Toggl Track vs Nexa The Real Comparison for Freelance Writers
Toggl Track
$12/mo ($144/yr)
VS
Nexa
$279 once — own forever
or 3 payments of $99
Break even: 23.3 months at Toggl Track's current price.
Does Toggl Track Fit Freelance Writers? Our Read
What freelance writers need from their software, from sources outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa:
Writers need to record kill fees (partial payment when an assigned piece is cancelled or not accepted) as a separate kind of invoice line, usually a percentage of the agreed fee. Columbia's Kernochan Center sample contract sets the kill fee at 25% of the basic fee. The Press Gazette reports that kill fees are often as little as 30% of the agreed fee and rarely more than 50%. (kernochan.law.columbia.edu)
Freelance writers are self-employed, so they need to estimate and set aside tax each quarter. The IRS says self-employed people generally pay estimated taxes quarterly using Form 1040-ES. The IRS gives the self-employment tax rate as 15.3%, made up of 12.4% Social Security and 2.9% Medicare. Part of that tax (the employer-equivalent portion) is deductible when figuring adjusted gross income. (irs.gov)
Writers in New York State need written contracts that satisfy the Freelance Isn't Free Act. The New York State Department of Labor says the Act, signed August 28, 2024, added Article 44-A to the General Business Law. It sets contractual requirements for freelance workers and a formal enforcement process. The Department also offers a model contract that can be used to meet those requirements. Writers there need to keep signed contracts alongside their client records and invoices. (dol.ny.gov)
Toggl Track covers time tracking well. It has a one-click timer, apps on web, desktop and mobile, project and client reports, billable rates, and invoicing, at $12 a month on the plan that does the core job. For a writer who bills by the hour or wants to know what a piece really paid per hour, that is a real strength. Its feature list doesn't mention the other needs of this trade. It shows no separate kill-fee invoice line (often 25% to 50% of the agreed fee), no quarterly estimated-tax or self-employment tax set-aside (15.3%, paid via Form 1040-ES), and no place to keep signed contracts for rules like New York's Freelance Isn't Free Act.
Nexa covers more of the money side. It has invoices, estimates, quotes and proposals that convert to invoices, expenses, profit and loss, 1099 summaries, a client pay portal through your own Stripe account, and time tracking. It also works offline. Its listed features don't include a quarterly tax estimator, a contract-storage feature or a kill-fee line. I can't confirm any of those three, so check them before you count on them. It has no QuickBooks or Xero sync and no integration library. Its automated emails send only while Nexa is open on one of your devices. It is software you run yourself, with no hosted support desk or vendor-run onboarding.
Over three years Toggl Track at $12 a month comes to $432. Nexa is $279 once, or 3 payments of $99, if one device is enough. With optional Cloud Sync at $4.99 a month it comes to $458.64. If you mostly track hours and already have invoicing and tax habits that work, stay with Toggl Track. If you want invoices, quotes and books in one place and are happy to run it yourself, Nexa is a reasonable choice. Either way, handle kill-fee wording, quarterly tax estimates and signed contracts with your own process.
Our read for freelance writers: Either can work: keep Toggl Track if time tracking is what you rely on, and consider Nexa if you want invoicing and bookkeeping in one place, but check kill-fee, quarterly-tax and contract handling yourself with both.
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Bottom Line
Toggl Track costs freelance writers $144/year at today's list price. Nexa is $279 once for invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking and accounting in one suite — so after 23.3 months it has cost less than Toggl Track, and you own it after that. What it is not: hosted-for-you software with a support desk and a roadmap you can lobby. That is the trade, and the rest of this page is the detail behind it.
Can it pay for itself?
Nexa is $279 once, about $23 a month over its first year. Its Drain Guard reads your expenses (from a linked bank, an imported statement, or ones you type in), finds the charges that repeat, and adds them up by the month. Keep or Cut then walks you through them one at a time. Cancel $23 a month of charges you'd forgotten about and Nexa has paid for itself inside the first year, before you count the Toggl Track bill you'd stop paying.
It depends on what you find and what you cancel, so we don't promise a number. In our demo data, Drain Guard finds 5 subscriptions adding up to $110.13 a month. That is sample data, not a customer's.
The verdict for freelance writers: Either can do the job, for the reasons in our read above. On price alone, that is $279 once against $432 for Toggl Track over three years.
Choose Nexa if:
You're done paying monthly forever
You're a solo operator or small team (1-5)
You need time tracker, invoicing and connect crm in one tool
You're tired of price increases
You want to own your tools like you own your equipment
Choose Toggl Track if:
You have a large team (10+) needing enterprise features
You're deeply invested in Toggl Track's specific workflow
You need a feature Nexa doesn't have yet
Sound Familiar?
I juggle five or six clients at a time: a couple of monthly blog retainers, a white paper for a software company, and one-off articles from editors I've worked with for years. A piece starts with the brief and, more often than not, the questions the brief didn't answer: who's the reader, what should they do next, what's the angle nobody has covered. Then research, interviews when the piece needs a real voice, an outline the client signs off on, and the draft. Writing is maybe half the time; the rest is reading, revising and checking every fact and quote. Revisions are where projects go sideways, so my contract says two rounds and I stick to it. Pitching never stops: story ideas to editors, follow-ups on the ones that went quiet, and keeping my portfolio current. I invoice on delivery or at the end of the month for retainers, and I track who pays in thirty days and who needs three reminders. Quarterly taxes are on my calendar, because nobody withholds anything for me.
Tracking hours across 5-8 different client projects simultaneously
Late payments from clients — net-30 regularly turns into net-60
Managing contracts, scope creep, and revision rounds
Tax tracking and quarterly estimated payments with irregular income
FreshBooks costs $17/month just to invoice 5 clients
Time tracking, invoicing and client records are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. The sections below price both routes honestly.
None of that is a software problem you can buy your way out of in one click — it is why the tool you pick matters more than what it costs. Toggl Track solves some of it. So does Nexa. The difference is what you are left holding in three years.
What Toggl Track Actually Costs Freelance Writers
Today's list price is $12/month — $144 a year, from Toggl Track's own pricing page. Every figure below is that price, multiplied. Nothing is projected.
Three years at today's price
Year 1$144
Year 2$144
Year 3$144
Three years of Toggl Track$432
Nexa: $279 once (or 3 × $99). Over the same three years, that is $153 less.
If Toggl Track raises its price, the three-year cost goes up; if it cuts it, the cost comes down. We don't guess which. Add-ons, extra seats and card-processing fees are not included, on either side.
Feature-by-Feature
Feature
Toggl Track
Nexa
Invoicing
✗
✓
Scheduling
✗
✓
CRM
✗
✓
Time Tracking
✓
✓
Full Accounting
✗
✓ (SIMPL)
Task Management
✗
✓
Works offline
—
✓
Price
$12/mo
$279 once or 3 × $99
3-Year Total
$432
$279
You own it?
No — stop paying, lose access
Yes — forever
✓ and ✗ for Toggl Track come from its own published feature list. — means the feature isn't in that list, which is not the same as Toggl Track lacking it: check with them. Three years is at today's price.
What "$279 Once" Does And Doesn't Buy
It buys the software, not a service contract. You install Nexa and it runs on your machine. There is no seat count, and nothing stops working if you stop paying, because there is nothing to stop paying.
Toggl Track's monthly fee is not only rent. It pays for their hosting, their support desk, and their engineers shipping changes every week. If those matter to how you work, that is a real thing you would be giving up.
Cross-device sync is the one optional extra — $4.99/month if you want your data mirrored between machines. Skip it and Nexa still works; you just sync manually.
The honest risk of buying once: you are betting on us still being here to improve it. The honest risk of renting: the price is theirs to raise, and the graveyard section below is a record of tools that did exactly that.
What Toggl Track Does Better
Straight from Toggl Track's own feature set. If one of these is the reason you pay them, that reason does not disappear because Nexa is cheaper.
Simple time tracking
Desktop and mobile apps
Pomodoro timer
Project-based tracking
Good free tier
A free plan to start on (with limits), so you can use Toggl Track before paying anything.
Toggl Track is the better call if you need simple time tracking specifically, or if your team is large enough that per-seat pricing still beats buying software outright.
What Toggl Track Is Built For
Toggl Track's product page lists agencies and professional services teams, software and IT teams, law firms, and accounting and finance teams. It also names three sizes of customer: freelancers and solo users, growing teams, and large organizations. (toggl.com)
The product page lists cross-platform tracking on web, desktop (Windows, Mac), mobile (iOS, Android) and browser extensions. It also lists automated background tracking and a one-click timer. (toggl.com)
The product page lists timesheet and detailed time reports grouped by project, client or team. It also lists financial reports on project, client and team profitability, and estimated vs. actual time tracking. (toggl.com)
The product page lists billable rates, including 6-minute increments for law firms, and invoicing. (toggl.com)
The product page lists Boards, Gantt charts and a calendar planner. It also lists utilization and workload reports, and automatic planning around PTO and public holidays. (toggl.com)
The product page lists integrations with Jira, Asana, Notion and Slack, among others. It also lists an API and an MCP server, which can connect to Claude, Cursor and Codex. (toggl.com)
The pricing page shows a Free plan, with a stated limit of up to 3 users in its FAQ. Starter is $9 per user per month on annual billing, and Premium is $16 per user per month on annual billing. Enterprise is priced through sales. Paid plans and add-ons come with a 30-day trial. (toggl.com)
The product page says it does no screenshots, keystroke logging or webcam monitoring. It also states SOC Type 2 and ISO 27001 compliance and 99.99% uptime. It offers a free 30-day trial of all features with no credit card required. (toggl.com)
What people outside Toggl Track and outside Nexa say:
The Business Dive gives Toggl Track 4.4/5. It calls the interface "beautiful and straightforward" and says offline time tracking is supported. It also says the free version "includes all the basic features they need" for individuals and freelancers, and that invoicing is "quite valuable for agencies and consultancies." (thebusinessdive.com)
The Business Dive criticises the lack of GPS tracking, which it says rules Toggl Track out for construction, real estate and other location-dependent work. It also says "some advanced reporting and analytics tools are locked behind the more expensive plans." (thebusinessdive.com)
Read on each linked page in October 2026. Check them again before you decide; vendors change plans often.
Where business tools fit — for a freelance writer
Software doesn't do the creative work — it automates the business around it. And that part is the same for every freelance writer: find the work, manage it, bill for it, get paid. Each step has a tool — and the right single tool runs the whole loop, so the handoffs are automatic and you get back to the creative work. Tap a step to see what gets automated.
1
Find the work
Land the project
↓
An inquiry becomes a proposal becomes a signed project — with the scope and the deposit locked in.
CRM / contacts
Estimates & proposals
Booking / scheduling
then ↓
2
Manage the work
Do the work
↓
The work itself — tracked against the project: hours, milestones, revisions, and expenses, so nothing bills late or goes uncounted.
Job / project tracking
Time tracking
Expenses, materials & add-ons
then ↓
3
Bill for it
Send the bill
↓
The work becomes the invoice — the hours, the add-ons, the materials, the deposit credited — totaled and sent, instead of re-typed at 9pm.
Invoicing
Deposits & credits
then ↓
4
Get paid
Collect payment
↓
Paid by card or link, the deposit credited, and what's overdue chased — without you doing it by hand.
Card / online payments
Automatic reminders
You can stitch four separate subscriptions across these four steps, or run one tool that does the whole flow so a booking becomes a job becomes an invoice becomes a payment without re-typing. Either way the goal is the same: less time on the business of the business, more on the creative work. (Nexa is built to be the one — but the honest options for each step are above and below.)
Watch a job become an invoice
This is the connection that makes the rest worth it. A freelance writer's job already holds the services, the hours, the add-ons, and the materials — so the invoice builds itself from the work instead of you re-typing it at 9pm. Toggle an add-on or nudge the hours and watch it recompute.
The job Long-form article + interviews
Service2,000-word article1 × $800$800
TimeLabor — tracked on the job
3 hrs× $60/hr$180
→
The invoice builds itself
Subtotal$1,180
Deposit credited−$400
Invoice total$780
You didn't write this invoice — the job did.
Calculate Your Full Stack
Toggl Track plus whatever else you're paying for:
Email yourself this comparison?
Switching from Toggl Track
1
Export your data — Go to Reports → Detailed → Export as CSV. Download your full time entry history.
2
Set up Nexa — 10-minute setup. Import your client list by CSV, then set up your projects.
3
Start tracking in Nexa — Use Nexa time tracker for new entries. Import historical data if needed.
4
Cancel Toggl — Cancel subscription. Download a final export for your records.
✓ 30-day money-back guarantee. Zero risk.
What This Means for Freelance Writers
The median freelance writer earns $48,000/year. At $144/year, Toggl Track is a recurring slice of that — paid again every year, whether the year was good or not. Owning the same jobs outright is $279 once, and the slice stops.
Nexa is $279 once. Invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, accounting — all connected, built for freelance writers. You own it like you own your Laptop / writing workstation.
Is Nexa actually right for a freelance writer?
An honest fit check — because the wrong tool is worse than no tool.
Right for you if
You run solo or a small team — like the 180,000 freelance writers in the US who do, and you wear every hat.
You're tired of paying every month for freshbooks and a pile of apps that don't talk to each other.
You want invoicing, scheduling, and client tracking in one place — not scattered across five apps.
You'd rather own your software once, the way you own your Laptop / writing workstation.
Look elsewhere if
You have a large team that needs enterprise seats, granular roles, and dedicated admin staff — Nexa is built for solo and small operators (1–5), and a bigger platform will serve you better.
You need full payroll for a large team or deep, SKU-level inventory — that's not what Nexa is for.
You're genuinely happy paying monthly and don't mind stitching tools together. No tool fixes a workflow you already like.
The honest fit: if you're a solo or small freelance writers business that owns its tools and is sick of renting software, Nexa replaces your whole stack for $279 once. If you're scaling into a large team with dedicated admin staff, a bigger platform may fit better — and we'd rather tell you that now than sell you the wrong thing.
Freelance Writers by the numbers — by place
What freelance writers charge, city by city
$94 /hravg local price
+57%vs national
moderatesaturation
~4,400operators
3%growth
$107 /hravg local price
+78%vs national
moderatesaturation
~2,774operators
5%growth
$72 /hravg local price
+20%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,817operators
6%growth
$86 /hravg local price
+43%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,197operators
8%growth
$89 /hravg local price
+48%vs national
moderatesaturation
~1,088operators
9%growth
Local rates and saturation vary widely — price for the city you serve, not a national average.
🎧 The Copywriter Club Podcast🎧 High-Income Business Writing🎧 The Freelance Writing Podcast
Forums
Absolute Write Water CoolerFreelance Writing Jobs Forum
Time tracking, invoicing and client records are the pieces of that day. Some tools rent you each piece separately. A few — Nexa among them — bundle the lot into something you buy once. The sections below price both routes honestly.
What freelance writers actually deal with
Tracking hours across 5-8 different client projects simultaneously
Late payments from clients — net-30 regularly turns into net-60
Managing contracts, scope creep, and revision rounds
Tax tracking and quarterly estimated payments with irregular income
FreshBooks costs $17/month just to invoice 5 clients
A day in the life of a freelance writer
I juggle five or six clients at a time: a couple of monthly blog retainers, a white paper for a software company, and one-off articles from editors I've worked with for years. A piece starts with the brief and, more often than not, the questions the brief didn't answer: who's the reader, what should they do next, what's the angle nobody has covered. Then research, interviews when the piece needs a real voice, an outline the client signs off on, and the draft. Writing is maybe half the time; the rest is reading, revising and checking every fact and quote. Revisions are where projects go sideways, so my contract says two rounds and I stick to it. Pitching never stops: story ideas to editors, follow-ups on the ones that went quiet, and keeping my portfolio current. I invoice on delivery or at the end of the month for retainers, and I track who pays in thirty days and who needs three reminders. Quarterly taxes are on my calendar, because nobody withholds anything for me.
The tools a working freelance writer actually owns
Laptop / writing workstation
Grammarly or ProWritingAid subscription
Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
Reference library and style guides (AP, Chicago)
Noise-canceling headphones
Their portfolio website
Why freelance writers leave the big platforms
freshbooks: $17/month for the 'Lite' plan (5 clients). Want more clients? $30/month. Want proposals? $55/month. Prices keep climbing.
toggl: $10/month just for time tracking. Doesn't do invoicing. So you need Toggl PLUS an invoicing app. That's $27+/month combined.
harvest: $11/month per user for time tracking and basic invoicing. The invoicing templates look amateur.
Where freelance writers actually talk shop
r/freelanceWriters (Reddit)
r/copywriting (Reddit)
r/freelance (Reddit)
r/WorkOnline (Reddit)
Absolute Write Water Cooler (Forum)
Freelance Writing Jobs Forum (Forum)
Location Rebel (YouTube)
Elna Cain (YouTube)
Local freelance writers on Nexa
Real freelance writers near you who run their business on Nexa — book directly, no platform fee.
Are you a freelance writer? Post your business and get found in your area — $2.99 one-time.
Or browse every freelance writer on Nexa →
The kit a working freelance writer owns
The tools of the trade — each a one-time buy that earns its keep for years.
Laptop / writing workstation
Grammarly or ProWritingAid subscription
Google Workspace or Microsoft 365
Reference library and style guides (AP, Chicago)
Noise-canceling headphones
Their portfolio website
You paid for these once because good tools last. That's the bar your software should clear too — priced like a tool you own, $279 once, not a subscription that costs more than your kit every year.
How To Read This Page
We make Nexa. It is one of the two options compared here, so read this with that in mind. We have tried to make Toggl Track's case the way we would want ours made — their strengths above are their own published feature list, not our summary of it.
The prices are Toggl Track's published list prices, checked on the date shown in the sources below. Plans change; check theirs before you decide.
No customer quotes appear on this page because we do not have any from freelance writers we can verify. For user testimony, read the independent reviews — Toggl Track on G2 and on Capterra — where the reviewers are not selling you anything.
Check the price yourself:Toggl Track's own pricing page is the source for every figure above, read on the date shown in the sources section below.
We are not neutral about subscriptions, and that is the argument, not a hidden assumption: software you pay for once is cheaper over three years than software you rent, unless you need something only the rented one does.
How we put this guide together
We build a freelance writer's guide the same way every time, and we'd rather you trust it than take it on faith. Nexa is our product, so the test we hold ourselves to is simple: a tool only "wins" a job here when it genuinely does that job better for a freelance writer — and where something free, open-source, or buy-once does it better, we say so and link you to it. Where Nexa falls short (payroll is the honest example), we name the alternative outright.
Where the numbers come from
Vendor pricingToggl Track $144/yr, Harvest $132/yr, FreshBooks $516/yr, Wave $228/yr — taken from each company's published plans, last verified September 2026. Pricing moves; each name above links straight to that vendor’s own pricing page so you can confirm it before you decide.
Income contextThe $48,000 median we cite for the typical freelance writer is occupational median annual pay from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Occupational Employment & Wage Statistics), compiled April 2026. We use it only to show software spend as a share of real income — your own numbers will differ.
The field's own bodiesWe anchor what freelance writers actually need to the people who set the standards — Authors Guild. We don't speak for them; we point you to them so you can weigh this guide against the profession's own.
Three-year mathMulti-year totals are today's list price multiplied by the number of years. No price rise is projected, so the figure can be checked against the vendor's own pricing page; if they raise it, the real cost is higher.
Found something out of date? Prices change and we don't catch every move the day it happens. This guide is published and maintained by the Nexa team; if a figure here is wrong, tell us and we'll fix it — getting it right matters more to us than the sale.
FAQ
Is Nexa really a Toggl Track replacement?
For solo freelance writers and small teams, yes. invoicing, scheduling, CRM, time tracking, task management, and full accounting — all for $279 once. Toggl Track may be better if you have a large team (10+) or need enterprise-specific features.
What does Toggl Track do that Nexa doesn't?
Toggl Track has features like Simple time tracking and Desktop and mobile apps that some businesses rely on. For most solo freelance writers, these aren't dealbreakers.
How fast does Nexa pay for itself?
At $12/month, Nexa pays for itself in 23.3 months. After that: $144 saved every year.
Can I pay in installments?
Yes. Nexa is $279 as a one-time payment, or 3 payments of $99 ($297 total). Either way it's a one-time purchase — no subscription, no recurring fees ever.