An ActiveCollab alternative with one flat price for the whole team
Projects for each client, time tracking, budgets, invoices, a client portal and team workload in one tool. Decknote Pro costs $9 a month for the whole team, however many people you add.
No credit card. The free plan has time tracking, 2 clients and the CSV import.
What Decknote does for client work
It started as a kanban board where every card is a document, and that is still the heart of it: the plan, the notes and the hours live on the same card.
A project for each client
Every board can be a project with its client, status, dates, hourly rate and budget. Your clients live in one list, and the projects overview shows hours, billable share and budget burn at a glance.
Time tracking that nobody has to nag about
Start a timer on any task, type hours into a weekly timesheet or add them by hand. One running timer per person, kept on the server, so a closed laptop never loses or inflates it.
Estimates and budgets
Estimate each task, give the project a budget in hours or in money, and watch the bar turn amber and then red. Reports break hours down by project, client, person, task or day.
Invoices and estimates from the hours you tracked
Turn billable, unbilled time into an invoice or an estimate, grouped by task, person or day. Your client opens it from a link, with no account, and can print it to PDF or accept an estimate.
A client portal, by link
Share a project with a link: your client sees the tasks you choose, optionally the hours against the budget (never your rates), and can comment on a task. You can revoke the link at any time.
Team workload
See, per person and per week, how much work is planned against what each person can take on, so nobody finds out on Friday that the week was overbooked.
Project templates
Save a project as a template, with its lists, tasks, estimates and settings, and start the next client's project from it with the dates shifted.
Agents can work in it too
Decknote has an MCP server: Claude, ChatGPT and other agents can create tasks, log time and read reports with your own permissions, and every change that sends or deletes something asks first.
The real screens
These are screenshots of the app with sample data, on a computer and on a phone.
Hours by person, budget and billable amount
A weekly timesheet that fills itself
Reports by project, client or person
Bring your hours, see them before they are written
Priced per team, not per user
Decknote Pro is $9 a month for the person who owns the boards. Everyone they invite gets the Pro features on those boards, free. Growing your team does not grow your bill.
- 2 people: $9 a month
- 8 people: $9 a month
- 25 people: $9 a month
Billed yearly it is $90 a year. There is a 14-day free trial of Pro and a free plan that does not expire.
See what is in each planBring your hours with you
Export your time as a CSV from Toggl Track, Harvest, Clockify or any other tool that can, and import it. Decknote recognizes those three by their columns; for any other CSV you say which column is the date, which the duration, and so on.
- Clients, projects and tasks are created for you, and reused if you already have them
- A preview shows everything that will be created before it is written
- Importing the same file twice never duplicates a row
- The whole import can be undone
Questions
Is Decknote an alternative to ActiveCollab?
It is built for the same kind of work: studios and freelancers who run projects for clients, with tasks, time tracking, estimates and budgets, invoices, a client portal and team workload. We do not describe ActiveCollab's features or prices here, because we cannot vouch for them: compare with what you need on their site. What we can tell you for sure is how Decknote is priced.
How is Decknote priced?
Per team, not per user. Decknote Pro is $9 a month (or $90 a year) for the owner of the boards, and everyone you invite gets the Pro features on those boards at no extra cost. Adding the sixth, the twentieth or the fortieth person does not change the bill.
What does the free plan include?
Time tracking and timesheets on every board, 2 clients, 2 invoices or estimates a month, 1 project template and the import from a CSV. It is meant for one person trying it on real work. Pro removes those limits and adds the client portal, the workload view and the CSV export of reports.
Can I bring my hours from another tool?
Yes. Decknote reads exports from Toggl Track, Harvest and Clockify, and any CSV with a date and a duration: you say which column is which. It creates the clients, projects and tasks, shows you everything before writing anything, never duplicates a row you import twice, and lets you undo the whole import.
What can my clients see?
Only what you share. A project link shows the tasks you mark as visible, optionally the hours against the budget (in hours only: no rates, no money budget, no names) and the project's invoices, and lets your client comment on a task. Other clients and your internal notes are never part of it. Invoices and estimates also have their own link.
Who is Decknote for?
Studios, agencies and freelancers who run client work with a small team and want one place for the plan, the hours and the bill. It is not built for large organizations that need single sign-on or custom role systems.