Does Basecamp Have Time Tracking?

The short answer: no. Basecamp time tracking is not a native feature. There’s no timer on a to-do, no “log hours” button, no timesheet view, and no report that adds up how long anything took. If you’ve been clicking around looking for it, you haven’t missed a setting. It isn’t there. This post explains why, walks through the integrations people actually use to track time on Basecamp work (Harvest, Everhour, Clockify, Toggl), and is honest about where each one fits and where it doesn’t.

Does Basecamp have time tracking built in?

No. Basecamp deliberately leaves time tracking out of the product. It has to-dos with due dates, message boards, Card Tables, Docs & Files, Campfire chat, schedules, and Hill Charts for showing progress on a project. None of those record hours.

This is a design choice, not an oversight. Basecamp’s philosophy leans away from surveillance-style features. The founders have written publicly that they don’t track their own team’s hours, so the product reflects that. If your work depends on billing clients by the hour or measuring how long tasks take, you’ll need to bring your own tool.

A few things people sometimes mistake for time tracking:

• Hill Charts show how far along a piece of work is (uphill = figuring it out, downhill = executing). That’s progress, not time.
• Due dates mark when something is expected, not how long it took.
• The activity timeline shows when things happened, but it won’t sum up effort.

So the question becomes: how do you track time against Basecamp tasks when Basecamp itself won’t?

The best Basecamp time tracking integrations

The good news is that Basecamp has an open API, and most of the major time-tracking tools have built integrations on top of it. The strongest option for most teams is a Harvest Basecamp setup, but it’s worth seeing all four before you commit.

Harvest

Harvest is the most established Basecamp time tracking integration, and the two products have a long history together (Harvest was an early Basecamp partner). It adds a “Track time” link directly onto Basecamp to-dos through a browser extension, so you start a timer without leaving the task. Hours roll up into Harvest for invoicing and reporting.

• Best for: agencies and freelancers who bill clients by the hour and want clean invoices.
• Strength: the to-do level timer feels native, and invoicing is genuinely good.
• Watch out for: Harvest is the priciest of the four once you have a few seats, and the free tier is limited to one person and two projects.

Everhour

Everhour also injects a timer into the Basecamp interface, so you can start and stop tracking on a to-do without switching tabs. Its reporting and budgeting features are a step up if you care about tracking time against a project budget rather than just billing.

• Best for: teams that want budgets, estimates, and time reports, not only invoices.
• Strength: estimates vs. actuals reporting, and a generous set of dashboards.
• Watch out for: it’s a per-seat cost on every person who tracks time, which adds up on bigger teams.

Clockify

Clockify is the budget pick. It has a free tier that genuinely covers small teams, and a browser extension that adds a timer button to Basecamp to-dos like the others.

• Best for: small teams or anyone who wants solid time tracking without a per-seat bill.
• Strength: the free plan is real, not a trap.
• Watch out for: the deeper reporting and locking features sit behind paid tiers, and the Basecamp link relies on the browser extension being installed per person.

Toggl Track

Toggl Track is the favorite for people who want a fast, low-friction timer and clean reports. Its browser extension adds a Toggl button inside Basecamp to-dos, and it’s known for getting out of your way.

• Best for: individuals and small teams who value speed and simplicity over heavy invoicing.
• Strength: the timer is quick, and the reports are easy to read.
• Watch out for: invoicing is weaker than Harvest, so client-billing-heavy shops may outgrow it.

A pattern you’ll notice: all four work the same basic way. A browser extension drops a timer onto your Basecamp to-dos, and the hours live in the other tool. That means your time data does not live in Basecamp. You’ll be checking two places, and reports come from the time tool, not from Basecamp.

Does Assistant for Basecamp add time tracking?

No, and we want to be straight about that. Assistant for Basecamp does not track time. We don’t add timers, timesheets, or hours-based reports, and we have no plans to compete with Harvest or Toggl. If logging hours is your core need, install one of the four tools above. That’s the right call, and we’ll happily point you there.

What we do is the layer next to time tracking: the structure, status, and visibility around your Basecamp work. We’re a Chrome extension that adds features inside Basecamp 5, and your data stays in Basecamp.

Here’s where that complements a time tracker rather than replacing it:

• Custom fields. Add fields like a single-select “Billable?” toggle, a number field for an estimate, or a date field, right on your to-dos. Your time tool records the actual hours; the field records the context. See how to add custom fields to Basecamp.
• Statuses. Mark a to-do as In Progress, Blocked, or In Review so a timer that’s been running on a stuck task makes sense at a glance. See how to add custom statuses to Basecamp tasks.
• A Kanban board over your to-do lists. Each to-do list becomes a column, so you can see what’s in flight while time accrues against it. See does Basecamp have a Kanban view.

So the honest division of labor is: a time tracker measures how long, and we organize what and what state it’s in. Different jobs.

A practical setup that works

If you’re an agency or freelancer billing by the hour, this combination covers the gap Basecamp leaves:

1. Pick a time tracker based on your real need. Bill clients heavily? Harvest. Track against budgets? Everhour. Tight on cost? Clockify. Want simple and fast? Toggl.
2. Install its browser extension so the timer appears on your Basecamp to-dos and your team tracks where the work actually lives.
3. Add a “Billable?” custom field and statuses with Assistant for Basecamp so each task carries the context the timer can’t, then group your board by status to see where billable hours are going.

That gives you hours in one tool, organization in Basecamp, and no need to run a third project tool on the side.

What about the Basecamp API and building your own?

Basecamp’s API is open, so a technical team could build a custom time-logging tool against it. In practice this is rarely worth it. The four integrations above already do the hard part, and they handle invoicing, rounding, exports, and edge cases you’d otherwise have to build and maintain yourself. Reach for the API only if you have a genuinely unusual workflow that none of the off-the-shelf tools fit.

The bottom line

Basecamp has no native time tracking and isn’t going to add it. To track time on Basecamp work, use Harvest, Everhour, Clockify, or Toggl. Their browser extensions drop a timer onto your to-dos, and the hours live in the time tool. Assistant for Basecamp doesn’t track time, but it adds the custom fields, statuses, and Kanban board that make those tracked hours easier to read. If you only need a timer, you don’t need us. If you need your Basecamp projects organized around that timer, start a 7-day free trial, no credit card.