Time tracking in Asana: what is built in and what needs another app
Asana does have built-in time tracking, but not on every plan. Checked on October 8, 2026, Asana's time tracking feature page says the plans that include it are Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. On those plans, each task gets an estimated time and an actual time, filled by an embedded timer or by typing hours in, with a log of who tracked time and when. Personal and Starter list only "time tracking with integrations", which means the hours are recorded in a separate app. Weekly timesheets, approvals, billable rates and budgets are a separate purchase again: the Timesheets and Budgets add-on, priced at $5.99 per user per month billed annually and available on Starter, Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise+.
So the real answer to "does Asana track time" is a choice between three routes: upgrade to Advanced, add the Timesheets and Budgets add-on, or connect a third party time tracker. This article goes through what each one records, what it costs for a team of eight, and which question each route actually answers.
What each Asana plan includes for time
Prices are from Asana's pricing page on October 8, 2026, for annual billing in US dollars.
| Plan | Price per user per month | Native time tracking | Timesheets and Budgets add-on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | $0, up to 2 users | No, "time tracking with integrations" | Not listed as available |
| Starter | $10.99 ($13.49 monthly) | No, "time tracking with integrations" | Available, $5.99 per user |
| Advanced | $24.99 | Yes, estimated versus actual | Available, $5.99 per user |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | Yes | Available |
Two points in that table do most of the work.
"Time tracking with integrations" is a different thing from "time tracking". On Personal and Starter, the phrase means Asana can sit next to a timer app that records the hours. The recording, the totals and usually the export happen in that other product.
The add-on is licensed per person who needs it. Asana's add-on page answers the question of how many seats to buy by saying it is licensed per user, "so you only need to purchase seats for the people who require timesheet functionality," with no domain-wide commitment. A team of eight in which only five people log billable hours buys five add-on seats, not eight.
One point is less clear from the public pages. The add-on can be bought on Starter, but the time tracking feature page lists native time tracking only on Advanced and above. The add-on FAQ describes logging time on tasks and submitting timesheets for approval. Before buying the add-on for a Starter workspace, confirm with Asana that Starter plus the add-on gives the logging the team expects, rather than assuming it from the add-on page alone.
How the native time tracking works on Advanced
Asana's time tracking attaches to a task, not to a week. The feature page describes the parts:
- Make an estimate. Record how long each task should take. The getting started answer on the page is to "enable estimations in your project," then start timers or enter manual hours.
- Measure exactly. Use the embedded timer, or log the time manually after the fact.
- Keep a record. A detailed log shows who tracked time on a task and when.
- Report on it. Dashboards can chart estimated time by assignee, total actual time by project section, total actual time by priority, and estimated against actual.
- Workload. Time tracking data feeds the workload view, so managers can see who has too many hours on their plate.
The strength of this design is that hours live on the work itself. There is no separate list of project names to keep aligned, because the task is the project item. The weakness is the axis. A task based record totals by work: how long did this task take, how far off was the estimate, how much effort has this project absorbed. Payroll, invoicing and contractor management total by person and by week: how many hours did this person work last week, which of them were billable, who approved them.
Task attached tracking also assumes that work arrives as tasks. It fits a day of opening, doing and closing cards. It fits less well a day of short calls, reviews and interruptions that have no card of their own. Teams in that situation tend to create catch-all tasks named "Support" or "Internal." That works, but it is worth checking after a month whether the hours logged on tasks add up to the hours actually worked. If the total is reliably lower, project cost reports built on those totals will understate what the work cost.
The Timesheets and Budgets add-on
The add-on is what turns task hours into something closer to a timesheet. According to its page on October 8, 2026, it includes:
- Centralized timesheet management and approvals, so managers approve timesheets in one place instead of chasing them.
- Billable and non-billable hours, which the page says supports "cleaner invoicing and accounting."
- User rates per project, and rate cards for planning cost.
- Budgets tracked in real time, with estimates compared against actual cost.
- Time and cost reporting and exports.
- A setting to limit budget visibility to admins and managers.
The page also says how the add-on combines with each plan. On Advanced, it adds portfolio budgets and reporting on profitability and team costs. On Enterprise, it layers cost data onto capacity planning, placeholder roles and universal workload.
The add-on answers most of the questions a billing team asks: hours per person, billable versus non-billable, approval, rates. What it does not change is the shape of the underlying data. Hours still start on tasks. Contractors on a fixed monthly fee or on a per project price, who do not bill by the hour at all, still have to be represented in an hourly model or tracked elsewhere.
The integration route: what the Clockify listing shows
Most teams on Personal or Starter end up connecting a dedicated time tracker. Asana's app directory has a listing for Clockify that describes the setup in four steps: create a Clockify account, install the Clockify browser extension for Chrome or Firefox, which adds a timer button to every Asana task, click Start timer in Asana, and run time reports in Clockify. The listing notes that the integration is built by a third-party developer and that Asana does not take responsibility for it.
The listing also describes Clockify as "free to use, no matter how many users or projects you have." Clockify's own pricing page, opened on October 8, 2026, shows something different: the Free plan is listed "For up to 5 users." Paid tiers start at Basic for $3.99 per seat per month billed annually, which adds billable rates and adding time for others. Approval, invoicing and locking time are in Standard, at $5.49 per seat per month billed annually or $6.99 monthly. This is a good example of why prices quoted on a partner listing should be checked against the vendor's own pricing page before budgeting.
Whatever tracker is chosen, four questions decide whether the numbers will still be trustworthy a year later:
- Where does the hour live? If hours are recorded in the tracker and only displayed in Asana, the tracker is the source of truth, and the payroll or invoice export comes from there. Everyone needs to know that.
- Does the project list sync automatically? If the tracker pulls projects from Asana, names stay aligned. If people pick from a list maintained by hand, names drift and the per project report quietly stops adding up.
- What happens when a task is deleted or moved? Hours attached to a task that no longer exists should not disappear from last quarter's totals.
- Who counts as a paid user? Some trackers charge for managers who only approve. For six people who log hours and two who approve, that difference is a quarter of the bill.
What each route costs for a team of eight
Here is the arithmetic for a team of eight in which six people log billable hours and two managers approve them. All figures are list prices per month on annual billing, as of October 8, 2026.
| Route | Seats | Monthly cost | Approval of hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asana Advanced, native tracking | 8 × $24.99 | $199.92 | Not in the plan list; through the add-on |
| Asana Advanced + Timesheets and Budgets for 6 | 8 × $24.99 + 6 × $5.99 | $235.86 | Yes |
| Asana Starter + Timesheets and Budgets for 6 | 8 × $10.99 + 6 × $5.99 | $123.86 | Yes, confirm logging on Starter first |
| Asana Starter + Clockify Standard for 8 | 8 × $10.99 + 8 × $5.49 | $131.84 | Yes, in Clockify |
| A board tool with its own timesheet add-on | 8 × $4 + 6 × $7 | $74.00 | Yes |
The cheapest Asana combination on paper is Starter plus the add-on, which is why it is worth confirming exactly what Starter plus the add-on records. The Advanced routes cost more because they pay for portfolios, goals, approvals of work and resource management as well, which some teams need and some do not.
The last row is a different shape of tool, covered in the next section. The point of the table is not that one row wins. It is that the cost of answering "how many hours were billed last month" ranges from about $74 to about $236 a month for the same eight people, depending on which route is taken.
When a board tool that carries hours itself fits better
Switching project management to solve a timesheet problem is a large move for a small reason, and often it is the wrong one. A team already settled in Asana, with templates and automations built, usually does better adding the add-on or a tracker than moving.
The case for a different tool is narrower: a small team, often working with contractors, where the main reason to track time is to pay those contractors or bill a client, and where the project board is still young enough to move. In that case, a kanban board tool that includes timesheets can remove the second subscription entirely.
One such tool offers timesheets as an add-on at $9 per user per month, or $7 paid annually, counting only the people who enter hours; managers who only view or approve are not counted. The base tool is free for up to 5 people and 10 boards, and $5 per user per month, or $4 annually, beyond that. The timesheet is a weekly sheet in half hour steps that saves automatically, supports entry on behalf of others, and handles three contract types: hourly, per project and fixed monthly. Per project contractors enter progress rather than hours. Totals come out by person, project and work type, with CSV export and printable activity and completion reports, and hours are submitted weekly for approval. The pricing page has the exact terms, and the comparison with Asana sets the two side by side. It has no portfolios, goals or capacity planning at the level of Asana Advanced, it does not compete on the number of integrations, and its timesheet is built for contractor billing rather than for estimate accuracy.
Matching the route to the question
The fastest way to choose is to write down the question that started this, because three common questions lead to three different answers.
"How accurate are the estimates?" Asana Advanced's native time tracking answers this directly with estimated against actual on each task and dashboards by assignee and section. Nothing else is needed.
"How many hours went into this client last month?" This needs hours by person and period, billable flags and an export. Price the Timesheets and Budgets add-on on the current plan and a third party tracker side by side, using only the people who actually log hours.
"What is owed to this contractor?" This needs contract types, a weekly submission and an approval record that can be found six months later. Timer apps that model everything as hourly are a poor fit for fixed fee contractors. Check how each option handles a per project or monthly contract before anything else.
Whichever route looks best, run it on one real project for a month before rolling it out. A month of real entries shows two things product pages do not: whether people actually fill it in, and how long it takes to produce the report that started the exercise. If getting a per client total still means exporting and pivoting by hand, the problem has moved rather than been solved.
What to change first
Check which Asana plan the team is on, because native time tracking starts at Advanced and the Timesheets and Budgets add-on is a separate per person purchase. Then decide whether the question is estimate accuracy or billing, since they lead to different purchases. If boards and contractor timesheets under one subscription is the goal, compare the add-on cost against Pinateca, where only the people who enter hours are counted.
Q1. Does Asana have a built-in timer?
Yes, on the Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus plans. Each task can have an estimated time and an actual time, filled by an embedded timer or by entering hours manually, and Asana keeps a log of who tracked time and when. Personal and Starter rely on third party integrations for time tracking.
Q2. How much does the Asana Timesheets and Budgets add-on cost?
On October 8, 2026, Asana listed it at $5.99 per user per month billed annually, available on Starter, Advanced, Enterprise and Enterprise+. It is licensed per user, so only the people who need timesheet features need a seat. It adds timesheet approvals, billable and non-billable hours, user rates and budgets.
Q3. Can I track time in Asana on the free plan?
Not natively. The Personal plan lists "time tracking with integrations," meaning a separate app records the hours. Clockify, for example, adds a timer button to Asana tasks through its browser extension, and its own pricing page lists its Free plan for up to 5 users.
Q4. Can Asana separate billable and non-billable hours?
Yes, with the Timesheets and Budgets add-on. Asana's add-on page says timesheets can categorize time as billable or non-billable and export it for invoicing. The native time tracking on Advanced on its own records estimated and actual time per task.
Q5. Is it cheaper to use Asana with a third party time tracker?
It depends on how many people log hours. For eight people on Starter, Clockify Standard at $5.49 per seat adds about $44 a month, while the Asana add-on for six people who log hours adds about $36. Compare per person, and count only those who actually enter time.