Time Tracking for Illustrators Who Bill Per Project or Per Hour

Q: How do I track time for a single illustration with multiple stages?

Create tasks for each stage — concept, line art, coloring, revisions — within one project. Switch between tasks as you work to capture phase-level detail.

Q: I work on commissions and personal art — can I track both separately?

Yes — create separate projects for client commissions and personal work. Your reports will show exactly how time splits between paid and portfolio work.

Q: Should I track time even if I charge a flat rate per illustration?

Absolutely. Flat-rate pricing hides whether you are earning a sustainable hourly rate. Tracking reveals which commission types are profitable.

Q: Can Teetrack help me estimate future commission prices?

Yes — by reviewing tracked hours on past commissions of similar complexity, you can set prices that reflect the real effort involved.

Illustrators time tracking

Teetrack helps illustrators log hours across commissions, track sketching and rendering time, and export tracked hours as PDF timesheets or CSV.

Why Illustrators struggle with time tracking

Sketching, inking, and coloring blur into one undifferentiated block

A single illustration moves through concept sketches, line work, coloring, and final rendering. Without phase-level tracking, you cannot tell clients how long each stage actually took or price future work accurately.

Commission scope creep is constant and hard to quantify

Clients ask for one more character, a different background, or extra detail after the initial brief. These additions feel small individually but stack up to hours of uncompensated work.

Personal projects and client work compete for the same hours

Illustrators split time between paid commissions and portfolio pieces. Without tracking, it is easy to spend too many hours on personal work while client deadlines slip.

How Teetrack solves this

No visibility into phase-level effort: Log time per phase — sketching, inking, coloring, revisions — within each commission so you know exactly where hours go.
Commission scope creep without data to push back: Set hour budgets per commission and see real-time burn so you can flag scope changes before they eat your margins.
Invoicing from memory at project end: Export tracked time as PDF timesheets or CSV with hours grouped by commission — every entry is logged at the moment of work, ready for export.

Example

“Project budgets surface when a fixed-fee design contract is reaching its hour cap before the scope conversation gets awkward.”

— Elena, Freelance UX Designer

Illustrative scenario based on common freelancer/agency workflows.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I track time for a single illustration with multiple stages?

I work on commissions and personal art — can I track both separately?

Should I track time even if I charge a flat rate per illustration?

Can Teetrack help me estimate future commission prices?

Track illustration time and invoice clients without the admin overhead

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