Agency Time Tracking Software to Tie Every Hour to a Client
For SEO agencies on monthly retainers, where hours decide profit.
Lumea Direct is agency time tracking software built inside a working SEO agency. Every hour goes to a client or to overhead. So you see which clients earn you money, and which ones cost you.
Two clients each pay you $1,700 a month, so on paper they look the same. One takes 40 hours of your team's time, and the other takes 6. Nobody knows which is which, including you. The hours sit in a timer app, and the fee sits in a spreadsheet. In Lumea, the answer sits next to each client's name.
What Does Lumea's Agency Time Tracking Show You?
Lumea shows where every hour of your team's week went, by client and by person. Each hour goes to a client or to overhead, like admin or sales. As the owner, you see everyone's time. Each team member sees their own week, and they can clock in from a phone.
Your team clocks in and out, or adds a past day by hand when they forget. They pick the client before the timer starts, and they can switch clients without stopping it. Each hour lands on the right client at the right pay rate. Nobody retypes a timesheet on Friday afternoon.
Example data from the Northline Digital demo agency.
Which Client Is Eating Your Team's Hours?
A monthly retainer hides which client eats your team's hours, because the fee stays the same every month. Say two clients each pay $1,700. One takes 40 hours, so it earns you about $42 an hour. The other takes 6 hours and earns about $283. Lumea logs every hour against the client, so the difference shows up on its own.
Open Reports, then Team, to see each client's hours, cost, and profit. A row flags SPIKE when a client's hours jump against its 6-month average, and DROP when they fall. You spot a client creeping up before it turns into a problem at renewal time.
The busiest client is often the weakest one. The fee alone never tells you, and neither does how loud the client is on email. With real hours on file, you can raise a price or trim the scope. You can also keep a low-margin client on purpose, for a reason you can name out loud.
Example data from the Northline Digital demo agency.
How Much of Your Team's Week Is Overhead?
Lumea tracks overhead as its own kind of time, under work types you set in Settings. Admin, sales calls, and training each get their own work type, named however your agency talks about it. Say 6 of a writer's 40 hours go to admin. Those 6 hours are 15 percent of the week, and no client paid for them.
Overhead hours never count against a client. A slow admin week never makes a good client look bad, because those hours sit in their own bucket. The hourly pay for those hours still counts in your agency's Net. So your monthly numbers show the full cost of running the agency, including the hours nobody bills.
How Does Lumea Count Time for Salaried Team Members?
Lumea counts a salaried person's time at their annual salary divided by 2,080 hours. A $52,000 salary costs $25 an hour. Billable-hour timers leave salary out, so every client looks more profitable than it really is. Lumea shows you the real cost of every client.
Your agency's Net counts every salary in full each month, even when someone forgets to log an hour. Raises and new hires land in the right month on their own. Nobody fixes a thing by hand.
2,080 = 52 weeks × 40 hours. Net counts the full monthly salary on top.
What Happens to Past Costs When Someone Gets a Raise?
A raise in Lumea never changes what past months cost you. Each entry saves the pay rate when it closes, and the saved rate stays put. Say Priya earns $22 an hour in September and $25 in October. Her September hours stay at $22 on every client she worked for in September, even a year from now.
If a tool applies today's rate to old hours, last quarter's profit changes. With the rate saved on each entry, your September report reads the same in December. The numbers you showed a client, or your accountant, stay true.
How Do Pay Periods and Approvals Work in Lumea?
Lumea groups each person's hours into pay periods you set, and you approve each one. You pick one of 4 schedules for the whole agency. Once you approve a period, its entries lock. Your team sees "Approved, entries locked" next to their time, so nobody edits a week after you've signed off.
- WeeklyEvery 7 days
- Every two weeksEvery 14 days
- Twice a monthTwo set dates each month
- MonthlyOne period per calendar month
Lumea isn't a payroll service. It doesn't run checks, file taxes, or send pay stubs. You approve the hours in Lumea, then run pay through the payroll provider you already use. The approved hours give your payroll person one clean number per person.
How Do You Keep Timecards Honest Without Watching Screens?
Lumea keeps timecards honest with 3 simple rules, and none of them watch anyone's screen. Each person can run one timer at a time, so nobody logs the same hour on two different clients. A long shift gets flagged. Every edit shows who changed the entry, and what it said before.
Lumea takes no screenshots and doesn't track apps or websites. Good people don't want to be watched. These 3 rules catch the honest mistakes, like a forgotten timer or a typo, without spying on anyone.
A timer left running over the weekend shows up as a flagged shift, instead of 60 hours on a client. You fix it in a minute, and the edit history shows what changed. Your team knows the rules up front, and nobody feels spied on. Trust stays high, and the hours stay accurate.
Example data from the Northline Digital demo agency.
Why Don't Billable-Hour Timers Show Client Profit?
Timers like Clockify, Harvest, and Toggl are built to bill clients by the hour. SEO agencies mostly charge a flat fee. So billable hours miss the real question. The table shows 6 things a retainer agency needs from its time data, and where each one lives today.
| What you need to know | A billable-hour timer | Lumea |
|---|---|---|
| Hours by client | Yes | Yes |
| What each client's hours cost you | Only if you add rates by hand | The pay rate on the day, saved on every entry |
| Salaried staff cost | Usually left out | Salary divided by 2,080 hours |
| Overhead hours | Often mixed into client time | Tracked as their own work types |
| Client profit on a flat fee | A separate spreadsheet | On the Team report |
| Pay periods and approval | Sometimes, as an add-on | Built in, with locked entries |
Lumea's hours live in the same account as your clients' fees, your deliverables, and your client reports. So the profit number updates as your team works. You don't export a timesheet, paste it into a spreadsheet, and rebuild the math at the end of every month.
Who Is Lumea's Agency Time Tracking For?
Lumea's time tracking fits any agency charging monthly fees, from 1 client to 9 or more. Employees and hourly contractors log time the same way. Starter covers up to 3 clients, Growth covers 4 to 8, and Unlimited has no cap. A business doing its own SEO uses Solo. Every plan includes unlimited team seats.
Doing its own SEO
Unlimited seats
Priority support
No client cap
Time tracking is one part of the software to run your whole agency. The same hours sit next to each client's month in SEO project management. You see the work and its cost together. Then the client report shows what went live each month, with links. A new writer or a part-time VA never raises your bill. Compare every plan on the Lumea Direct pricing page.
Find Out Which Clients Pay for Your Time
Michael Gleed built Lumea Direct inside his own SEO agency. His whole team logs every hour in it, from the writers to the owner. He wanted to see which clients paid for the team's time and which ones quietly didn't. You get the same numbers on day one of your trial.
The payoff is knowing what each client earns you per hour, with salaried time and overhead counted. Real numbers turn a hard pricing talk into a simple one. You raise the right fee, or you trim the right scope, with the client's own hours in front of you.
Start your 14-day free trial with no card and no sales call. Have your team log one week of time, then open the Team report. Not ready yet? Run your top 3 clients through the free Client Profit Calculator first, since it uses the same 2,080-hour rule.
Questions About Agency Time Tracking
What is the best time tracking software for agencies?
The best one ties each hour to a client and to what the hour costs your agency in pay. Hours cost more than most owners think. Private employers paid $46.89 an hour in June 2026, per the BLS employer costs release. Benefits made up 30 percent of it. A good timer shows where the money goes, client by client. It should also count the hours nobody bills, like admin and sales.
How do you turn a salary into an hourly rate?
Divide the annual salary by the hours in a work year. Lumea uses 2,080 hours, which comes from 52 weeks of 40 hours each. The federal government divides annual pay by 2,087 hours for its own staff. The gap is small, so a $52,000 salary works out to about $25 an hour either way. What matters is using one rule for every client, every month, so the numbers compare fairly.
What counts as hours worked?
Hours worked include more than the time on a team member's schedule. The Department of Labor's guide to hours worked says work you allow counts as paid time. It counts even if you never asked for it. So a writer finishing a post at 9 p.m. is on the clock. This isn't legal advice, so check your own case with the Department of Labor or an employment lawyer.
Should an agency on retainer track time?
Yes. A flat fee hides the hours behind it. Without time data, a client paying $1,700 a month looks exactly the same at 6 hours or at 40 hours. The SBA's guide to managing your business suggests reviewing each part of a business on its own. For an agency, each client is its own part. A few weeks of logged time is usually enough to show which clients need a new price.
Can contractors log time in Lumea?
Yes. A contractor paid by the hour logs time the same way an employee does, by client or by work type. Lumea doesn't decide who's a contractor, and it doesn't handle 1099s or taxes. Your accountant handles the tax side, using the hours you approve each period. The IRS guide to contractors and employees looks at control and independence to decide. This isn't tax advice.
