vs
Harvest alternative for marketing agencies
Make every hour answer to the retainer it serves.
Time tracking that already knows the retainer. Every hour lands on the right budget and moves the margin the same day.
Day 14 of 22
Northline Studio, October
The short answer
Verbial is a Harvest alternative for agencies that need time paced against retainers by department. Time tracking, invoicing and proposals are on every plan from $79 per month and your Harvest history imports intact; Harvest still suits a simple timer with hourly invoicing.
What Harvest does well
- One of the simplest, most reliable timers on the market.
- Apps for every platform, desktop and mobile.
- Integrations with Asana, Trello, Slack and QuickBooks Online, plus a free single seat.
Why agencies move
What changes with Verbial
- Retainers come first: department allocations, overages, carryover and period history, paced live.
- Agency invoicing: retainers in advance, hourly from approved time, media pass-through.
- Profitability from contracted revenue and absorbed salaried cost, not hours times rate.
- Harvest history comes with you: clients, projects, tasks and every time entry.
How the workflow changes
What your agency gets with Verbial
Checks mean a capability Verbial provides. Competitor detail is included for a fair, documented comparison as of 2026-09-03.
| Agency workflow | With Verbial | With Harvest |
|---|---|---|
| Timer and timesheets | Timer, weekly timesheet, approvals, reminders | Timer, timesheets, approvals, mobile and desktop apps |
| Retainer budgets | Per department, with overages, carryover and history | Project budgets in hours or fees |
| Budget alerts | By client and department, in-app, email or Slack | By project |
| Invoicing | Retainers in advance, overages, hourly, media pass-through | From tracked time and expenses, paid via Stripe or PayPal |
| Proposals and e-signature | Native, first invoice at signature | Not a Harvest featureSeparate tool |
| CRM | Included in every plan | Not a Harvest featureSeparate tool |
| Utilization and capacity | By person and department, against retainer allocations | Capacity reports by person |
| Profitability | Contracted revenue, absorbed cost, idle time, servicing gap | Billable versus cost rate per project |
| Client reporting | White-label reports and portal on your domain | Not a Harvest featureSeparate tool |
| Roles | Members see hours, account managers budgets, admins cost | Member, manager, administrator |
| Pricing basis | Flat plan price, seats included, no usage fees | Per seat plus usage fees above plan limits |
| List price | From $99 per month with 3 full and 5 contributor seats included. Configure yours. | $9 per seat per month, Teams, billed annually ($11 monthly), plus usage-based fees for invoices, projects, clients and tasks above the plan's included amounts |
Modules
The parts of Verbial that take over from Harvest
Time tracking
Know which clients are over-serviced while you can still fix it, and invoice from hours you trust.
Invoicing
Bill every kind of work from what the client signed, get paid faster, and stop losing unbilled hours.
Profitability
See which clients actually make you money, and price the next renewal from evidence.
Questions
Why do agencies move from Harvest to Verbial?
Harvest tracks time against projects; agencies sell retainers by department. Verbial paces each allocation live, invoices retainers in advance and computes margin from contracted revenue and absorbed cost.
What happens to our Harvest history?
It comes with you. The migration hub connects to your Harvest account or reads its CSV exports and imports clients, projects, tasks and every time entry, with people matched by email.
Does Verbial have a timer?
Yes. A running timer, weekly timesheet, approvals and reminders, on every plan.
How does the price compare?
Harvest Teams lists at $9 per seat per month billed annually, plus usage fees above plan limits. Verbial Pro is $99 per month with 2 full and 5 contributor seats, then $29 per active full seat and $9 per contributor. See /pricing.
Agency operating software
Try Verbial next to Harvest for a billing cycle.
Bring your data across, keep the old tool read-only, and compare the numbers on real work.