Why Kimai believes in fair pricing

If you’ve gone looking for an affordable or free time tracking solution for your business, you’ve probably noticed a pattern: almost every tool you compare raises prices once or twice a year, quietly moves features behind higher tiers, or sunsets the plan you signed up for. We built Kimai to work differently.

A problem business owners run into

You pick a time tracking tool. It fits your budget, it has the features your team needs, you roll it out, everyone gets used to it. Then, a year or two later, one of these happens:

• The renewal price quietly goes up
• A feature you rely on moves to a higher tier
• Sales calls become mandatory, “contact us for pricing” replaces a transparent price list
• Switching costs become the real product

None of this is unique to time tracking. But for small teams and independent professionals running an employee time tracking solution comparison to find something that fits a real budget, it’s exhausting to plan around a tool whose price you can’t predict a year out.

The philosophy we believe in

We built Kimai’s pricing around a different set of assumptions, and these facts and numbers prove it:

• Kimai Cloud monthly subscription starting from €2,99 per user / monthly is one of the best proposals on the market
• Since 2019, we’ve raised our cloud price exactly once
• Loyalty gets rewarded, not punished. When we did raise prices, we left the door open for new customers to keep the old rate by choosing annual billing
• We grandfathered all existing customers for unlimited time, no one was forced into the new pricing structure
• We keep a free time tracking app for self-hosting. Project and customer management, billable and non-billable hours, multiple billing rates, invoicing, reporting are part of the product, not an upsell (yes, we have paid premium features, we somehow need to pay our own bills as well)
• Non-profits get a special offer for the cloud: €0.99 per user / month
• No coupon games: no promotions through third-party sites. One simple and fair pricing structure for everyone, all year around.
• We believe in fairness in business and life: if you commit to a plan, you should be able to rely on its pricing

We don’t think that low, predictable prices and sustainable software are at odds.

But everyone raised prices

Yes, that’s totally correct, and we’re not immune to it either: our infrastructure costs are about 3x higher than they used to be. We feel the same price hikes in our own lives, and our team wants to see that reflected in their pay too. Our development systems cost far more than they did two years ago.

But that’s not necessarily a reason to raise prices. We absorb the costs, so you can rely on stable prices.

We’re bootstrapped, no VC money behind Kimai. Nobody is pushing us for growth numbers or higher margins each quarter, so we get to decide what “success” looks like for us. And to us, it looks like a customer who can trust a price they signed up for two years ago.

We can’t promise that this works forever, but we try to keep prices as stable as we can. It’s about running a trustworthy, open, sustainable open-source business, not about maximizing profit.

A quick checklist before you choose a time tracking app

If you’re in the middle of comparing tools for your team, it’s worth checking each candidate against a few questions before you commit:

• Are core features (reporting, invoicing, multiple billing rates) included, or do they sit behind a higher tier you’ll need eventually?
• Is pricing public, or does it require a sales call to find out what you’ll actually pay?
• Can you export your data easily if you ever decide to leave - or does the tool quietly depend on switching costs to keep you?

For a deeper look at what time tracking software actually costs across the market — and where the hidden costs tend to hide — read our breakdown: How Much Is Time Tracking?

Try it yourself - free for 30 days

See what fair-priced, fully-featured time tracking looks like for your team? Start your free 30-day trial of Kimai Cloud with no credit card tricks, no forced upgrade, just the real product.