Time tracking in Asana: what is built in and what needs another app
The projects are already in Asana. The tasks are assigned, the board is current, and then a client asks how many hours went into last month's work. The answer is not in the tool. Somebody checks whether Asana tracks time, finds a feature page, then finds that the feature sits on a higher plan, and then finds a list of a dozen integrations that all cost money per person as well.
This is a common place to get stuck, and it is worth untangling before paying for anything. Asana does have time tracking. What matters is which plan it is on, what shape the data takes, and whether that shape answers the question being asked.
What Asana includes, by plan
Prices and plan names below come from Asana's own pricing page as of September 2026. They change, so confirm before buying.
| Plan | Price per user per month | Time related features listed |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | $0, limited to 2 users | Time tracking with integrations |
| Starter | $10.99 billed annually, $13.49 billed monthly | Time tracking with integrations |
| Advanced | $24.99 billed annually, $30.49 billed monthly | Time tracking, comparing estimated and actual time |
| Enterprise | Pricing on request | Time tracking |
Two details in that table matter more than the numbers.
"Time tracking with integrations" is not the same feature as "Time tracking". On the lower plans, the phrase means Asana can display effort that another tool records. The recording happens elsewhere, in a product with its own subscription.
Timesheets are a separate purchase again. In Asana's own feature comparison, timesheets, user rates and project budgets are all marked as part of a Timesheets and Budgets add-on rather than being included in any plan. So a team that wants a weekly timesheet grid, hourly rates per person and a budget to compare against is looking at a plan upgrade plus an add-on, not just an upgrade.
How the built-in time tracking works
On the plans that include it, Asana's time tracking attaches to a task rather than to a week. Asana's help documentation describes two fields, estimated time and actual time, and two ways to fill the second one: a built in timer that runs while work is happening, or entering the hours manually afterwards. Time logged on subtasks rolls up to the parent task, and dashboards can chart estimated against actual to show how accurate the planning was.
That design has a clear strength. Because the hours are on the task, they are attached to the work rather than to a project name typed into a separate file. Nothing drifts, because there is only one list.
It also has a shape that suits some questions and not others.
Questions it answers well
- How long did this task take compared to the estimate?
- Are estimates systematically optimistic for a certain kind of work?
- How much effort has gone into this project so far?
Questions it answers less directly
- How many hours did this person work last week, across everything?
- Which of those hours were billable?
- Who approved that, and when?
The difference is the axis. Task based tracking totals by work. Payroll, invoicing and contractor management total by person and by week, which is why the timesheet grid exists as a separate add-on rather than falling out of the task data automatically.
The entry habit it assumes
Task attached tracking also assumes a particular way of working. It fits best when work arrives as discrete tasks that someone opens, does and closes, because the timer has an obvious moment to start and stop. It fits less well when a day is made of interruptions, short client calls and helping other people, since none of those have a card of their own and all of them are real hours.
Teams in the second situation usually end up creating catch all tasks such as "support" or "internal", which works, but it is worth recognising as a workaround rather than a design. The test is simple. If the sum of hours logged on tasks is reliably lower than the hours actually worked, the missing time is going somewhere, and a report built on the task totals will understate what projects cost.
The integration route, and what to check first
Most teams on the free or Starter plan end up connecting a dedicated time tracking product. The market is large and several of the well known options integrate with Asana. Before picking one, four questions decide whether the result is useful or just another place to type.
Where does the hour live? If hours are recorded in the other tool and only summarised in Asana, then the other tool owns the reporting, and the export that goes to payroll or an invoice comes from there. That is fine, as long as everyone knows which system is the source of truth.
Does the project list stay in sync automatically? This is the single biggest predictor of whether the totals will be trustworthy a year later. If the integration pulls Asana projects into the time tracker, names stay aligned. If people select from a list maintained by hand in the second tool, names drift, and the per project report quietly stops adding up.
What happens to hours when a task is deleted or moved? Projects get restructured. Hours that were attached to a task that no longer exists should not vanish from last quarter's report.
How is it priced? Almost every dedicated time tracker is priced per user per month, on top of the Asana seat. For a team of eight, two per seat subscriptions is the real comparison, not the price of one.
There is a fifth question that only shows up later. Who is counted as a user? Time trackers vary on whether a manager who only approves hours needs a paid seat. For a team of six doers and two approvers, that difference is a third of the bill. The same applies to clients or partners who need read access to a report. Checking the counting rule before signing up avoids an unpleasant recalculation at renewal.
Three routes, and who each one fits
| Route | What it costs | Fits |
|---|---|---|
| Stay on a lower plan, add a time tracking app | One Asana seat plus one time tracker seat per person | Teams that need billable hours and are happy for hours to live outside the board |
| Move to Advanced, use built in tracking | $24.99 per user per month billed annually, more with the timesheets add-on | Teams whose main question is estimated against actual effort |
| Use a board tool that carries hours itself | One subscription | Teams where hours, boards and approval need to be in one place |
The third route is worth a look specifically for small teams, because the arithmetic changes quickly. At eight people, two stacked per seat subscriptions is a meaningful monthly line item for something that started as a single question about a client's hours. Side by side pages such as Pinateca vs Asana and the full comparison list set out which tools include hours rather than delegating them.
None of this makes Asana a poor choice. It is a mature product with a large integration ecosystem, and the task level estimate against actual comparison is genuinely useful for planning. The point is that the plan and the add-on have to be matched to the question. Buying the Advanced plan hoping for a weekly timesheet is the common expensive mistake.
What a billing oriented team actually needs
If the reason for tracking time is invoicing clients or paying contractors, the requirements list is specific, and it is worth writing down before comparing products.
Hours by person, by project and by week, in one grid. An invoice is built from a period, not from a task list. Getting there by exporting task level data and pivoting it works, but it is a manual step every month.
A rate, and a billable flag. Internal rework on a fixed fee project is real time that should not be invoiced. Without a way to mark it, the distinction has to be remembered at invoice time.
Different contract types. Hourly, per project and fixed monthly contractors need different treatment. Forcing everyone into an hourly shape produces numbers that have to be ignored later.
A submit and approve step that leaves a record. Approval in a chat message is impossible to find when an invoice is questioned six months later.
Totals that survive the project being reorganised. Hours belong to a period as well as to a task.
A tool that handles all five in one place removes the export and pivot step entirely. The features overview shows one arrangement where boards, chat and a weekly timesheet share the same project list, and the guide covers how the contract types are set up.
Deciding without switching everything
Switching a whole team's project management to solve a timesheet problem is a large move for a small reason, and it is not always the right one. A shorter path exists.
Write down the question that started this: how many hours went into a client, or how accurate the estimates are, or what to pay a contractor. Those three lead to different answers, and only the first two are about Asana at all.
If the question is estimate accuracy, the Advanced plan's built in tracking answers it directly and no other product is needed. If the question is client billing, price the full stack including the add-on or the second subscription, then compare that with tools that include hours. If the question is contractor payment, the deciding factor is contract types and an approval trail, which is a narrower requirement than it first appears and rules out most timer apps immediately.
Run whichever option looks best on one real project for a month before committing the whole team. A month of actual entries shows whether people will fill it in, which is the only thing that determines whether any of this works.
A trial is also the cheapest way to test the two things product pages never tell you. First, whether the hours entered add up to something close to the hours worked, which reveals how much time is falling outside the system. Second, how long it takes to produce the report that started the whole exercise. If getting to a per client total still means exporting to a spreadsheet and pivoting it by hand, the problem has been moved rather than solved, and that will be obvious after one month rather than after a year of paying for it.
What to change first
Check which Asana plan the team is on and whether timesheets are included, since the gap between "time tracking with integrations" and a weekly timesheet is where most of the cost hides. Then decide whether the real question is estimate accuracy or client billing, because they lead to different products. If keeping boards and weekly hours under one subscription is the goal, Pinateca is free for up to 5 people with timesheets available as an add-on.
Q1. Does Asana have built in time tracking on the free plan?
No. Asana's pricing page lists the Personal plan, which is free and limited to 2 users, as having time tracking with integrations, meaning the hours are recorded in a connected product rather than in Asana. The built in time tracking that compares estimated and actual time is listed on the Advanced and Enterprise plans.
Q2. What is the difference between Asana time tracking and Asana timesheets?
Time tracking attaches hours to a task and compares them with an estimate. Timesheets present hours by person and period, which is what payroll and invoicing need. In Asana's feature comparison, timesheets, user rates and project budgets appear as part of a Timesheets and Budgets add-on rather than being included in a plan.
Q3. Can time be logged in Asana without starting a timer?
Yes. Asana's documentation describes both a built in timer that runs while the work happens and manual entry of hours afterwards. Time logged on subtasks rolls up to the parent task, so the total on a parent reflects work recorded beneath it.
Q4. Is a separate time tracking app cheaper than upgrading Asana?
It depends entirely on team size, because both are usually priced per user per month. The comparison to run is the total per person of an Asana seat plus a time tracker seat, against the per person cost of a single higher plan, against the cost of a tool that includes hours. At small headcounts the stacked subscriptions often come out higher than expected.
Q5. Will hours recorded in an integration still be there if a task is deleted?
That depends on the integration, and it is worth testing before rolling one out. Where hours live in the connected tool and reference an Asana task, restructuring projects can break the link and leave historical reports incomplete. Deleting one task in a test project and then rerunning last month's report is a quick way to find out.
