnings for potential cost overruns. 
• Customized billable reports: Customize your billable time reports and export them in XLS, CSV, or PDF format. 
• Cost monitoring: Monitor time spent on various projects and tasks to allocate costs and project budgets efficiently. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include QuickBooks Time, Xero, Jira, and more. 

Pricing

Timeular offers three pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Personal	$9 per user	Solo users
Personal Pro	$14 per user	Freelancers with billing needs
Team	$19 per user	For teams of all sizes

Visit the pricing page for more information. 

3. Timely

Price: Starts at $11/month

Timely is AI-powered automatic time tracking software that helps teams create project budgets, track budget burn, and visualize budget reporting data. 

What we like

• Timely’s AI-powered automatic time tracking eliminates the need for manual input and offers an accurate daily record of all activities. 
  It uses a memory tracker that captures every billable minute to help you bill accurately and improve productivity and time management. 

What’s missing

• Timely doesn’t generate expenses or forecast project profitability. 

Best for

Timely is best for teams that track time automatically with an AI-powered tool and manage their project budgets. 

Top features

• Automatic time tracking: Timely’s AI-powered Memory tracker records all your billable and non-billable activity automatically. 
• Project budget: You can create time and money budgets in Timely for each project and set up recurring budgets at weekly and monthly intervals. 
• Detailed reporting: See time and cost reports like unbilled hours and monthly project reports to analyze costs and profitability. 
• Project dashboard: See at a glance logged hours, total budget, how much you’ve spent, and how much budget is left for each project. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include QuickBooks, Google Calendar, Harvest, and more.  

Pricing

Timely offers four paid plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Starter	$11 per user/ month	Freelancers and small teams
Premium	$20 per user/ month	Midsize teams
Unlimited	$28 per user/ month	Midsize and large teams
Unlimited+	Contact for more pricing	Large teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

4. Harvest

Price: Starts at $12/month

Harvest is a time, expense, and invoice management tool. It comes with budget monitoring and cost tracking features that help teams manage their budgets efficiently.  

What we like

• Harvest lets you create budgets for your projects to easily track progress.
  In the Projects Analysis tab, you can access detailed data about project budgets, profits, costs, and trends, in one view. 
  This makes it easy to stay informed about project costs and identify trends and potential cost-saving opportunities. 

What’s missing

• Harvest doesn’t generate project profitability reports. 

Best for

Harvest is best for teams who want a comprehensive time tracking tool to help them track expenses and manage invoices and project budgets. 

Top features

• Expense tracking: Track project and client expenses, add receipts and notes, and put them on client invoices. 
• Budget monitoring: Set up project billable or fixed fee rates, monitor budget progress, and get notified when you exceed budgets.
• Cost reports: Harvest generates detailed expense reports with in-depth information about each expense. You can mark expenses as invoices or uninvoiced before saving the report. 
• Project progress dashboard: See at a glance your project’s progress with total hours, remaining budget, internal costs, and uninvoiced amounts. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include Asana, QuickBooks Online, PayPal, and more. 

Pricing

Harvest offers two pricing options:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Freelancers who need to track their time for client billing
Pro	$12 per user per month	Teams and startups who need to understand where their time goes and monitor profitability

Visit the pricing page for more information.

5. Hubstaff

Price: Starts at $7/month

Hubstaff is an employee monitoring and workforce management app with cost management features. It helps teams track project profitability, avoid cost overruns, and plan future budgets. 

What we like

• Hubstaff’s project and client budget reports provide insights to create better cost estimates and manage actual costs more accurately. 
  You can view detailed real-time data on cost per project or user, track client profitability, and receive alerts when a project is nearing its budget. 

What’s missing

• Hubstaff doesn’t have profitability or forecasting reports that teams can use to analyze business profitability and forecast project costs.  

Best for

Hubstaff is best for teams that need a cost and workforce management tool that monitors employees with screenshots and activity tracking. 

Top features

• Expense tracking: Track and invoice expenses, upload receipts, and categorize expenses. 
• Project-level budgets: Available on Grow pricing plan and up, this feature lets users set budgets for each project and monitor its progress in real-time.
• Automatic alerts: Set budget limits and receive automatic alerts as costs approach these limits. 
• Dashboard view: See hours worked and project and client budgets at a glance to stay on top of your projects. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include QuickBooks, Gusto, PayPal, and more. 

Pricing

Hubstaff offers five pricing options:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	For individual use
Starter	$7 per user/month	Small businesses who need a basic time-tracking solution
Grow	$9 per user/month	Teams who need to monitor remote employee time
Team	$12 per user/month	Teams who need advanced time-tracking, team management, and time management features
Enterprise	Contact Hubstaff for prices, starting at $25 per user/month	Enterprise companies

Visit the pricing page for more information.

6. TimeCamp

Price: Starts at $3.99/month

TimeCamp is a time tracking, attendance, and billing software tool with cost management features like budgeting reports, billable rates, expense tracking, and more. 

What we like

• TimeCamp is an affordable automatic time tracker and billing tool with paid plans starting at $3.99 per user per month. 

What’s missing

• As TimeCamp tracks time automatically and monitors employees with screenshots and website tracking, this tool might feel intrusive for employees. 

Best for

TimeCamp is best for teams with an automated time tracking, billing, and budget management tool. 

Top features

• Billing rates: Set team member and project-level billing rates for accurate work cost data. 
• Estimated cost and time budget: Add cost and time budget estimates for each project to easily track progress and complete projects on time and within budget. 
• Expense tracking: Add and categorize expenses, attach receipts, and share expense reports with clients for transparency. 
• Budgeting reports: Available in Premium and Ultimate price plans, TimeCamp’s budget reporting feature includes billable, unbillable, estimates, revenues, costs, and margin reports. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include QuickBooks, Xero, Asana, and more. 

Pricing

TimeCamp offers five pricing options: 

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Individual users with minimal time tracking needs
Starter	$3.99 per user per month	Teams with more complex time-tracking needs
Premium	$6.99 per user per month	Large teams that need advanced time-tracking features
Ultimate	$10.99 per user per month	Multiple teams
Enterprise	Contact TimeCamp	Enterprise teams

Visit the pricing page for more information.

7. Everhour

Price: Starts at $10/month

Everhour is a timesheet and time management tool with budgeting features that help teams track budget costs and expenses and save time and money. 

What we like

• Everhour’s cost management features, available in the paid plan, let you create client profiles, monitor budgets, set capital or recurring budgets, track labor costs, and customize task rates. 
  With these features, you have better financial visibility to improve business performance and profitability. 

What’s missing

• Everhour doesn’t have project profitability and forecasting reports. 

Best for

Everhour is best for teams who need a timesheet and time management app with budgeting and expense tracking features. 

Top features

• Billable and non-billable tasks: Everhour tracks paid and non-paid work so you can bill clients accurately and analyze profitability. 
• Project and client budgets: Set time and money budgets for projects and clients and keep track of project progress. Receive email notifications when budgets are about to reach their limit to avoid cost overruns. 
• Expense tracking: Track work-related expenses for accurate client billing and cost evaluation. 
• Budget usage summary: Get summary reports for each project with billable amounts, costs, profit, and budget spending percentages. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include Freshbooks, Xero, ClickUp, and more. 

Pricing

Everhour offers two pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Solo users who need an intuitive and user-friendly time tracker
Team	$10 per user per month	Teams who need time and project tracking, task management, and project-scheduling features

Visit the pricing page for more information. 

8. Forecast

Price: Available upon request

Forecast is an AI-powered, all-in-one platform for managing projects, budgets, and resources and improving profitability through automation and smart insights. 

What we like

• Forecast uses AI technology to help teams plan and manage projects and resources. 
  With AI-assisted task management and capacity planning, AI timesheets, and predictive analytics features, Forecast automates admin work, optimizes workflows, and improves productivity. 

What’s missing

• Some users complain about the budget pages needing to be clearer to use. 

Best for

Forecast is best for project-based companies that want an AI-powered project and resource management platform with budget management features. 

Top features

• AI-powered timesheets: AI helps you create timesheets faster and accurately and capture non-billable work for accurate billing and profitability analysis. 
• Project financials: See an overview of all financial information for each project at a glance, like rates and internal costs, task breakdown, revenue, and expenses. Identify future costs and revenue trends to keep your business profitable. 
• Nova Insights Budget: Assign people to tasks and set up a rate card, and Nova Insights will estimate how much of the budget you’ll use by the project’s end. This gives you clear visibility for better budget planning. 
• Advanced Analytics: Create customizable dashboards to monitor profitability and spot inefficiencies and financial trends. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include Asana, Quickbooks, Sage, and more.

Pricing

Forecast offers a Core annual plan, but you need to contact them for a quote. 

Visit the pricing page for more information.

9. Avaza

Price: Starts at $11.95/month

Avaza is an all-in-one work management app that tracks time and resources, generates invoices, and organizes expenses. 

What we like 

• Avaza creates new expenses automatically based on the receipts forwarded to the Avaza expense email. You can review and edit them or add expenses manually. 

What’s missing

• Avaza doesn’t generate invoices from time tracked. 

Best for

Avaza is best for businesses of all sizes who need comprehensive software with project and expense management, resource scheduling, and time tracking features. 

Top features

• Project dashboard: Get a quick overview of each project’s budget, costs, time tracked, expenses, and billable rates to understand project health.   
• Financial reports: Get the financial information you need and analyze business profitability with transactions, revenue by month, profit and loss reports, and more. 
• Expense management: Avaza has a streamlined expense approval workflow and lets you set up recurring expenses. 
• Project estimates: Create detailed estimates using fully customizable templates from your laptop or mobile device. This feature supports multi-currency and multi-language, seamlessly converting accepted quotes into invoices and projects. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include Xero, QuickBooks, Stripe, and more. 

Pricing

Avaza offers four pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Free	$0	Solo users who need timesheets, expense tracking, and finance management features
Startup	$11.95 per month	Small teams who need timesheet, expense management, and resource scheduling features
Basic	$23.95 per month	Teams who need unlimited project collaborators and customers
Business	$47.95 per month	Teams who need unlimited invoices and bills per month

Visit the pricing page for more information. 

10. Projectworks

Price: Starts at $37/month

Projectworks is professional services software with time tracking, expense management, revenue forecasting, and powerful reporting features. 

What we like

• With Projectworks’ forecasting reports, businesses can accurately project future revenue, expenses, and resource needs.

What’s missing

• Some users say the reporting features can be hard to use by non-technical people. 

Best for

Projectworks is best for professional services businesses that need to forecast future revenue, improve profitability, and increase their margins. 

Top features

• Non-billable timecodes: Add non-billable timecodes to billable projects to keep invoices and financial reports accurate. 
• Expense management: Add project expenses, mark them as billable, and add tax options in different currencies to anticipate costs and budget burn. 
• Financial reports: Get insights into billable and non-billable hours and track monthly expenses and actual revenue to keep business profitability on track. 
• Budget and revenue forecasting: Projectworks forecasts your project’s future financial health by comparing projected burn to your budget and projected revenue. This visibility helps you keep budgets under control and maximize your margins. 

Tool integrations 

Integrations include Xero, QuickBooks, Zapier, and more. 

Pricing

Projectworks offers two pricing plans:

Plan	Cost	Best for
Flat fee pricing	$370 per month	Small teams with up to 10 users
Monthly per user	$37 per user per month	Teams with more than 10 users

Visit the pricing page for more information. 

Best project costing software: Quick comparison

Here’s a quick overview of our top cost management tools: 

Tool	G2 Rating	Best for	Price
Toggl Track	4.6	Accurate time tracking, powerful reporting, and profitability analysis	From $10/user/month
Timeular	4.5	Time tracking and leave management	From $9/user
Timely	4.8	Automatic and non-invasive time tracking	From $11/user/month
Harvest	4.3	Invoicing and payments	From $12/user/month
Hubstaff	4.3	Monitoring remote employees	From $7/user/month
TimeCamp	4.7	Affordable budget and expense tracking	From $3.99/user/month
Everhour	4.7	Task and time management	From $10/user/month
Forecast	4.2	AI-powered time tracking and budgeting	Get a quote
Avaza	4.6	All-in-one work management	From $11.95/user/month
Projectworks	4.5	Professional services and forecasting software	From $37/user/month

How do I choose the best project cost-tracking software?

When choosing cost-tracking software, you must consider your specific needs and goals to find a tool that best fits those requirements.

Some key questions to ask at this point are:

• Why do I need cost management software? To track and reduce expenses, forecast future costs, manage budgets, or improve overall financial efficiency?
• What features are non-negotiable? Do I need expense tracking, budget forecasting, or advanced cost reports and real-time dashboards?
• Do I want a comprehensive interface with detailed financial insights, or do I need a more straightforward interface?
• What third-party integrations do I need? Do I want multi-platform tracking?
• What is my budget for a cost management tool? Is a freemium plan enough, or do I need a premium tool with advanced features?

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Here is what people commonly ask about cost management software. 

What is a project cost management software?

Project cost management software helps businesses plan, estimate, and manage project costs. It lets users track expenses, forecast future costs, and keep projects within budget. Thus it helps improve project profitability. 

What key features should you look for in project costing software?

Project costing software usually comes with:

• Project time tracking: Monitor how much time your team spends on project tasks 
• Cost estimation and forecasting: Predict future project costs based on current data and historical trends
• Budget management: Set, monitor, and control project budgets
• Expense tracking: Record and categorize project expenses
• Profitability reporting: Explore the financial performance of your projects 

What are the benefits of using project cost management software?

Businesses that use project cost management software can:

• Improve financial control and performance: Businesses are able to monitor and manage project finances more effectively
• Prevent budget overruns: Identify potential cost overruns early and take action to avoid them
• Improve cost estimates and financial planning: Make more accurate cost predictions and plan finances better

The bottom line

You now have a good picture of the best cost management software on the market. But trying some of them before committing to a purchase is a good idea. 

You can try Toggl Track for free and see how it can help you track budgets and profitability, manage expenses, and forecast future costs. Book your free demo of Toggl Track.

Related articles:

• How to Estimate Project Cost
• Project Cost Management: The Ultimate Guide
• How to Track Project Expenses