Tracking Your Time With Tick

Yesterday, Tick launched (in beta, of course) and it is one of the nicest time tracking applications I’ve ever seen. I’ll even go one better, it’s one of the nicer Web applications I’ve seen recently. Setting up an account was easy, as was adding clients, projects and tasks. Pricing will be based on the number of open projects you have, so there are unlimited clients, tasks and users for every level of account. There is even integration with Basecamp — for those drinking the 37signals kool-aid — although it amounts to posting of a note on Basecamp for any time entered on Tick. Better than no integration at all, though.

Right now, during the beta you can set up as many projects as you want to try it out. Once Tick leaves the beta phase, though, you’ll need to select a plan that fits your needs. As is the case with most Web services right now, you can track time for one project for free with unlimited users, clients and tasks. I’m not sure what type of project would have more than one client. Even the pricing with paying plans seems like a steal when you consider that you are receiving income for all the time you track. The top plan runs $79/month and offers unlimited everything. My guess is most people that will use Tick make enough to pay for it in an hour or less of work.

Knowing all the pains we’ve experienced at Sundog over the years jumping from one time-tracking solution to another (though our current home-brewed one is pretty nice), it would have been nice to have had Tick as an option. The one thing that does seem to be missing is a way to export the data if you need to use it elsewhere for billing purposes. Integration with some of the online billing services would be nice too. However, I’d recommend Tick to anybody looking for an affordable and elegant solution to tracking your time.