Keep creative projects on time, on budget and profitable
TimeMagick is time tracking and project profitability software for creative and design studios.
1-month free trial · See TimeMagick pricing
A project can stay within the quote and still lose money
Creative work is quoted before anyone knows how many rounds the client will want. The quote holds, the client is happy with the final design, and the invoice goes out for the agreed amount. But if the third and fourth rounds of revisions took as long as the original concepts, the studio earned far less per hour than it planned.
That is hard to see without tracking revisions as their own work. In TimeMagick, concepts, revisions, client changes, production and rendering can each be a task with its own hour budget, so the cost of every round is visible:
Step 1
Brief
Project created with its quote's hour budget and tasks.
Step 2
Concepts
Designers track concept work against its own task.
Step 3
Revisions
Revision hours tracked separately and compared with their budget.
Step 4
Production
Artwork, rendering and files planned on the Gantt.
Step 5
Client Approval
Feedback in the project channel; progress in the client workspace.
Step 6
Billing
Approved billable hours move to Project Billing and the invoice.
Stage and task names are examples; you create your own tasks and statuses.
Track creative work without interrupting it
Designers should not spend their afternoon reconstructing the morning. In TimeMagick, a designer starts the timer on a project and task from the Windows desktop app or the iOS and Android apps, and switches when the work changes. Every entry carries its client, project, task and member.
The same approach works across creative disciplines: graphic design and branding, UX/UI and product design, industrial design, 3D and rendering, animation and content production. TimeMagick does not integrate with design tools; it records time against the tasks you create.
How time tracking worksUnderstand where project hours went
"The branding project took 109 hours" does not tell you what to change next time. Hours by task do:
A project total
Brand & packaging: 109 h
No view of what the hours were spent on.
Project and task
- Concepts → 28 h
- Revisions → 38 h
- Client Changes → 14 h
- Production → 25 h
- Rendering → 3 h
Illustrative totals built from individual time entries.
Tasks can follow your process, for example Concepts, Revisions, Client Changes, Production, Rendering, Documentation and Project Management. Reports show the hours by client, project, member and task, and export as formatted Excel.
How reports workCatch endless revisions before they consume the budget
Revisions are where creative budgets disappear, one "small change" at a time. Give the project an hour budget and the Revisions task its own share, and TimeMagick compares both with the hours actually spent.
Example · brand identity and packaging
- Budget
- 120 h
- Spent
- 109 h
- Remaining
- 11 h
91% of the budget used. Revisions alone used 38 hours against the 20 planned, with production and rendering still to come.
Budget against time spent appears on the project card, in the project overview, on each Gantt task, beside the billable total in tracked-time approval and on the admin dashboard. Budget alerts and forecasting work from the same numbers, so the conversation about an extra round can happen before it is done for free.
How project budgets workPlan the studio's workload across projects
When a revision round runs long, the next project's start date moves too. Seeing both on the same plan makes the knock-on effect visible.
- An interactive Gantt per project, with drag to reschedule and resizable durations
- Assignees, progress, budget and spent hours beside every task
- A portfolio Gantt across every client's projects
- Resource planning that shows who is working on which project tasks across projects
- A Projects board with custom statuses, such as Client Approval
See how studio time is spent without capturing screens
Distributed studios often want a view of the working day, but screenshots of unreleased client work are exactly what many studios do not want stored. TimeMagick records activity data instead:
- Activity % from keyboard clicks, mouse clicks and mouse movement
- Active apps and URLs, with time per item
- Productive, Neutral or Unproductive classification that you set per role or member
- Idle time, and Private Time that withholds app and URL detail
No screenshots are taken. Activity supports the time data; it does not replace judgement about creative work.
How activity monitoring worksKeep client feedback with the project it changes
Round-three feedback spread across email, calls and chat is how nobody notices round three happened. Every TimeMagick project has its own channel, next to its tasks, hours and budget, with file attachments and search. Client Members join project channels and groups from their workspace.
TimeMagick is not a proofing tool: there is no on-image annotation or artwork approval, and files shared in a channel are attachments to the conversation.
How project communication worksGive the client their own workspace
Clients want to know where their project is and what is due. Client Members are external accounts linked to one or more of your clients, with a Dashboard, Projects, Timesheets, Report, Message Channels and Sensai.
The Client Dashboard shows Total Projects, Total Tasks, Completed, Weekly Hours Logged and Overdue Tasks, with project status and due tasks. The client sees progress and hours; your team keeps control of the project.
How the client portal worksDecide which revision hours the client pays for
Some revision rounds are included in the quote and some are extra. In tracked-time approval, the approver sets a billable percentage for each entry, with the project budget beside the total:
- 6 hours of revisions
- approved at 50%
- 3 billable hours
- Project Billing
- invoice
Project Billing shows billable hours against hours already billed for each client and project. Invoices take duration-based and quantity-based lines, taxes and notes, and download as PDF.
How billing and invoicing workCount licences, printing and freelancers in the project cost
Font licences, packaging mock-ups, stock assets and freelance illustrators all reduce what a project earns. In TimeMagick, company expenses are linked to the project, given your own categories and sent through approval, and recurring costs such as software subscriptions go into Recurring Expenses.
How expenses workSee the true profitability of revision-heavy projects
The arithmetic is simple. A €9,000 project planned at 120 hours earns €75 an hour. If revisions push it to 165 hours, the same fee earns about €55 an hour, and the client never sees a different invoice.
TimeMagick's KPI module shows that effect from the hours, budgets, client rates, expenses and billing already in the system: Effective Rate, profit and margin by client and project, Low-Profit Projects, the Most and Least Profitable Clients and Client Health.
Illustration (demo data, fictional projects and clients).
The example above is plain arithmetic to show the principle; it is not TimeMagick's Effective Rate formula.
Example workflow · fictional
Example: a brand identity and packaging project
A studio quotes a brand identity and packaging project at 120 hours. In TimeMagick, the studio would:
- Create the project with its client and 120-hour budget, and add tasks for Concepts, Revisions, Client Changes, Production and Rendering, each with its share.
- Schedule the work on the Gantt and check the designers' other projects in resource planning.
- Have designers track time against those tasks.
- See Revisions pass its 20-hour budget and agree in the project channel how the next round will be handled.
- Record the font licence and packaging mock-up print as project expenses.
- Approve the hours, including extra revisions at the agreed billable percentage, and invoice from Project Billing.
- Check the project's effective rate and margin in the Profitability module before quoting the next one.
This is an illustrative example, not a customer case study.
Where TimeMagick fits in a creative studio
TimeMagick manages the hours, budgets, plans, client visibility, billing and profitability around creative work. Your design tools stay where they are: it has no Figma or Adobe integration, no proofing or annotation, and it does not manage design files or versions.
Pricing is per user, and every plan includes every feature. See TimeMagick pricing.
TimeMagick for creative and design studios: key facts
- TimeMagick is time tracking and project profitability software that creative and design studios use to track hours by project and task.
- Revisions and client changes can be tracked as their own tasks, each with an hour budget.
- Each project's hour budget is shown against time spent, with budget alerts and forecasting.
- TimeMagick includes per-project and portfolio Gantt, a Projects board and resource planning.
- Activity visibility covers Activity %, apps, URLs and idle time; TimeMagick takes no screenshots.
- Every project has its own channel where the team and Client Members discuss the work and share files.
- Client Members get a workspace with Dashboard, Projects, Timesheets, Report, Message Channels and Sensai.
- Tracked time is approved with a billable percentage before it reaches Project Billing and the invoice.
- The KPI module shows Effective Rate, client margin, Low-Profit Projects and Client Health.
- TimeMagick has no visual proofing or annotation tool and no Figma or Adobe integration.
Frequently Asked Questions
Design hours, revisions, budgets, workload, client feedback, billing and project profitability for creative studios.
Is TimeMagick suitable for creative and design studios?
Yes, for studios that deliver client projects, including branding, graphic design, UX/UI, product and industrial design, 3D and rendering, animation and content production. Designers track time against project tasks, managers watch each project's hour budget, clients get their own workspace, and the same hours flow into billing and profitability.
Can TimeMagick show how revisions affect project profitability?
Yes, when revisions are tracked as their own task. If a studio creates tasks such as Concepts, Revisions, Client Changes and Production, every revision hour is recorded against that task and compared with its budget, and the project's profit, margin and effective rate in the KPI module reflect the hours actually spent. TimeMagick does not count revision rounds automatically.
Can designers track time by project and task?
Yes. Designers track time from the Windows desktop app or the iOS and Android apps against a specific project and task, and each entry carries its client and member.
Can TimeMagick track creative project budgets?
Yes. Each project has an hour budget, and each task can have its own. Budget against time spent appears on the project card, in the project overview, on the Gantt, in tracked-time approval and on the admin dashboard, with budget alerts and forecasting.
Does TimeMagick take screenshots of designers' screens?
No. TimeMagick records Activity %, active apps and URLs, idle time and productivity classifications, never screenshots. Private Time keeps time counting while app and URL detail is withheld.
Can clients give feedback in TimeMagick?
Yes, in conversation. Client Members use Message Channels, with project channels and groups, and can share files there. TimeMagick has no visual proofing or annotation tool; files in a channel are attachments to the conversation.
Can creative clients see project progress?
Yes. Client Members get their own workspace with a Dashboard, Projects, Timesheets, Report, Message Channels and Sensai, showing their projects, hours and due tasks. They cannot edit your projects.
Can TimeMagick track studio expenses like licences and printing?
Yes. Company expenses can be linked to a project with your own categories, such as font licences, printing, stock assets or freelance work, and go through approval, so they count in the project's cost.
See what your revisions really cost
Start a 1-month free trial and track your next creative project against its tasks and budget.