Attorney Timekeeping App: 5 Steps to Pick One in 2027

Short answer: which attorney timekeeping app to shortlist

Choosing an attorney timekeeping app starts with one category decision: whether your firm needs a tool that captures and bills time, or a practice system that also handles trust accounting and LEDES files. An attorney timekeeping app records billable hours against client matters, applies your rates and produces invoices you can send to clients.

TL;DR: If you bill hourly and want time, invoices and trust records in one place, shortlist Bill4Time's Legal Pro plan and MyCase's Pro plan first, because both publish prices and list LEDES on the plan you would buy. If automatic time capture matters more than a published price, request a quote for Smokeball's Prosper+ plan, the only scored plan whose page lists automatic capture as included. TimeSolv is also quote-based, so expect a sales conversation before you can compare it.

Key Takeaways

• Decide the category first: a time-and-invoice tool and a full practice system with trust and LEDES support are different purchases.

• Bill4Time and PracticePanther publish a price for every plan, MyCase publishes three plans, and Smokeball and TimeSolv publish no plan prices.

• On the pages we read, LEDES and trust accounting sit on higher plans, so compare plan names rather than headline rates.

• Automatic time capture is the least documented feature: only Smokeball's Prosper+ plan lists it as included.

• Per-user pricing compounds, and MyCase's accounting add-on changes the annual total for a six-person firm.

• Clio, a name many buyers search first, is not scored here because its pricing and help pages would not load during our research.

Where the pain lives: the gap between a time entry and a paid invoice

Most timekeeping losses in small firms show up as hours never recorded, not as a line on a report. Admin workarounds: 4.16 billable hours lost weekly according to Legal Futures (2026). That figure comes from 200 legal professionals and firm leaders in the UK, surveyed by Censuswide in April 2026 and commissioned by Access Legal, which also promotes its own product in the article. Treat it as directional rather than as a US benchmark.

The second gap sits in billing. Once time is in a system, it has to become an invoice a client accepts, and for some corporate clients and insurers that means a LEDES file. Invoicing software use: 80% of respondents according to ABA Journal (2025). The same report found that Accounting built into practice software: 37% of firms according to ABA Journal (2025). That report is vendor-published: it comes from AffiniPay, and its author is a principal legal insight strategist at MyCase, one of the products compared below. Read it as industry context, not as proof that any one product works.

Where a firm wants a review step on top of whichever app it picks, US Tech Automations would propose a daily review workflow as a configurable design, not as a live deployment. The trigger is a daily schedule or a timekeeping export that lands in a shared folder. The action matches each entry to a matter number, flags entries with no matter, no narrative or no duration, and drafts a billing batch. The output is a review queue for the billing lead, and nothing reaches a client until a person approves it. The prerequisites are a CSV export or API access from the timekeeping app. None of the pricing pages we read describe either, so get both in writing before you buy. The human review points are the billing lead's approval of every flagged entry and of any rate change.

US Tech Automations would also propose an intake design, because a missing billing arrangement can block time from being logged at all. HubSpot's generic webhooks list six subscription types, including object.propertyChange, which sends a property change to a target URL, according to HubSpot (undated developer guide). The trigger is a property change on a HubSpot contact. The action opens a matter checklist that requires a billing arrangement, hourly, flat fee or contingency, before any time can be logged against the matter. The output is a task for the billing lead. The review point is the billing lead's confirmation of the engagement letter and rate before the matter number is created. The prerequisites are a HubSpot app subscription, an endpoint your firm controls to receive the event, and a matter-number mapping your firm owns.

How we evaluated these attorney timekeeping apps

We evaluated five products using public information only: each vendor's own pricing and feature pages, trade-press coverage of industry surveys, and one developer reference. Nothing here comes from hands-on use of the products, and the weights below are our judgment, not a published standard.

The weights total 100%. Time capture and invoicing together carry 45% because a tool that misses hours or cannot produce a LEDES file fails the job regardless of price. Export access carries 15% because your records should be able to leave the tool.

Clio is the name many buyers search first, and it is not scored here. Clio's pricing and help pages returned access errors to our research tools, so we print no Clio price and claim no Clio feature.

The industry figures come from trade press that reports vendor-commissioned surveys. We did not find an independent adoption rate for automatic time capture, so this guide does not state one. Table 4 lists every sourced figure and where it comes from.

Feature matrix from the pages we read

Each cell reflects only what the vendor page says. "Not described" means the page is silent, not that the feature is missing. The silences matter as much as the checkmarks, because they are the questions to put to a vendor in writing.

What each vendor publishes about price

Each figure below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, cited beside it. Checked November 13, 2026: MyCase's plan prices and Bill4Time's 14-day trial were re-verified that day, and the other vendors' figures are as first read in our research.

MyCase's Basic, Pro and Advanced plans cost $50, $100 and $130 per user per month on annual billing, or $60, $120 and $150 billed monthly, and it also sells an accounting add-on, according to MyCase.

Bill4Time's four plans cost $39 to $89 per user per month on annual billing and $49 to $99 billed monthly, and the page offers a 14-day free trial with no card needed, according to Bill4Time.

PracticePanther's four plans cost $49 to $114 per user per month on annual billing and $59 to $124 billed monthly, according to PracticePanther.

Smokeball's four plans, Bill, Boost, Grow and Prosper+, are all quote-based, and the page publishes no billing term, according to Smokeball.

TimeSolv's two plans, Pro and Legal, are both quote-based, according to TimeSolv.

Table 3 turns the published figures into a six-user annual cost, calculated as 6 users × annual price × 12 months. It excludes add-ons, implementation, taxes and any discount a sales team offers.

For a six-user firm, MyCase's Pro plan costs $100 per user per month on annual billing before the accounting add-on, whose price we do not state here, so get it in writing. Bill4Time's Legal Pro plan has a six-user annual total in the table above and lists LEDES and trust accounting, so compare that total with MyCase's Pro total plus the add-on once the add-on is priced. The PracticePanther page labels one column inconsistently, so confirm the Business price in writing before you budget.

Vendor profiles: best fit, limits and implementation

Bill4Time

Best fit: hourly firms that want a published per-user price and LEDES export on a named plan. Our read: the pricing page gives a clear published route to LEDES among the five products. Limitations: the page does not list automatic capture and does not describe invoicing terms. Implementation: use the 14-day trial with one real month of entries, then check the export file against the format your client requires before you commit to Legal Pro.

MyCase

Best fit: firms that want time, invoicing, LEDES and trust in one product and accept per-user pricing across three tiers. Our read: the page documents the widest set of billing features among the five, but several of them sit above the entry tier. Limitations: LEDES and invoicing are absent from Basic, the accounting add-on is extra per user, and rate plans and the work-in-progress report appear only on Advanced. Implementation: map your rate plans before any import, and get the accounting add-on priced in writing before you choose Pro.

PracticePanther

Best fit: firms that want time tracking on every plan and can accept a tier jump for LEDES. Our read: the feature list on the pricing page is partial, so the plan that fits your billing is not always the cheapest one. Limitations: LEDES starts at Business, trust accounting starts at Business Pro, and the page lists no automatic capture. Implementation: confirm in writing which plan carries LEDES and trust accounting, and ask whether you need both, since that decides the tier.

Smokeball

Best fit: firms that want automatic time capture and will go through a quote-based process. Our read: Smokeball is the only scored vendor whose page ties automatic capture to a named plan, so its quote is the document to request first. Limitations: no plan prices or billing terms are published, manual entry runs through Grow, AutoTime is an add-on on Grow, and the comparison table marks trust management as "Fees apply." Implementation: ask for one quote that lists each plan, AutoTime, trust fees and the billing term together.

TimeSolv

Best fit: firms comfortable with a quote-first process that want a billing-led product. Our read: of the five, the public pages give the least usable detail for comparison. Limitations: neither plan has a published price, and the pricing page does not tie LEDES or trust accounting to a named plan. TimeSolv's features page lists time tracking, trust accounting and billing and invoicing without naming a plan for each. It also sells priced CRM and website add-ons, and payment processing through LawPay is quote-based. Implementation: ask for a written feature-by-plan table before the demo.

Who this is for

Bill4Time. Who this is for: hourly firms that want published per-user prices and LEDES export on a named plan.

Red flags: no automatic capture is listed, LEDES requires Legal Pro, and invoicing terms are not described on the page.

MyCase. Who this is for: firms that want time, invoicing, LEDES and trust in one product and can pay per user.

Red flags: the accounting add-on is extra on Pro and Advanced, LEDES and invoicing are not on Basic, and rate plans require Advanced.

PracticePanther. Who this is for: firms that want time tracking on every plan and can accept a tier jump for LEDES.

Red flags: the feature list is partial and one column label is inconsistent, trust accounting requires Business Pro, and no automatic capture is listed.

Smokeball. Who this is for: firms that want automatic time capture and will accept a quote-based process.

Red flags: no plan prices or billing terms are published, manual entry runs through Grow with AutoTime as an add-on, and trust management is marked "Fees apply."

TimeSolv. Who this is for: firms that want a billing-led product and can wait for a sales conversation.

Red flags: neither plan has a published price, LEDES and trust accounting are not tied to a named plan, and add-ons are priced separately.

Build it in Zapier, Make, or n8n instead?

A DIY build is a real alternative. Zap auto-pause trigger: 95% of runs in 7 days according to Zapier (undated help page). The same help page says Autoreplay, which retries failed steps, is an account-wide setting for Professional plans and higher, and that error-setting overrides are available on Company plans.

Those tools can support run histories, retries, error branches and audit evidence when you configure them. The buyer still designs and owns idempotency, so a retried run does not post the same time entry twice. The buyer also owns escalation to a named person, access controls over client data, and upkeep when a connected app changes its fields. We did not open Make's or n8n's documentation for this guide, so we make no claim about their plan terms.

A proposed US Tech Automations design would differ mainly in scope. It would configure the matter checklist, the flagged-entry queue and the escalation path before go-live, with a named billing reviewer, and it would still depend on the export or API access from the app you buy. A firm with an engineer and stable exports may be better served by building in-house.

A six-person firm, worked through

This example is illustrative, not a customer. Suppose six timekeepers each lose 4.16 billable hours a week, the UK survey average cited above. Six times 4.16 is 24.96 hours a week, and at an assumed 48 working weeks that is 1,198 hours a year. If a review workflow recovers half of those hours, the firm has 599 hours a year to bill, which is the number to weigh against the license cost in the pricing table above. The intake side maps to HubSpot's documentation, which identifies the changed property in the payload and lists object.propertyChange as a subscription type. We used HubSpot because it is the public API reference we could open in this research. We did not find a public API reference for MyCase, so this identifier is not a MyCase field.

When a simpler app is the right answer

When not to use US Tech Automations: A configured review workflow is the wrong purchase when a simpler tool already solves the problem. If you bill only flat fees and do not log time, an invoicing tool with no timer is simpler. If one timekeeper bills on one plan with no LEDES requirement, the entry plan of a single app is simpler than any added layer. If nobody on your team will own a weekly review queue, a workflow adds steps without an owner, and a plain timekeeping app with a manual weekly check is the more honest choice.

Five steps to pick one

1. Write down how each matter is billed: hourly, flat fee or contingency. Plan choice depends on this.

2. Mark your must-haves: LEDES export, trust accounting and automatic capture. Label every other feature as nice-to-have.

3. Shortlist by plan name, not headline price. Find the plan that contains each must-have, then compare that plan's price.

4. Ask each vendor, in writing, for the plan that includes each must-have, the export format, any API or integration access, and the full price of every add-on.

5. Run one real month of entries through a trial, then check the invoices and trust ledger against your own records before you sign. Bill4Time's page offers 14 days with no card, while the quote-based vendors will need a sales process first.

Glossary

• Matter: the client case or engagement that time is recorded against.

• LEDES: Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard, a billing file format some corporate clients and insurers require.

• Trust accounting: tracking client funds held separately from firm money, and reconciling them each period.

• Automatic time capture: software that proposes time entries from activity such as calls, emails or documents, which a person then approves.

• Realization: the share of recorded time that ends up on a paid invoice.

• Write-off: recorded time the firm decides not to bill.

• Work in progress (WIP): recorded time that has not yet been invoiced.

• Idempotency: a design property where a retried request does not create a duplicate record.

Questions buyers ask first

Which attorney timekeeping app has the lowest published price?

Among the five scored products, Bill4Time's Time & Billing plan has the lowest published per-user price, so it is the first plan to compare on annual billing.

Should Clio be on my list?

Yes, Clio belongs on your list, but this guide cannot give you its price or features because its pages would not load during our research.

Do I need LEDES if I only bill hourly?

Only if a client or insurer requires LEDES files. Among the five scored products, LEDES appears on Bill4Time's Legal Pro plan and above, MyCase's Pro and Advanced plans, and PracticePanther's Business plan and above.

Can automatic time capture replace manual entry?

Not on the evidence we read. Only Smokeball's Prosper+ plan lists automatic capture as included, and its page does not say how much manual entry remains.

Can I skip a dedicated app and build this in Zapier?

Yes, for a narrow pilot, but you then own run monitoring, replay, access control and maintenance. That is the tradeoff covered in the build section above.

Conclusion

Start with the category decision, then shortlist by plan name and confirm LEDES, trust accounting and export terms in writing before you pick. Bill4Time, MyCase and PracticePanther publish plan-level prices, and each includes LEDES on at least one plan, which makes them the easiest three to budget. If you want a proposed review step on top of whichever app you choose, see how US Tech Automations configures this.