Honest comparison
Focus Meter vs Toggl Track
Toggl Track is an excellent tool built for a different job: billing hours to projects and clients. Focus Meter is built to show where your own attention went.
Quick answer
Toggl Track is a cloud-based project time tracker for billing and teams. Focus Meter is an on-device, automatic focus tracker for personal productivity at $19 once.
Toggl Track and Focus Meter both draw a colored timeline of your day, but they answer different questions. Toggl tracks hours against projects so you can invoice and report — by hand or with an auto-tracker you assign afterward. Focus Meter runs automatically with no projects, no timers, and no account, and tells you where your focus actually went. If you bill clients, Toggl is the right tool. If you want personal focus analytics, that’s us.
At a glance
| Feature | Toggl Track | Focus Meter |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free or $9–18 / user / mo | $19 one-time |
| Primary use case | Project & team billing | Personal focus analytics |
| Tracking method | Manual timers + auto-tracker | Fully automatic |
| Organized around | Projects & clients | Apps, websites, categories |
| Focus score (0–100) | No | Yes |
| Invoicing / team features | Yes | No (individual focus) |
| Data storage | Cloud (their servers) | Local only (your Mac) |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Native Mac app | Cross-platform | Yes (Swift/SwiftUI) |
| Works fully offline | Limited | Always |
Where Toggl Track shines
- Best-in-class project time tracking — timers, billable rates, clients, and tags.
- Strong reporting, invoicing-friendly exports, and team timesheets.
- Genuinely usable free tier (up to 5 users), 100+ integrations, and apps on every platform.
Where Focus Meter is different
Focus analytics, not a timesheet
Toggl is organized around projects and clients so you can bill or report. Focus Meter has no project concept at all — it gives you a single 0–100 focus score, a weekly digest, and trends, built for improving your attention rather than invoicing it.
Automatic, with nothing to remember
Toggl depends on you starting timers or assigning auto-tracked blocks to projects. Focus Meter records your apps and websites automatically and categorizes them with sensible defaults — there is no daily upkeep to forget.
On-device, no account
Toggl is a cloud service: your activity lives on their servers behind a login. Focus Meter makes zero network requests, stores everything in a local SQLite file, and never asks for an email.
Native Mac, one-time price
Toggl is cross-platform and priced per user, per month. Focus Meter is a native Swift menu-bar app built for Mac only, for a one-time $19 — no per-seat subscription.
Cost over three years
| Toggl Track | Focus Meter | |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | Free or $108–216 | $19 |
| Year 2 | Free or $216–432 total | $19 total |
| Year 3 | Free or $324–648 total | $19 total |
Use Toggl Track if…
Freelancers, agencies, and teams who bill or report hours and need projects, billable rates, timesheets, and invoicing-ready exports.
Use Focus Meter if…
Salaried Mac users who want to understand and improve their own focus — no projects, no timers, no account, and no monthly per-seat fee.
FAQ
Is Toggl Track or Focus Meter better for freelancers?
Toggl, if your hours turn into invoices. It’s purpose-built for project billing, billable rates, and timesheets that Focus Meter intentionally doesn’t have. Focus Meter is for understanding your focus, not billing it.
Can Focus Meter track billable hours like Toggl?
Not directly — there’s no project or client concept in the app. You can export CSV/JSON and slice the data yourself, but for invoicing, Toggl Track is the right tool.
Is Focus Meter cheaper than Toggl Track?
It depends. Toggl has a free tier for up to five users; its paid plans run $9–18 per user per month. Focus Meter is $19 once. If you need Toggl’s billing features, pay for Toggl. If you only want automatic focus analytics, Focus Meter is a one-time purchase with no per-seat fee.
Does Toggl keep my data on-device like Focus Meter?
No. Toggl is a cloud service — your tracked time syncs to their servers behind an account. Toggl’s desktop auto-tracker records activity locally until you add it, but the time entries themselves live in the cloud. Focus Meter makes zero network requests and keeps everything on your Mac.
If you bill hours, use Toggl. If you want to understand your focus, try Focus Meter.
$19 one-time · No subscription · 100% on-device